So I've been really busy this summer, which is a welcome change from last summer, where I spent half of it working Saturdays and the other half being unemployed. July was pretty exciting starting with scuba diving in Pennsylvania with my friend Juan and ending with my cousin's wedding, which was beautiful.
Then it was off to GenCon, the largest gaming convention in the country. Now, Alex and I went into this convention thinking it would be similar to many of the other conventions we have been to. We expected some tournaments, lots of cosplay and panels of celebrities or such. Well, as it turned out, we were very, very wrong. Coming in late on Friday, we walked around the convention, which by the way was gigantic. There were just hundreds of people sitting in this huge exhibit hall playing many different games. We were impressed by the miniature games that were going on with lots of very well constructed terrain to play on. T ornaments were still going on for card games such as Magic, Game of Thrones and others that I have never heard of. And this was at 1am that these tournaments were happening. So we decided to get up very early on Saturday so we could grab our badges and start experiencing GenCon. The first thing we did was go to this panel with the Dragonlance author Tracy Hickman and his wife Laura. It was a very cute panel where he talked about his books, the upcoming works he is doing and also projects he and his wife are collaborating on. Then the rest of the panel was a type of show, were volunteers that had bought tickets were brought up on stage, given a type of setting (in this case it was Hogwarts), asked how they got to the setting and then what action they would take. So it was kind of like a DnD game, except the goal is to stay alive as long as possible by coming up with witty actions and reasons they are in the setting. Otherwise, Tracy "killed" you and the next volunteer would take your place. It was a very cute panel and pretty funny. Afterward, we headed to the exhibition hall. It was awesome! So many games and accessories that were being sold. Plus, many of the companies were showing and demoing games that were not being sold yet. We saw a Star Wars miniatures game as well as the star wars card game called X-wing. After poking around the different booths, we headed to the Paint and Take, which was a tutorial on miniatures painting, got on the waiting list and headed to lunch. We then killed some time back at the exhibition hall participating in a demo game of this miniatures WWII game called Dust. We then went to the paint our miniatures, but had to leave before we finished because we were scheduled to participate in this thing called True Dungeon.
True Dungeon is probably the best thing at GenCon. It's pretty much set up like a DnD game, where you are one of a number of predetermined characters (a wizard, a rouge, a fighter and so forth) and you go through this haunted house like setup where you either figure out puzzles or battle creatures in each room you enter. The design of True Dungeon is extremely clever in that it uses tokens for weapons, spells and objects and you survive or fail based on how you utilize the tokens you are given. Battling is set up kind of like air hockey, were you have a table with the creature's picture on it and you slide your tokens onto the picture and where they land is where you hit the creature. I was a wizard, Alex was a fighter (just like in our regular DnD game on mondays). We were with about 8 other guys and we worked pretty well as a team, which meant that no one died (an extremely common possibility in the game). So totally worth the money we spent and probably one of the most exciting things we did that weekend.
Sunday was purchasing day! Though first we went to a class on making chainmail and was instructed on how to make a scalemail dice bag. I was slightly better than Alex at it (haha), but it's a frustrating craft to work. After that we headed to the Dealers room, where we purchased a bunch of dice, including a set of jumbo dice and a lot of D6's. We also purchased preprinted "dungeon paper" for our friend Joaquin for his DnD game we play on monday as well as plastic "Dungeon walls" for him. For ourselves, Alex purchased a bunch of highly discounted miniatures boxed sets for this game called Arcane Legion. We are hoping to get the miniatures all set up and painted for next year's GenCon so he can play in the tournaments. However, we are talking about 100-200 miniatures that we purchased (all for $40!). Then it was back to NYC for us.
Alex is doing pretty well, though he is now looking at purchasing a house or apartment complex somewhere in Queens or Brooklyn. This was brought on by his mother's illness and his dad is really pushing it so the two of them can come up to NYC, where we all believe Alex's mother will get better treatment. After getting back from GenCon, he's also revitalized his passion for miniatures and has been actively painting them every time I come back from work.
Working up in the Bronx has been interesting lately for me. First of all, I'm learning a whole new set of "ghettoisims" such as Gucci= Good and Crispy= new. I've now officially been called Bitch and White bitch more times in this pharmacy than I believe I ever have in my entire life. At the same time, the people who are calling me this are also trying to get their narcotics early, or trick us into giving them more narcotics than written on the prescription or giving us fake narcotic scripts. So yeah... I might be a bitch but it's better than being a dealer. I've also decided I'm probably going to get a personal trainer. I switched gyms and as part of the package had a free visit with a personal trainer and I absolutely loved it. While it's too expensive for me to do a full 30 session package with one, I can do a 12 session package and I'm hoping to use the knowledge I gain to change the way I exercise.
After GenCon, Alex and I have been down in Atlantic City visiting the Lau family. Alex is annoyed by all the traveling, but knows he has an obligation to do it. We also have DragonCon to look forward to for labor day weekend. However, despite all this traveling, we have not yet taken a vacation since the Cayman's back in March. And with Alex's mom being sick, we really can't take time off until after her treatment is done, which is the end of november. And by that time, holidays will be upon us. So we are pushing our vacation time this year back to January and taking a week off to go to a carribean vacation again. We will most likely be back in Puerto Rico, as it will be cheap, easy and there's some really good scuba sites down at the south end of the island.
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