Hi folks---

Had the pleasure of meeting Badmike, Prufrock, KoP, and killjoy after our 2-6pm Bottle City event, and I got some good pics of the event as well as of the gang.  However, they had already just eaten, and we were ravenous, so after saying hi and chatting a bit, Rob and I peeled off with some other friends for food.

On the pics front, I somehow managed to leave my mini-USB cord at home, so I may not be able to post them during the show as I had originally planned.  We'll see....

On deck for tomorrow is the first Warlocks Walk event, and two panel seminars.

grodog wrote:Hi folks---

Had the pleasure of meeting Badmike, Prufrock, KoP, and killjoy after our 2-6pm Bottle City event, and I got some good pics of the event as well as of the gang.  However, they had already just eaten, and we were ravenous, so after saying hi and chatting a bit, Rob and I peeled off with some other friends for food.

Suffice to say it has been a real pleasure meeting everyone.  Including grodog and Rob...badmike, killjoy, prufrock and I also got to meet stratochamp, blackmoor, gus landt, netrodent, Frank M., James Mishler and Gary Gygax.  The whole convention is pretty amazing...overwhelming in some cases.  We spent easily four hours in the exhibit\dealer hall and probable only saw 20% of it.  The auction was pretty exciting even though there wasnt a whole lot of rare stuff tonight.  It was pretty fun bidding against Al on a first print Tegel Manor.  Ended up that neither one of us won it though.  Oh well...lots more interesting stuff to bid on the next two days.  

stumbling tiger wrote:Thanks, Mike!  Please, more reports from the front, so those of us who couldn't go can at least have a vicarious GenCon experience.

Well here goes...It will be nice to have these down to remember later...


The morning started as King and I woke up with far too little sleep (went to bed late and lost an hour due to the time zone change). Had plans to meet Martin and Al in front of the sign in booth, but ended up wandering for awhile just taking it in.  They finally showed up and we waited with them in line for awhile, then got our free goodie bags (some Axis & Allies minis, assorted stuff), then headed to a nearby diner to eat.  I proceded to have one of the best cheeseburgers I have eaten in years while the rest got more traditional fare and we shot the shit for awhile.
  We thought we had taken too much time but when we came back the line to get in was somewhere around the corner into Ohio and the opening ceremonies still hadn't even started yet. We were forced to stand in a horde of people while we wasted 30 minutes of our life waiting for the exhibition doors to open.  Anyway, once they did we made a beeline for the Goodman Games booth, determined to score every copy of Saga of the Witch Queen and hold them for ransom....but this year Goodman had the foresight to actually print quite a few of them, they looked really nice with their pastel cover!  The Goodman games booth had some great stuff and some freebies, King bought the new $100 boxed set Castle Whiterock and thus loaded himself down the first five minutes of the show!
    Afterwards we went across the aisle to Crazy Egors and proceded to go a little crazy ourselves.  Despite the high prices on a lot of items, we managed to find some buried treasures and each walked away with something good.  I think all of us located a Ironhoof Highlands, I scored some good Traveller stuff, and Al got a Wee Warriors Embatted TRek for a modest price.  WE literally bumped into Frank Mentzer at the booth as he was there to pick up some stuff, and introduced ourselves. BTW just so you know Killjoy was the bleeding guest of honor the entire day as everyone fawned on him including some gaming legends, it seems like everyone has heard of or has wanted to meet Al, he's like the rock star of the Acaeum and I was just happy to be his roadie for awhile!!!
  So a quick trip back to the room to drop off stuff (you'll notice a trend developing as the day goes on...)  Then back again to pick up MORE stuff, I found a booth with everything 50% off and loaded up on some more goodies and tried to purchase a "Sexy Gamer" Tshirt one of the booth bunnies was wearing, but unfortunately it only came in small (like it's only for chicks or something).  Bought some Troll Lords goodies including Tell Qa and met Gary Gygax who signed some stuff for King.  Another trip to drop off stuff (this time to the rented locker) and then back to the fray, Where we found a few more goodies, got James Mischler to sign our copies of Tell Qa (Nice guy, another trend you'll see developing, all Acaeum members seem to be great people).  WE then hit the auction for the first time, and the auction consignment store, where again we all scored....a Mint Caverns of Thracia for John, a beautiful copy of The Companions Highroad for Al, and a SW copy of D1-2 for me for six bucks!  OH and I forgot for Martin he scored some really beautiful original numbered artwork at the exhibition room. For the 3rd time that day I spent far too much money (but how many $5 Q1s can you have anyway?  As many as you want!).  So once AGAIN we hauled everything back to the hotel room and dumped it off, and then had dinner at the TGIFridays in the Marriot.
  So then it was on to the Hyatt to watch Rob Kuntz's Bottle City tournament round game, he was ably assisted by Grodog and ran the game using a copy of his original map!  We got to shoot the bull with Rob (our third gaming legend of the day) and once again Al was treated like visiting royalty (perhaps he's a long lost son of Charles we don't know about????) as Rob insisted he try to make his Maure Castle game the next day.  After a great conversation with Rob we headed to the auction room to hit the consignment store one more time then settle down to the auction.
 Almost forgot, earlier we also ran into Acaeum member Gus Landt as he and his brother painted some figures in theminiature section, later I wandered over and both Blackmoor and Gus and their beautiful wives were playing some.....um, no delicate way to put this....3.5 EDITION D&D!!!!!! But we still let them stay on I guess......
   Back at the auction, we had a helluva good time just watching and bidding as it came......We all came away with 1-2 items which was very cool, makes you feel like you aren't wasting your time!  Oh yeh and the highlight of the evening was Frank on the auction podium plugging away for the Acaeum site as he told the audience that it was THE place to go to identify rare or obscure D&D stuff, very nice gesture on Frank's part.  The auction was quite fun even though the more interesting stuff is being held over for Friday and Saturday night.  Al and King went up against each other for a1st edition Tegel Manor (which went to someone else) and Strato and Al went up for a manuscript for X8 that ended up only going for $200.  
   Afterwards we shut the place down and met Strato and his wife along with Acaeum member Netrodent and ended up walking back to the hotel together as it turned out we all stayed at the same place.  Not even really enough time to dig through all the loot before getting ready for bad.  Tomorrow we have Al's D&D game he's running, as well as the Acaeum dinner at an Irish pub, and of course the giant Friday auction.  Time to drink a Shiner, and get to bed!

Mike B.

Badmike wrote:Cant figure out how to get pictures up....

Long day, 1AM, too much booze, no wonder you can't  . . . oh, pictures!

Create an account on Photobucket or some other free picture-hosting site.  Upload the pictures from your PC (or send the pictures from your phone to your account's e-mail address).  Get the URL of the picture and then:

(Using spaces to make the code visible in this post)

[ img ] URL-of-picture [ /img ]

hey dudes

this is Al on mikes account here. having a blast - been lots of fun and have got some really cool stuff man.

we are just off out for lunch in about 15 mins which will be really cool then we have the big auctions which is gonna be lots of fun.

hit crazy egors stall and lou zocchis stall and got some more cool stuff.

right well we better get a move on. these americans are lazy unfit feckers. they are all moaning about walking about n being tired and mike has a blister on his foot - man if you listened to him you would think he was just about to get his leg amputated!!!! all good fun tho.

no time to game today so we are gonna tomorrow - tegel manor it is *evil grin*

seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeya!!

Al

Badmike wrote:hey dudes

this is Al on mikes account here. having a blast

Hey Al - What's with using Mike's account - I would have thought that you would be trying to up your mediocre post count!

Sounds like you guys are having a blast - I for one am extrememly jealous.

(I guess any Americans who have upset Al are worried now - "Jeez- we never thought he'd come across the pond for a one-on-one meeting...." - Payback Al Style  

improvstone wrote:
He is even coming out to Australia.  Al, is on a world payback tour  

Whats even worse is I promised to go running with him.  For which I have been training 2mths solid. I now have this fear of now being left somewhere in the Simpson desert.  

Imagine that, you hear one last word as your life force ebbs away...........

"Muppet"

   

What a wild auction tonight, featured the following items

10 or 11 pre pub mods
Two daystar west mods
Fazzle
1st and 2nd woody
Guidon Chainmail

WOW!!

On a bright note I walked a rare Lawnmower man RPG

It was a very productive auction, indeed!