PAX East: A Saturday In Boston

The dreaded question popped into my head after arriving at Hynes Convention Center, the location of PAX East: did I put on my deodorant? The real person to ask would be Rich McGrath, the "developer wunderkind" of Bitmob. His words, not mine (but I do agree, killer website design). You'd ask him because he sat next to me at dinner last night, and we were all crammed at a small table, and so on.

Backing up: I was able to procure a ticket to PAX East at the last minute. Some poor soul wasn't able to obtain a baby sitter for his young child, so he had to sell it.

Elated, I quickly called my friend Buddy and told him I'd be able to accompany him to the event. He was also elated. Both of us, him and me, were elated, as you can imagine. I hope elated means really happy, and if it doesn't, that's how I mean it. I'd be elated if it meant that. Okay, done.

One of our goals for the trip was to find Irrational Games. They didn't have any sort of booth, but since they're located in Boston, they made a trip to the show every day to hand out prizes and participate in some of the panels. I'm a big fan of their work, namely Bioshock, so you can imagine my excitement. If you can't imagine my excitement, try. If that isn't working, perhaps insert your favorite developer in place of the name Irrational Games, and you'll start getting the idea. Okay, done.

They sent out a Tweet saying they were on their way to the show. Irrational, I mean. They're the ones who sent out the Tweet. We waited for a second Tweet, but instead became engaged with the show floor. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of E3. There were games to play, free stuff, and big, detailed booths. Cosplayers were in abundance, as were people who just wanted to dress in strange clothing. One guy had footie pajamas on. I believe it's also called a onesie, but that's what I call my childrens pajamas, so it feels weird to say it about a grown persons outfit. But there you have it.

After attending the Kotaku and N'Gai Croal panel, which was splendid I might add, we checked Twitter again, hoping there would be an update from Irrational. There wasn't. We headed outside, hoping they would be just pulling up, or just coming in, or on-our-way outside we'd bump into them. But we didn't. And they weren't outside, either.

It was cold, so we headed back inside. The convention center is connected to a mall, so there were several ways of getting back inside PAX. We took one of the alternate routes through the mall, passing through the enormous food court, and were trying to figure out which way we needed to be heading.

While we were deciding which wrong way we didn't want to go, I did a double-take as a person passed me. I was pretty sure it was Ken Levine, the head-honcho of Irrational Games. We abandoned our failing attempt at finding our way back to the show and followed this Ken Levine-possible.

He was walking with a girl, who helped us decide to go for it. She helped us decide because the t-shirt she was wearing had a list of every Irrationl game ever made. Her name is Meredith, which also happens to be my daughter's name. Turns out the Ken Levine-possible was Ken Levine-actual.

Ken was very nice. He stopped and chatted with us for a bit, then called the rest of the Irrational guys to find out where they were, and instructed them to give us free stuff when we, my friend and I, finally made our way back to the show. I had my friend take a picture of Ken and myself standing together, pretending to be best buddies. After my friend took the picture, he handed me the camera. Which was just my phone – I failed to remember to charge my real camera's batteries, so they were dead. So it goes.

I took my phone from my friend and looked at the great picture. It was really something, too, and I can still see it in my mind. We really did look like old friends, together again at long last. Separated by time and distance, reunited by chance, fate. It was magic. Okay, done.

Again: I received my phone camera from my friend, looked briefly at the picture, then closed my phone. What I failed to realize at the time, of course, was that I had to hit the 'save' button. Otherwise, the picture would be lost in time forever. In case that wasn't clear enough: the picture is lost in time forever.

But it's not about the picture, it's about the memory. We ran into Ken Levine in the middle of a mall in Boston, on the notion that the Irrational Games people would be outisde, handing out cool t-shirts. Magic.

We eventually found the rest of the Irrational guys and gals, and they filled our bags with shirts and pins.

After that, we wandered around and I bumped into David Ngo, whom I somehow recognized. He was really cool and nice and shared his insight on the show, having been a faithful attendee of the Seattle PAX. He didn't think PAX East was up so Seattle snuff, but he was having fun.

Finally, we ended up in another panel about podcasts. Ken, my old friend, was one of the speakers. While waiting in line, prior to the panel starting, I spotted Derek Lavigne. When the panel ended, I was able to talk to him, Derek, and he invited myself and Buddy out to dinner with Brett Bates, Jeff Grubb, and Rich McGrath. Bitmob picked up the bill. Rich used his Bitmob credit card. I tried talking him out of it, but he simply wouldn't have it any other way.

Those were my two highlights of the show: meeting Ken Levine, my old friend, and having dinner with some Bitmobbers. I couldn't have asked for more.

So back to my original question: did I forget to wear my deodorant, or did I just forget that I had put it on? Rich, this questions for you. But please don't answer if I did forget, that might be embarrassing for me.

Like I mentioned, I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so a thousand words is worth one picture, right? So this post is worth one picture, plus a very small corner of another.