Reaper pictures:

"This here is our shrinkwrap machine.  Who's first?"



"100% lead my ass.  If they only knew what I do when the litter box is full."



"These molds have a strange brownish tint to them...and they smell odd as well."



"The sign says all employees must wear pants and longsleeve shirts when working with molten lead.  Like that will help."



Someone is a John Carpenter fan.



"We used to have a mannequin that looked like Slim Pickens up there, but the cat kept spraying on it so we had to take it down....and burn it."



"You look like your face fell in the cheese dip back in 1957."



Reaper goodies:

Thanks for the great pictures.  I followed the con as best I could on my cell phone, as I was on the road.  Was thrilled to win the Castle Zygag!

Congratulations to Mike and Doug for what appears to be a real success!  Hope to be there in person next year...

Reflections on Texas, the NTRPGC and why do they call the wind Mariah?
Friday morning, June 5—woke up about 7 AM, did the old S, S, & S thing ("Old swabbie slang for $400, Alex…"), had my usual breakfast of prescription drugs and vitamins washed down with grapefruit juice. (Who named that fruit? Big and yellow outside, yellow or pink inside and sour…Yeah, reminds me of a little purple grape, too…)

Off to the airport to do the Homeland Security Shuffle and Hoedown. (Take off your shoes, remove everything from your body that decency allows, shuffle up and down the line, getting either your socks or bare feet filthy, step into the archway and have jets of air huffed at you from all angles while the machine sniffs you (what happens if you cut one?), then wait for the metal detector to shine green; then shuffle on out again. (My special nightmare is finding out I've been shot when the metal detector reveals the bullets; "Gee, I don't know when that could have happened, Officer.")

Got on something called an Embraer something or other, which I believe is Portuguese for "little tiny sardine can plane". I hadn't been on a jet that small since I left the Navy… Two seats on one side, one on the other; if a passenger is more than about six feet tall, they are bound to have a crick in their neck upon landing if they sat next to the window.

Texas is flat; I mean pool table flat. And it is windy. I had met a gent in the airport in Cincy who was going home to Dallas. In making pleasant chit-chat, the topic turned to temperatures. It was 58° that morning, so I was in jeans. I had been told to expect temps in the 90's, and he concurred, but added that "…we always have a 10 to 15 mph breeze…". I thought to myself, "yeah, right—it's not the temp it's the humidity, yadda yadda yadda." Well, he was right. I think I went outside once when the wind wasn't blowing at 10 to 15 mph; it's like kite-flyer's paradise. In Paint Your Wagon (one of my all time favorite movies; Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin singing?) they sing about the wind that never ceases. So my question is this: Of all the names they might have given to the wind, why Mariah?

What can I say about the two and a half days that followed?
 
I certainly can't say anything bad about a weekend where I was picked up from the airport I was just flown into (gratis), whisked to a lovely new La Quinta Inn (even if I was rooming with Ex-TSR), taken to dinner, treated like someone special and never allowed to pay for anything except when I took a very fun tour at Reaper Miniatures and bought a copy of Munchkin to play with my grandkids and a figure that I hope to get Blackmoor's wife to paint)? (Buy more Reaper figures; they gave me a free shirt so that I would promote them. If you have a nice shirt and give me one, I'll shill for you, too.)

Doug Rhea, and his most able henchman Mike Badalato (aka BadMike), did a first-rate job of organizing the event. I predict a great future for their con. A nice cozy venue, of a size suitable for the attendance; lots of soft drinks, water and snacks available at break-even prices (as opposed to gouging the hell out of the attendees); a most interesting and genteel crowd of attendees and a whole boatload of fun that was had by all, as near as I can tell.

I came home with a logo'ed shirt with my name on it, a coffee cup of similar decoration, a nifty little dice-bag with the logo, and something I can honestly state that I have never, ever found at any other con I have ever been to, anywhere: a throw-pillow with the con logo on it.

While all of this was going on, I met dozens of interesting people, ran a couple of adventures that I think we all enjoyed equally, went to a cook-out at Doug's house complete with slushy-machine full of very stout margaritas, was stabbed in the back and killed during Al's game by a member of my own party, had my first ever (from the DM's side of the shield) TPK when the party of seven released the 22nd Level Lich that Paralyzed them all, made many friends (I think and hope), put a lot of faces to a lot of screen-names, and renewed a couple of acquaintances of decades past with Paul Jaquays and Dennis Sustare, and hooked back up with the aforementioned Al Silcock who repeatedly told one and all how I had petrified him twice in the Tower of Gygax adventure at last year's GenCon.

I haven't had this much fun since longer than I care to remember. The only thing that could possibly have made it better would have been a six or seven hour guided fishing trip on Texoma. (No, Doug, you don't have to do that for me next year—just exercising some hyperbole. I'm an avid would-be bass fisherman.)

It was fun watching old friend Rob forcing his groups to jump through the hoops of his choosing; Frank was weaving his magic; I got to observe grodog at work--get in one of his games if ever you have the chance--, I saw and heard a lot of laughing, smiling and camaraderie—all the best things about gaming were very much in evidence this past weekend. And I also did a first; in Sat. night's adventure, I had two ladies playing. I believe in all the years of tourneys for TSR and in all the years since I only ever had one female player.

So, to Doug, to Badmike, to JohnGuant and all the others that made it such a wonderful weekend for me, Thank You for allowing this old fart to have so much fun. The only negative thing that happened all weekend was having to tell so many to stop calling me "Sir"; I said they can call me that in my classroom but at NTRPGCon, I was just plain "Tim", tho' you made me feel so very much more.

Kaskoid wrote: and hooked back up with the aforementioned Al Silcock who repeatedly told one and all how I had petrified him twice in the Tower of Gygax adventure at last year's GenCon.

i still smile at that

at least it wasnt quite as bad as us all being in the middle of the field when that mass demon army thing was cutting each other to pieces and we were stood there thinking "what the hell?"

tim - get that adventure released man

i need to speak to you and frank about how you set out your pre-gen player sheets - i liked that for sure and would like to use that idea for next time, to save time and effort in preparation.

once again, great to meet you and catch up. my daughter still mentions "that kind man at GenCon who gave me the badge (button for you guys)"

thanks for coming over and giving us all a great adventure.

Al

grodog wrote:I posted some pics to my Facebook profile @ http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1 ... =792814831 and will get them over to Doug and Mike as well.

I only took 17 pictures because I was gaming so much---I didn't even shoot one from behind my screen  :cry:

Won't let you see them without logging into site; I will not be a part of Facebook on GP. Oh well,,,,

I only took 17 as well, and from what I saw skimming through, several of them suck. Oh well, game or photograph? No contest...

Hi,

been trying to contact Doug, but his address keeps bouncing my emails as SPAM.

I am receiving them tho

Cheers,
Malc

Badmike wrote:Doug now has some snippets of video on the NTRPG Con website for those interested....sound quality is variable, but the video itself is crisp and clear!

I'm on a slow 512K connection, so the videos stall every few seconds for me.  Of course, once a video has all been buffered, it plays smoothly.

. . . http://ntrpgcon.com/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=60

woohoo and theres me!

just got home....sheesh i am tired. havent slept since i left mikes....gone waaaay past sleep and feel sluggish.

thanks guys for the great time that i had there - one and all.

and to mike, youre a real friend for putting up with me for a week. also, once again, tremendous to catch up with friends once more.

Best

Al

Well,

From what I understand, Killjoy can only make one trip each year if he gets to make one at all.

He really likes going to GenCon since he likes to have a go at the auction...

So, we are suppose to entice him with an auction next year, AND most important, if his Girlfriend wants to go to GenCon, then we lose him to that... so we need to interest the girlfriend in coming to Texas instead...

We have a year to work on it ...