Monday, May 8
E3 2006, Day -1

To DFW

There are times when living in Texas is a pain in the butt. Actually, it’s not so much that Texas is a pain, it’s that it’s so durn big.

Perhaps it’s better to note: it’s a pain in the butt living in the middle of nowhere in a huge state.

Don’t get me wrong. Abilene is a nice place. It’s just that it also happens to be the armpit of civilization, a city with a single (small) skyscraper rising out of the vastness that is the West Texas prairie, much like a single finger pointing towards heaven. Or perhaps flipping off God. Really depends on your religious preference.

In any case, it was an extra $200 to actually fly out of Abilene into Dallas. Since the airplanes were turbo-props, I kinda viewed that as paying $200 to risk life and limb in a fiery crash. I’m poor, and somewhat attached to my limbs, so I opted to get to DFW by alternate means. At first, that was a Greyhound, but my family (mom, aunt, grandmother) graciously offered to drive me out and see me off. I accepted happily.

Unfortunately we left a good number of hours early, so I arrived at the airport with time to kill. Hence, this first part of the narrative. It only took me 15 minutes to wander around long enough to find a seat beside an electrical plug. But what, you say? It’s a laptop. Yes, I say. It’s a laptop that’s on its dying legs, er rubber bumpers and whose close cousin, the battery, has already deceased.

Which I thought was going to be a problem going through security. Now, I haven’t flown since 9-11, so I did research beforehand. I say research. What I mean is obsessively reading horror stories and then applying such scenarios to me. All at once. It’s fun living with my imagination.

So when I get to the security standpoint, I’ve asked my family to stay and make sure that I don’t get hauled off and that all my possessions will be able to travel with me. From my reading, I deduced that they’re going to ask me to turn on everything electronic that I own. For the record, that’s

Laptop (with dead battery – needs an ac plug)
Nintendo SP
Nintendo DS
cellphone
Nikon D50 camera (prosumer model, fast lens (read: looks suspicious))
backup camera

Of course, I’ve situated every single one of those inside their own carrying case inside my bag. So I grab a bin and start dumping stuff, including my shoes and backpack. What’s funny is that I realize halfway through that not all of my possessions will fit in a single bin; I have to go back for another. And I have to assemble the D50 as it travels componently.

Now to send everything through. I get through the metal detector fine. Naturally, my possessions do not. Security guy brings out my two bins and looks at them somewhat quizzically. I gave a half-hearted explanation that I figured I’d have to turn everything on. He shakes his head and says that laptops go through by themselves. Shuffles the bins around, runs it back through.

And that’s it.

Yay for paranoia.

One final note for the airport; I heard the following announcement come through at regular intervals:

“For security reasons… passengers must avoid transporting luggage without their knowledge.”

I know what it means. But, really, does that actually make sense?

Arriving in Los Angeles

Flying is only fun if you enjoy playing sardines. For three hours. With strangers. (Which is to say, despite my fond memories of playing sardines and finding my sweetheart first, rewarded with a kiss, I don’t particularly enjoy flying.) 6 foot, 200 lb guys are not meant to shoved into such small spaces.

Still, the flight itself was not so bad. I spoke one sentence to my seatmate. I also started playing Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga again; by again, I mean that I’m picking it up after almost a year of having stopped six hours in. I remembered why I decided not to continue, but I’ll save that for the review.

As we landed in LAX, I opened the window and saw mountains. It’s kinda funny that everytime I see mountains, I think to myself: “Mountains, Gandalf! I want to see mountains!”

Xerozohar had arranged for a friend, Pete, to pick us up from the airport; by us, I mean Vigi and Paws who were supposed to meet me at the baggage claim.

Half of the plan worked.

Pete did manage to get me, and we had a nice conversation on the way over to the hotel. We went along the 405, the 2nd most congested highway in the world, according to Pete. And the hotel is downtown, and it’s quite nice.

Meeting people whom you have never actually seen in person but whom you know of from internet contact is an interesting experience. It’s quite fun to match up personalities with profiles and to suddenly have visual images of all these people that I’ve known for 6-8 months.

And it’s really nice that we’re all nerds. No, really. There’s no hiding it, it’s completely unabashed nerdom. D&D discussions over Denny’s with people trying to see who’s the nerdiest. Awesome.

We’ve assigned out press conferences, but I really have no idea what’s going on. Tomorrow will see more details and actual E3 stuff. I hope.

1. E3 2006 - Day -1 - The Day Before the Storm
2. E3 2006 - Day 0 - Adjustments to the Invasion
3. E3 2006 - Day 1 - VG Day
4. E3 2006 - Day 2 - Invasion of the Booth Babes
5. E3 2006 - Day 3 - Behold the Power of the Media Pass
6. E3 2006 Pictures - Day -1 and 0
7. E3 2006 Pictures - Day 1
8. E3 2006 Pictures - Day 2
9. E3 2006 Pictures - Day 3
10. E3 2006 Pictures - Booth Babes and Swag