ryanker's Journal

Origins - Had great time.
Had a spectacular time at Origins this year.

Good things:

The "Arena" idea was fantastic! I think it was at the perfect point on the spectrum between scheduled events and random in-booth demos. Note to self: Relay to Rabbit Coordinator what the good/bad things were about having the Arena right at the booth as opposed to having it closer to the lab.

Meeting so many new cool people. Rabbits/Rabbits-in-training fierytree and Sonya top the list.

The Little Experiment. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but... If it weren't for The Star at the end of the end of the tunnel, I probably would have gone the whole con without playing Nanofictionary at all. But by Sunday morning that was the only sticker I still needed to complete my badge, so I slipped into a demo Carol was doing in the booth. Before that I hadn't played since the beta-test days, where turns were sequential. The new turn structure, plot elements, and actions made the game a LOT more fun than I recalled. I didn't win, but I have a new respect/love for the game.

I made it to the finals of the Martian Chess tournament, and tied for second in the 2-1-1-0 final series.

We had a record number of players in the IceTowers tournament. After Dave won the the fifteen-player ice-offs, fierytree won the single-game winner-take-all final game. Despite some earlier concerns, timers weren't needed for any of the games. This may have to be revistied, but this years tourney has made reconsider whether there really is a stodge problem in IceTowers. If there's a situation where two (or more) players are waiting for each other to move first, neither will move in the currnt situation and the game ends. No problem.

Oh, and the Icehouse finals were amazing. Newcomer Pace putting Jake in the Icehouse in the second game?... Amazing. However I think that the balance of the Universe was maintained by Zyx W Vut winning the whole thing. Excellent job.

Practicing a little kokyu dosa with zyxwvut. It was surprising how much came out in about five minutes of discussion:
- In my home dojo, uke "gives in" considerably more easily than Zyx did. I may have to change my style a touch back home.
- Our instructors relay a "harder style" than Zyx's. For example, during mae-otoshi (if I have my terminology correct, a 50-50 shot for this term) one or two of our instructors have demonstrated a version of the move where there are three counter-attacks to uke's initial attack: after swinging your arm around under uke's attacking arm, there's 1) A backhand to the nose, 2) a blow to the groin or thereabouts, and then 3) the throw. But even our instructors differ in their opinions on how "hard" to defend.

I got in more non-game related soacializing in with other rabbits. I've just been too shy in previous years.

Getting in on the ground floor of what the Looneys have in mind for upcoming products.

For, let's say, 78 of the 81 hours or so I was in Columbus, I didn't even think of work. That's what a vacation is for!

Slight disappointments:

Didn't even make it to the finals of the Icehouse or Zendo Tournaments. Is it just me or did I have a big red target painted on me for some of the Icehouse games? Two good things about Dan Isaac winning Zendo:
- Dan is a fine player and deserves it. (I still think that it was Dan that really broke last year's final game wide open.) I beat Dan on occasion in casual games, so I can console myself with that.
- Pace can now play casual games. I didn't get any in with her, but I'll be sure to next year.

Not getting a chance to hang out more with so many friends. For instance, I was hoping to get another game of Go in with John, but Kory, Kristin, Jake, and John spent all their non-rabbit time at the booth for Play Again Games, selling Why Did the Chicken....

I made it to the finals of the Martian Chess tournament, because there were only four players entered. This was mostly because Aquarius was happening at the same time.

I didn't have nearly enough time to participate in the con-wide Buttonmen event. I'm not so disappointed at missing my chance at the "final" promo buttons, but some of the company-specific buttons looked interesting.

Current Mood: psyched