ICC 2007
Got back from ICC 2007 on Monday. For those not in the know, ICC is the Cam's big international convention, this year held in Nashville. I'd been planning to go since June, having conned one set of parents into buying my plane tickets, and the other into giving me cash to cover room and food.
In retrospect, an 8:30am flight not have been the best idea I ever had. But back in June it sounded so COOL! Get up early, get in early, enjoy the con before it even started!
...what I didn't count on at the time was that a flight at 8:30 meant getting up at 4am. Or, more to the point, just not going to bed in the first place. Cab showed up at 4:30 after I'd managed to have a series of 10-30 minute cat naps and, due to a peasouper of a fog and the fact that it was 4:30am, the roads were basically empty. So we made Toronto to Pearson in about 20 minutes (instead of the standard 45-60). The result of which was that my genius plan to arrive early, check in quickly, and not have to worry about lines worked out...but not for the better. I ended up waiting about 3 hours for my plane, having completed the entire arrival-check in-customs process in the space of about 30 minutes.
Flight to Nashville was good. Simple. Uneventful. Tiny plane, I had the seat next to me open. Tried to sleep but failed, so just ended up reading and listening to the new iPod (of which I STILL have about 140 gigs of space left). Bags hit the carousel as soon as we were on the ground, so in pretty short order I was out of the airport and ready to go.
There were already Cammies waiting for the shuttle to the hotel. That in and of itself didn't surprise me, as I ALWAYS end up running into Cammies at these sorts of things. What DID surprise me, though, was that their numbers included Kat Branton and Luke Hill...two people I'd been looking forward to meeting in person in Nashville! We chatted a bunch and eventually the shuttle arrived, and we got to the hotel.
Checked in and moved my gear into my room. 1 backpack, 1 shoulder bag/satchel, 1 roller bag, 1 garment bag. Loaded for bear. I was about to get shanghaied into going to the Parthanon (apparently Nashville got tired of being one-upped by Athens, Greece, so they decided to build their own) by my friend Cheyenne when Ashley Morris showed up and dragged me bodily OUT of the van and along with her. Which is cool...Ashley is another reason I came to ICC this year (from this point on we hung out on and off for most of the weekend). Then Ashley ran off to do some other stuff and I ended up hanging out with Sarah Tolomie, who I hadn't seen in quite a while. List of people In ran into goes on and on...suffice to say it was AWESOME getting their prior to opening ceremonies.
Opening ceremonies were good. Indi made Trustee (Indi being a local Cammie, a good friend, and the lady who drove me down to ICC last year in Milwaukee). And then it was off to get ready for Mage.
Now, I'd finally put an Abraxas costume together. Which wasn't easy...I needed something cool, semi-military, but also punkish. Something that said "17 year old with a gun". Got the picture around somewhere.
Ashley, Sarah, and I were basically inseperable for the rest of the Mage game. Which *rocked*, as those two girls are some of the coolest folks I know. I'll spare you character details, so as to avoid being overly geeky. But yeah. Was a good game, made all the better by getting to hang out with friends.
I *think* went to bed at around 2 or 3am on Thursday night. Pants and I ended up talking about Mage stuff in the hallway, in front of the elevators, while I was on my way to bed. But somehow I managed to haul myself up for Promethean on Friday morning (the game that was shuffled between rooms three times during the course of play). Not happy with my Promethean costume, though. Its too close to Abraxas' (camo pants, boots, leather long coat, and its SUPPOSED to have Superman t-shirt, but I was too cheap to buy one). But oh well.
Skipped out on Promethean early for the Changeling character ties session. Turns out that about 15 or so other players decided to link up their PCs as all being part of the same division (101st Airborne) as my Changeling PC...so we ended up talking about setting some links together there. Also found out that a LOT of people wanted to hook their PCs in with mine for the soul purpose of having good medical support. All good and fun.
Then there was werewolf. Which was cool. My PC group was supposed to organize a series of challenges for some other PCs, but we kind of screwed up and the challenges took FOREVER. My PC, Bradshaw, ended up getting dragged off to do some interrogations, which led to some hijinks. Then the game ended with most of the PCs teleporting to Antarctica.
Then there was Requiem. Ah, Requiem. Not sure what to say about it without going into gratuitous PC details. Suffice to say, though, I made some friends with a bunch of other folks in my Invictus' bloodline, got offered custom Thorned Wreath cheese, and apparently made new allies. I had more fun playing my Crone, though, since Gillian Twinning came up with the GENIUS plan of combining Requiem RP with Drinking: The Venue (that is to say: everyone brought booze, and we drank and worked the drinking into the RP). Friday nights at Cam cons have traditionally for me become my drinking night (ever since CAiNE, at least). I got to showcase a new custom Cruac Devotion I just got approved, and everyone thought it was AWESOME (which makes me happy).
Then stayed up late on Friday night. I can't remember why. Oh! I remember now! I went to the Canadian Party, where I was given multiple different kinds of booze (including apple cinnamon moonshine...which tastes so good).
Saturday was Mage (all Mage! MAGE!), where Ashley, Sarah, and I built a fort in the corner out of two table clothes, an alcove in the wall, and some chairs. And then hid behind it. We were going to just watch movies, but then more PCs came over and so we ended up RPing as well. It was really awesome, and a great deal of fun. Then plot happened, and that was fun too. Good RP all around (AND I got to meet Pat Garrity playing his Thyrsus, Crazy Bear).
Then Changeling. Which is kind of blurry to me (I was late getting there, as I went out for a great lunch with Kat, Luke, Dave and Jessi, Guy and Jen, and Chris Buser [aka THE Buser], where we talked about general Cam stuff, and how the American cam works in comparison to the Canadian Cam). Got to play my doctor PC, and got to pull a gun on a Nazi PC. The best thing about Changeling, I gotta say, was the pictures. People had some truly awesome costumes, and I had the priviledge of being on photo team. So I have some really good pictures to remember the con by.
After that I got dragged off by the afformentioned bloodline players, and we all went to Japanese. I have no idea HOW we managed to find such good Japanese food in the middle of Nashville, but we did. And it was good. Some of the best I've had. Good food, good times, and good company. However, this resulted in us getting back late to the Requiem game, so I just ended up playing my Crone PC, and hanging out with Ashley at the bar.
After game was over and folks had gone back to their rooms (or, in the case of Ashley, gone back to their other hotels due to overbooking at the main building), most to pack up for their trips home on Sunday, I ended up in Hospitality until about 6am, chatting with Kelly Pohl, Tim Allen, and a bunch of other players whose names I can't remember. Most of whom I'd met at Promethean. Was some really good times, and a great end to the last day of gaming at the con.
Sunday was mostly goodbyes. Said goodbye to Ashley and Sarah in the morning, then went off to closing ceremonies, which I videotaped all of (all 45 minutes), then grabbing a bunch of Canadians (Jody, Fox, Kari, Indi, myself), and some Americans (An, two others whose names I can't remember for the life of me), and going out for Indian. Jody has this weird 6th sense for Indian food, and we found a really good place to eat. Eventually we reluctantly returned to the hotel (and, upon returning, I promptly forgot my con shirt and camera cables in the dealer's room...they're probably packed away in a White Wolf box somewhere now), and I hung around with various people for the rest of the day. Sunday night I piled into a hotel shuttle with Dave Sauter, Jessi Hixon, Zack Parsons-Wright, and a couple other Kansas City players to go to this steak and spaghetti house in Nashville.
Oh my god. It was good. It was INCREDIBLE. The steak was fantastic. Best I've had in a long time, and I'm a guy who eats beef tenderloin on a regular basis as a snack food (...yes, work has spoiled me). I'll be raving about that piece of meat for some time. It was just THAT good.
Sunday ended with hanging out with Kelly Pohl and a few of the Hawaiian players, drinking and chatting. 3 minute video of Kelly reading Stephen Colbert's latest book (Kelly has started informing me that "you am not America"). We had a good, but weird, game of "Grave Robbers From Outer Space", as supplied by yours truly. Had I thought about it, i also would have whipped out "Escalation", "Chrononauts", or "Abracadabra". But no...I didn't think of it. Being too tired.
And Monday was leaving day. Headed off to the airport with Indi, Chris Murtah, Stacey Duffield, and a few Americans, but ended up hooking up with Jessi and the Buser inside the airport (also ran into Chris "The Williams" Williams, and others), who I hung out with until my flight. Flight back home was uneventful. I seem to have sat down, closed by eyes, and woke up about an hour later when we were making our decent. Got home and just vegged out on the computer, dealing with the nearly 500 emails I'd received since leaving on Thursday morning.
5 day vacation ROCKS. Now I just need another 5 day vacation from my vacation. I'm still recovering.
Oh, and I preregged for ICC 2008, in Detroit (as hosted by Canada). So I'll be there for my second Cam con in the Motor City (the last being GLaRE 2006).
Excelsior!
In retrospect, an 8:30am flight not have been the best idea I ever had. But back in June it sounded so COOL! Get up early, get in early, enjoy the con before it even started!
...what I didn't count on at the time was that a flight at 8:30 meant getting up at 4am. Or, more to the point, just not going to bed in the first place. Cab showed up at 4:30 after I'd managed to have a series of 10-30 minute cat naps and, due to a peasouper of a fog and the fact that it was 4:30am, the roads were basically empty. So we made Toronto to Pearson in about 20 minutes (instead of the standard 45-60). The result of which was that my genius plan to arrive early, check in quickly, and not have to worry about lines worked out...but not for the better. I ended up waiting about 3 hours for my plane, having completed the entire arrival-check in-customs process in the space of about 30 minutes.
Flight to Nashville was good. Simple. Uneventful. Tiny plane, I had the seat next to me open. Tried to sleep but failed, so just ended up reading and listening to the new iPod (of which I STILL have about 140 gigs of space left). Bags hit the carousel as soon as we were on the ground, so in pretty short order I was out of the airport and ready to go.
There were already Cammies waiting for the shuttle to the hotel. That in and of itself didn't surprise me, as I ALWAYS end up running into Cammies at these sorts of things. What DID surprise me, though, was that their numbers included Kat Branton and Luke Hill...two people I'd been looking forward to meeting in person in Nashville! We chatted a bunch and eventually the shuttle arrived, and we got to the hotel.
Checked in and moved my gear into my room. 1 backpack, 1 shoulder bag/satchel, 1 roller bag, 1 garment bag. Loaded for bear. I was about to get shanghaied into going to the Parthanon (apparently Nashville got tired of being one-upped by Athens, Greece, so they decided to build their own) by my friend Cheyenne when Ashley Morris showed up and dragged me bodily OUT of the van and along with her. Which is cool...Ashley is another reason I came to ICC this year (from this point on we hung out on and off for most of the weekend). Then Ashley ran off to do some other stuff and I ended up hanging out with Sarah Tolomie, who I hadn't seen in quite a while. List of people In ran into goes on and on...suffice to say it was AWESOME getting their prior to opening ceremonies.
Opening ceremonies were good. Indi made Trustee (Indi being a local Cammie, a good friend, and the lady who drove me down to ICC last year in Milwaukee). And then it was off to get ready for Mage.
Now, I'd finally put an Abraxas costume together. Which wasn't easy...I needed something cool, semi-military, but also punkish. Something that said "17 year old with a gun". Got the picture around somewhere.
Ashley, Sarah, and I were basically inseperable for the rest of the Mage game. Which *rocked*, as those two girls are some of the coolest folks I know. I'll spare you character details, so as to avoid being overly geeky. But yeah. Was a good game, made all the better by getting to hang out with friends.
I *think* went to bed at around 2 or 3am on Thursday night. Pants and I ended up talking about Mage stuff in the hallway, in front of the elevators, while I was on my way to bed. But somehow I managed to haul myself up for Promethean on Friday morning (the game that was shuffled between rooms three times during the course of play). Not happy with my Promethean costume, though. Its too close to Abraxas' (camo pants, boots, leather long coat, and its SUPPOSED to have Superman t-shirt, but I was too cheap to buy one). But oh well.
Skipped out on Promethean early for the Changeling character ties session. Turns out that about 15 or so other players decided to link up their PCs as all being part of the same division (101st Airborne) as my Changeling PC...so we ended up talking about setting some links together there. Also found out that a LOT of people wanted to hook their PCs in with mine for the soul purpose of having good medical support. All good and fun.
Then there was werewolf. Which was cool. My PC group was supposed to organize a series of challenges for some other PCs, but we kind of screwed up and the challenges took FOREVER. My PC, Bradshaw, ended up getting dragged off to do some interrogations, which led to some hijinks. Then the game ended with most of the PCs teleporting to Antarctica.
Then there was Requiem. Ah, Requiem. Not sure what to say about it without going into gratuitous PC details. Suffice to say, though, I made some friends with a bunch of other folks in my Invictus' bloodline, got offered custom Thorned Wreath cheese, and apparently made new allies. I had more fun playing my Crone, though, since Gillian Twinning came up with the GENIUS plan of combining Requiem RP with Drinking: The Venue (that is to say: everyone brought booze, and we drank and worked the drinking into the RP). Friday nights at Cam cons have traditionally for me become my drinking night (ever since CAiNE, at least). I got to showcase a new custom Cruac Devotion I just got approved, and everyone thought it was AWESOME (which makes me happy).
Then stayed up late on Friday night. I can't remember why. Oh! I remember now! I went to the Canadian Party, where I was given multiple different kinds of booze (including apple cinnamon moonshine...which tastes so good).
Saturday was Mage (all Mage! MAGE!), where Ashley, Sarah, and I built a fort in the corner out of two table clothes, an alcove in the wall, and some chairs. And then hid behind it. We were going to just watch movies, but then more PCs came over and so we ended up RPing as well. It was really awesome, and a great deal of fun. Then plot happened, and that was fun too. Good RP all around (AND I got to meet Pat Garrity playing his Thyrsus, Crazy Bear).
Then Changeling. Which is kind of blurry to me (I was late getting there, as I went out for a great lunch with Kat, Luke, Dave and Jessi, Guy and Jen, and Chris Buser [aka THE Buser], where we talked about general Cam stuff, and how the American cam works in comparison to the Canadian Cam). Got to play my doctor PC, and got to pull a gun on a Nazi PC. The best thing about Changeling, I gotta say, was the pictures. People had some truly awesome costumes, and I had the priviledge of being on photo team. So I have some really good pictures to remember the con by.
After that I got dragged off by the afformentioned bloodline players, and we all went to Japanese. I have no idea HOW we managed to find such good Japanese food in the middle of Nashville, but we did. And it was good. Some of the best I've had. Good food, good times, and good company. However, this resulted in us getting back late to the Requiem game, so I just ended up playing my Crone PC, and hanging out with Ashley at the bar.
After game was over and folks had gone back to their rooms (or, in the case of Ashley, gone back to their other hotels due to overbooking at the main building), most to pack up for their trips home on Sunday, I ended up in Hospitality until about 6am, chatting with Kelly Pohl, Tim Allen, and a bunch of other players whose names I can't remember. Most of whom I'd met at Promethean. Was some really good times, and a great end to the last day of gaming at the con.
Sunday was mostly goodbyes. Said goodbye to Ashley and Sarah in the morning, then went off to closing ceremonies, which I videotaped all of (all 45 minutes), then grabbing a bunch of Canadians (Jody, Fox, Kari, Indi, myself), and some Americans (An, two others whose names I can't remember for the life of me), and going out for Indian. Jody has this weird 6th sense for Indian food, and we found a really good place to eat. Eventually we reluctantly returned to the hotel (and, upon returning, I promptly forgot my con shirt and camera cables in the dealer's room...they're probably packed away in a White Wolf box somewhere now), and I hung around with various people for the rest of the day. Sunday night I piled into a hotel shuttle with Dave Sauter, Jessi Hixon, Zack Parsons-Wright, and a couple other Kansas City players to go to this steak and spaghetti house in Nashville.
Oh my god. It was good. It was INCREDIBLE. The steak was fantastic. Best I've had in a long time, and I'm a guy who eats beef tenderloin on a regular basis as a snack food (...yes, work has spoiled me). I'll be raving about that piece of meat for some time. It was just THAT good.
Sunday ended with hanging out with Kelly Pohl and a few of the Hawaiian players, drinking and chatting. 3 minute video of Kelly reading Stephen Colbert's latest book (Kelly has started informing me that "you am not America"). We had a good, but weird, game of "Grave Robbers From Outer Space", as supplied by yours truly. Had I thought about it, i also would have whipped out "Escalation", "Chrononauts", or "Abracadabra". But no...I didn't think of it. Being too tired.
And Monday was leaving day. Headed off to the airport with Indi, Chris Murtah, Stacey Duffield, and a few Americans, but ended up hooking up with Jessi and the Buser inside the airport (also ran into Chris "The Williams" Williams, and others), who I hung out with until my flight. Flight back home was uneventful. I seem to have sat down, closed by eyes, and woke up about an hour later when we were making our decent. Got home and just vegged out on the computer, dealing with the nearly 500 emails I'd received since leaving on Thursday morning.
5 day vacation ROCKS. Now I just need another 5 day vacation from my vacation. I'm still recovering.
Oh, and I preregged for ICC 2008, in Detroit (as hosted by Canada). So I'll be there for my second Cam con in the Motor City (the last being GLaRE 2006).
Excelsior!
posted by Derek the Bard at 10:54 p.m.
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