CHEAP FREE STANDING COOKERS

After touring the Expo hall on Friday, we went out to grab some lunch before the Keynote and Q&A. On our way out we stopped by the PAX merch booth because last year we had gone too late to get PAX shirts and they were sold out. We tried to hit the PAX merch store first thing this year but there was a convention center guy blocking the door who told us that if we left we wouldn't be allowed back in. I asked if that was going to change and he said that it would, after everyone in the line had finally gotten in. The merch line wasn't too too bad, there was a cash line and a credit card line so it was a good thing that we had planned to bring cash for our shirts! The cash line went about 4x as fast as the credit card line. After that we got out for lunch and we went to the Daily Grill which was decently nice but pretty expensive. I suppose I should have expected that since they're right across from the convention center. They were gradually filling with PAX goers but I think that the regular customers might have been a bit intimidated. I had a half tuna melt with a side salad, and my fiance had the fish and chips. in retrospect, I should have grabbed the fish sandwich instead because they pre-mixed the salad with the dressing which made it sort of soggy and unappealing, and the tuna melt was in the category of "it's food so I'm not hungry anymore, but it doesn't have a lot to recommend it". My fiance's fish and chips were really quite good though.

The waitress generally gave a kind of "I'm being hassled" vibe and we got out of there asap.

Ron Gilbert gave a good keynote, I thought he was better than Levine last year because he didn't seem like he was trying too hard. The Q&A was pretty good but Tycho and Gabe seemed pretty tired and weren't as funny as they were last year. After the Q&A we wandered the exhibition hall some more, grabbing swag as we went. I got an Alienware t-shirt from their booth for beating a level of Plants vs. Zombies. That's right, when I saw the challenge was Plants vs. Zombies I was like, "Don't worry, I got this." I did this while my fiance was waiting in line to see Battlefield Bad Company 2, I think I got the better end of the deal, but that's just me.

After lunch I picked up my cookies from the hotel room and went into distribution mode. I managed to get rid of maybe 1/4 of my cookies on Friday. When we finished up at the exhibition hall we went and got some dinner at Palomino's which the hair cutting lady had recommended. We got in and it looked quite fancy and we were worried about time because we had the Ultimate Dungeon Delve scheduled for 7pm. We had sat down and were ordering from the waiter (my fiance was getting a pizza and I was getting the steamed clams appetizer to keep costs down) when he stopped taking our order and said, "You know, if you go over to the bar right now you'd get half off if that's all you're ordering because it's happy hour." 50% off our food sounded good to us, so we meandered over and ordered from there. It would have been cheaper if happy hour didn't mean you had to order a 1 drink minimum, which we filled by getting a coke and a diet coke.

While we were waiting for our food, this guy at the bar started talking to us. At first I was kind of leery about it but then I realized that he was also a PAX goer. He said that his name was J-- "The Bomb". He had just gotten discharged from the Army after several tours of duty in Iraq and he was called the Bomb because he always seemed to get blown up. It sounded really rough and I'm glad he made it out. We chit chatted a bit and he ended up telling us that Capcom was having a Resident Evil 5 party on Saturday night, and that if you were one of the first 250 to look at their game on Saturday morning, you could get a ticket to get in.

We weren't sure we were going to go for it, since neither of us has ever played Resident Evil, but I woke up at 6am and we decided we might as well try for it. We figured that since we had yet to go to one of the corporate parties at PAX, we should see what one was like at least once.

The Ultimate Dungeon Delve turned out to be a lot of fun but we were eliminated in the second round. Our group just took too long and we really needed more damage. The roleplayers' funk was also in evidence at the delve and by the end of our session I really -really- wanted out of that room. Regardless, it was still fun and I hope that we can try doing it with our regular D&D group.

I had a sign with me throughout PAX which became known as "The Big Cookie" and it turned out to be a really great thing to have because people found it easily recognizable and sort of official. They really liked the tubes too, but there's going to have to be a redesign of those because of the bruises I got. Here are the bruises I sustained from my cookie dispenser. I didn't realize that tubes full of cooki

Today was Brandi's back to work day after a week off. I was anticipating a lot of complaining from Isobel but she surprised me and wasn't too cranky.

She did get up at like 6:00 but during the night I got up and had some water ready for mixing formula so it was a breeze to get the bottle together. I should remember to do that again after I finish typing this up. She was awake for about 20 minutes during which I checked flickr (morning ritual) and poked around a bit in the living room. She was showing signs of sleepiness still so we crawled into our bed for some more sleepage. She slept until quarter to nine.

We went out for a walk after breakfast to work and my photo place to get some pictures printed off and inquire about wedding thank you photo cards...the guy only isn't in on Wednesday >_< also stopped in a work and said hi to a bunch of people. My plan was to bring left over Isobel cookies and Diet Cokes in for people to enjoy but silly me I left the bag beside the door at home.

We returned slightly foolish feeling (I can't think of the right word at the moment, perhaps later) and poked around at home. I put in Watchmen and started watching special features as Brandi and I finished the movie the day prior (embarrassed kind of works but still isn't the one I was thinking of) Isobel eventually went to sleep on my chest and slept for about an hour and a half...normally her naps are like 15-20 minutes...looks like if I want her to nap I'm going to be trapped on the couch.

Brandi called and Isobel woke up so we played in the living room, she started to get cranky just as Brandi got home. I cooked up some apples, and washed her bottle stuff before heading out to D&D.

My character died last week so I rolled up a person who could take a lot of hit, lots of hit points and tonnes of healing surges. Hopefully I'll be able to help our crew survive longer (Chagrined...I think that's probably the word I was looking for).

Tomorrow I'll try and remember to bring everything to work on my way to meeting Brandi at her work.

Also this picture is of Isobel eating her dinner of blueberries. She loves to eat them because she can eat them by herself. Sillily enough though she tends to be a crammer and doesn't realize they're not going anywhere but her tummy.