The Zoo over Ambuscade Street

Oh hell yea. What could be better than two kickass Ed figures? My set won't ship until sometime next month, but it's nice to finally be able to see what I've ordered.

Excuse me now while I twitch like a junkie waiting for the last group of episodes, even though some $#@!^$@^!$$ already spoiled me horribly!!!!

No work tomorrow, get to visit Stacey and Thomas instead. Yay!

From here:

Okay, now, for the Megatokyo crowd and the others who went to Otakon last two years running...

I know a good portion of why some go to cons is to "meet Fred". What Otakon should have proven to everyone is that a good time can be had by all without the Megatokyo crowd present.

That's why I have a humble suggestion for next year's gathering. For two years the massive gathering has been at Otakon, in the northeast. The next gathering is scheduled during the holidays, also in the northeast. The con that has been picked has been an anime con.

Perhaps it's time to try our proverbial hands at a convention geared towards the other half of the Megatokyo spectrum: the gaming.

You read me right. A gaming convention.

Not just any convention, but the four days of wonder and glory that is Gencon Indy.

Hosted in Indianapolis, it provides a different location so the travel burden is switched up a little bit. There is an anime presence at Gencon, but the focus is on gaming, so the gamers among us can have a blast for four solid days and nights.

The dates for 2005's Gencon is August 18-21 at the Indianapolis convention center. By starting to plan o
ut now, this far in advance, we can hopefully eliminate any snafus that may have plagued previous contrips.

My other suggestions is this: open this up to meatspace friends and other online friends, not just people from Megatokyo. The more people we can get to go, the better.

They have gaming of all catagories there: video, PC, tabletop. The dealer's room there has everything you could ever want as far as anime, gaming, sci-fi, or fanatsy goes. (The dealer's room alone is bigger than most conventions I've seen.) There's cosplay, costume contests, and more.

There's also True Dungeon and True Heroes. For the D&D fans... you actually get to dress like a rogue/paladin/fighter/barbarian/wizard/etc and fight your way through a real dungeon, with real traps (non-lethal, of course, except to your character) and real monsters and bad guys.
For those of you who think D&D is lame, there's an equivalent game where you get to be a superhero.
It's an awesome experience.

There's a possibility that you can even run a game or two there, if you're a DM or GM. I'll send you the info for people who want to volunteer, if anyone wants it.

There are panels galore, all taught by many people in the industry. You want to get into making video games? There's panels for that. What about writing fantasy novels? The best writers in the industry are there to help you. I could go on, but I don't have time to list out the hundreds of panels (literally) that are being run over the course of the four days.

They have video rooms and a fucking awesome art show. They have a "jail" that you can have a friend (or enemy) thrown into for awhile... for the right price.

Whether you play Vampire, BESM, Dungeons and Dragons, or anything else tabletop; there's always a game running, and demos galore.

They let the gamers see beta versions of video games long before they are released to the public.

Meet your favorite authors and have them sign your books! Meet the programmers of your games! They always have awesome media guests, so snag a few autographs while you're there!

WIN TONS OF FREE STUFF (dude, you have NO idea. Wizards was giving away megabucks worth of stuff PER PERSON to people who just played their demos.)

No matter what it is that you're looking for in a convention, you NEED to come to this one. The Gencon slogan is "The best four days in gaming!" and that's NOT an exaggeration.

Around January I hope to have a cost estimate for the con itself.

People from Mississippi/Louisiana, I'm putting a local group together over on Niassne.

Travel will be everyone's individual responsibilty as always (get together with your own groups for carpooling and such). Hotels we can either all try to do them together, or we can let everyone fend for themselves and make their own groups.

I want to see who is all interested in this.