I don’t understand it either, but roll with me.

You have certain people who are “cuspers” in the nerd community. They like watching Big Bang Theory, or programming Pop Tart calendars (so they never eat the same flavor in the same week) but they have no fucking clue what Magic: the Gathering is.

Sometimes you’ll be doing something like rolling a character for your new D&D campaign and one of these Cuspers will look at you and say “Why the fuck do you have so many dice?” You’ll want to explain, but you run into a problem. It would take forever, they’d get bored, and they’d still be confused. I call this a lose-loser situation (of course, you get to be the loser).

If they really want to know something, teach them. I’m not saying be an asshole! But for the love of Gygax if they say “Hur, what is Magic the Gathering?” don’t start explaining The Stack. For example, this website includes an explanation of The Stack, a flash demonstration and an additional FAQ page, just to tell y0u how this one mechanic of M:tG works. You seriously want to start that with someone who doesn’t know the difference between a lifetotal die and an elf counter?

So I go to PAX East, which is like a constant nerdgasm. I get back and can’t wait to talk about every stupid thing that happened while I was there. I even wore the sweet USB bracelet I got from Wizards of the Coast with their new demo on it. Even though I haven’t played Magic in forever (my cards are in boxes) it reminded me of how addicted to that shit I was. I think once and addict, always an addict. But instead of pulling humongous boxes out of my closet, I download the Xbox Live Arcade version of M:tG (because HOLY CRAP why didn’t I already own it?!!).  I’m swearing at imaginary players and talking shit about their imaginary moms (offline play), when Cusper asks me The Question.

Cusper: [noticing gratuitous swearing] “WTF are you playing?”

Me: “Magic: the Gathering.”

Cusper: “How do you play that?”

It’s moments like this that make me want to pull decks and teach. But Cusper doesn’t really want me to teach him. In fact, I don’t think he wants me to really answer him.  So I’m all: “It’s like Yu-Gi-Oh! only for adults.”

I get the blank stare. Then I go for it: “I’m swearing because I’m unable to take out the dumb shit in this deck for the awesome shit I’m unlocking, and now this stupid burn deck is raping my grandmother. If this were real M:tG I’d have a sweet deck and fuck this burn deck up its ass with a plastic fork.”

I’m just digging the hole deeper and I know it. So then I just say “I’m a Planeswalker. It’s like being a God. That stuff is MY land. It obeys me. And I kill the other player with magical spells and creatures because I’m an asshole.”

This explanation seemed good enough for Cusper.

From past experience, I know that gaming cons are usually packed with people elbow to asshole. Adding to that, anything that Penny-Arcade touches multiplies attendance by Higgs-Boson. If you have cool questions for any panel, and you’re NOT ATTENDING PAX EAST submit them here, I’ll probably remember to ask them. Keep in mind, if I wander by the games area I might blow off every panel and play like, DDR or something.

My plans for the event are as follows:

Thursday:

• ??:?? o’clock  ARRIVE, pick up media badge

• Gameshark Dinner

Friday:

• Journalists vs. Developers: The Ultimate Grudge Match
  Manticore Theatre
  Friday, 2:00pm

• PAX East 2010 Keynote Wil Wheaton (I’m going to try and get in, if I fail, I’ll just go play games)
  Main Theatre
  Friday, 3:00pm

• <GAMES><INTERVIEWS>

• Friday Night Concerts!
  Main Theatre
  Friday, 8:30pm

• The Future of PC Gaming Yes, there is one!
  Wyvern Theatre
  Friday, 10:00pm

• <PARTIES, GAMES>

Saturday:

• Early Media Access on the Show Floor 9:00am

• Greetings from a Dead-Tree Dinosaur Cartoonist v1.1 (FoxTrot’s Bill Amend!)
  Manticore Theatre
  Saturday, 10:00am

• The Death of Print (this should be good, I watched my own employer die. RIP, CGM)
  Manticore Theatre
  Saturday, 1:00pm

• A Sophisticated Evening with Rooster Teeth Productions
  Main Theatre
  Saturday, 3:30pm

• Podcasting (f)or PR (interested in cakepiepods?)
  Naga Theatre
  Saturday, 5:30pm

• Hal Halpin and Adam Sessler Talking Games
  Manticore Theatre
  Saturday, 7:00pm

• Saturday Night Concert (if I can get in, otherwise ROCK BAND FREE PLAY @11pm)
  Main Theatre
  Saturday, 8:30pm

SUNDAY:

• 9:00am PA Media Panel

• 10:00am Three Moves Ahead Brunch

• So You Want to Get into the Game Industry?
  Naga Theatre
  Sunday, 11:30am

• Penny Arcade Panel #2 (this or XPLAY, both are likely to be full)
  Main Theatre
  Sunday, 1:00pm

• X-Play LIVE: A Show on Television (this or the PA panel, both are likely to be full)
  Manticore Theatre
  Sunday, 1:00pm

• Forcing Your Way In & Coming Out On Top: The Game Industry in
  Rainbow Color (if I can fit it in–see what I did there?)
  Wyvern Theatre
  Sunday, 1:30pm

• Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Game Journalism…
  Manticore Theatre
  Sunday, 2:30pm

• Closing Ceremony
  Main Theatre
  Sunday, 5:00pm

Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be this way.

I live in the cheerful, weather-lottery state of Vermont, formerly its own magical fairlyland Republic, long before Texas made it cool (true fact!). The great thing about living here is accessibility to bored nerds who have formed their own bizarre culture of board games, videogames, comics,  Star Trek, cosplay, role-play, and more! The downside: pick your weather out of a hat. It could be anything. Also, use a really cool hat!

A lot has happened since I dropped off the planet (I learned the hard way: the Earth is flat!) try and stay out of the sun while you read this list, you could get skin cancer (and I’m spiteful!).

• I was invited to be a guest panelist in This sweet Three Moves Ahead podcast! You like games, you should listen to it, it’s way better than listening to Rush Limbaugh! We talk about how weird it is that girls play videogames, Bayonetta, and also strategy gaming. If you’re into strategy keep up with Flash of Steel and their aforementioned podcast, it’s a great way to do the community thing.

• I started writing at Kombo.com but so far, I’ve only written a couple of pieces (you can find links on the sidebar by clicking “Kombo.com Articles“) . They have some really smart people writing, plus you can keep up with news and not have to deal with sensationalism in game journalism.

• I have Lyme Disease. Ticks bite you, you get sick. It’s a bitch. Mostly it sucks (har, har) because I’ve had to prioritize my health and I let CAKEPIE.COM slide!!! What the fuck is wrong with me?!! On the good side, I’m starting to feel a bit better, I hope you can look forward to more writing!

I love bullet points! They’re marginally better than numbered lists!

Thanks for reading, also thanks for commenting. I appreciate my small, but fantastically attractive community. Seriously, do you model?

The game takes no time to start you going. From the moment you hit the Enter Key your character selection is the only down time. After that, you’re thrown into a gunfight and the world is yours to loot, kill, loot, find better loot, quest, loot–did I mention loot?

Oh, and did I mention the 17 million guns or whatever Randy Pitchford said? Yeah, I’m positive that wasn’t a lie: I have all four characters leveling, and the only guns I’ve seen twice have been boss loot. There are a lot of effects your guns can have: you can have shotguns that can deal electric damage, machine guns that fire acid, not to mention rocket launchers!!! But the game’s main aspect is not just the ridiculous amount of guns. They’re just there to pad the way through this 30+ hour story.

Borderlands is structured in a somewhat linear way, yet it’s a huge world, with a lot of interesting characters and moments that will have you talking about them in one of those water cooler situations. Or in my case around a bottle of vodka on a Saturday night.

Now it’s rare for me to always want to play a game no matter what I’m doing, but I found myself at work, playing World of Warcraft, or watching a film and not even thinking about that stuff. All I had on my mind was Borderlands. The last game to do this was Age of Conan. Yeah, it’s been a while.

Sadly, there’s a sort of killer in the game: the story. It isn’t that the story isn’t good, it’s that it’s not amazing like every other aspect of the game. Everything else is so polished I guess something had to suffer. It’s a lot like playing an MMO. I’ll get a quest, I don’t read anything, I just go and do it, mostly because there’s a 99% chance it wants me to kill something and get loot. The main story is scattered around here and there, but you won’t really know it or care for it. You’re on Pandora, a planet at the edge of the galaxy, you’re looking for some Vault that has weapons and riches–or so they say–what’s in there? Play the game and figure it out… go! THAT’S IT! Yeah, not the best, but whatever.

The story won’t matter, and you wont even care because the best part of this game is co-op. We know all the rage these days is to be able to play with your friends, and this game has you covered! At any time you can invite friends into your game, and the AI and monsters scale to all of you so it does get harder, but you also get more XP, more things to kill, and better LOOT! You can do the whole game with three friends, but you all need to be around same level (or two levels up or down from one another) to maximize proficiency without the low-level player in your group getting stomped.

If you go in there and coordinate your attacks you’ll have a blast. If you aren’t lucky enough to have friends, you can still play single-player all the way through. And lets face it, you’re on PC so if you’re like me your only friends are WoW players who pretend to be chicks to get free items anyway (guilty!) .

The biggest gripe people seem to have is the graphics and visual presentation. Remembering back when this game was announced I had no interest in it. It looked like a Fallout 3 clone. Yeah I said it. And people, I’m telling you I love Fallout 3 but it’s not the Best Game Ever as some claim. Borderlands is presented in an almost cell-shaded look–I don’t know how to classify it but it’s damn sexy. The way the filtering and lighting works is awesome and it really brings the world to life. Even though most of the world is destroyed and full of junk it still looks good.

Borderlands really hit the spot I’ve been waiting for: a huge world, nice visuals, awesome co-op, easy to play, and FUN! That’s the core word, Borderlands is fun! You can die over ten times on the same thing and it’s still fun.

I could go into details on some of the boring inventory management because there really is a lot of loot to deal with, but that’s one very small gripe, and by the time you hit level 30 you’ll have plenty of space money and all the guns you prefer. Rating this game is hard. Not because I’m having trouble with giving it a amazing score, but because even a game like Metal Gear Solid 4 has gripes. This one has them too, but they’re minor.

So let me just cut to the score and give it 4.7/5 Pastries. Borderlands is a prime example of how to take a simple concept like shoot-kill-loot and make it amazing! If you get a chance to pick up this game now or when it’s cheaper do yourself a favor and do it: you won’t regret it. Gearbox has done an amazing job and deserves the money.

You read that right. And if you know anything about Facebook, you know yourself some Mafia Wars! But did you know there’s a similar game suited more appropriately for les femmes? Yus! You’ve probably seen their ads on Facebook and said to yourself: “No. Fucking. Way.” Well I am now House Mother of a growing Sorority Life family Sisterhood.

And for you, my audience, it doesn’t have to be my daughter’s wedding day for me to take the bullet, try this game, and then report back. I have a sentimental weakness for my children and I spoil them, as you can see.

I’ve had a morbid curiosity with these Facebook apps ever since My Heroes Ability, which is a game that gives you superpowers that you use on your friends, enemies, and random mobs. It’s free to play, at the time it was pretty addictive (not too many great apps on Facebook back then) and you can, like, paint the future and stuff.

I’d made a specialty out of knowing my free MMO’s back in my Computer Games Magazine days, and naturally in my search I stumbled upon a lot of regular ole Flash games–some of them were very innovative. Even so, Facebook has some really great applications that trump a lot of the free MMO-style games on the web both then and now.

I love the instant gratification I get from playing on Facebook, how I can coerce certain male players into joining my Sorority House Cake PI (seriously awesome name for a sorority house.) I even created a Facebook group for my Sisters to meet up–and it has a Code of Conduct!

It’s like I’m a real House Mother, except that I’d probably be trying to have LESS women in my house than trying to have as many sisters as possible. So far it’s been fun! I’m a multi-millionaire, I have like two jets, two Escalades, a yacht, and probably hundreds of shoes. The best part? No extra carbon footprint! It’s like all the benefits of hoarding expensive goods without any drawbacks!

I don’t even pay for storage. Although I do pay upkeep costs.

Overall I never really dug Mafia Wars. It wasn’t because you had to friend hundreds of strangers to improve you chances of moving up the ladder. You do that in Sorority Life too. I guess I just don’t like violence. I’m a businesswoman. Blood is a big expense. I much prefer to spend my money on fabulous dresses, accessories, and hairstyles.

So join me in my evil ways. Be a part of my Sorority House Group Cake PI on facebook. You should be able to find me and friend me with “SL” in your message for a friend request.

Just don’t ever take sides with anyone against the House again. Ever.

This blog may feature Pirates or Ninja from time to time but is mostly not about them. I don’t care if you think my choice to capitalize those nouns is wrong, incorrect, or somehow damaging to grammar. I just properly spelled grammar, and because I can do that I have full liberty to meddle with style choices like CAPITAL LETTERS. Suck it!

It’s almost painful writing a first blog post, because right now you really have no incentive to read it, knowing nothing about me or what the hell I want to write. Or who the fuck writes like that. Really?! Mostly you will be able to follow along nicely if you like things like Pie or Cake, or if you’re a friend to geeks, nerds, dorks, or Star Trek fans. Who doesn’t like Star Trek?

That was a rhetorical question.

If you look down the aisle at any grocery store line, you’re statistically looking at 40% more Star Trek fans than you think you are. We’re everywhere. Just saying.

I plan on keeping things interesting, but honest. Which explains all the swearing clever word choices I like to partake of. You may get to hear the latest story about how I did something cool to someone else while playing a videogame. Yes, cool. I don’t care how much they cried about it. Or maybe I’ll tell you the latest D&D joke. Btw, what did one Druid say to the other? Nothing, they were using Wild Shape. They just woofed.

I also plan to write up some occasional observations about random geek culture. Overall, these will be limited to my imagination. And as John Lennon says: “Reality leaves a lot to the imagination”.