Geek Girls Rule! #139: This is a Public Service Announcement

Ok, PAX Pals, we need to have a little chat.

See, Monday, I went to brunch at a friend’s house, and had a chance to chat with someone who works in one of the coffee shops near the convention center.

You all are giving geeks a bad name.

You need to fucking well tip.

And yes, this is a big deal.

I understand that many of you have never worked a service industry job.  In the Seattle area in the 80s, Nintendo started hiring high school kids at double the minimum wage to staff their gamehelp lines.  And with the explosion of the tech industry, an awful lot of you went straight into tech instead of having to work in restaurants or bars.  Or if you worked service industry, it was somewhere like McDonald’s, where tipping is discouraged.

I understand that, which is why I’m not willing to write you all off as jerks, and am willing to educate you.

See, in many coffeeshops, restaurants and bars, if a server makes minimum wage, they’re lucky.  An awful lot of employers factor projected tips in to a server’s wage, which means when people don’t tip, they make less than minimum wage.

Save your screeds about how if we all band together and quit tipping that bosses will be forced to pay more.  They won’t.  They’ll pay what they’ve always paid and you’re just hurting the most vulnerable people in the service industry.  So quit being an asshole.*

So, here’s a few tipping tips from a former bartender:

1.  $1 a drink, minimum.  This goes for coffee as well as mixed drinks.  If you’re just getting a pop or a beer, you CAN get away with paying less, but I wouldn’t advise it.

2.  For meals, I don’t care if it only cost me $10, I tip a minimum of $5 if someone had to bring it to me.  20% if they don’t.  In a sit down restaurant, the industry standard is 15%.  I start at 20% and go up from there if the service is excellent.  I have only NOT tipped twice in my life.  Both times were warranted.

3.  Also, per the Geek Husband What Rules, if you want excellent service in a strange coffee shop, be stuffing your buck in the jar as you place your order, particularly when fighting the bad rap we’ve already gotten.

If you can’t bring yourself to tip out of altruism, then consider what tipping gets you.  It gets you friendly service, a bartender or barista who remembers what you drink, how you like your steak, what you want on your sandwich, etc…  It also, in nicer restaurants, gets you preferred seating and free appetizers or drinks sometimes.  Consider it an investment in your future comfort.

I’m well aware of the temptation to not tip when you’re in a strange city.  You won’t be back here, for at least a year if at all, what do you care?  Well, you care because servers have LONG memories, trust me.  Also, you’re making everyone you’re there with look like assholes.

Here’s the thing.  For many of the SF/F cons I’ve worked on, servers will fight over who gets to work that weekend, because we tip well.  We know we’ll be back, we know they’ll be slammed and over-worked, so we tip well.  Talking to my friend who works one of the coffee shops around the convention center, when it comes to PAX, they fight over who doesn’t have to work PAX, because you guys have given us the reputation of stingy ass mother fuckers.  Service industry folks talk, and no one likes PAX because of this.

This is not cool.  I do not need someone spitting in my latte because you clowns have no concept.  So tip.

Also, consider, they aren’t even making their usual tips that weekend, because with crowds like PAX has, their regular clientele are driven out by the sheer mass of nerdity.  Many of those folks are going to be losing money working to serve you.

I’m serious, next year, if you’re standing in line for coffee and don’t tip, and someone smacks you in the back of the head and calls you a fucking moron, that someone will be me.  See if I don’t.

And don’t even try the whole, “I’m expensing it!” excuse.  I’ve done travel expensing at three different companies and a university.  You can expense tips.  Either tips are considered part of the cost of the meal, or there is a separate little box for tips.

Also, here’s a tip for you, if you ever want to date that hot bartender or barista.  A. If you don’t tip HIM/HER, you don’t stand a chance. B. If you do go out, and on the date don’t tip your servers, that will be the LAST date you ever go on, and nookie is right out of the question.   Seriously, I cannot tell you the number of times guys stiffed me at the bar, and their dates came back later to apologize, tip me on the sly, and then ask for the number for a cab company because the date was over.

Like I said, I’m willing to cut you some slack because I know a lot of you never worked service industry, and don’t understand how it works or how hard a job it really is.  But now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

*This goes double for any other weak rationalizations you’ve developed about your shitty behavior.  I am uninterested, and your bullshit will be deleted and/or mocked repeatedly.

Geek Girls Rule! #138: PAX 2010 was AWESOME!

I limit myself to one day at PAX because the sensory overload is just too much for more than that.  So, yesterday I dragged myself out of bed, and off we went.

We got there at 9:00.  I got Melissa set up in our gaming space to run Mist-Robed Gate by ten, and then went out to cruise the expo floor.  I ran into my friend Jen at the Bethesda booth.  Jen is a fantastic artist, and I’m not sure if she’s working for them regularly or just manning the booth, but she rocks and it was awesome to see her.  Then I started walking around handing out Geek Girls Rule! business cards, to people I thought would appreciate them.  So, if I saw  you and you’re here because I accosted  you in a hall full of strangers, HI!  Welcome to GGR!  I hope you like it and stick around!

In my circuit of the Expo floor I ran into an old friend of an old friend, Norb Rozek, who works for Frozen Codebase, who are producing Jam City RollerGirls!  It looks gorgeous!  I have a lot of friends in Seattle’s Rollerderby league and I’m real excited for them with this project, as many actual rollergirls are featured in the game.  And we’ll be downloading it for our Wii soon!

I hung out with Ryan Macklin from Evil Hat Games and Indie Press Revolution at The Dreaming’s main booth on the expo floor for a bit, then ran off to get coffee with Joe McDaldno, the creator of several excellent indie games like Gun Thief, Perfect and Ribbon Drive (Gun Thief and Ribbon Drive you can get at the Dreaming.  See what I did there?)

Joe and I decided to go grab some coffee, and hit off across the floor, with me stopping to hand out business cards as I went, which is how I met Cori Roberts of Gameinatrix.com which looks interesting.  I haven’t had a chance to check it out, as I just got up and decided to post this while my memory was still fresh.  They have a Gamer Girls Radio podcast I will definitely be checking out.

We got coffee, came back.  I verified that Dawn was in the building and would be ready to take over at one, and then ran off for lunch with Rachel Edidin, who blogs for Girl Wonder at Inside Out. On the way there I introduced myself to Anne-Marie who writes GirlGamerEsq.com, which is an incredibly informative blog.  I just popped over there to check out content, and while it focuses primarily on videogames, I think I’ll be checking this one out more frequently.  She was kind enough to direct me to the Raven theater, where I was meeting Rachel, and had on an AWESOME hedgehog t-shirt!!

After lunch I checked to make sure Dawn was cool, and then went back out on the floor.  Where I met a lot of people, handed out a lot of business cards, and walked my legs off.  I handed a card to a lovely woman who gave me a card for the lady who made her really neat video game inspired jewelery, Deadly Pretty Designs.

At three I ran Dreaming Crucible at the Dreaming’s Demo table for my friend M and a gentleman whose name I have completely forgotten, because I suck.  We had a pretty good time with it.  Hopefully I wasn’t too scattered.  After that I drifted up to the Free Tabletop gaming room the Indie gaming kids had staked out, room 304, and solicited folks for games, talked, passed out discount coupons for the folks at the Dreaming, and eventually wound up playing the Dresden Files demo that The Geek Husband What Rules was running.

I like what Evil Hat’s done with the Dresden Files RPG.  And while Dresden Files uses the FATE system, like Spirit of the Century, it feels smoother in this incarnation, like some rough edges have been polished out.  I played Dylan Heart, punk rock wizard, and using magic was not the trial or anguish that it often is in other systems.  I almost didn’t take that character because he used magic, but I figured for a demo at a con, I could play outside my comfort zone.  And I was pleased.  I had a good time with it.  Joel Shempert played with us, and our friends M and J.  Joel played an analog to Morgan from the Dresden Files books, you know Lawful Good Paladin.  And he and I had a great time feeding off one another.

You can pick up the Dresden Files RPG at the Dreaming as well.

After that, it was 9pm, we’d been there for 12 hours, so it was time to go home.  Where I discovered that Tammy, the Geek Room-mate What Rules had given me this awesome pendant!  Which I don’t have a picture of to show you, but trust me, it’s awesome!  Of a witch flying on a broom with a bright silver moon behind her.  I love it!  Ok, not technically PAX-related, but I wanted to share.  Just a reminder, she also blogs here, usually about LARPs.

Again, to anyone who is finding this blog because I handed you a card at PAX, welcome!  I hope you like it.  I’ve been blogging here for the past two or three years, and hope to keep doing it for many more.

Geek Girls Rule!  We do, and more people need to know that.

Just a reminder!  We have a Facebook page. And a twitter:  @GeekGirlsRule

Geek Girls Rule! #136 – PAX 2010

Yes, my dearest, darling ones, it’s that time of year again.  The time of year when a young geek’s heart turns towards thoughts of “Oh sweet Jesus, I need a flu shot!  PAX is this weekend!”

I, the Geek Girl What Rules, and Ogre, the Geek Husband What Rules, will both be running games at PAX.  In fact, GGR is sponsoring a day of female GMs  on Saturday at the gaming tables sponsored by the Dreaming.  We’ll be sharing the great big huge gaming space with Wizards of the Coast.  We’ll be at the back of the hall.

Gaming starts at 10 AM.  Melissa Kocher will be running the Mist-Robed Gate, Dawn Vogel will run a roller-derby girl hack of Best Friends, and if we can get her away from her Enforcer duties, Leslie McKeever will run Dogs in the Vineyard.   I’ll be around to run pick-up games as necessary, probably Little Fears, The Keep (Bridge System) or something else where char-gen takes little to no time, and there are minimal dice involved.  I’ll be around all day Saturday.

The Geek Husband What Rules will be running the Dresden Files rpg all weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  He’s got pre-gen-ed characters, and has built Seattle for the game.  His big complaint is that Seattle’s just too nice.  If our homeless people started to go missing, we’d notice.  Seriously, we noticed the Green River Killer real early on, even if we couldn’t catch him for a couple decades.

If I’m not completely overwhelmed by Saturday, I may come back on Sunday for awhile.  Alas, I have no buttons to hand out, the budget’s a little lean in the Household What Rules, maybe next year.

So, swing by the second Dreaming booth in the gaming hall, and look for the short, round redhead with the cats tattooed on her chest.

Geek Girls Rule – Norwescon edition!

Had a marvelous time at Norwescon!  I participated in several really wonderful panels.  The ones that are germaine to this website, were LGBTQI in Fandom and Putting the R in RPGs:  Adult themes in gaming.  I had a few more panels on “adult subject” matter, like kink and Victorian Sex.

The LGBTQI panel had a really great turnout, and we’re hoping in the next year to expand the LGBTQI paneling, as well as creating an LGBTQI fan organization to increase our visibility in fandom.  We have a Livejournal group called LGBT_fandom in order to facilitate conversation about this.   As more than one person, both on the panel and in the audience pointed out, for years the assumption is that women in fandom are bi, and men are straight.  There are actually quite a few Queer fen of all orientations:  Gay men, Lesbians, Transgendered and Genderqueer individuals, and of course the ubiquitous Bisexual women, and some Bisexual men.  If you’re at all interested, please let me know and we’ll see about setting up some sort of mailing list.  And, please, please, please if you are a gay man or transgendered person, let us know if you would be interested in being on the panel.

The Putting the R in RPGs panel actually turned out to be less about sex and more about how to get under your players’ skin, and how to deal with the aftermath if you’ve done it badly, or accidentally hit a psychological landmine.  We talked about hooks that are pretty much guaranteed to pull a group in, like kidnapping a child, child abuse or animal abuse.  We talked about what happens if you push it too far and what your options are.  We talked about exploring and using gaming to deal with pathological issues willingly. And we talked about making sure your players are all ok with these things.

Yes, you can use things like rape, child abuse, eating disorders, incest, drugs and brutality in your game in a very serious, real manner (as opposed to in a very over the top cartoony sort of way), but you need to make sure everyone’s on the same page.  Pulling out the gut-punches without letting your players know it’s a possibility is a lousy thing to do them.  I’m not talking give away your plot or the surprises, but sit them down ahead of time and ask, “Hey, is everyone ok with themes like rape, child abuse, etc…”  And if you hit a landmine and suddenly someone’s not comfortable with something, you have a couple choices:  End the game there, Excuse them for the remainder of that section of plot, or see if they think they can soldier on through it.  Some people will be up for that last one, some will not.  But no one should be shamed for what they choose.

There was a lot of good humor and laughing in the panel as well.  Phil Brucato, who used to work for White Wolf and who wrote Deliria had several good suggestions for creating atmosphere and jarring players out of complacency.  Wolfgang Baur talked about starting out with an already over the top scenario, and how the hell do you ramp it up from there? The Geek Husband What Rules talked about Lines, Veils and how not to be a dick.

Honestly, while I had a blast in all of my panels, I think the RPG panel was the best.  Mr. Brucato and Mr. Baur are both wonderful people, and the audience was great!  We managed to keep the game anecdotes to a minimum, and only had to wrestle the sharing stick away from one person.

Another thing I discussed with someone in the bar, was a need for Gamer Girl Meet-ups in the Seattle area.  Please, watch this space for announcements in the future.

Thank you to everyone who came to panels, and I hope you had a wonderful time!  It was great seeing you all there!

Geek Girls Rule! #123 – Gamestorm 2010 Rocked!

We got back from Gamestorm 2010 an hour or so ago.  A good time was had by all.  Well, all of us.

The Geek Husband What Rules, Lesley and I headed down yesterday morning.  Once we got to the hotel we ran into Matt and Shannon from the Seattle Geekly podcast.  Chatted with them for a bit, and then ran  upstairs to harass Ben Lehmann and my evil twin, Karrin.  There were munchies and some drinking.  Got to see and hug Carl Rigney, my favorite Don’t Rest Your Head GM.  We saw lots of folks, played a few games of Hot Guys Making Out, Ben Lehmann’s new game based on Yaoi.  Since this was, more or less, a playtest, it isn’t available yet, but when it is I strongly encourage you to buy it.  It’s fun, can be played in about half an hour and can be as sweet and innocent or as raunchy and porntastic as you want.

I’ll let you guess which way most of our games went.

I played with Brendan, Pol and Ben.  We had a great time but didn’t quite make it to out and out porn.  Later that night, the Husband What Rules, Pol, Karrin (my evil twin), and I played another game of HGMO, and Ogre and Karrin took it straight to porn in the first round.  And it just… got… worse.  We had a crowd of people watching as the two of them tried to outdo each other with the pornaliciousness, and then celebrated with high fives and fist bumps as the crowd roared with laughter.

Now, I don’t ordinarily game much at gaming conventions.  We game a lot in our everyday life, and going to these conventions means I get to see people I don’t ordinarily get to see.  My Evil Twin lives in Eugene, which is a good five hour drive from Seattle.  So, we only see each other two to four times a year.  Which means, I generally play one or two games, and then spend the rest of the convention either recording things for podcasts,* or drinking and laughing my ass off.

Right now, the Husband What Rules and I have a Marvel FASERIP game on Mondays, a Spirit of the Century game on Thursdays.  I have the Girl Game once a month.  We have Girl Genius Spirit of the Century one to three times a month.  He has a group who play every other Saturday, and a group who are playtesting a new version of Bulldogs! by Brennan Taylor, once or twice a month.

We game a lot.

Now, HE games a lot at conventions.  But unless I’m playtesting something, I generally don’t.

Ok, now that I’ve blathered at you long enough, I’m going to bed.

Oh, the GHWR did get to meet Vincent Baker, but I never actually did.  I did see him across the room a couple of times, but didn’t want to intrude.  The GHWR says Vincent’s awesome and cool, and made of rainbows and ponies…  Not really.  He did say Vincent was a really cool, nice guy.

Bed time.  I’m fading fast.

*It’s coming, I swear.

Emerald City Comic Con

Alas, I won’t be making it due to lack of fundage.  However, Tammy is there all day today selling some of her amazing beading!!!  If you see a big gothy woman in black clothes and swirly eyeliner behind a table with some steampunky looking pins and AMAZING bracelets, go say HI!!!

Geek Girls Rule! #106 – Sorry about the radio silence there.

Wow!  Life has been nuts.  Some good, some bad. 

Last Wednesday we had to put the Elderly Cat to sleep.  Ronin was 14, and when he started exhibiting the symptoms of kidney disease we did what we could to make him comfortable and then took him in once he wasn’t.   After going through heroic measures with Punkin 3 years ago, we decided that it would just be better not to.  Ronin wouldn’t have stood for subcutaneous fluids, and it just would have made his last days even more miserable than they already were.  He got his extra special elderly cat gooshy food, and lots of loves and the heated kitty bed, and last Wednesday when he started having trouble walking, we took him in and held him until the end.  The last couple of days I carried him with me everywhere and prayed we could stave it off, but really when it comes to kidney disease in cats, all the treatments do is rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic until the water hits your neck.  We just couldn’t do it again. 

Also, at work, we’ve been going through Accreditation.  Accreditation is the process by which the powers that be decide if you should be allowed to grant degrees in your field or not.  It is a long, painful, agonizing process.  And, it has occupied the majority of my brain for about the last 6-9 months. 

Now, the big fun oh boy! news of the month is that the weekend before last was Ambercon NW!  Ta DA!  Brilliant, as always.  Many thanks to Simone, Guy and everyone else who works so hard to make that weekend so awesome and such a freaking success!

Thursday night was the Porn Game, in which I played professional dominatrix Martina Votkanova.  The porn game is usually really light and fluffy, and as we started one of the players, Joe, laughingly said, “I bet there’s really a ‘save the pattern, save the universe’ plot in here, but we’ve just been having so much fun with the smut that we’ve never found it.”  Well, we found it.  The game climaxed (pun intended) with an orgy to save the Serpent in Chaos and the Universe. 

Friday morning, I took off to hang out with my friend Karrin, affectionately known as the Keeper of the Other Half of my Brain.  Friday afternoon Karrin, myself, and our friend Madelaine, who are apparently known as the Trifecta of Female Gamer Evil, played with several other folks in a game called the Hooded Men run by Jules, and using a system written by Ben Lehmann.  We played bandits in Arden during the time of the Black Road, charged by Julian with destroying a terrifying monster or being eaten by his hounds.  Of course, Madelaine, Karrin and I decided that we were a lesbian bandit love triangle, and hilarity ensued.  Ben Lehmann came up with the idea, as a shaman, to essentially hit the reset button on Arden by sacrificing himself to the forest at it’s heart.  I got to sacrifice myself for true love, by dying in flames with Karrin’s character, while Madelaine looked on and said, “Wow, glad I got out of that relationship.”  Much fun was had.

Friday night, after a freakout brought on by concern for the elderly cat, I ran Attack of the B-Movies, using the 2-die or Bridge System written by Jordan, Chris and Ogre.  I had my four players play elder Amberites as horror movie tropes.  We had Dierdre the Cheerleader, Corwin the Sexy Outsider, Brand the Accidental Hero and Benedict the Hyper-Competent guy.  They killed Werewolf Julian.  Brand was attacked by Vampire Fiona.  Corwin got suckered into a trap by Flora tied to a bed.  And ultimately they faced down Vampire Master Caine with Corwin tied to an altar, Fiona and Flora crouching at Caine’s feet.  A lot of fun, very silly.  I described the scene of the final conflict as “Caine, as painted by Frank Frazetta.”  Having been bitten by Fiona, Brand had to obey Caine, but Benedict killed Caine just as Brand lunged, and so Brand stopped up short in his attack, dusted off Benedict’s lapels and said, “Good job.”

Saturday morning I played in Nursery Crimes PDX game run by my friend Jen.  Again, a blast.  This was based loosely off Jaspre Fforde’s Nursery Crimes books.  I played a vet who had developed an allergy to cats and dogs, who signed on with Nursery Crimes because she could still deal with talking bears, horses and lions.  We faced off against the Evil Mayor and Shere Khan from the Jungle Book, helped by Bagheera and the Lion from either Daniel in the Lion’s Den or Androcoles and the Lion, not sure which.  Lives were saved, man-eating tigers were caged, Evil Mayor was arrested.  Truly epic. 

Saturday night I ran the Amber/Harry Potter crossover game for the fourth year running.  This year the players decided that it was time to wreak some havoc on canon.  Usually I’m pretty careful to run them parallel to the books, but not intrude on canon.  Oh, not this bunch.  They got to save the day.  And I got introduced to the wonder that is the Bourbon Furnace.  Oooo, amazing drink. 

Sunday morning I ran Amber Family Therapy.  This is an idea that Debra Donoghue and Ogre came up with at our first Ambercon, and I got tired of waiting for her to come back and run it.  Ogre asked me if I were going to play the therapist as “the one true family therapist, or some poor clueless therapist out of Shadow?”  I opted for choice two as I found it far funnier, and Oh it was, therapist Harmony Stone.  I had Karrin as Brand “There’s always room on Team Destroy Them All, Harmony.”  Also a Corwin (sleazy), Martin, Fiona, Llewella, Merlin, Gerard, and Julian.  Oh, Julian.  My buddy Craig played the creepiest most fucked up Julian ever, with repressed homosexuality and incest issues, an unnatural attraction to Morgenstern and REALLY inappopriate crush on Flora.  Craig won the game.  One moment both Karrin (out of character) and I just wanted to hug him because he was so pitiable, and then he’d say something just… WHOA! and we’d recoil in horror.  Everyone else was awesome as well, but Craig went the extra distance.  After about two hours of that we declared Craig the winner, and then just talked about sex, Karrin and I performed dramatic readings of bad porn from the internet, and laid around the room nursing our hangovers. 

I now have a request to run Amber Family Therapy up in Seattle for people up here, and I’m considering banning Craig.  I don’t know if I’m up for that much more icky in my life.  Kidding.  I love sharing the wrinkles in my brain with everyone else. 

Ok, that’s about it.  Sorry again about it taking so long to do stuff, but damn has life been crazy.

AmberCon NW!

Ok, so I just posted, but I’m so excited!!! 

For years, because of a conversation between Deborah Donoghue and Ogre, we’ve been joking about running Amber Family Therapy. 

This year, I’m doing it!  And I just got my player list.  This is going to be amazing!!!  I have so many excellent gamers involved!!!  Holy crap, there are not enough exclamation points in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’ll be refereeing as the therapist.  This should be a blast.  I’m thinking of advocating booze during. 

The Harry Potter game, in it’s forth year, also looks incredibly promising.  That game’s always fun, but this year we’re full with about a 50/50 spread of new and old players.  I’m pretty excited. 

My first game, Attack of the B-movies, is a little smaller than I’d intended, but I may well just give everyone a fist full of characters and start slaughtering them with horror tropes as quickly as I possibly can. 

Amber Family Therapy, though.  I could not ask for a better bunch of players for that game.  I hope it lives up to and exceeds expectations.

Geek Girls Rule! #101 – PAX

PAX was interesting.  Our friends Kate and Aron who run the Dreaming here in Seattle had secured some tables for RPG demos.  I only ran one game, because after my game I did a turn through the expo hall and came back sort of stunned. 

People were, for the most part, very well-behaved and polite at PAX.   There were a few cos-players, but not as many as I’d feared, and mostly young guys showing off their HALO armor.  There were a couple of Waldos (of Where’s Waldo? fame), several Mario and Luigis, and a scattering of Moogles, I think someone called them, from Final Fantasy.  For having 75,000 nerds crowded into a four block radius, the crowds were exceptionally well-mannered. 

So, after running a game of 1,001 Nights, which went very well, and having lunch with some friends, I decide that I need to check out this here expo hall I keep hearing about.

The expo hall is like a cross between a nightclub and a battlefield.  It’s dark.  There’s loud music and flashing lights, and the press of many, many bodies, and, periodically as you pass certain booths (and calling some of these set-ups booths is a vast understatement) gunfire sounds right next to your ear.  I wandered up to Kate at the Dreaming’s table, and I must have looked absolutely stunned.  She laughed and said, “What do you think?”
“I think this is an ADD nightmare,” I answered.  “I can’t fucking think.”

The majority of the booths were for videogames, videogame consoles, or computer game companies.  I did get to see Diablo III.  Eeeeeeeee!!!  Didn’t play the demo, the lines were kind of long.  I also got to play around with the Warhammer MMORPG a bit.  Thought very seriously about picking up a PacMan necklace from the Namco booth.  But mostly I just wandered around in a daze.  I did get a demo of the Hello Kitty MMO, which I am so very, very tempted to load up and play, just for the sheer absurdity.  A friend of mine was one of the beta testers for it, and she says it’s actually pretty fun. 

My friend Rachel, who goes to San Diego Comic Con, said that PAX was far nicer.  People were more polite.  There were far fewer booth babes.  She didn’t fear being sexually harassed.  And PAX has an anti-harassment policy printed in big letters in their programs. 

 The PAX Enforcers, who act as security and guides for the clueless, are all very able, polite people.  They are incredibly helpful and have a surprising amount of agency.  They are encouraged to act first, and ask for forgiveness from management after defusing a situation or resolving a problem, rather than having to track someone down first.  In fact, as we packed up the gaming stuff from the room the Dreaming ran demos in, we just flagged down a random Enforcer who helped us load stuff into the storage closet across the way. 

I only went the one day, because I do not have a temperament that can handle those kinds of numbers for more than one day in a row.  The Husband What Rules, however, went back on Sunday and ran Mouse Guard and Lady Blackbird all day.  Oh, and I finally got to meet Luke Crane, the creator of Burning Wheel and the Mouse Guard game. 

I’d like to congratulate the Penny Arcade guys for running a damn fine convention, particularly considering the scope of it.  And to congratulate the Enforcers for being genuinely nice, helpful people. 

Oh yeah, I did find time for one round of Rock Band, in the Rock Band lounge.  A group of us did Ratt – Round and Round.  It was kind of fun, if nerve-wracking.

Geek Girls Rule! #89 – Miscellaneous crap and symptoms of the mid-30s hormone rush…

I know it’s been awhile.  I kind of blew my wad with the Joe Quesada drinking game et al., and I’ve been blogging on geeky topics over at the California NOW blog.  Topics include the LA Times’ “Girls’ Guide to Comicon” (the resulting aneurysm wiped out 3rd grade), the Today show segment on the fact that Gosh, Golly and Don’t You Just Know It!,* girls play videogames!!!  And how they managed to interview the founder of the Frag Dolls without once mentioning what Frag means and what game they’re most famous for playing (HALO) I’ll never fucking know.  The most recent blog post there is about why my hobbies courting “normal” girls pisses me off so damn much. 

That’s not all I’ve been up to.  Tonight is the kickoff for Go Play NW!  The Geek Husband What Rules and I will be at the kickoff feast, and then gaming.  I have no idea what I’ll be playing.  I never sign up for anything ahead of time.  Instead I usually see who needs a player, or barring that, see who else is leftover and we’ll form a game in a lobby or something.  I’m so moody about my gaming, as in I need to be in the mood for something to really dig on it, that signing up ahead of time really doesn’t work out that well for me. 

Now, as relates to hormones…  As much as I adore Nightcrawler of the X-men (eXcalibur, etc…), is it wrong that every time they come up with a “bad” or, let’s just say, less moral version of him in another timeline (gotta love the multiverse), that I develop a mad crush on that version as well.  Maybe a fiercer crush…  A friend just gave me a copy of the orignal miniseries with Ilyana Rasputin, where she’s taken by Belasco and… Nightcrawler in a loincloth… sigh… 

Yeah, I’m a walking mass of libido, which to be honest has not changed since adolescence.  It’s one of the many reasons the Mister married me. 

The Geek Husband What Rules will be at DragonFlight this year, I might be there for a day.  My partner in crime over at Geek Sisterhood, Sophie, will also be up for Dragonflight!! 

I’ve also got a podcast I’m editing for here.  An interview with my friend Karnythia about her new publishing house, Verb Noire. 

*Why yes, I am originally from the Midwest.  How’d you guess?