Cake-Pie

I knew that the really cool plans that I laid out in my pre-pax schedule were subject to change, and they did!

Thursday: Joe Kozachek drove us from Burlington, Vermont and while he drove, I worked really hard at looking at stuff. We made it to Cambridge around 5:30ish where I took the Green Line from the Science Center to my destination: HYNES! Obejective: Make it to my Gameshark dinner with Troy Goodfellow, Jenn Cutter, Meghan Watt, and Rob Zacny, PLUS have time to grab my media badge for tomorrow. I was really excited to meet Troy and Jenn for the first time IRL. Troy and I used to write for CGM back in the days of yore, and I also guested on his podcast about the gender gap with Jenn Cutter and Lara Crigger.

My mission was a complete success thanks to Jenn, and I even conquered my insanely humongous bar meal which was really messy. I’m pretty sure I grossed everyone out. We saw a number of pre-PAX East nerds sporting POKEMON stuff, which made Jenn visibly squee. You see, Jenn <3’s Pokemons.

Next, I had to navigate the T system and make it to Cambridge, where the generous Ben Webster of MIT became my hospitable host. He was extremely thoughtful and gracious about me staying at his place with really short notice. Thank you, Sir Webster!

Friday: Welcome to the CLUSTERFUCK. I slept in, donned my Kombo.com shirt like I promised, and showed up to the Hynes about an hour or so early. There was an entire room devoted to the queue. To put that in perspective, imagine the lines at Disney. Now imagine you put all the lines from all the rides together, and you’re in a big room. These guys aren’t even in the queue room. That’s how packed this was. There was a line just to queue. Thankfully, there was queue entertainment which was freaking awesome. I was looking for a video online and didn’t find any, so let me know if you see it.

Went to the Journalists vs Devs: The Ultimate Grudge Match at 2pm featuring panelists Tim Gerritsen (Director of Product Development, Irrational Games), Chris Kohler (Editor, Games, Wired.com), John Drake (Publicist, Harmonix), Patrick Klepek (News Editor, G4), and moderating Jeff Green (Editor-in-Chief, EA). Patrick Klepek was representing the writers well, and probably reading my mind. Also, Jeff was kindof doing a weird not-journalist/not-dev hybrid thing as the host. Something about that sounds familiar but I’m not sure why.

It was great to see Jeff, and we had a few minutes to bond over our dead magazines before running away from the enforcers and Jeff’s adoring fans. We all support you! PS: Jeff Green has balls of steel.

Afterward, there was no way I was getting into the 3pm keynote hosted by Wil Wheaton. I was too late getting out of the panel to wait in the line to get in, which I suspected would happen. So instead I took a look around the Expo floor, and made mental notes about where I would focus my attention. I spoke to devs and others about their games, and miraculously forgot to bring my business cards to the show that day. Which was awesome, because I couldn’t give anyone anything to contact me with.

After futzing for a while around the Expo, I got texts inviting me to meet up with Jenn Cutter’s old buddies at G4 (formerly the superb TechTV) where Jenn used to work. We asked some hot firemen with cool Boston accents how to get to the TC Lounge, fulfilling one of Jenn Cutter’s life goals of hearing an authentic Boston accent. It was a hole in the wall, nearly empty, and strangely decorated with naked ladies and one of those claw arcade games with prizes—only all the prizes were like, asian porn for some reason.

The group was a little concerned that this was not where we were supposed to be, due to the weirdness. But after a while nerds were showing up and it was all good. Jenn introduced us to the amazingly cool Matt Keil, who was super smart and awesome. We talked about games the entire time. Rob left early with his girlfriend, a physicist, who is way cooler than him. Meghan couldn’t stop saying intelligent things and impressing me despite being female. What’s up with that?

We also met and talked with Adam Sessler for a while, which was intimidating at first, but he was so nice. I suggested a game of Rise of Nations with Adam, Matt, and myself. It sounded like the coolest  idea ever, mostly because they kept insisting that they suck at RTSs. Of course, we didn’t invite Troy to play, because he’d just pummel us into meat.

I asked Matt and Adam for business cards, that way I could e-mail them later—also because I didn’t have mine (stupid, huh?). Matt complied, and then Adam said something weird about not having any because he didn’t like to lose money needlessly. I was confused, but was left feeling respect for Adam’s financial savvy. Through the din we figured out that Adam thought I was asking if he had cards so we could play poker or something. It was too fucking loud  in the bar to hear anything. After clearing up that mishap, I offered to teach him how to school at poker, to which he declined, further insisting he was unteachable at poker.

It was the highlight of my day talking shop with such intelligent, informed people. They were so funny and had really interesting things to talk about. I was in awe of every single one of them, honestly. I had a great time watching the lovable Troy Goodfellow drink like a fish, and the adorable Jenn Cutter accidentally scare a hockey fan. Did I mention that Jenn Cutter is my personal badass hero?

I had to leave early and get back to Cambridge, but I had a stupid smile on my face all the way back.

“We’re made of star stuff
We are a way for the cosmos to know itself” –Carl Sagan

This is an epic science cake right here. If you didn’t recognize these men, I’ll help: first you have Richard Feynman on BONGOS. Then Neil deGrasse Tyson AUTOTUNED. Next, Carl Sagan, and BILL NYE.

You might know that Richard Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project, how atomic! But chances are he was a super-famous physicist before your time. He did pioneer that nanotechnology thing, which is a far cry from bongos, and he won the Nobel Prize. In fact, even if you don’t know who he is, he’s probably the reason you know anything about quantum physics, as he spent a lot of his life showing how valuable it was, thus popularizing it.

The amusing thing about Neil deGrasse Tyson autotuned here–besides wanting to shake people in the streets? He did an entire segment on the subject of autotuning for NOVA Science Now, which is very informative. You’ll be an expert in it’s use after you watch him trying to sing.

Naturally, this isn’t the first time Bill Nye has appeared in a music video. Watchers of his show have cringed at the songs included in every episode of Bill Nye The Science Guy.

Carl Sagan is probably best known for his books, of which Contact was one. But did you know he was awesome? I certainly hope so, for the sake of sciencekind. Many of the shots in the video come from his Cosmos television series. Google him.

You may recognize the shot with the skin cells in the picnic guy’s hand from the Powers of 10 video. I watched this in science class a long-ass time ago.  It takes you to the smallest atomic stuff to the biggest cosmological stuff. It’s amazing! You can see it here.

“We have traveled this way before, and there is much to be learned.” –Carl Sagan

Ladies, we all know how much sexier Zachary Quinto is playing Spock in the new Star Trek movie than creepy mother-fucker Sylar on Heroes. There’s a reason: Spock is far more datable than Sylar. That much is obvious. But how datable is Spock himself? I explore this strange, new concept through anecdote and my own clever deductions.

Now I had to look it up, but I remember the episode where Spock was captured by Nazis and tortured for information about the Enterprise shirtless. I know it was like a million years ago when that episode was filmed (or technically, hundreds of years in the future), but Spock was showing off his man-pecs effectively enough to ensure his hottie status. The episode is called “Patterns of Force” from the original series if you want to see what I mean. No manscaping back then, but he looks better than Kirk–who is shirtless in like 20% of Star Trek episodes. He also looks better than Will Riker from The Next Generation. Suck it, Will Riker.

Next: Spock’s sensitive! I know you’re about to argue me on this because “Blah, blah, Vulcans hate emotions, blah, blah”, but we all know how happy he was when he was infected with Omicron Spores and got to live in  paradise and even confessed his love  to the botanist chicky during this time–before Kirk (who was unaffected) ruined it for everyone. This episode is called “This Side of Paradise” because it was.

Before that Spock expressed something like actual joy when his betrothed skank T’Pring made him and Kirk fight to the death while Spock was all plak tow-ed. Spock thought he killed Kirk only to find it was a ruse that Kirk and McCoy planned in order to save the captain. He was all “JIM!!!” and stuff. That’s Vulcan for “Holy shit, man! I’m filled with delight”.

He also plays the Vulcan Lute. Chicks love musicians.

Girls also love witty quips  from emotionally unavailable guys, so there you have two full demographics of female wants completely covered with Spock. Girls who want innocent, sensitive men; and psychos who want emotionally unavailable smartasses.

He lives a lot longer and healthier than normal men, since he’s half-Vulcan, and if you can keep him in the spores, he’s pretty much the nicest, smartest guy ever.

He’d be totally datable and he’s very loyal–as exhibited on the Enterprise in probably 70% of episodes. He’s unlikely to cheat (except for cheating death) because he doesn’t lie. And chances are high that he doesn’t have the herpes.

I have to down-rate him for his completely ridiculous adoration for both Star Fleet and Captain Kirk. You should always come first, ladies, no matter if he’s in his pon farr or not. There’s also the chance that he’s more into guys than girls. Good news for military gays!! This makes him way more datable to you. Bad news for creatures with vaginas that are NOT Captain Kirk.

Points off for his potential crush on Kirk, his obsession with Star Fleet over anything ever, and his 7-year wait for pon farr. Of course, if you can just hit him with spores, none of that will matter! He’ll be happy too, so you don’t have to feel like a poisoning psycho bitch. About his time infected he later reflects that this was the first time in his life at which he had felt happy.

Overall, I’d give Mr. Spock 4 Cake-Pies out of 5 for datability. Did I mention Vulcans have two sets of eyelids? Well, they do.

Obviously this is in reference to the wildly popular Powerthirst video spilling all over youtube (for about two years now) like some kind of awesome plague. Speaking of which, wouldn’t it be great if instead of suffering a horrible death, you got a sweet plague where people all grew an extra set of thumbs or could burp strawberries? I know. Random.

But seriously! If people could dream we’d see some really great video games coming down the pipe. I know it’s a completely new idea to suggest that game developers allow imaginative titles to escape their programming grasp, so please be patient with my wacky new-fangled suggestion. I do want wacky ideas that look like they come from not only the smoking of crack, but the imbibing of alcoholic beverages, and living in Japan. True fact: Hideo Kojima lives in Japan. Not enough proof?

Let’s remember back to Katamari Damacy. Start that game up, watch the opening sequence. You think you’re seeing the badger badger mushroom flash cartoon with some kind of LSD add-on pack that was imbedded in your game case. You try to tell your gamer friends about it and they look at you like you’re a crazy person. “No seriously, this guy gets drunk and breaks the night sky. Yes, he’s the King, no you don’t kill anything. You just grab stuff in a ball.”

And that was a $20 game.

/em: pause for effect

Now, as you know Muramasa has just come out. You don’t know? What the fuck is wrong with you? Go watch the game trailer, and while you’re at it look up Bayonetta. Anyway, I haven’t played it just yet (still wearing down those fucking Rock Band achievements). But I will soon, and when I do, I plan to be blown away. Nay, amazed! I wouldn’t be surprised if that game made me pregnant.

400 Babies?