Friday and Saturday evening I volunteered at PAX helping with the Pathfinder RPG demos-- thelesuit asked nicely, so why not? cuddlyeconomist and Professor X hung out at the Wizards of the Coast RPGA HQ helping our friend Denise out. Much fun was had by all. Had dinner with hackard on Saturday while he was in town, and showed off Chase to various folks.

Sunday we went to the annual Texas Exes BBQ in Gas Works Park, where some nice Salt Lick brisket and sausage was consumed and a Longhorn-themed cookbook was won in the raffle. Then we spent the rest of the day at home trying to catch up on Doctor Who (we made it through The Big Bang at least)

For various reasons, I picked up a new Xbox 360 S for home. It is a bit smaller than the original, and the power brick is about half the size. It has a 250 GB harddisk and the wireless adapter is built-in. The overall experience is a quieter machine.

The transfer cable is a bit pricey for what it is, but it works pretty well--and you can probably borrow one from a friend who has had to do this before. I was able to transfer all the content from my old machine over reasonably quickly, and then use the online rights transfer tool to enable all the Xbox LIVE accounts on the new Xbox 360 S to use the downloaded content--I can still use the content on my original box as long as my Xbox LIVE gamertag is logged in.

And that brings me to the one drawback for the "Slim": it doesn't have a slot for the Memory Unit. Most people never use the MU anyhow, so this isn't a major drawback, but it turns out to really suck if you want to keep two Xboxs in the house. Moving my Xbox LIVE account back and forth is a huge pain in the ass either requiring the some-what unwieldly Windows Live ID recover gametag approach, or pulling out the original HD, moving the gamertag with the transfer cable, and then moving it back so I can actually use content on the original box. It shouldn't matter too much since Margo has her own Xbox LIVE gamertag to use on the new system, while keeping mine on the original system, but the MU would've made the whole situation a bit less messy...

It's been a pretty quiet week and weekend. I spent the past couple of weeks doing some voluntary crunch work for a project, so it's been a while since I spent a weekend doing not much. I had planned to go to the Seattle Mob gameday to play a Living Kingdoms of Kalimar adventure for old time's sake, but totally spaced on the weekend. It is perhaps a good sign that I no longer play so much D&D that I remember the schedules of all the local game days by heart. So instead I cleaned house, restocked the pantry, did my taxes, and generally hung out at home playing Lord of the Rings Online and emptying out my TiVO.

Dungeons & Dragons co-creator dies at 69 [news.yahoo.com]

It is a shame we lacked the 13th level Cleric to cast Greater Restoration upon him before he passed.

I personally didn't really get into D&D until it was D&D 2nd Edition in college, which was done after Gary's ex-wife wrested control of TSR from him in the divorce. Still, I recall fondly the older kids in Boy Scouts playing original D&D, and the aura of mystery from that old disorganized tome called the "Dungeon Master's Guide" back in the day.

To Gary, I say, you will be (rolls d20 reaction dice) greatly missed.

Update: Dungeons & Dragons Creator Gary Gygax Dies [blog.wired.com]

D&D cocreator Gary Gygax now beyond scope of healing spells [arstechnica.com]

Dungeons & Dragons Game Co-Creator Dies [www.pcworld.com]

Because of my brother's visit, I've skipped most of the PAX event happening this weekend downtown. This morning we decided to split up so Todd could wander more downtown and I could go try to visit with hackard, as well as look around the show. It's much bigger than last year, and clearly more than the 30,000 preregs showed up. I walked through the expo floor and saw that Microsoft had a solid Games for Windows presence, but as a marketing/PR event for customers it wasn't the kind of show Microsoft would have asked me to attend. I walked through the RPGA area and visited a bit with my gamer friends who have been playing all weekend. I then had lunch with hackard and his friend Paul at the Subway.

Afterwards, hackard took me over to Wil Wheaton's signing area to introduce us. As his editor, it was more of the 'friend-of-a-friend' kind of introduction rather than a 'fan and celebrity' kind of introduction, which I appreciated. Wil had to run to an interview, so it was brief and then Andrew, a gamer friend who was in the line, and I headed down to the tabletop gaming area and played some Munchkin: Cthulu which was a riot. Todd was done with wandering by mid-afternoon, so I left the con and we headed home to do some laundry before Todd takes off tomorrow.

Andrew mentioned a plan to have dinner at Cheesecake Factory after the con, likely at the one across from the convention center. I offered to drive elsewhere if desired, as the Cheesecake Factory is a zoo on the weekend even without 30k+ people walking across the street and seeing it. Wil apparently really likes the place, so I offered to take them over to the Bellevue location if they wanted. A few hours later, they called and took me up on the offer. In most situations Wil would probably love hanging out with a few hundred gamers, but after delivering a kick-ass keynote and being the toast of the convention all weekend, he was a bit overwhelmed. So, Todd and I headed downtown, and whisked Wil, Andrew, and Paul across the water to the Eastside away from the madness of the convention for a pleasant dinner and low-stress conversation. It was a great way to spend the last night Todd and hackard were in town, will make a great story for Todd to take back to NYC, and was nice to be able to do my small part to play the role of Seattle host.

Had a good time down at Gamestorm in Portland. It's usually a moderate turn-out RPGA event, and as usual I spent much of the time visiting with people who also drove down from Seattle.

"All in all a sad day in Badabaskor"
-- Stephen Cobert, Colbert on D&D

It's great to see "my people" make it good. Between Vin Diesel and Stephen Cobert, perhaps being a gamer might be cool. Well, being a former gamer might be cool...

Fear of Girls [video]

Painfully funny, and perhaps a little too accurate. Of course, the reality is that only a total loser Dungeon Master would run a D&D campaign with only one player.

"I think a lot of youngish people have an experimental time where they go through a pagan phase."

"Raymond: Vampires aren't even evil. Doug: Football players are."

"I'm an artist. My campaigns are multilayered tapestries upon which I texture themes and subject matter that quite frankly would simply be too strong for the 'hobbyist gamer'."

via pattytoo and jaewalker

Spent most of the past five days down in Tacoma enjoying much loser funness with ten rounds of Living Greyhawk games at this year's New Year's Eve of Loser Fun 7 convention. I took time out Saturday afternoon for a fabulous date with jeliza and the nerdvana party.

Thank the gods I have tomorrow off so I have a chance to try to recover from all my 'vacationing' the over the past two weeks. It's been good, but seriously lacking in area of a solid night's sleep.