Sideshow & Syrana

Wow, the sale of tickets for BlizzCon 2010 is upon us.  And I say….Good luck to you!  Last year was a bit nerve wracking as we tried to get tickets, so I really do wish everyone good luck to get tickets if you so desire.

We won’t be going through the crazy queue this year.

I know, I know, after last year’s BlizzCon I was already talking about going back… even if only for the meetups outside of the convention.  However, due to the little one on the way, we won’t be able to go.  Last year it was so hot in August, going in October would have been nice… but… I won’t be allowed to fly and will be gettin’ ready to pop.

Now, if any of you want to get this lil’ one a cute plushy from the convention, that would be awesome. 

Also, the holiday weekend (travel and time off) threw off my sense of what day of the week it is… #iblamepregnancybrain

Yes, people are still talking about it and being very passionate about their view points.  Yes, I realize this post may appear late in the game, but I had one major reason for postponing it – hoping some of the hype would die down a bit.  I mean, I love having discussions with you, dear readers, but during the heat of big news… trolls tend to come out of the woodwork.  They tromp through everywhere, leaving signs of foulness in their wake, never to look back.

Don’t get me wrong, you can disagree with me all you want – but there is still a level of respect that I expect in return and trolls (true trolls) don’t follow the rules.  (Hell, they are worse at following them than me.  I at least read and acknowledge the rules, they just chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out.)

So where were we? Oh yes – pets.  More specifically: mini-pets.

Before we move on, I want to give you some choices a la Bioware-esque style:

1. Yes, I’m interested in reading your views and commentary on this whole thing.
2. Please share, I may be interested in some of your points.
3. (Lie) Yes, please tell me what you think! (Mark post as read)
4. I don’t give a crap what you have to say. (Mark post as read)

(continue reading…)

It’s weird.  On the one hand, BlizzCon feels like it was just the other day, but on the other hand, it feels like it was ages ago.

Then, it really hit me that it was over a month ago.

Remember all that great BlizzCon recappin’ I promised?  Yeah…time got away from me and there was just so much BlizzCon related info bombarding us all.

So, here’s a mini-recap – the short and sweet version.  (Or, at least, the shorter version than what it would have been had I been on my game after returning home! It’s still, uh, a bit wordy…)

What to expect after the cut:

• Day 1 summary of things seen and done
• Day 2 summary of things seen and done
• Overall experience summary
• Thoughts on Cataclysm changes
• How I’d do it different next time

What I already posted:

BlizzCon 2009: Step 3 – Profit

BlizzCon 2009 – The Final Day

BlizzCon 2009 – Wrap Up & Review Part 1: The Real Schedule

BlizzCon 2009 – Wrap Up & Review Part 2: The Loot

(continue reading…)

Keeping with the recent theme of BlizzCon posts (and with more to come!)…

You have to check out this video if you have not done so yet.  It features @Spoonwolf of Spooncraft showing his readers the lovely hotel room he was staying in while at BlizzCon.

It also features a near injury.

Sideshow and I got to hang out with him post video antics.  I don’t know about you, but videos of people falling are hilarious.

But, they are even more hilarious when you know the person.  Enjoy!

Of course we had to get some BlizzCon loot, right?  The loot drops started with the goody bags.  Now, this was our first BlizzCon, so I don’t know as well as others how this year’s swag bag compares to the BlizzCon’s of past… but it sounded like this year’s was a little light.

The main two items in the goody bag are pictured above: Raynor nOObz figurine and a StarCraft themed authenticator.  We’d seen these in the “preview” prior to BlizzCon and figured there would be more stuff.  However, there really wasn’t anything else.  There was a bottle of handsanitizer with a BlizzCon label and lots of ads. [EDIT: I totally forgot to mention Grunty.  /facepalm]

I’m not sure what Sideshow and I are going to do with yet 2 more authenticators.  I think we are going to have to have another contest or donate them to someone else’s giveaway or something.  We don’t need this many!

The cool thing about Raynor though, is that it is exclusive to the goody bag.  That’s right, no more will be produced of this particular one.  At BlizzCon they were selling several pre-designed ones as well as blank ones that you can design yourself.  So, if you didn’t go to BlizzCon and you really want the Raynor one, you’ll need to check eBay.

Sideshow and I also hit up the BlizzCon store.  I’m not sure if I missed some cool merchandise (quite likely) but we did get a few things.  I just had to get both plushy murlocs, Murky and Lurky.  Aren’t they adorable?

We also purchased the set of 3 cinematic posters.  They are too large for me to take pics of at this time, plus, they need frames yet.  I wish I’d gotten a shirt or two, since BlizzCon was the only place they’d be available for purchase.  There was also some other murloc pet thingamajig, but it was sold out.

The other 2 items I bought I cannot reveal on here yet, because they are yet to be given to my parents.  I don’t want to spoil any surprises!  But, I’ll be sure to share that after I get a chance to see them.

In hindsight, I wish I would have bought more stuff.  It would have been different if I could have thoroughly perused what was available without holding up the line.  Unfortunately, we were unable to take advantage of the pre-con store ordering since it had to be through the account that purchased the tickets.  (A guildie did the initial purchase for us.)  Bag space was another concern… how to get everything home! I had packed an extra carry on bag just for this purpose, which worked out well.

What is it with me and posting multiple parts lately? Well, with BlizzCon, there’s no way I could write just one post to cover it all.  Ok, so that’s a lie.  There are 2 ways:

1- Use thousands and thousands of words that would take days to read

or

2 – Use one word: Epic.

Since both ways are such extremes, we’ll go for bite-sized pieces.

Ideal vs. Real

Remember how prior to BlizzCon I shared with you my ideal itinerary?  Yeah, so, it was practically impossible to attend all the panels I wanted to.  But you knew that would happen, didn’t you!

Here’s how it really went down: (continue reading…)

Although today was the last day of BlizzCon, this will not be the last post regarding it.  I still have stories and photos to share as well as thoughts, impressions, and the like.

We fly out Sunday, back home.  Sure we are taking home souvenirs, but the greatest gift I’m taking with me is the connections and friendships with the people we met and spent time with.

So, please, look forward to posts yet to come about this epic adventure we went on.  (I crazily had anticipated more time to post these things during the trip…. ha!)

For now, to sum it all up:

Sideshow. Out.

I apologize for the lack of twitter updates today.  AT&T epically failed when thousands of people got inside the convention center and wanted to share all sorts of cool news.

I had no signal for most of the day, which was not cool.  One, because I couldn’t tweet out updates to those interested.  Two, it made it damn near impossible to find anyone.

As much as I’d love to give some updates now… I’m exhausted.  But, I wanted to let everyone know that the first day was a blast.  It was a lot of standing in line, but fun.  The TNB meetup tonight was awesome.  There were lots of interesting conversations, drinks, and laughs to be shared.

So, now that we’ve walked the 20 minutes back to our hotel room and it’s almost 1:30am… I need sleep to get up and do it all over again.

Here are some photos you can check out of our day: BlizzCon and TNB Meetup Photo Stream.

Oh my goodness, what a day, what a day.  Most of it was spent flying or in the airport.  Although I spent most of the day sittin’ on my ass, lemme tell ya, it’s been a tiring day already!

As my last post(s) indicated, we flew out of Milwaukee around 3:45pm CST.  We had a short layover in Denver and then off to Orange County.  We landed in California around 7:30pm PST.  And, boy, was I hungry.  We hadn’t had a meal since 11am-ish CST.  Sure, we packed some snacks for the flight, but some crackers and combos weren’t enough.

So we consider our options:

A: Eat at the airport, go to our hotel, and pick up badges

B: Go to hotel, eat, and pick up badges

C: Got to hotel, pick up badges, and eat

We chose option A, but we didn’t find anywhere to eat after picking up our luggage.  We decide to suck it up and go with option B.  As we head to a shuttle, I start texting with Mocha (guilde) and twittering.  Sideshow and I were having fun checking out the people around us at the airport, trying to spot the gamers.

As we wait for the shuttle to fill up, it doesn’t take long to discover that of the 9 passengers, 8 of them were WoWers headin’ to BlizzCon.  I tweet about this…. and lo and behold…. @Greyseer was sitting behind us!

Seriously, what are the chances of that?

We got to chitchat a little bit.  Sideshow and I start looking at the time more and move to option C.  We didn’t get to our hotel until around 8:30pm PST.  We wanted to make sure to get our badges and goodybags tonight, rather than in the morning.  So, we check in, toss our crap into our room and get a taxi to the convention center.

Thankfully, the lines were moving fast.  It took more time to get to the badge pickup area than it did to actually get it.  We were in and out pretty quickly and I’m fading fast.  It’s after 9pm and I. Am. Hungry.

I text with Mocha some more to see if he’s somewhere we can meet up and get food, but Sideshow and I decide on IHOP.

By this time, we’ve pretty much decided that we are not going to make it to the wow.com meetup.  Several people tweeted about how busy and crowded it was.  So… off to IHOP we went.

I swear, it’s the first time I’ve ever eaten non-breakfast food at IHOP.

So back to twittering while we wait to order and wait for our food.  We run into @Greyseer again!   Then @Spoonwolf tweets about being bored and needing something to do.  I respond that he should find us and proceed to give him reallyreally obvious hints.

Him and his friend found us and we hung out for a bit.  Unfortunately, it started to become obvious that I was tired.  (Stoopid time zone changes!!!)

Ahh, so now here I am, trying to give those who do not follow me on twitter an update.  I don’t have much for pics tonight, sorry.  Also, our wifi seems …. slow.  I wonder how many people in our hotel are raiding right now?

Like I mentioned before, I will do my best to give some sort of a blog update in the evenings.  I’ve been tweeting like crazy, so that’s still a great way to follow my BlizzCon adventures.

Now, time to sleep.  Tomorrow we shall try to see the opening ceremony, preview panel, The Guild panel, and cinematics.  And most definitely the TNB meetup!

/hairflip

/sleep

Image courtesy of Robbert van der Steeg @ Flickr

8/20/09 3:45pm CST

It’s time! By the time you see this post, we should be aboard our plane and getting ready for take off.  I’ll have a WoW book ready to read and fight off headaches and queasiness that flying and air pressure changes give me.

Do I care if anyone on board seems me with a WoW novel? Hell no! Maybe it’ll start up a fun and interesting conversation.  (You never know!)

This vacation- this trip- it’s all about the inner geek, man.

Embrace it.

Live it.

Love it.