Like being in Eureka

[wickedwords]

So, Saturday's PAX concert was held in Eureka, more or less. Early in the morning, people neatly lined up for wristbands, and played their handheld games while standing in the lines. Guys would walk up and down the switchback holding up signs to 'download this demo' or 'that demo', and conversation not only covered D&D or WoW, but what Science Monthly was up to at this point.

The evening was similar, except that son got roped into a 'Math War' with the guys behind us. They were a group of 6 men and 2 women, and one of the guys pulled out a game, and downloaded it to all of the handhelds in the group. Then it was a head-on full-body math competition, with everyone solving problems as fast as they could, and dropping out when they either input 3 incorrect or too slow answers. Evan wasn't the first to drop, and it was a lot of fun, as the crowd whooped and hollered over the math competition, cheering 'go! go! go!' to see who could solve the problems the fastest.

Then we went into the concert, which was a giant auditorium with no chairs, a stage with a camera mounted on a 25-ft boom, and two projection screens at the right and left sides. The opening act were the 8 winners of the guitar hero competition, split into two teams of 4, the photoshop warriors and the dangling participles. They went head-to-head, first on 'Dead or Alive' and then on 'Creep', with the Photoshop Warriors taking first place.

At that point, people hauled in the giant pillows from the hand held lounge, and started settling down on the floor in a huge semi-circle to watch the screens, stage, and crowd. The concert itself was a blast, and Jonathon Coulton interacted well with the everyone, including the camera. There were some very fun moments, like during his cover of 'Baby Got Back' when most of the crowd of 2K+ held up their Nintendo DS handhelds as lights. Oh, and the cheers that rose up from the group when he said he was doing a song about math. 'I think this is the only place where if I said I was doing something about the Mandelbrot set, it would get a reaction like that.' Really, it was the crowd that made the whole show.

Comments

[kimberlite.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that it's so totally cool to hear about this event and that your family is experiencing it together. :)

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

It was very clear to me that the twenty-somethings behind us in line were 'taking care' of my son as it really sucks to have your parents go with you to a con. I was laughing so hard on the inside at some of this stuff, you know. ::makes hand wavy gestures::

So geeky and so much fun.