10.15.00
A strange trip through something called ICON, an annual convention of strange role-playing, costume-wearing friends and strangers. I see more people I know from out of town at this event that I see people I know that still live in town on a regular basis, and it's not until ICON that I realize that I miss most of them*.
When I drove up to the hotel in the first place, I was confused because it was a Ramada instead of being the Westfield, and I wasn't sure I was at the right place. I figured there'd be a sign at the entrance stating, "WELCOME ICON!" since the entire hotel was to be rented out, but it only proclaimed "WELCOME!"
I decided to cruise the parking lot, looking for likely con-goers, and after a few passes decided I had arrived at the correct destination, since everyone I saw outside fit the generic convention pattern: Unattractive larger women in earthy/tie-dye/cute t-shirts, and older, larger, nerdy men in role playing gamer or scientifically-oriented t-shirts, generally both with bad hair.
That's a funny thing about conventions like ICON, that they seem to attract a 'larger' crowd**. I figured that since it was 8-o'clock I would see a large number of them returning from whatever buffet they'd been grazing at for the last several hours. A single cruise through the lot yielded a huge return on my suspicions, and I grabbed a parking place.
I wasn't on any sort of official guest list, nor did I pay entrance for my 2 hours of mingling. I watched some friends play a game, whisked several away to a desultory dinner at Perkin's, and then returned to watch and play a silly, morbid game.
Two years ago, the rage was Guillotine, the game where you win by getting a-head. Everyone plays executioners during the French Revolution, and whoever has the most heads (and related points) at the end of the game wins. This year, the cool game was Witch Hunt, where 1/5th of the players are witches, one player is a prophet, and the rest are paranoid villagers. The villagers win by burning all of the witches, and the witches win by a) killing as many villagers as possible, b) avoiding execution while the villagers burn each other at the stake, and c) ultimately ending up with either an equal or greater number of witches to villagers. Guess who was quickly burnt at the stake? Here's a clue, my jewelry jingles suspiciously.
Around midnight, some sort of orgiastic ritual involving rotund people and chocolate was supposed to occur, so I fled with my wits intact, bidding adieu to those I saw and recognized. It was a good trip all around, but I wish that I didn't have so much to do tomorrow, cutting my evening short.
*I also like going to ICON because most of the women present are exceptionally unattractive. Merely being present makes me one of the hottest chicks in the entire hotel, which is a good ego boost. Compared to most of the women present, it'd be like Sarah Michelle Gellar, or whoever you think is a super hot chick, wandering into one of these conventions. I get big appreciation points for being attractive in the midst of so much ugliness. (See my head swell!) And I even got complimented on smelling nice!
**Some friends and I were speculating on the correlation between body size and gaming ability. It seems that generally, the larger people at cons seem to be the most proficient at any given gaming system that happens to be presented for play. I think it's because in order to become that proficient, you wouldn't have the time to run 10 miles everyday. You'd have to be making character creation sheets, poring over manuals, and playing the games for hours on end, procluding much physical activity beyond pacing, shuffling papers, turning pages and rolling dice. Also, when you're on your can that much, it's very easy to much on the chips and pizza that generally appear at gaming sessions.
If I were a chubby-chaser, the sort into the large-and-in-charge female, I would travel from gaming convention to gaming convention, because a solid 80% of the portlier women present feel compelled to cram themselves into something suggestive and skin-tight for the entire convention. If you were that sort of fetishist, you wouldn't be able to leave your suite for all the monkey spanking that would be ongoing. A quick peek out the windows would be more than adequate.
