Last weekend I’ve been to Boston in order to attend PAX East. For those of you who don’t know what that is – shame on you! – it’s a gaming convention put together by the guys at Penny Arcade. It takes place every year in Seattle but this time they decided to have one for the East coast – fortunately – so me and my friends could attend.

We were five guys – me, Ethan, Cary, Sean and their friend Jo – the latter three even scored media badges since they have a blog where they review video games. Since they needed to pick up those badges earlier, they took Thursday off and jumped on a bus to Boston during the afternoon. Me and Ethan drove there at night, after work.

The Gang

Friday morning we got hit with the crappiest weather imaginable – a mixture of rain and snow – which fortunately didn’t last much. The expo doors were opening at 2PM so in the morning we went to check out a related event, an Xbox360 press conference held at the Microsoft New England Research & Development Center at MIT.

Microsoft NERD

The main spokesman for the Xbox – Major Nelson – was there to talk about 360 news and took some pictures with us. He had a Q&A session and gave the audience a bunch of prizes. Cary walked out with a copy of  Forza Motorsport 3.

In the afternoon we went to the main convention center, got our badges and swag bags. There were a huge number of people in there – the total headcount was at 60.000 – which means there were lines pretty much everywhere, especially to play the new games. We also missed most of the panels for the same reasons; the only big event we got into was the Nvidia GTX 480 launch, for which we lined up an hour before.

PAX East

My biggest achievement was sneaking in to see a private demo of Civilization V (which was completely booked as well). It looks absolutely fantastic, I can’t wait for it to come out. Ethan spent his time mostly playing Left 4 Dead 2 (which is the same thing he does every night at home) and the others went around interviewing game developers. At the end of the day we had dinner at a Cheesecake Factory near the convention center with some of Sean’s friends for Boston.

On Saturday morning I took another dose of gaming, this time with an old favorite – Magic: the Gathering. Played a couple of games on the floor which netted me some free cards in the end. I spent all my other time taking pictures of cosplayers.

Cosplayers

In the afternoon we were joined by one of Ethan’s friends from Boston. Since I wanted to check out the city anyway, I left him at the convention with my badge and took a walk in downtown Boston.

Around Boston

I walked about half the city – from the convention to the Civic Center, Theater District, Chinatown (with a stop for bubble tea ), City Hall and Cambridge Bridge. I met up with the others around 7, when we went for dinner to a famous Boston burger place. While driving back – it was already night – I realized that from Harvard bridge I could take some very nice pictures of the city at night, so after we got to the hotel I went back out to brave the freezing cold (and believe me, it was cold) and took some pictures.

Boston at Night

Sunday we took one last stroll around the expo and after lunch me and Ethan headed back to NYC. The others had interviews until late and they returned with a bus at night. Overall it was a great trip, can’t wait for next year!

On Friday I went with a bunch of friends to see ATB in concert. Can’t say I’m a huge fan, but I like some of his songs and a concert is always a good occasion for some crazy time with friends.

We got there at 9:30 and the doors opened at 10. For a good two hours a local DJ was warming up the crowd, while the hall was slowly filling up. Finally at midnight, the main guy came in. We cheered, shouted “ATB!”, we danced, all happy… until 1am. When the real ATB came on stage In my/our defense, the stage wasn’t too close and we didn’t know the guy’s face to begin with (well, we recognized the real one actually). And what entertainer comes on stage 3 hours after the doors open?!?

Overall the concert was a lot of fun. I danced almost non-stop from 11 until 2:20 when we left the place. Predictably, some people got (very) drunk which made the whole night even more entertaining. Fun times.

This week was too long. And that’s considering the fact it had only 4 days (since on Monday I just got back from Canada). On Tuesday I found a pile of work with my name on it and it only got bigger throughout the day. Long story short, I had a demo to put up by Friday and that turned some of those days into 12-hour marathons.

Now I’m not complaining. Every once in a while work picks up and I have to crank things – and it’s still a good time. The only crappy thing about this time was the fact that I got sick on Monday evening – just a cold, nothing more serious – and I had to spend these intense working days with a hazy brain. So much for focusing. Alas, the demo turned out OK.

The weekend weather didn’t help much – it rained like hell most of the time. Spring can’t come soon enough.