I ate a bad bit of calamari the first night and got really sick the next day.  After being sick all day, I finally ordered a bowl of chicken soup and a pot of tea through room service that night.  The price?  ...$48!

I did discover what makes me so tired at conventions, though.  I thought it was simply all the walking, but it's all the people.  Don't get me wrong, probably the best thing about these gatherings is seeing all my friends, but constantly meeting people and the sparking of burnt memory banks searching for names to match the faces, ...this is what drains me!  I noticed this at GDC because I did all the same walking but met far fewer people than I usually do at E3.  I never had that drained feeling at GDC like I always do at E3.

Humorous side note:  I borrowed a spare Exhibitor's Badge from a friend who had ordered a few extra for his company.  The name on the badge was Jack Bauer.  It was hilarious to watch the utter confusion on peoples' faces who only sort of know me.  We'd be approaching each other and first came the look of "I know you, don't I? ..." as they saw my face.  Then came the inevitable pan downwards to check the name on the badge.  Jack Bauer?  This was then followed by a return look to my face and a very funny squint.  Many just kept walking ;)

The badge also played into a small-but-funny coincidence.  The night before I got this badge, we had eaten dinner with the Valve guys.  A sizeable portion of the conversation centered on the television show "24" and how Erik Johnson is the first person I've ever met that hates the show.  When I saw the name on my badge the next day, it gave me a chuckle ;)

Of course, no convention is complete for the Levelord without him meeting his comrades from the Motherland, ...moi bratya, Toly y Yury!  Dmitri and Alex from NoviyDisk joined us this time.

They brought me FOUR bottles of the best vodka!  In a few more years, I can retire and open either a vodka store, or a museum!

Although we weren't officially showing SiN Emergence, it was running at two booths,  ...LogicTech's and nVidia's.  Thanks to both of you for being so cool and helpful!

I spent much of my time at the nVidia booth making sure everything was running well.  It was, ...and for at least 90% of the time, people hovered exclusively around our console and completely neglected the others.  I felt proud standing there.

CNN swung by, set-up a camera, grabbed some video of SiN, and left.  Didn't shoot any of the other games at the booth, nor anything within the visible vicinity, and I presume they came specifically to see this thing called "episodic" gaming ;)

I started watching the booth first thing on the first day.  I noticed that this group of three people were standing at the console just to the left of ours for quite a long time.  They were huddled around the keyboard and computer and were blocking much of the view.  This is normal, the huddling, and I didn't give it much thought.

They were staying there for an unusual amount of time, though.

One was at the keyboard, another in front of the computer, and the third standing behind them and looking around often.  After a while, I did start to get suspicious.  Then, the guy at the keyboard brought up an Explorer window.  Okay, this is not cool!

I walked over and started investigating, super stealth style, ...and sure the fuck enough, ...a memory stick was plugged into the USB port on the computer!

These be Pirates, argh!

I got Security and told them what was going on.  Security came over, only to find out that these were the developers of the game ;)

I was baffled by one thing at the party, and I guess we really are an Industry of Geeks...

...on one end of the huge room Sony had built an arena for Robot Wars.

You know, the engineering student competition things between two remote-controlled hunks of metal trying to flip each other over?

Here's the puzzler - at any given time during the party, the audience around this arena was at least three layers deep...

...BUT, the girls dancing just a stone's throw away from the battle bots?  ...an almost completely empty stage the entire night!

I still have my copy of Ultima IV, and all the notes I wrote as I lost myself and my life while hunched over my Commodore 64.  Many-a-night and untold weekends were lost.  Almost lost the girlfriend, too, come to think of it.

I was going to UCLA when the game came out.  I had a GPA of 3.57 when I first unfolded that cloth map of Britannia.  By the time I was done playing it, I had a 2.Something GPA ;)

I still have my C64, ...wonder if the game would boot up?

Speaking of faces from the past, the Microsoft Party was really weird!  Just about every person we've dealt with, on the publishers' side, related to previous Ritual games was at the party.  It was like seeing "This Is Your Life, Ritual!" live.

I couldn't help but think there was some underlying scheme to the happenstance.

I love sitting and eating and sipping vodka and listening to Russian conversations.

Seeing Monterrey again was nostalgic.  My girlfriend and I (while going to UCLA and playing Ultima IV) would often go the Santa Barbara, Monterrey, and Carmel to spend the weekend on bikes and skates, ...ahhh, the days of chardonnay, swiss cheese, and sour dough bread!  It was strange seeing it all again after so many years.

San Francisco was a trip. It really is an interesting and entertaining city.  The entire weekend was nothing but eating great food and walking around while the Russians shopped for shit.

I must exercise more!  I thought for sure that I had gained a few pounds from all the rich food we ate.  I expected my scale to display a "Who the hell are you?" message when I returned home, ...but I in fact LOST 2 pounds!

Finally, ...it really most be destiny for me!  On the return flight home, the entire two rows ahead of me and the two behind, to include the two seats next to me, were Russians traveling to Dallas.  The people I've told this to already keep replying "It's the Invasion!", ...but I say "No! It's kismet!" ;)

She also joined us at the L5 Party last December, ...wearing an ushanka ;)

Okay, okay, ...so they're novelty earrings that look like a carpenter's level,

...but that's pretty cool, too, ...level earrings!

Keaton always said...

"I don't believe in God, but I'm afraid of him!" - Roger "Verbal" Kint, 1995

Enough with death and the Russians, and even New Haven.

Nobody comes here anymore except the Loose Cannon and other losers.

We need something fun and light.  At first I thought of remembering any stories I may have heard from Dick, but then I thought "Fuck that!  We have our own stories!".

This is a Dick Story, true, but it actually happened to me.  There isn't anymore Dick.

I was then, and still am now, a devote atheist, so I don't believe any of the "godly" shit, btw.

"Sickness will surely take the mind, where minds can't usually go." - Tommy Walker, 1969

It was 1975, I was in 11^th grade, and it was the time I almost slipped away, ...voluntarily.

Bruce, Jim, Richard, Joel, and I were in Bruce's dorm room getting stoned, more stoned...

...we grew up in a college town (fuck ya, Happy Valley), and although most of us were still in high school, there were those that were already in university and had accommodations. 

So, we were in Bruce's dorm room, skipping high school classes that day.  It was a Thursday, I remember that, and it was about 4 in the afternoon.  We had been tripping on LSD since just after 9am.  There were the few preliminary hours at Playland, playing pinball with all the trails and echoes, but the real event started with the N2O.  This was the combo, I think, ...the pot, the LSD, and then the N2O.

I was sitting on Bruce's bed, or maybe his roommate's.  I loaded a canister of Whip-Ettes (read: N2O delivery system) into their "Instant Whipping Cream" container.  I inhaled, and I then unscrewed the empty canister and readied another in the hopper.  I sucked in the second canister's worth of N2O, and this is when I slipped away.

I'm sure many of you have experienced the effects of N2O.  Whether under similar circumstances, or maybe at the dentist's office, ...you know it is a very cool buzz, and a very delivering one!  So now, add the effect of N2O to the effects of good 4-way window pain and a steady stream of decent herb.  I was set to go!  ...and off I went!

This is what I remember...

...I remember the normal euphoric sensation of N2O.  I had done nitrous many, many times before.  This time, though, there was a pulling, a pulling of complete and utter bliss like I could never describe here in words.  The stillness, the tranquility, the calm, ...it was religious.

As I engaged and inhaled in the second canister, I leaned back prone on the bed and slipped into the quiet quiescence of welcoming oblivion.  "Euphoria" can never contain the actual sensation, and it's amazing how "out of it" you can be, under these conditions, yet still be so lucid, ...at least to one's self.  I remember thinking "How peaceful!  How fucking cool is this!".  Where was Carlos Castaneda when I needed him then ;)

The serenity was quite overwhelming, quite and quiet.  Everything was so peaceful, and so fulfilling.  As I slipped into rapture, I remember thinking that the only thing getting in the way of complete contentment was the sound of my breathing.  The quiet.  So I stopped breathing.  The peace came closer, and it was truly all-consuming!  Next, to my consciousness, came the sound of my heart pulsing.  All I could hear was my heart beating, ...lub dub, lub dub.  It was a pleasant sound, like the womb, I remember, but it was getting in the way of the peace.  So I wished it to stop, and it did.

The next thing I remember is something that I cannot describe in words.  If there is an afterlife, and it is anything like this feeling, I want to die right now.  I felt an incredible sense of accomplishment and worth, a sense of well-being, and I was in absolute peace.

I was completely released from everything.  So many things I worry about each day, so many things on my mind, then and now.  That afternoon, though, all worries were removed, ...all worries, ...even that of having to breath or to ensure my heart is beating.

Then, in an instant, I saw a blindingly bright light.  There was a tunnel and there was this light.  It was awesome, and it was intensely alluring, more so than the soundless serenity!  I wanted to get closer to this light.  It was vibrant yet serene, so serene!  No more worries, no more invasive sounds, no more breathing, not even a heart beating, ...all was supremely quiet.  This is the word, quiet.

The light was good but almost immediately I felt a fear, a disturbing panic.  As I did, the light slammed shut, like a camera's shutter colliding in on on itself.  The light SLAMMED shut, and the "sound" shocked me.  I quickly woke up, or out, of the trance.

I think it's like describing a Who concert in words, ...if you weren't there, then maybe you won't understand.

I love rain!

I mean, ...in the list of Top Tens where Wallabees, food, sleep, and beautiful women from Russia (who don't speak English) reside, ...rain is in that list.  The smell, the sound, the rush of cool, clean air, ...I truly love rain!

So honk,

already!

What a horrible life!

Here I am, slaving away on a Saturday.  I have to sit here all day, taking screenshots of SiN Emergence, in my underwear, watching the last five episodes of Lost that I downloaded from iTunes, and waiting for sushi to be home-delivered...

...oh, pity me!

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