PAX was awesome. It was better than awesome. The English language lacks the necessary words to describe just how far beyond awesome it was. Think of your favorite hobby. Then imagine 20,000 of your best friends, who all share your passion, collectively gather into one building for an entire weekend. For me, PAX is sort of like that.

I arrived at the convention center around 10:30 am. The doors were not scheduled to open until 2:00 pm. I used this time to play some Mario kart DS, share pictures of penises in picto-chat, and just get acquainted with fellow attendees. I think John met up with me around 12 or so.

Once the doors opened the first thing we did was head up to the PC free play area. By the time we got there though all the games that John was willing to play were being used. So we sat down and got into some wireless games on our DS’s.

Later in the day we were walking by the main theatre when I recognized one of the enforcers guarding the door as one of the guys I rode up with. I think this was about a half hour or so before the first PA panel. We started talking for a bit. Five minutes later I turn around and realize that 50 people had formed a line behind me. Fucking sheep. Within 10 minutes this line formed into a mob. Some one emerged from the theatre with a large blue Bawls beach ball and tossed it into the crowd. We made a game out of trying to get the ball to the fourth floor. Not all at once mind you. We hit it up to the second floor where they would hit it up to the third floor where they would hit it up to the fourth.

At some point during this exercise it occurred to me that here you had maybe seven thousand geeks gathered into a cluster, each one toting a Nintendo DS, many having various other portable electronic entertainment devices, and the way we decided to amuse ourselves was by playing with a ball. I think it was at this point that some one shouted “All hail the ball” which got the entire crowd chanting it.

Understand now that Gabe and Tycho are standing back stage waiting to go on. They hear all this unintelligible cheering and shouting coming from outside the theatre and they have no idea what to make of it. They later described to us the terror they felt, imagining that maybe the mob would come in and harm them in some way. At some point into the panel the crowd starting chanting once again “All hail the ball” much to Gabe and Tycho’s confusion. It was later explained to them that we were playing with a ball outside and that was when I learned that the ball had gotten stuck on a rafter on the fourth floor. It was suggested that once the ball had been retrieved by the Maydenbuer staff that it be auctioned off at this year’s child’s play charity dinner, much to the delight of the crowd.

So if you read my Sims comic, now you know what my character is talking about as he’s walking home with John and Jesus.

The next day would be when the exhibition hall doors opened and next to the normal line to get into the convention was a separate line to get into the exhibition hall. Though I really wanted to get into the expo hall I wasn’t prepared to stand in line for it just yet. I never did stand in line for it either. Later in the day John and I were lounging on some bean bags in the wireless lounge playing against total strangers no more than 10 feet away from us, when we were asked to move to make way for the Tetris DS tournament. Understanding just how important it was, John and I quickly grabbed our stuff and moved to another area of the wireless lounge. While we were discussing the possibility of getting in line for the expo hall the enforcer who had asked us to move said that since we were such good sports, she would walk us past the line straight into the exposition hall. Awesome!

The expo hall was great. All the major players in the video game industry were there showing off their new and upcoming titles. Though I was a little disappointed that Nintendo didn’t have the Wii on the show floor they made up for it with the really great DS demos they had.

After browsing the various games being shown John and I headed over the PA booth to buy some Penny Arcade merch. After about 5 minutes of waiting in line, I reach in my pocket and realize that my wallet is missing. Then I remembered that I had it out when I bought a bottle of Bawls earlier and then went to sit down in the wireless lounge. I must have left it behind when we were asked to move. So we leave the expo hall and head over to where we had been sitting and asked the people sitting there if they had seen my wallet. They hadn’t. One of the enforcers suggested that I go see Princess Red Dot at the main desk which doubled as the lost and found. So I went over there and sure enough they had it. I went through it to check that everything was still there. It was. PAX is such an honest crowd.

Some time into day three there was no line for the expo hall so John and I were able to enter freely. I finally got to get my Penny Arcade merch. A PAX06 t-shirt, a copy of the second Penny Arcade Book and a Poster of Gabe and Tycho on the Subway all for forty dollars. I guess I should also mention that the Bawls booth was completely sold out so I was unable to obtain a couple cases as I had planned. We caught the second PA panel and then the final round of the Omegathon, which was revealed to be Tetris. LeRoy, the runner-up from last year, went head to head with DaveTron. LeRoy won by default as DaveTron stacked his blocks all the way to the top twice in a row. The prize this year was a brand new 2006 Scion. The car, we were told, was doubled in value by all the video game hardware Gabe and Tycho had pimped it out with.

And thus, as the Omegathon came to a close, and the winner had his new car keys tucked safely away in his pocket, PAX was now officially over. John and I ran quickly up to the Console free play room to get in one final round of Super Smash Bros Melee and then headed back down to the theatre to get my book signed by Gabe and Tycho.

There is a lot more I could tell you about PAX, from Hotdog Fairies to PC mods that pissed out orange juice, but I think this news post is long enough as is.

If you enjoy video games, even a little, and you have not yet been to the Penny Arcade Expo, then I fully expect to see you there next year. Trust me. You’ll love it. Also I'm sure some of my comments in this post seem odd. So feel free to e-mail me questions and comments and I will post them up and respond to them. If I ever get around to scripting a comments feature we'll eventually add one but until then this will have to do. Oh and one more thing before I go. While browsing through other websites that have covered PAX I have collected a few pictures of myself that they have taken. I'll be posting those shortly. I'd love to give credit to these websites for the pictures they took but it just dawned on me that I forget which sites I got them from. So if by chance you find a picture here that you took please feel free to let me know and I'll credit you right away. Or if you'd prefer I not put your pictures of me up then I guess I'll take them down.