This weekend is the Penny Arcade Expo 2006, aka PAX, in cute downtown Bellevue. I was unsure that I would be in this area during the period of pre-registrations, and so on Friday (after picking up a Ford Taurus to make this semester's weekends easier to control) I stood in line to buy the three day pass. It's been very crazy, hectic, neat, weird, and fun. I've had all sorts of weird, random geeky conversations with people that can only be had in such nerd herds. I've wanted to see a major convention for some time, but haven't until this point had much opportunity (I know that I should at least try Conglomeration, but it just doesn't seem all that major compared to some of the others), partly because I haven't had much incentive to travel just for a convention. Thus, some would say that even with PAX I'm getting only the B experience since I'm commuting from my apartment rather than staying in one of the convention's hotels, drinking, testing the limits of sleep deprivation, and getting invited to such things as random 3am nerf wars. I think part of it is that those things are hard to solo, and I've yet to find a party interested enough in a sci-fi, games, or otherwise nerdly convention to travel somewhere remote.
There are a ton of tournaments going on at PAX, but my focus has been on the lectures and discussion panels. I've attended some pretty neat things so far. The concert with the Video Game Pianist (he made his name on Youtube for playing the SMB theme blindfolded) and the NESkimos was pretty cool. The keynote, Alex St. John, was funny and cool.
I've got some other fun stuff to talk about, but I need to rest for the final few things to see/experience tomorrow...