Monday, August 23, 2004

If I hear one more thing about jublie jublies...

It is done. Four days of nerding out, playing games, watching chicks in chain mail, acting like a total fangirl in front of computer programmers and other gaming giants, seven hours of driving, we are home from Gen Con.

For those of you who aren't sure what Gen Con is, it's simple. It's the four days out of the year that basement dwellers who sit around playing Dungeons and Dragons and other games come out to daylight and hang out in a central setting to game their brains out.

It's hard to describe everything that goes on there -- it's a lot of stuff from shopping to watching media stars to playing games and ogling booth babes. But there's a few observations that I made.

1. It doesn't matter what type of guy you are. You will be fixated on your genitals. Now don't take this the wrong way. My guy friends are wonderful. I love them and worry about them like a deranged sister or something. But I swear, the talk about cocks, balls, testicles, jublie jublies, size, girth and other things was surprising. I didn't think that these guys would do that. But they did. A lot. I've learned now that it doesn't matter who you are. If you are a man, you'll talk about your balls. Even if it annoys your girlfriend or wife or fiancee.

2. City of Villains is going to RAWK! Shane Lacy Hensley -- the man behind Deadlands (one of the greatest games ever in my opinion) is working on City of Villains. I saw the announcement on Saturday and also promptly made a drooling fangirl mess out of myself when I talked to him. "I love your game man! Deadlands is like the greatest game ever!" Yeah. I'm a dork. If Shane does the same thing with CoV as he did with Deadlands, I'm so looking forward to being a bad girl.

3. Shaolin Soccer is a great flick. New to Gen Con this year was Hong Kong action flicks, a great idea in my opinion. I finally managed to see Shaolin Soccer -- a movie that was promised to show up in the states, but never did. It's a great movie that's funny as hell. I do suggest the import version because I heard that the United States version cut 20 minutes. Something I can't fathom doing because the movie's less than two hours and all of it is pretty damn funny.

4. David Carridene still looks good. I had to stifle my inner fangirl to keep from screaming, "I loved you in Kill Bill!"

5. You do make and keep friends from Gen Con. Last year, we met a guy named Mike who played True Dungeon (a game where you're the adventure party going through the puzzles) and he hung out with us for the entire weekend. The cool thing was that we met up again during the con. He's a cool guy and a great gamer. I can't wait to see him again next year. Hopefully he'll bring his girlfriend.

Edited to add: I forgot one really, REALLY cool thing I saw this weekend. A black chick being the gamemaster -- not a player, but running the game. It's so rare to see minority women at these sort of things. I mean, I couldn't stop doing double takes. I hope she was good at what she was doing.

If anything, that shows the changing demographics of gamers. They're no longer simply white men who are socially retarded. It's families -- men and women of all races, kids and even babies. That was awesome to me. I'm going to be one of those moms that drags their kids to these things. And hopefully they'll be beautifully behaved. Or I'll taser them.


5 comments:

K. said...

Actually, Shaolin Soccer did come out in the States. I saw it in the theater this past spring.

But yeah, glad you had fun at Gen Con!

Viv said...

Keidra -- Madison must suck then because I never saw Shaolin Soccer up here. I suck. Everyone else saw it but me and Jeff.

Alan -- I personally think that putting a paper bag over a kid's head is an excellent way to keep them in line. It's a wonderful idea.

K. said...

You don't suck, blame Miramax. I don't think they ever put it in wide release.

Anonymous said...

In my defense, the Jublie Jublie commentary was entirely farsical.

Seeing an emerging second (or third!) generation of gamer was way, way cool. Makes my cockles warmed, and such.

- Michael

Anonymous said...

Re: jublie jublies:

1) it was indeed entirely farcical
2) it's just a fun word to say. Jublie!
3) we all blame Michael =)

Also, I don't know what kind of conversations you got into there, but other than the jublie jublie thing and the peeing out the car window story, I don't recall anything else being said about genitalia.

-E