Blue Table Update 70- Games Day LA

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Blue Table Painting Update
Monday, April 10, 2006
Issue 70

www.bluetablepainting.com

Blue Table at Games Day L.A. 2006
We left for Games Day at noon on Friday, April 7, a 630 mile trip to Los Angeles. Out of the eight full-time staff, only four could make it:

Bill- master assembler
Mike- sculptor/painter
Heather- art director
Shawn- client relations

Pics (more pics coming on April 13)
http://www.bluetablepainting.com/view_g ... leryID=674

Originally, we planned to go with all eight staffers, each with at least one army, preferably one each for Fantasy and 40K. However, we ended up just taking four people and four armies: Eldar Fire Dragons, Cyclops Ogres (for one last fling before being shipped to CA), Emperor’s Children (Heather’s army), and Orks (Bill’s army). There were three display boards. As usual, we were burning the midnight oil to get it all done in time.

We piled into my white van and headed out. We got gas at a Tesoro station for $2.29 a gallon. We took 150 mile stints in turns, but Bill was really the iron man of the trip and pulled probably 500 miles there and back.

Las Vegas was not so glamorous during the day from the freeway in rush hour traffic. I took a bunch of pics of prominent landmarks and billboards for bands I thought long gone (like Twisted Sister).

Incident #1: 5pm on Friday- the World’s Largest Toilet Paper Roll
We were stuck in traffic in Las Vegas and a few cars up was what looked to be a giant, ten foot diameter roll of toilet paper on the back of this truck. Turned out to be a white tank of some kind.

After clearing the bad traffic we stopped in Baker (?) for some food. We went to The Mad Greek, which was an amazing deli style restaurant with tons of fake greek statuary and oddball stuff. That food was so good, I’m going to stop there every time we go through.

Price of Gas in Baker: $3.29 a gallon!

The next city was Barstow, but when Bill said it, it sounded just like <Lardsville> so we renamed that town.

We made it without incident to Alhambra, a suburb of LA. Well, there was one incident, we turned south on a main drag when we should have turned north. We got stuck in a Sobriety Checkpoint. My license is about a year expired and from Oregon (yes, seven years ago was thankfully the last time at the DMV). We decided it would look suspicious if we switched places, so I crossed my fingers and we stopped. The cop just ignored the expired license and waved us through. I think it was obvious that we were at the end of a long trip.

We stayed at Bill’s brother’s house. He works as a prop guy for horror films so you can imagine the décor in his house, it was a real trip. He even had some animatronics in the garage. I completely zonked out on the couch and their huge black Rottweiler decided to jump on me. If that doesn’t make you evacuate your colon, I don’t know what will.

LA has a distinct smell that reminded me of my early childhood in Santa Monica, El Segundo, and Redondo Beach. It’s the smell of plants, ocean, salt, sage and just a tangy hint of smog. When my grandma moved to Oregon, her house still smelled like that. The beach just got into everything.

Heather was up until like 3am working on her Emperor’s Children. They are still not done.

I got a parking ticket, even though I couldn’t find any signs in a fifty foot radius. Brutal.

Incident #2: 2am on Saturday morning- the Demon Toothbrush
Mike’s electric toothbrush spontaneously goes off. At the edge of consciousness I am thinking why someone is using an air compressor at this hour. I finally fumble through Mike’s pack, but the toothbrush won’t turn off. Finally, I go out to the car and leave it there.

The next morning we headed out to the Ontario convention center, stopping by Jack in the Box real quick for a bite to eat. The main hall of the center was like Nerd Valhalla. As I went inside to scout out a spot (while my companions scarfed down breakfast burritos in the car) it was clear that I was overdressed. I wore black pants and a long-sleeve blue stripy button shirt and dark shoes. When I went up to the registration folks to check in and they looked at me like <Are we in trouble?> On account of my garb I was able to move about unhindered and so headed into the main hall to get a little preview.

This was my first Games Day, and I must say that I was impressed. I enjoyed this much better than a Grand Tournament because I like to look at figures and shoot the bull with fellow gamers.

We set up our boards in a modest corner of the room, along with our gaming stuff near the Open Gaming area. We each got in a game or two and took turns pulling sentry duty. We put out some business cards, and about a hundred of those disappeared. I hope something comes from that! Games Day isn’t like a convention where you can hawk your wares so it was important to me to keep it low key. I just wanted to check out the scene.

I ran into a few clients, fewer than I had hoped. I also ran into quite a few friends from the SF Bay Area, most of which were running events. I hoped to meet some new talent for potential recruiting later this year, but there were only a few contacts there. One kid named Zac wanted to take a picture with usâ€â€