Reflections on a Summer of Nerd
It was a good summer for all things dorky, here in 2009. I went to three major nerd-related events. One being the California Extreme vintage video game expo in San Jose, the other being the always ridiculously crowded – but always enjoyable – San Diego Comic Con, and finally the Penny Arcade Expo – PAX, as it’s known – in Seattle.
I started to write these words in a melancholy state from the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Diego, our home for a full seven nights, a hotel with a two hour free happy-hour every day. You can probably imagine the popularity of this program in my circle of friends: it was huge, because we are, frankly, drunks.
Cheap drunks.
Cheap drunks who tip well. Okay, semi-cheap drunks.
I was melancholy because Comic Con is annually, consistently, more or less the most fun I have all year. I was not looking forward to the other fifty-one weeks of the year in which I long to be back in San Diego acting like an utter moron with my closest fellow morons. But, it was probably for the best that our week in San Diego was soon to end when this article started. I had been, by that point, smashed out of my mind for a week and really needed to dry out for a bit – or maybe a year.
But that was not to be. Because a mere week after I arrived back to the daily grind of San Francisco living, Brett up and proclaimed that he was going to PAX, and we were welcome to join. You can imagine how long the deliberation process took for that one.
Anyhow, on with the reviews:
California Extreme
California Extreme was a two day affair but I only hit one day, so I won’t devote too many words to it. I’ll simply note that paying thirty bucks to have unlimited play of hundreds of video games and pinball machines from years past was a complete blast and a half.
It’s impossible to pick out just one highlight of such an experience. How could I possibly decide what was more fun: Toobin’ or Galaga? I can’t. It’s scientifically impossible. A team of taxonimists working in rotating twenty-four hour shifts for a month couldn’t make such a decision. And we are talking about people devoted to the most boring form of science known to man. Now, this is probably in no small part because the level of OCD necessary to even enter the field of taxonomy is so great that it precludes one from any form of enjoyment, but whatever. You get the point.
I can however pick out the worst thing about this event: the ‘Gallagher’s Gallery’ laserdisc video game I had the unfortunate experience of playing. It is, without a doubt, the worst video game ever made. It’s not only an unplayable, ridiculous and confounding light gun game, but it has FUCKING GALLGHER IN IT.
I don’t know if one can really adequately surmise the horror that is the Gallagher video game without speaking about the man himself. So I won’t try. Gallagher the comedian is a waste of biological material, obviously conceived by the Dark Lord himself to torment the living. His humor is the lowest form known to man, tolerated only by a select group of witless, mouth-breathing mongoloids who for some reason are able to turn off all parts of their brains but those primitive portions that keep the body from dying after a massive stroke… an all too deserved an affliction if one has ever purposely viewed more than thirty-three seconds of a Gallagher standup routine. I’d put your average Gallagher fan pretty much on the same evolutionary level as anybody who self-identifies as a Juggalo, or for that matter anybody who readily knows what a Juggalo is without clicking that link.
I used to say I would spend any and all lottery winnings saving the lives of the unfortunate populaces of our world’s most war and strife-ridden nations. After going to California Extreme, I have a different plan. I intend to offer handsome rewards to anyone who can assist me in my ongoing quest to remove Gallagher and the various media he has subjected us to from human history. I’ll even start issuing the IOUs now.
Now go forth and pillage.
Also, go to California Extreme next year. It’s super fun.
Comic Con
It’s an embarrassing level of elation I feel during my yearly trip to the biggest pop-art convention in the world, and a testament to the love I have for the thing. As said, I always go with my boys, my ‘wolf pack’ for those of you who get that reference… all of whom have drinking problems and issues with the established rules of polite society. Yes, most of us come from North Atlantic Island gene-pools. Shocker, I know.
I know Comic Con has gotten so extremely popular that tickets sell out months in advance, and it’s now necessary to line up hours before hand to get into any popular panels. Yes, it’s packed full of people with varying levels of personal hygiene. Yes, it’s basically the same thing every year. Yes, the girls in the Slave Leia outfits aren’t necessarily easy on the eyes.
I don’t care. I love it. I can’t wait for next year. So sue me.
I’ll stop waving my nerd-boner at you now - which Stan Lee autographed! - and just list a brief sampling of the funnier things that happened this year:
Adam caught a ball at a Padres game because he was taller than the child behind him, who was also trying to catch the same ball.
Adam kept the ball despite the protests of the fellow baseball fans around him.
We drank on an aircraft carrier and closed the bar.
I crawled into bed with Brett naked.
Brett did not discover this until the next morning, which caused me to wake to the following quote, “WHY ARE YOU NAKED?!”
We went HERE.
Sam almost got arrested.
Adam got locked in the Hyatt hotel stairwell on the thirty-eighth floor and was too drunk to walk down the stairs anymore.
I decided to go on a run at 0400, loaded (duh), and ran by a group of – equally drunk – stormtroopers trudging back to their hotel.
Adam, the veteran, speculated that they were on shore leave.
Brett and I got stuck in the glass elevator for an hour because we were screwing around.
Sam and I got kicked out of a Sci-Fi Network party trying to sneak in.
Adam wiped pee on my neck.
I hit Brett in the balls.
I met Michael Hogan, Adam Baldwin and James Callis.
I got autographs from the last two.
I saw Mark Hamill.
I saw Edward James Olmos.
We drank in the same bar as Spock/Sylar.
Brett spit mouthwash in my mouth because I jumped on his back sans-clothing and choked him.
Sam fell down repeatedly, just because he does things like that.
I spilled two different drinks on two different girls in two different bars.
We all were, individually, barricaded and locked in the bathroom.
Adam kicked me in the leg in front of four hot sorority-looking chicks.
I kicked Brett in the leg in front of a tour bus.
I kicked Brett in the ass at happy hour.
Adam cracked me in the face with a roll of toilet paper after I said I’d dodge it like Neo in The Matrix.
We went to two different concerts, and I purchased two different new records.
We found California’s most haggard yet still operational pool table.
And I took down the following quotes:
Adam (at Starbucks): “Who wants to go on the log ride? It’s wet and wild!”
Brett: “Maria is gonna be so pissed when I come home with shaved balls.”
Brett: “Where did I get these sunglasses?
Adam: “IRA R-Us.”
Brett: “Dan’s beard looks like the GI Joe Navy guy… What’s his name? Poop Deck?”
Sam: “What doesn’t tickle your balls, Brett?”
Brett: (Describing Adam’s cabin to people we met in San Diego) “Have you ever seen the Marquis De Sade?”
Dan: “Yeah, it’s like that - only with BB guns.”
Dan: “Rhino jizz is the greatest of all hair products.”
Brett: “I just look like a homeless drunk guy.”
Sam: “This is new… how?”
Dan (to Brett): “You are like the Master Chief of hotel stays.”
Adam: “I know I ate hot wings in my bed.”
Brett: “Did anyone from the hotel come up with the TP?”
Adam: “No.”
Brett: “Perfect.”
Brett: “Can you name ten reasons why Dan Silver wouldn’t be a good gigolo?”
Adam and Brett then come up with the following while watching True Blood:
“One - Peanut butter ass.”
“Two - No math skills; he would get ripped off all the time.”
“Three - Not a verbal charmer.”
“Four - Screams ‘Yahtzee!’ when he has an orgasm.”
“Five - Chunky semen.”
“Six - The Lucky Pierre beard.”
(Brett and Adam then differ on “not incredibly well hung.” It’s deemed an alternate.)
“Seven - Would need a step ladder to fuck anyone over six feet tall.”
“Eight – Too busy masturbating to porn to have sex with an actual woman.”
“Nine – Not any good with directions. Couldn’t make it to a client’s house.”
“Ten – A Raging. Closeted. Homo.”
Scratch that. Don’t go to Comic Con with friends.
PAX
Having never been to PAX or Seattle before, I had no idea what to expect. Now, as I’ve been to Seattle for a long weekend, I have only foggy memories of the whole experience. I am, however, sure of the following, which will explain the previous statement:
There are an ASSLOAD of bars in Seattle.
There is also a very good chance we went to at least half of them. On day four, our last day, I was hung over in a metaphysical sense, in a new kind of way that transcended the very meaning of the word. I had reached an unholy level of de-evolution and transformed into a slurring, giggling, stumbling, and mumbling sub-human, capable only of ordering brown booze, drinking it, and snapping pictures of Adam with my cell phone while he showered.
Apparently, so I’m told, and so I recall, we had a really great time. I am totally game to put myself through the same torture in the near future. Say what you will about the weather up there, the fact that PAX isn’t really all that fun if you aren’t a really hardcore gamer, the pretty much false impression Americans have about Seattle having good coffee, and the bevy of tourists in town while we were there; Seattle has great people, some good food (I think), and one of the best bar scenes I’ve ever crawled through.
At some point during the trip, I decided that my work in Seattle is not done. Like General MacArthur to the Philippines, I shall return!
Who does handstands in Seattle’s secret, exclusive, members-only goth club?
Dan Silver does.
Then he falls down, and continues dancing like an idiot without any shame at all.
