My summer Vacation Part 3: PAX PRIME 2011

The most epic picture ever actually. I am
trying to figure out which one is "awesomer". lol

So this it... This is what I have been leading up to. The third and final part of my first summer vacation in I don’t even know how long. Now please get something to drink, maybe grab a snack as well, and sit back in that chair your are sitting in... I have a lot to say and I will trying to keep it as focused as I can. 

Yes, I do brush my teeth on vacation. 

Let's see where do I start with this... Well, maybe I should start at what got me to plan my summer vacation in the first place. For that I will have to take it back a bit further than that to my cousin and close friend Jason Heine. See Jason is part of the online Youtube video game community. Which led him into being a part of a video game podcast that he does with three other well know Youtube video game guys that are also well known in the video game community. So I guess I should introduce them so you know who I am talking about. First there is Johnny Millennium who does a channel on Youtube called “The Happy Console Gamer”, next there is Pete Dorr who does a channel on Youtube called “Pete’s Gameroom”, then there is John who’s channel (the first of his many channels...lol) on Youtube is called  “Gamster81”, And last but not least Jason Heine who’s channel on Youtube is called “The Emulator Review”. All powers combined they become the “All Gen Gamers Podcast” which you can find on iTunes under video game podcasts. Plug plug plug....lol. =) So how does this all tie in together with my vacation? Well, they have been doing the podcast for over a year now and way back when they started they talked about meeting up at a video game convention called PAX Prime. Which at the time I had no idea what PAX Prime was. All the guys that are on the podcast live in all different areas of the world. So, they thought this would be an awesome way to meet up with each other and fellow gamers. One of the guys actually lives outside of the country in Canada. So not only was this an awesome event to go to it was the first time all four would be together. The location of PAX Prime is in Seattle Washington. Seattle is only a few hours from where I live. My cousin Jason lives in Arizona very close to John, but I don’t get to see Jason as much since he left Oregon a few years ago. So I thought there is no reason I can’t take a few days off and travel up north to be a part of this video game fun. So that is what I did. I bought my tickets for PAX Prime back in like March or April for the event that was happening in the end of August. On the podcast they talked about it about every episode and telling people to buy tickets before they sold out because they eventually do. They apparently have a set amount that they sell. Regardless I had the tickets and I would figure the rest out later. My arrangements changed a few times over the next couple of months. I actually talked my coworker/friend Austin into going with his girlfriend. The three of us also ended up staying together while we were up there. I also talked my brother into going. Although by the time he had money to go he ended up getting tickets through a friend of his that was selling them. My brother also when up separately with his good friend Jason. My cousin and the other guys of the podcast went up separately. I know all that may sound confusing, but the point is it actually turned into quite the event. 

On the bus on my way to PAX Prime

Lets fast forward to the end of my part two of my vacation. I spent god portion of the afternoon in conversation with J’Anne till Austin called me to come pick me up. We had to meet at the Fred Meyers near by because J’Anne’s house is invisible to any navigation device....EVER! So after that was all said and done. We (Austin, Christine, and myself) showed up at our hotel outside of Seattle in Bellevue Washington. We had decided to stay outside of Seattle because it was about $100 less per day than staying by the convention center where PAX was being held. It was a pretty nice hotel that Austin Picked out and the best part for me was that there was a Whole Foods store diagonal form the hotel we stayed at. We are talking like 5 minute walking distance and most of that time was waiting for the light to change to cross the street. lol Now why is this so important for me to bring up. Well, see eating while on vacation with my limitations can be a hard thing for me to find the right foods I can eat. Having a Whole Foods near by was like having my work right next door. I loved it and we ate there pretty much every day we where there. It was my first time in a Whole Foods. It’s not just because it’s my companies competition it’s that there is no need for me to go into a store that I can get all the same things at my store with a 20% discount. lol Anyway, kudos to Austin for hooking that up it worked out really good for me. I will say their customer service is NOTHING compared to ours PERIOD.  

Outside of PAX Prime

So instead of driving in to Seattle and paying parking we decided to take public transportation. It actually worked really well. We all had passes to go all three days of the event.  Looking back now I’m very glad that we did. So early Friday morning we made our way to downtown Seattle. There were a few groups of people at our hotel that were there for PAX as well. You can spot some of them from a mile away even if they weren’t wearing lanyards with their PAX passes attached. lol We arrived at the convention center and it was a little confusing on where exactly we needed to go. Eventually we made our way into some very long lines. Glad we left so early and next time we probably could have left earlier. They masses all of us in this huge room where we got a bag of goodies. Then stood in line till it was 10 o’clock. Then in a somewhat controlled made rush we all were let into the main floor area. Now here is where it gets interesting. There was so much stuff to look at right from the get go and it didn’t stop the whole time I was at PAX actually. To start I made my way to the Battlefield 3 booth because that was the main thing I wanted to experience and was willing to wait in line for, but there was so much going on that it took me awhile to find it. I first followed Austin and Christine to the OnLive booth because before they let us through the doors they announced that they were handing out free OnLive consoles (that normally retail at around $99) at the OnLive booth. So of course everyone and their mom headed to their booth to get one. I followed them, but decided when I saw how long the line was that I was not interested. I instead played the demo for the new Zelda game coming out in November called Skyward Sword that was right next to the OnLive booth. It was pretty dope and then I resumed my hunt for the Battlefield 3 booth. I found it eventually in a back corner with a big hummer all decked out military style parked outside of the booth. I immediately got in line and didn’t look back. After waiting in line for about an hour maybe hour and half. I got my chance to play. My game froze while playing and the guy that I was playing co-op with bailed after just playing a few minutes. Thank god he did because they paired me up with another guy who was a lot more fun to play with. We actually talk to each other and worked together. Awesome that is exactly how that game is supposed to be played team work. Here is the best part when waiting in line they asked you for what name you want on the custom dog tags they make you. Of course I put my gamer tag XgS.Dirty Dongles on there and was super stoked about it. What an ingenious idea! I wore those dog tags all three days.  

Oh yeah...come to daddy..lol. =)

The rest of the day I played a few more things, but really the first day was about going around to all the booths and getting what we all called “Gamer Swag”. What do I mean by gamer swag? Almost all the booths were handing something out from T-shirts to posters to jackets to key chains just all sorts of stuff. So awesome I think I ended up with 5 shirts for free and one more later on that I paid for. TONS of cool stuff. Really it was a gamers paradise. Anything and everything relating to games was there. We aren’t just talking about video games we are talking board games, D & D, Magic cards and on top of all the video games stuff. For the first day we were there from basically 9-5pm. Austin and Christine were a bit tired and burnt out in the afternoon and when they asked me if I wanted to go back to the hotel with them I actually said yes. Because honestly it was all a bit much. I really didn’t think that I would say that, but it definitely was and this was only the first day. That is a short version of day one. Just so much going on. Including the fact that I missed the All Gen Gamers podcast meet up outside of the convention center where PAX was being held. I went into some detail for the first day because of just the raw feeling of experience of going to PAX Prime. The next two days was a lot more of the same and more exploring and trying to get things I didn’t the day before. As a gamer it was just awesome experience. 

So just a few of the highlights. Over the other two days.

Second day I got to meet up with Jason and my brother experience more of PAX together. Telling each other what “Gamer Swag” we got and what games we played and tried out. Just some awesome video game talk. 

I met two of the other three podcast guys while walking around with Jason. Both of them were really just down to earth nice guys. Just very cool to see them in real life. Pete Dorr was the only one I missed.... and I’m still angry about it. lol 

There was a very cool moment we had when we were exploring the upper level of this event. We came across a room where they had pretty much most popular video game consoles and they had a library of games you could play for certain amount of time. I was with my cousin Jason and my brother Justin. We glanced at the list of games, but yet again we were a bit overwhelmed. Lucky for us John Gamester81 was already in there playing a game. So we walked over and joined him. He was play a newer game that had just came out call Katherine. Very weird Japanese puzzle game, but like with any game my gamer buddies and I play we can make anything fun and funny. So there we were all four of us just lined up in a row passing the controller to the next person when the other one fails and the on lookers trying to help and joke around when not playing. That is what I love about playing any games and that is how it use to be for my generation of gamers. Before the days of the internet you actually had to go to other peoples houses and sit together while playing a game. I was passing out the bunny fruit snacks that I love so much and that make an appearance at all the game nights I have at my place. 

I wonder how much this cost to make and
who designed and made it. 

Sickest and Biggest LAN Party

Those were just a few of the many things that happened over the course of the three days. Now I want to talk about just my overall thoughts about PAX Prime and just video games in general. So much went through my head while just looking around PAX. Just so overwhelming to experience what this form of media has done and what it is doing to my generation and generations to come. Looking at all the booths and seeing how much money big companies are investing in the gaming industry. One of the big things that I noticed was just how diverse video games have become. How very much mainstream video games have become. It isn’t just something that nerds geek out to in their moms basement. Video games are now something that everyone plays. Don’t get me wrong there is still a big group of people there that it may have been their first time out of their moms basement to attend the event, but mass majority of people were people of all walks of life. Just awesome. Someone said that they sell like 70,000 tickets for PAX Prime. Well, I am not sure if that is true all I know is Saturday and Sunday were crazy busy compared to Friday. I think often about what I will look back on in my life and think about when I am older. This was definitely one of those experiences. Video games are a huge part of the culture of my generation and definitely our form of art. There is so much that goes into each game. I have already seen the generations below me take it for granted. Back in the day we were lucky to get one game and you played the hell out of it. Because thats all the money your parents may have had for video games back then. Now days kids finish games within days and then move on to something else. Some don’t even explore the whole game. From the music, images, and even down to the coding of these games there are many people out there putting in a lot work to make something to be enjoyed by so many. From someone that actually knows people that work in that industry take sometime to read the credits. Take time to take in the full experience of the game. Explore the whole experience and even if you don’t I will.

Oh and that dark haired girl with the Star Wars shirt & cute skirt on that I had a moment with in passing between the two main floors at PAX and I will admit I also did a double take.... I will never forget you. Thank god beautiful women are on board the video game wagon too. lol I love it! 

With love and pure D-lite. =)

My Brother getting Jiggy with the Turtle
Beach Babes. lol

Talk Nerdy to me... lol

My Summer Vacation 2011 Part 3

So this it... This is what I have been leading up to. The third and final part of my first summer vacation in I don’t even know how long. Now please get something to drink, maybe grab a snack as well, and sit back in that chair your are sitting in... I have a lot to say and I will trying to keep it as focused as I can. 

Let's see where do I start with this... Well, maybe I should start at what got me to plan my summer vacation in the first place. For that I will have to take it back a bit further than that to my cousin and close friend Jason Heine. See Jason is part of the online Youtube video game community. Which led him into being a part of a video game podcast that he does with three other well know Youtube video game guys that are also well known in the video game community. So I guess I should introduce them so you know who I am talking about. First there is Johnny Millennium who does a channel on Youtube called “The Happy Console Gamer”, next there is Pete Dorr who does a channel on Youtube called “Pete’s Gameroom”, then there is John who’s channel (the first of his many channels...lol) on Youtube is called  “Gamster81”, And last but not least Jason Heine who’s channel on Youtube is called “The Emulator Review”. All powers combined they become the “All Gen Gamers Podcast” which you can find on iTunes under video game podcasts. Plug plug plug....lol. =) So how does this all tie in together with my vacation? Well, they have been doing the podcast for over a year now and way back when they started they talked about meeting up at a video game convention called PAX Prime. Which at the time I had no idea what PAX Prime was. All the guys that are on the podcast live in all different areas of the world. So, they thought this would be an awesome way to meet up with each other and fellow gamers. One of the guys actually lives outside of the country in Canada. So not only was this an awesome event to go to it was the first time all four would be together. The location of PAX Prime is in Seattle Washington. Seattle is only a few hours from where I live. My cousin Jason lives in Arizona very close to John, but I don’t get to see Jason as much since he left Oregon a few years ago. So I thought there is no reason I can’t take a few days off and travel up north to be a part of this video game fun. So that is what I did. I bought my tickets for PAX Prime back in like March or April for the event that was happening in the end of August. On the podcast they talked about it about every episode and telling people to buy tickets before they sold out because they eventually do. They apparently have a set amount that they sell. Regardless I had the tickets and I would figure the rest out later. My arrangements changed a few times over the next couple of months. I actually talked my coworker/friend Austin into going with his girlfriend. The three of us also ended up staying together while we were up there. I also talked my brother into going. Although by the time he had money to go he ended up getting tickets through a friend of his that was selling them. My brother also when up separately with his good friend Jason. My cousin and the other guys of the podcast went up separately. I know all that may sound confusing, but the point is it actually turned into quite the event. 

Lets fast forward to the end of my part two of my vacation. I spent god portion of the afternoon in conversation with J’Anne till Austin called me to come pick me up. We had to meet at the Fred Meyers near by because J’Anne’s house is invisible to any navigation device....EVER! So after that was all said and done. We (Austin, Christine, and myself) showed up at our hotel outside of Seattle in Bellevue Washington. We had decided to stay outside of Seattle because it was about $100 less per day than staying by the convention center where PAX was being held. It was a pretty nice hotel that Austin Picked out and the best part for me was that there was a Whole Foods store diagonal form the hotel we stayed at. We are talking like 5 minute walking distance and most of that time was waiting for the light to change to cross the street. lol Now why is this so important for me to bring up. Well, see eating while on vacation with my limitations can be a hard thing for me to find the right foods I can eat. Having a Whole Foods near by was like having my work right next door. I loved it and we ate there pretty much every day we where there. It was my first time in a Whole Foods. It’s not just because it’s my companies competition it’s that there is no need for me to go into a store that I can get all the same things at my store with a 20% discount. lol Anyway, kudos to Austin for hooking that up it worked out really good for me. I will say their customer service is NOTHING compared to ours PERIOD.  

So instead of driving in to Seattle and paying parking we decided to take public transportation. It actually worked really well. We all had passes to go all three days of the event.  Looking back now I’m very glad that we did. So early Friday morning we made our way to downtown Seattle. There were a few groups of people at our hotel that were there for PAX as well. You can spot some of them from a mile away even if they weren’t wearing lanyards with their PAX passes attached. lol We arrived at the convention center and it was a little confusing on where exactly we needed to go. Eventually we made our way into some very long lines. Glad we left so early and next time we probably could have left earlier. They masses all of us in this huge room where we got a bag of goodies. Then stood in line till it was 10 o’clock. Then in a somewhat controlled made rush we all were let into the main floor area. Now here is where it gets interesting. There was so much stuff to look at right from the get go and it didn’t stop the whole time I was at PAX actually. To start I made my way to the Battlefield 3 booth because that was the main thing I wanted to experience and was willing to wait in line for, but there was so much going on that it took me awhile to find it. I first followed Austin and Christine to the OnLive booth because before they let us through the doors they announced that they were handing out free OnLive consoles (that normally retail at around $99) at the OnLive booth. So of course everyone and their mom headed to their booth to get one. I followed them, but decided when I saw how long the line was that I was not interested. I instead played the demo for the new Zelda game coming out in November called Skyward Sword that was right next to the OnLive booth. It was pretty dope and then I resumed my hunt for the Battlefield 3 booth. I found it eventually in a back corner with a big hummer all decked out military style parked outside of the booth. I immediately got in line and didn’t look back. After waiting in line for about an hour maybe hour and half. I got my chance to play. My game froze while playing and the guy that I was playing co-op with bailed after just playing a few minutes. Thank god he did because they paired me up with another guy who was a lot more fun to play with. We actually talk to each other and worked together. Awesome that is exactly how that game is supposed to be played team work. Here is the best part when waiting in line they asked you for what name you want on the custom dog tags they make you. Of course I put my gamer tag XgS.Dirty Dongles on there and was super stoked about it. What an ingenious idea! I wore those dog tags all three days.  

The rest of the day I played a few more things, but really the first day was about going around to all the booths and getting what we all called “Gamer Swag”. What do I mean by gamer swag? Almost all the booths were handing something out from T-shirts to posters to jackets to key chains just all sorts of stuff. So awesome I think I ended up with 5 shirts for free and one more later on that I paid for. TONS of cool stuff. Really it was a gamers paradise. Anything and everything relating to games was there. We aren’t just talking about video games we are talking board games, D & D, Magic cards and on top of all the video games stuff. For the first day we were there from basically 9-5pm. Austin and Christine were a bit tired and burnt out in the afternoon and when they asked me if I wanted to go back to the hotel with them I actually said yes. Because honestly it was all a bit much. I really didn’t think that I would say that, but it definitely was and this was only the first day. That is a short version of day one. Just so much going on. Including the fact that I missed the All Gen Gamers podcast meet up outside of the convention center where PAX was being held. I went into some detail for the first day because of just the raw feeling of experience of going to PAX Prime. The next two days was a lot more of the same and more exploring and trying to get things I didn’t the day before. As a gamer it was just awesome experience. 

So just a few of the highlights. Over the other two days.

Second day I got to meet up with Jason and my brother experience more of PAX together. Telling each other what “Gamer Swag” we got and what games we played and tried out. Just some awesome video game talk. 

I met two of the other three podcast guys while walking around with Jason. Both of them were really just down to earth nice guys. Just very cool to see them in real life. Pete Dorr was the only one I missed.... and I’m still angry about it. lol 

There was a very cool moment we had when we were exploring the upper level of this event. We came across a room where they had pretty much most popular video game consoles and they had a library of games you could play for certain amount of time. I was with my cousin Jason and my brother Justin. We glanced at the list of games, but yet again we were a bit overwhelmed. Lucky for us John Gamester81 was already in there playing a game. So we walked over and joined him. He was play a newer game that had just came out call Katherine. Very weird Japanese puzzle game, but like with any game my gamer buddies and I play we can make anything fun and funny. So there we were all four of us just lined up in a row passing the controller to the next person when the other one fails and the on lookers trying to help and joke around when not playing. That is what I love about playing any games and that is how it use to be for my generation of gamers. Before the days of the internet you actually had to go to other peoples houses and sit together while playing a game. I was passing out the bunny fruit snacks that I love so much and that make an appearance at all the game nights I have at my place. 

Those were just a few of the many things that happened over the course of the three days. Now I want to talk about just my overall thoughts about PAX Prime and just video games in general. So much went through my head while just looking around PAX. Just so overwhelming to experience what this form of media has done and what it is doing to my generation and generations to come. Looking at all the booths and seeing how much money big companies are investing in the gaming industry. One of the big things that I noticed was just how diverse video games have become. How very much mainstream video games have become. It isn’t just something that nerds geek out to in their moms basement. Video games are now something that everyone plays. Don’t get me wrong there is still a big group of people there that it may have been their first time out of their moms basement to attend the event, but mass majority of people were people of all walks of life. Just awesome. Someone said that they sell like 70,000 tickets for PAX Prime. Well, I am not sure if that is true all I know is Saturday and Sunday were crazy busy compared to Friday. I think often about what I will look back on in my life and think about when I am older. This was definitely one of those experiences. Video games are a huge part of the culture of my generation and definitely our form of art. There is so much that goes into each game. I have already seen the generations below me take it for granted. Back in the day we were lucky to get one game and you played the hell out of it. Because thats all the money your parents may have had for video games back then. Now days kids finish games within days and then move on to something else. Some don’t even explore the whole game. From the music, images, and even down to the coding of these games there are many people out there putting in a lot work to make something to be enjoyed by so many. From someone that actually knows people that work in that industry take sometime to read the credits. Take time to take in the full experience of the game. Explore the whole experience and even if you don’t I will.

Oh and that dark haired girl with the Star Wars shirt & cute skirt on that I had a moment with in passing between the two main floors at PAX and I will admit I also did a double take.... I will never forget you. Thank god beautiful women are on board the video game wagon too. lol I love it! 

With love and pure D-lite. =)