raphael.longbournprods.com

Orccon, one of the four annual game dork love-ins put on by the Strategicon people, is approaching this weekend, a chance for tons of gamers to get together, throw insults at one another, declare their love/hate of American style games, and share the body odor.

Actually, I have to say that I’m really looking forward to this, because it’s the first shot out of the gate for the newly-managed and newly-energized Strategicon group, a kind of gaming institution here in the land of smog and sand. His Majesty Lord Knizia will be presiding over events, lending his distinctive German analytical fame to the proceedings, and giving Strategicon a certain amount of international lustre. So it’s kind of all eyes on La-La Land as a hopefully better and brighter era is ushered in for gaming cons in this corner of the hemisphere.

As the first of a new chapter in gaming con history for Los Angeles, it couldn’t come at a more opportune moment, right on the heels as it is of the announcement by those jerks at Gencon that last Autumn’s Gencon SoCal was to be the last. I took this announcement with more or less the dignity of a toddler who’s tipped his milk off the high chair, because a concatenation of stellar incidents and a general alignment of the planets all designed to screw me over made sure that I was forced to miss out on GenCon SoCal. This was bad enough when I just thought I’d missed it for a year, but the last ever? That was pretty bloody crushing.

With GenCon SoCal fast fading into a nostalgic memory, and the sting of missing out on the last ever still smarting, I’ve set my sights squarely on the Strategicon chaps to replace that huge aching cavern of sorrow in my chest with a brimming pool of joy and gaming euphoria. And Reiner.

For those who don’t know, the reason this Strategicon is the first of a new era is that Strategicon is under new management. Gaming management. And like college-bound computer nerds at math camp, they’re desperate for the approval of their peers. Which is why there’s a sort of extra buzz surrounding this event, and why it seems to jammed with activity and gamingness. And Reiner.

For a little background on the Strategicon tale, check out Eric Burgess’ very nice boardgame podcast Boardgame Babylon for the tale. Eric will be a kind of major player in the convention proceedings, emceeing lots of the Reiner events (and perhaps holding Reiner’s sceptre and crown when he gets weary), and he’s in thick with all these Southern Californian boardgaming types, so he’s got the lowdown (besides, he’s a good podcaster).

Also, as any self-respecting nerdy enterprise does, Strategicon has its own website (duh): here.

Maybe I’ll see some of you there. I’ll probably be the one begging in the lobby for food money after spending my worldly all in the dealer’s room…

Technorati tags: Orccon, Strategicon, boardgaming.

I may not have written much on this blog — at all — in recent months, but I actually have been writing. I totally blew nanowrimo (although that material will find a new home in the near future; more on that soon), but I did a short story for my Internet buddy Dustin Cooper, who has a highly entertaining podcast called Zomcast, which helps us all come to terms with the modern world’s most disturbing threat: the zombie.

Part one of the romantically titled “Stench” appears in episode 3 of Zomcast, which has just been posted, and the second half will be in episode 4, which has not.

Visit the Zomcast homepage here to download it and the other episodes. It’s a great podcast. Really, not just because my story is in it.

Like or hate the story, you cannot help but have your breath taken away by the masterful reading of Sarah Fenn, who took time away from the bestest podcast in the whole world, Does My Geek Look Big In This?, to read the story. And. It. Fucking. Rocks. Halfway through writing this baby, I realized that I was writing it to her voice — if she had not agreed to do it, I don’t know what I would have done.