Discipline Blog Redux
Ok, so the universe didn’t exactly work in my favor for the past few months and, as it unfortunately does way too often, my personal growth and development took a back seat to general damage control living. Anyway, I thought I’d take this moment to attempt to restart the “Discipline Blog” and really make some progress in increasing my productivity.
Some notes about the redux: Instead of putting down the amount of time that I’ve been walking each day, I’m instead going to use my newly acquired Pokewalker to record the number of steps taken. Other than that the format won’t be changing much.
Pokewalking today: 873 steps (grand total of approximately 8000 over the previous weekend at PortCon Maine)
Speaking of PortCon, I decided to write a little about some of the things I enjoy geeking out about.
Doctor Who Fans (Whovians) -
Normally, Doctor Who fans are not found frequently at PortCon (Anime and UK Sci-Fi doesn’t seem to have a lot of overlap). As a matter of fact, in the past 6 years of attendance the only other Whovian I’d actually encountered was a man who was talking about the good Doctor while standing in line who proceeded to be incredibly pleased when I pulled my Sonic Screwdriver out of my pocket and proceeded to point it at him and activate it (causing a small blue light to flash at him while a high pitched whirring noise emitted from the device). However, this year I was pleased to not only see some Whovians out in public - First person I saw was a young man in a “Gallifrey University” t-shirt - but actual Whovian cos-players. I got to see 2 David Tennant Doctors, 1 Tom Baker Doctor, 1 Donna Noble, and someone in a gas mask asking con-goers “Are you my mummy?” I was pleased to say the least and was also saddened that this year I wasn’t carrying my Sonic at all times. By the way, no spoilers but I just need to say that Stephen Moffat has officially and very successfully taken over the reins of Doctor Who and the season/series finale for this year was both excellent and infuriating (because I have to wait until next spring for more episodes - not counting the Christmas special).
Star Wars Miniatures
While most of the sessions of the WotC Star Wars Miniature Battle game that I ran this weekend were pretty basic simple scenarios designed to teach people to play the game, I managed to squeeze in two amazing games. The first lasted more than four hours and consisted of myself, another Mini’s staffer, and two young players (a brother and sister) who have been playing minis at the con regularly for years. It got very silly and the dice rolls were oddly crazy (rolls for initiative that went 18, 18, 19, 20 or 1, 5, *a comment that there’s no way a 5 was going to win* followed by a 3, and another 1) and several series of critical hits and misses. It was a blast and we had quite a bit of fun. The second game, and last of the con was a game between myself and the other Mini’s staffer who was part of the first game. Mandalorian commandos versus Rebel Commandos and a lone Ewok sounds epic right? Well, the game lasted for almost two hours and it came down in the end to each of us having only one character left, (He had Canderous Ordo and I had Han Solo, Scoundrel) after nearly ten full rounds of Canderous rapid firing down the hall and regenerating from numerous shots by Han, and Han dodging and weaving while getting in pot shots on Canderous, both characters were at the point where one hit by either character would end the game. Unfortunately for me, the force was not with Han in the end and he was struck a fatal blow. Despite my loss, I had a blast and ended the con on a high note.
Heroclix
I hadn’t played Heroclix in more than a year, but when the opportunity arose for me to compete in a tournament using two sentinels as my army I couldn’t resist. My first battle was perhaps the best. My sentinels faced off against a lone Superman Prime and while the empowered god-like figure was capable of crushing my giant robots in a straight up fight the fact that he was alone on the board left him with a critical weakness. After exchanging blows for several rounds, the unthinkable occurred! A sentinel captured Prime and ran away with him, ending the skirmish. Although my robots started strong, the Sentinels failed against all of their other opponents and placed low in the tournament. Yet in a magical unspoken deal, every person in the tournament ended up with exactly what they wanted despite having been handed different prizes. Unfortunately, the con has reignited my interest in playing Heroclix (and other Mini’s games) again… like I need more things to spend money on.
Ramblings
Well, I think that about wraps up this mess. I apologize in advance for the mess that this is… writing it at 3am can have a dramatic impact upon the skill presented. See you all tomorrow!
