For years now, we've had a running conversation about a long-lost Soundwave toy of Rhonda's. Apparantly some dopey cousin left the famous Transformer at their house, and Rhonda and her sisters adopted the toy as their own. I never had Soundwave myself... although I do recall friends who did, and, like most Transformers, the general crappiness of the toy just didn't live up to the cartoon version. But the ability to store and eject mini-transforming cassette tapes was/is undeniably cool.

Rhonda's folks never throw away anything (much like mine), so I've been counting on Soundwave to show up some day. And I fully anticipated inheriting it.

The latest ToyFare ran a picture of the Decepticons' communications expert, so I pointed him out to Rhonda and reminded her that we need to locate him on some future visit. (The following excerpts may be somewhat paraphrased, and may have been extended for dramatic weblog purposes.)

CARRY-ALL - There's something reassuring about putting all your rechargable-battery consumer electronic devices on the charger for the night. It's like tucking them into bed. I know you're down to one bar, little pal, but by tomorrow you'll be ready to go all over again. In preparation for a weekend visit to Mike and Noelle's, I put the iPod, the Hiptop, the iBook and the GBA SP on their respective charging cables. Then I tucked the GameCube into its custom backpack and prepared two additional totes, one for the GBA gear and one for Doomtown stuff. Carrying that and the iBook case makes me into some kind of mobile gaming arsenal.

I've always been a packrat. If I could carry everything I own around with me all the time, I would. On the obsessive side, I like knowing where everything is, and that it hasn't melted in a fire or been burgled and re-sold to GameStop. On the attention-deficit side, I like have entertainment options wherever I happen to be. And I tend to prefer options I have pre-approved.

I have mixed feelings about sleep. I love staying in bed on a lazy Sunday morning, but I despise feeling myself fall apart sometime between the hours of 1am and 3am when I'd much rather continue doing something fun. I hate being sleepy but I like being asleep.

I usually have trouble falling asleep anyway, because my mind will start racing as soon as I hit the mattress. I don't blame my mind for all the bouncy thinking; it's my body's fault that I had to shutdown for the night. In an effort to control the process, I try to confine my slumberbrain to well-laid paths - like further development of my TaleSpin card game, or ideas about a story I'd like to write. The purpose there being to limit my brain to something I've already thought about, so eventually my body can drop off and let the mind shift over into dreams.

Follow this chain of failure: Atari Lynx, Sega Saturn, Nintendo Virtual Boy, Nokia N-Gage.

Talking about their upcoming ultra-weird game/phone hybrid, the N-Gage, Nokia boss Ilkka Raiskinen said "Game Boy is for 10-year-olds. If you're 20 or 25 years old, it's probably not a good idea to draw a Game Boy out of your pocket on a Friday night in a public place."

This quote has been up and down the gaming website world, notably trashed on Slashdot Games and Penny Arcade. Mid-'20s Game Boy players have had no trouble speaking out against the insult, offering up example after example of bringing out their GBAs in public locations. The N-Gage is doomed.

Sometimes you get lucky.

We were in Toys R Us this afternoon (to pick up Pokemon Ruby for Rhon) and happened to see a stack of GameCube Preview Disks laying unguarded by all the flip-tags for GBA games. Our local TRU isn't EXTREME enough to incorporate an R*Zone, so we have to deal with flip-tags and purchase slips.

This past Saturday night I completed my collection of K.K. Slider songs. I've been working on it pretty diligently since January when NESJoe moved into town. Just so you know, the game offers no additional bonuses for collecting all 52 music files. Having a fully stocked jukebox is apparently reward enough.

This actually finishes one of NESJoe's assigned tasks. Helping me collect K.K. songs was one; creating a venue for all the NES games and Mario items is the other.

Thanks to series 4 of the AC eCards, I now have Ice Climber and the original Mario Bros. I found the Ice Climber card in a pack, but I had to snag the Mario Bros. card from eBay. I don't like Ice Climber, but Mario Bros. is one of my all-time favorite classic arcade games. This version - the NES version - isn't as nice as the original coin-op game, but it's more or less equivalent. Jumping isn't as tight as I'd like, and many of the graphics were dumbed down for the NES... but, heck, it's easily one of the best 2P NES games going.

We finally saw X2 last night. (Or am I supposed to call it "X2: X-Men United"? And is it "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" or just "The League"?) I had a coupon for one free admission that came with the X2: Wolverine's Revenge game... and since that game sucked so hard, I was eager to gain something out of it. I wasn't expecting much from the film, but it honestly blew me away.

I hate going to the movies. Now, you probably know me well enough to guess that I don't actively choose to see crappy movies. So it generally isn't the content that I despise, it's the company. People always manage to ruin the experience for me. Like my gaming, in my movie-going I like to fall deeply and completely into the film. I want to let myself become fully involved and totally concentrated on the movie, so the constant distractions of people eating and walking and talking and laughing at the wrong parts and being fat and kicking over cups and getting paged just drive me nuts. To get me in a movie theater these days, it has to be a movie that I abso-fucking-lutely just have to see.

Rhonda has begun her own Pokemon Ruby adventure, so I'm getting to see the other side of the coin. She chose the Torchic for her starter, and she's currently working up her low-level pokemon before she guns for Roxanne, the first Gym Leader. Once she gets a few cities in, I'll be able to report on the Ruby/Sapphire connectivity.

I ventured back into the Battle Tower. As I've learned since my last Sapphire Diary post, there are some nice prizes awaiting, even if you score no experience and no pokedex entries. Particularly appealing is a couple of ribbons that are probably exclusive to Battle Tower winning streaks.

LIVE FROM I-83. We're on our way to Origins, our gaming convention of choice. Just hit the PA Turnpike. This is the fourth year for me and Rhonda; and every year we bring more friends! This year there's eight of us, with a potential seven participating in the Doomtown World Championships if everybody who knows gos.

Although we'll play a lot of games, of course, my favorite bit is the vendor hall. Because I like buying things. And it's fun to interact with famous game designers, get demos of new games, and pick up free stuff. Here's what I'm checking out at this year's show.

You can't ask for a better day at Origins.

Rhonda and I wandered down to the tabletop gaming hall around 10:30am. Scott and Mike were already in a half-assed Spades tournament where only four players showed up. So everyone advances to the next round!

We were supposed to demo Portable Adventures, but our game organizer stayed absent (plane trouble, we later learned), so we tagged our tickets for a refund. An inauspicious start.

Lunch. North Market. Aloo Mutter.

The vendor hall opened at 1, so all of us dived headlong into the sea. Rhonda and I walked the entire show floor before buying anything... casing the joint. Our first game demo was Monkeys on the Moon. Very funny concept: technologically advancing monkey tribes and launching them into outer space. We bought it shortly after we learned one of the monkeys is named Rhonda.

Today was the 2003 Doomtown World Championships. Started at noon and runs forever, so it kinda blows out your whole day. Rhonda and I hustled to the vendor hall around 10:30am so we could get a little pre-tourney shopping in.

Picked up a starter and a couple boosters for the Spongebob TCG. I've been through the rulebook but haven't actually read it yet. It was cheap. That might not be a good sign.

Also finally demoed Portable Adventures and Testimony of Jacob Hollow. Our demos were delivered by former Doomtown World Champ Jason "The Kid" Jung; Rhonda had him autograph her outfit card sleeve for good luck. PA and JH were pretty cool. Third World is quickly becoming a much-trusted game designer in the Fourhman world. PA is so much like Battle of the Bands that you can get into it fairly quickly. There's some new intricacies and some better design and the coolest bit is that the game decks are uniquely themed yet entirely compatible. The initial releases are Lair of the Rat King and 8th Grade, so you can mix a fantasy realm with cutthroat junior high. Or you can opt not to.

Bit of a late start to the morning, but we made our 10am Chrononauts event. All eight of us were in it, but no one won enough to move on. No worries though; Chrononauts is fun enough to play and not win.

Off to the vendor hall for our last big tour. Last year I felt like I didn't spend enough time in the vendor hall because I was always running out for some game event. This year I purposely underfilled my dance card so that wouldn't happen. Rhon opted for a quick nap back in the room, so I did some demo rounds with Mike. We did Creepy Freaks and Crimson Skies at WizKids. I had already bought into Crimson Skies, but a professional demo is always appreciated.

Creepy Freaks looks very nice. Sort of a Garbage Pails Kids version of Chess. It's aimed squarely at young boys, but demographic intentions just don't scare me.

The Penny Farthing ended at 1:30am. Woof. None of our lads won it.

Sunday is just a mop-up day. Scott and I loaded the minivan, then we trekked back for one last jaunt 'round the vendor hall.

Bought a "convention exclusive" Boba Fett action figure. Said some goodbyes.

Key:
$ = purchased item
- = giveaway/pickup item
d = demo reward item

- America's Army install cd
$ Battle of the Bands card game Backstage Pass expansion, Third World Games
- Battle of the Bands card game promo cards (5 different cards), Third World Games
- 2 Best of Dork Storm Convention Special comic books
$ Boba Fett convention exclusive action figure
- 4 BreaKey demo sets, Upper Deck
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer promo card "Ripper", Score
- Chrononauts promo card German Cake, Looney Labs
- Coin Creatures sample game
d Creepy Freaks figures, WizKids (four different figures)
- 2 Creepy Freaks stickers, WizKids