Soulriders, THE GATHERING!

[Dracos]

I'm back.  Con report to follow.

Dracos

[Ginrai]

Just got back a while ago.

[Dracos]

Soulriders Gathering Report

We bring ye the tales of the gathering, reported pseudo-fresh days after it had ended.  To share....I dunno, the drunkness of the event with all who care to hear.

Day...-4?

Okay, for most folks, the gathering started thursday night.  For me?  Ginrai managed to convince me to let him come down here early, so he came down to Charlottesville sometime sunday afternoon where he was picked up from the train, dragged around the city... and addicted to Suikoden.  2 that is.  Well, I claim that, but his addiction was a weak one, lacking in the proper game devouring energy!  Either way, pizza was made and a good time was had by all.

Day -3

The next day was spent with anime and games as Ginrai recovered from his trip and I discovered Ninja Five-0.  I think it was monday I did that anyway.  Ate my soul for a few days it did.  Good stuff.  Gin got a bit further in Suikoden and introduced me to Ouedan.  Then kicked my ass in Mario Kart DS.  Bastard =p

It's to be known that I'm about the most jaded tour guide you could possibly get.  Twice as bad if I've been to the place more than once.  Years of traveling have mostly sapped me from most caring for the normal touristy stuff.  So in discussions on such, I suggested such wise plans as "You really don't want to go there", "By the gods, the ball of fire in the sky will fray your skin from your bones!", and "Suik, feed addiction!"

Alas, no addiction had taken place, and Ginrai was brought to the scenic by some standards historic downtown that afternoon.  Because I'm a silly arse who neglected to use a map, I ended up parking some mile and so from the place, leading to a scenic walk through generic urban streets 1-52 or so.  Good exercise!  Once there, we traversed the bricked walking only outside mall which had stood for years of time, passing stores most ancient and exotic...but largely utterly uninteresting to my tourist companion as the sun beat down on us.  Needless to say, never to miss an opportunity, on the way back I introduced gin to custard, and picked up some myself.  How a new yorker had gone without ever trying custard is beyond me.  Always seems to be on every corner when I'm driving there.  But there you have it.

Day -2

Gin awoke with paltapable mission fuming about him.  He was going to get some souveniers and see... Jefferson's home, a true tourist attraction!  Well, after his heart medicine and inevitably five hundred distractions.  Needless to say, it was about midafternoon by the time we got to Monticello, a nice enough place, even if hot as can be outside.  There we got our lovely lectures on various parts of the Jefferson life and, of course, how many different ways one can mention slavery in a tour not about it (hint: It's a lot on a plantation).

Traversing that, Gin made me aware of a very important goal.  The true reason for his trip was...  To eat at the local Ben and Jerry's!  In fact, I had not really been aware there was one, but sure enough, he knew where one was and we went over to check it...  after some Quizzono's subs.  Not bad really.  And actually getting me into gamestop.  A true feat, given I'd not been in one since I got to charlottesville I believe.  Needless to say, I was going to leave with a silly purchase and Maximo ended up being it.

Finally acquiring our ice cream, we headed back, where I began packing and Ginrai played through Jowston.  Continually revised estimates on how far he could get were made as he proceeded to talk to every single townsperson.  Well, at least his RPG-fu is reasonably intact.

Day -1

Seeking to check out the area beforehand, I printed a map and hit the road around 2... 3 after Gin got through his mighty checklist of everything he brought.  Took quite a bit.  Anyhow, we hit the road and looked at the map.  Then I said the directions was silly and began navigating by intuition.

Two and a half hours later, I apologized for navigating by intuition as we hit Maryland on the north border of West Virginia.  Apparently, I-81 neglects to have signs to Harpers Ferry on its northbound side.  Good to know as we turned around and found some twenty odd signs letting us know unmistakably the right turn to make on I-81 south.  Way to go signmakers!

Finding the right road, we made our way into town sometime around six and explored the place.  This took all off a few minutes since the town was really tiny.  Needless to say, we finally went to the hotel to check in.  A very interesting surprise awaited us and one that set the tone for the rest of the trip.  The hotel was surprisingly nice in about every feature.  Free Wireless, good air condition, in room microwaves and reasonably sized minifridge.  It even had a remarkably decent continental breakfast.  Truly, a great pick and curiously almost none of it advertised on its little notices.

The night was filled with more pizza and gaming as we awaited the coming of the crew.

Day 1

Finally, the real start of the gathering, I bet you guys thought I'd never get here.  Anyhow, Thursday was an interesting day, not the least of which because I had no honest idea on just who was going to actually make it.  Anyhow, Ninja Cop was continuing to entertain as I teased folks on IRC from the hotel room.  Eventually we dropped by the local Ruby Tuesday's for some decent food fare while waiting for the rest of the folks to arrive.

First arrival goes to Ranma007 who set a good starting tone as well by getting the room directly across from ours.  "Call me if you need something" "Dude, you're right across the hall.  We're not quite that lazy!"  Anyhow, he joined us first, bringing among other things his chess board.

Notably, Ranma007 is very good at chess.  Given, he was playing me who isn't very good, but being owned by a blindfolded guy at chess is kinda humiliating so I'll just go with he's very good at chess.  He's also reasonably good at Go, defeating both me and Gin at such a game.  Around this time Jeram joined us, making a round four to the group.  Still waiting on others, we decided it was getting late and to go get some grub.  A trip to the local fancy restaurant, The Anvil, served us nicely in this regard as much chatter on anime and games was had.  I wonder how much they appreciated the set of t-shirt wearing goons in their fine restaurant =P

On arriving back, we got a knock at the door signifying KPJam's arrival as the last fellow to arrive.  Or at least I assume so as the phone reception kind of was touch and go and he could've been there for hours beforehand without us knowing.  Much hanging about took place as we waited for an important hour, the hour... of POKER.

Yes, at midnight we decided we were going to have a rousing game of poker with switching game subsets every hand.  Topping this up, Ranma007 revealed he had a truly awesome poker set.  Bringing out his silver case (But not in a tuxedo or with the shades), he opened it up revealing two decks and a professional chip set.  Good show indeed and a great kickoff for the poker game.  Texas Hold 'em was mostly the game of the night as 007 revealed he was a brutal gambler, often raising the pot to a thousand or so before the first set of cards had even gone in.  KP and Ranma won that set a couple hours later, finishing knocking out the last of us and bringing an end to that night's gaming.  Some 2 am at this point, we all turned in.

Day 2

After a late breakfast and a later start, our motley crew hustled into KPJam's minivan (Good choice of vehicle) and made our way to the nearby national park.  Here we had a noble plan.  There was this outlook at the top of a mountain we were going to see.  Following 007 directions' we got off, amazingly, some fair hike from the trail.  Needless to say, we were still in good spirits with bottles of water as we reached the SHADE OF THE TRAIL.  Yes, in that heat, the shade of the actual trail was much appreciated.

We began our hike up, KP and myself leading the crew with fast strides and little regard for the fact that there was no way we'd keep that up.  That said, soon it was that someone demanded a stop and being that it was a friendly hike, we stopped and enjoyed the woods a while before moving on.  We eventually reached this pretty nice overlook...which was not where we were aiming for.  Continuing on we eventually found the closer.  A sign going that it was several miles further.  Glancing at our mostly exhausted crew, we decided discretion and ice cream was the better part of valor and went to go get some.

One cheesy tourist trap place later, we were equipped with ice cream, food, and air conditioning.  A fair trade, I say.  Hitting the local tourist shops, we acquired a neat shot glass and some other stuff before checking out the wax museum.  One 'no, we're not paying for that' later, we were on our way out of the place back towards...  Walmart.  To pick up some stuff for the next day and probably way too much other stuff.

Returning to the hotel, most the crew napped.  I boktai'ed.  Not a great game but easily crushable.  Anyhow, about 8ish we got together to watch some anime and eat before starting poker by popular request at an early hour.  Ten pm.  The tragedy.  This round went tons better.  For me.  I pretty much cleaned house that night with the game preferences leaning more towards higher value games and games of balls.  Classic moment of the night was a game of Indian high card where everyone else had 2s.  It was beautiful.  The folks got a good glance of my complete lack of poker face.  Or more particularly "Is that laugh a good laugh or a bluffing laugh or just amused in general laugh?"

Day 3

Starting out earlier, we had several options on where to go and much discussion was had.  Then I was an ass and pointed out it was goddamn hot outside and suggested caves.  This went remarkably awesome as there was some really nice caves reasonably (hour drive) close.  So we made our way to the Shennadoah caves, which if you've never been there before, are a pretty beautiful set of caves.  Unfortunately, it was a tour deal, but the tour guide was pretty cool and we dashed around the caves getting some nice photos and generally having a good time.  

"It's cold!"-Ginrai, lacking a true appreciation for the MIDDLE OF SUMMER!

Unfortunately, my limbo fu wasn't the best.  I was unable to limbo the entire cave.  That didn't stop me from doing it pretty much every time I could and avoiding getting my face smashed regardless.  007 should have some awesome shots of the caves to go up later.  Following it, we took advantage of the tourist trap 'pay for every stop in town' deal we were given and checked out 'parade on main street', a cute enough attraction with various puppets and some gigantic bears, Dire in any case.  Skipping the more expansive America on Parade museum nearby, we traveled back to harpers ferry and checked to find that Jeram was still alive.  Finding this so, half the group collapsed dead again.  Boktai 2 this time, if you're wondering.

When they finally woke up, we did a run to the Golden Chorral... which was closed.  Then we went to Long john silvers.  Also closed.  We started driving through the town confused as could be at all these restaurants closed at such an early time before finding a Ruby Tuesday's open.  And packed as it was apparently the only place open in town.  Lead by a starving KP, we got a table and waited for food.

We instead got a show as the waiters continually goofed in a pretty funny manner with our orders.  I think I got two other people's burgers before they brought me...  a triple steak deal.  And then got reminded that I ordered a burger.  Just total goofiness, though they were good sports about fixing it up.  On return, we continued some poker at night.

Day 4

Well, this was the end of it and aside from a group pic, we all safely headed out to our homes.  The overall gathering was quite a blast and I'm looking forward to trying to organize another one.

[Ranma_007]

So, who's going to the next one? ^_^

-007

[Ranma_007]

I found old pictures! I'll have to post them here!

[Dracos]

Heh :)  Cool, 007.

Mmm, I keep putting off arranging another one of these.  I should bite the bullet and get this going again.

[Ragnar]

Come back to the east coast, dammit D:

[Merc]

Pfft, you've done east and west coast. It's time for midwest!

[Dracos]

Alright.  Let's get one of these started.

I'm gonna suggest a target timeframe of  Feb/March 2011.  This is far enough out for folks to begin plotting and our normal slow opinion process to take its place.


First up is choosing a spot.  Gonna give some early options and give this 3 weeks to settle before one is picked, so folks can suggest others and vote.  Vote for all the ones you would like to go to.  One with most popularity will go.  :)

1)Houstin, Texas.  Large vote of the most active 'do a gathering' contingent.  Home base of Merc and such. - 1 Vote

2)Toronto Canada.  Catch up with some of our northern brethern.  Rock out.  Hit the ski slopes?  - 4 vote

3)Australia somewhere - Same logic.

4)Somewhere in britain - Same logic :)

5)Dallas, Texas - 1 vote

6)Chicago - 2.5 vote

7)Israel, Somewhere - 2 votes

-----------

Yes, I realize that many of ye are not wealthy inclined.  Vote anyway even if some places are out of your reach.

[Merc]

Technically, Houston would be home base. Austin is Halbarad. ;p

[Dracos]

Friend Computer Corrects you.

[Iron Dragoon]

I vote Dallas, Texas. Trunky, Stormy, and I are there.

[Dracos]

Alright.  If you are voting for your home place, vote for one elsewhere as well so that I don't get a list of people's homes with one vote each beside each of them :P

Dinnae any of ye like to travel? :P

[Grey]

I'm a poor student with no drivers license and no passport, I vote Toronto as it's the easiest big-city type place I can get to :-\

[odin]

Toronto and you could definitely count me in.  You'd want to do March at the earliest, though.  April would get you much better weather.

Ski slopes is optimistic.  It's really flat around Toronto.  If you want to ski and are looking at Canada, Montreal is a much better bet... it's also much further from just about everyone, though.

But there is *tons* to do in Toronto even without skiing.  Casa Loma (I believe it's the only real -- ie not built for novelty castle in English-speaking North America).  Queen and Yonge streets are great.  It has a Chinatown that's about 5x cooler than Chicago's *plus* another heavily Asian area up in Markham containing Pacific Mall.  There's Wonderland (theme park) if we want to do that, and Toronto Island.  Professional baseball, hockey, and basketball.  CN Tower, of course.  Priceline often has rooms at the Chelsea for $90-100/night, and that is a *NICE* hotel in an ideal location.

Much as I like the UK idea, if I'm going to the UK next year, it won't be to hang around with you guys, awesome though you all are. :-)

Chicago, I could do as well.  It's the exact same travel time as Toronto for Ricey, grey, and myself, and it's a fun city.  But again, I wouldn't do it in Feb just because of weather.  March is even pushing it a bit.  We might also lose grey on that one since we haven't pestered him enough yet to get a passport. :-P