Wednesday, August 9, 2000
Another year, another Gen Con. Maybe this year I'll even get the writeup on the page in something approximating a timely manner. We'll see.
As usual we set out on Wednesday, not wanting to miss
anything on Thursday (the good stuff in the dealers' room
always goes fast, so it pays to get there right when it
opens if you're looking for anything out of the ordinary).
This year we chose Midwest Express as our airline instead
of United, and I'll tell you right now it was one of our
best decisions. Unlike United, which stops somewhere like
Chicago or Denver or Abu Dhabi on the way to Milwaukee,
Midwest Express actually goes straight there. What
a concept. The planes are comfortable too--nice seats, wider
than your standard airline seat with more legroom and only
two seats in a row instead of three or four or five. No
movie, but the fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and the
piping hot face towels are a nice touch. The flight was utterly
uneventful, which is just the way we like 'em.
Upon arrival at good ol' General Mitchell airport (I wonder
who General Mitchell is, anyway, and what he did to rate
having an airport named after him) we got a cab to the hotel
and had another nice uneventful ride. We stayed in the
Hilton again this year--it's right across the street from
the convention center, which makes things really convenient.
Settled into our room and headed over to the con center to
pick up our badges. After a bit of disorganization (they
claimed I owed $5.00 and made me go to another line, which sent
me to yet another place--I didn't complain too much
because I ended up getting my stuff about ten minutes earlier
than Dan did...go figure) we got our badges, con packets, and
assorted gamer junk. The gamer junk wasn't as good this year
as last year--fewer cool freebies and more photocopied sheets
and coupons for things we didn't want. But hey, it's free, so
who's complaining? Back to the hotel to drop it off and
then it was time to head up two blocks to Butch's Casino
Steak House for dinner. (This has become a yearly tradition
for us--Butch's on Wednesday. We figure we'll be eating
like con-goers for the rest of the weekend so we might as
well start it off with something worthwhile.) This year we
hadn't had much in the way of lunch so we didn't
waddle back to the room like we did last year. The steaks were
wonderful as always.
Back to the room, and after determining that we couldn't watch the South Park we'd been looking forward to because apparently they haven't heard of Comedy Central in Wisconsin, we turned in early so we could be up and ready to go for the day's opening.