Category: Events

Every year I go to the Bristol Renaissance Faire, which is a great place to meet cool people and get tons of awesome stuff! To add on to that, there are plenty of interesting acts, such as one of the ones we watch annually, Dirk & Guido: The Swordsmen. Their motto runs along the lines of “We are bold and stupid men!”.

It was tremendously funny. We were also introduced to more musicians, The Dread Crew of Oddwood. We saw Adam Crack’s Firewhip show, displayed on the right.

There’s a lot of role-playing and lots of cool things to do. Every year we get sassafras and I go on the pirate ship. They have tubs you can smell. The best one this year was mermaid food, and the worst one was starfish armpit (probably because they have 5). All in all, I enjoyed myself very much.

Last Saturday, I did something phenomenal; something extraordinary; and most importantly: something super geeky! On Saturday, I did something I never thought I would have the pleasure of doing… I went to a live Weird Al concert!

This was also my first concert that wasn’t Cheshire Moon. Unlike the small events they have, the Weird Al concert had rows upon rows upon rows of people attending. It was, I will admit, a tad intimidating. Just to clarify: I have nothing against the small concerts or the big concerts as they both have their pros and cons.

Weird Al sang a handful of the songs through to the end, but a lot of the concert was medleys of different songs. I would have loved it if he had sung more of the Spider-Man parody of Piano Man. My favorite of the songs that night was by far the one about Anakin Skywalker.

As you see, I had a blast at the Weird Al concert. Did you know Weird Al is weird?

Today, I went to my first LARP (Live Action Role-Playing game). It was with a bunch of my mother’s LARP friends. We were playing Arkham on 5 Sanity Points a Day, a Cthulhu/eldritch-themed game. To go with the theme, I arrived with my Cthulhu schoolbag filled with 2 folders, a notebook, and a giant plush Necronomicon. Everyone loves the Necronomicon. It’s so cute!

When I was given the blurb about what to expect, my brain materialized an assumption: lunch was going to be at Pupusita Express and therefore be yummy; I would recognize some of the people there; and the LARP was going to be fun/weird/creepy/scare-your-pants-off-fandom, so I prepared myself… I wore shorts instead of pants.

When we got there, we were given instructions and a choice between characters. I ended up with Jackie Meadows, the hyperactive ten year old kid. So tough to play, right? Everyone joked it was typecasting.

I read my character sheet. Jackie was so skinny, hitting something wouldn’t do damage, so my special fighting ability was I could curl up on the floor and say, “I’m hiding, you can’t see me,” and they couldn’t see, touch, or harm me. However, in that maneuver, I wasn’t allowed to move or make any noise except childish whimpering. Humph.

My character also couldn’t resist lying. She would add a touch of exaggeration to everything she said. That was fun!

Jackie had a puppy, named Killer. He was so small she carried him everywhere. He was a Doberman, but since Jackie told tall tales, I told everyone he was part werewolf. Ha!

Everywhere we went there were “souvenirs”. Someone handed me a toy gun. I also received a plate. At one point we went somewhere and they confiscated Killer! I walked past the table, then told the people helping with the game what I was going to do. As I walked past I retrieved my dog. My puppy!

I love LARPs.

Today I met Felicia Day who I was first introduced to through TableTop, which I may have mentioned once or twice before. She was signing her new book at a local book store and there were over 400 people in line to get a copy signed. Lucky for us, my mother went ahead and signed up as soon as possible, so we were only number 32.

We met a few people, and because we got there early, we ended up standing around, staring at books. Oh, the horrors, right? It helps that my inevitable interest in books was added to the fact that I am an only child. I love books. It helps that at stuff like this and the recent Brandon Sanderson signing we get meet other geeks.

I am looking forward to reading Felicia’s book You’re Never Weird on the Internet [Almost].

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Over last weekend I went to Windycon 42, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Windycon. On our way there we went to lunch at a wonderful cheese place with my godmother, Marinda, and my cousin, Jesi. I ordered a wonderful cilantro edamame hummus. While we were there, Marinda gave me a Pikachu hat.

Then we went to the actual convention. We had to attend the opening ceremonies because my mother received an honorable mention in the short stories contest. Afterwards, we went to Game Room… for most of the weekend.

At Game Room, I learned how to play Are You A Werewolf. On Saturday, I played a game of Munchkin that took four hours. We were about to play another game of Are You A Werewolf, but we needed more players, so I walked around asking people, “Would you like to play Are You A Werewolf?” Most people were too busy to play. So when I noticed someone standing in the doorway of the Game Room, I walked over and asked him if he would like to play just like I had asked everyone else. It was only after he had accepted the invitation and started walking towards the table where we were setting up when I realized that he was indeed Christopher Moore, the Author Guest of Honor.

After playing a couple rounds of Are You A Werewolf, Chris went off to eat and we went to the Art Auction. I think this is the first time in ages where I haven’t walked out of a convention carrying at least one Cheryl Storm dragon. 🙁

So, to sum up Saturday, I played a four hour game of Munchkin, I accidentally invited the guest author of honor to a game of Are You A Werewolf, and then went to an Art Auction where I failed to buy anything.

On Sunday I went to the Critter Crunch while my mother went to her panel on storytelling. I drove the Spider, the bot I drive every year, and Rat Patrol, which is a tiny little tank that zooms around and is tough to catch. I won one round and got second place in the free for all, both with the Spider. After the Critter Crunch was over, the scorekeeper told me that that was the best she had ever seen the Spider do. I just shrugged and said I had a lot of practice, then asked them to keep the Spider safe until Capricon before leaving the room.

While I waited for my mother to finish her panel, I went to the Looney Labs room and played Color Wheel, Seven Dragons, and Just Desserts. I actually got to play Just Desserts and Seven Dragons with Kristin Looney, one of the creators of Looney Labs.

Overall, I had an unforgettable experience at Windycon 42, a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Windycon.

I just went to board game day at Games Plus. (Board game day is the first Saturday of each month.) There I learned two great games, Coup and Medieval Academy.  We ended up buying both of them. It was hilarious that I learned Coup, because just the day before we watched the TableTop episode about it. I also learned how to play Stanley Cup, which is like a hockey version of Foosball.

Though we only played three of the games, there were several other games being played as well. One of the nice things about Games Plus is the wide variety of games it has. They have some new games, like Evolution Flight, as well as some older games, like Ogre. They also have a wide variety of role-playing games and miniatures.

Our goal in our trip to Games Plus was to try new games, to see if we liked them. We enjoyed all of the games listed above greatly, and I highly encourage you to play them.