Jolt Country

Parts 3 & 4 from Paul O'Brian:

http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/25914.html
http://paulobrian.livejournal.com/26345.html

Here's the official page for Roody's thoughts, blog style:

http://www.joltcountry.com/index.php/fe ... ody-yogurt

And Zarf is also working on something. I'll post a link here when he releases it.

It also might be a good idea to link to PLANET IF, which is like Planet Hollywood, except it serves up text game blog posts rather than nine dollar Buds, and I don't get depressed walking into Planet IF:

http://planet-if.com/

I just want to go on record, albeit a bit late, that it was very cool meeting Robb, Roody & Worm. Thanks for letting the old guy hang out and such.

Of course, just as I was pumped for IF again and had all crazy plans to do stuff, the storm of the century+ hits southern New England and my office, neatly located in a no-flood zone, became a floating workplace. And, water in my basement wasn't fun either.

But, there will be IF produced this year, damn it. I will just need a little bit of help... ;)

-- Mike

I'd love to see your own work and more of those crazy collaborations you used to do.

I can't remember if I posted a link to this somewhere on this BBS or not. This is going to make me seem like a colossal prick if I did, but whatever search term I used isn't picking it up. Anyway, here is an article I wrote for the e-zine SPAG about PAX East, Boston 2010.

http://www.sparkynet.com/spag/backissue ... html#story

(And it should be noted that a lot of text gamers are descending on Boston for PAX East 2011 as well!)

What a great article! I don't know that words could ever accurately depict what it's like to sit behind one of those tables, but I think you came damn close.

I have ended up behind the table on multiple occasions, hawking copies of Commodork and Invading Spaces. Usually I'm at video game conventions, where people are there to buy, sell, and play video games. When 80% of the people would walk up to me and realize I'm selling books, you could literally see the smile fall from their face. Sometimes they would say "books", but in the same tone one would say "blech". Some of those stand around and listen to your spiel because they're polite. Others nod, try to break eye contact, and keep walking.

Then there's the 10% that are the odd birds that no one else will talk to. Those are the hardest to get rid of, because my one socially acceptable escape -- walking away -- has been removed from the equation. It's not like you can throw out, "Well, I'm going to scoot over to the other side of the table now ..." You're pretty much a captive audience. I once got cornered buy a guy who had been dreaming to write a book about fly fishing, and said he would buy a copy of my book in exchange for information on how I wrote and self-published my first book.

But finally there's the 10% that make the writing and the shows and everything else worthwhile -- guys that were into old computers or old arcade games, and I've just provided the ice breaker. Most of them are male, and my age or older (I often lament about my groupies; I wish I had written about something hot chicks are into). But man, it's awesome when their eyes light up and they say, "Oh, MAN, I used to have one of THESE!" And then it begins. The OVGE show is particularly great because I usually take my C64 and have lots of games on hand, so when people say, "Man I used play GAME X," while we're talking I'll dig it out and blow their mind.

And sometimes I tell those guys stories, and sometimes they tell me stories, but it's always a good time. Unlike the crowd of people you described waiting around to meet Jason, there's typically not a long line of people waiting around to meet me, so I have plenty of time for each person. We'll swap stories for five or ten minutes, they'll buy a book or not, and then move on just about the time someone else comes wandering up and the process starts all over again.

It's both physically and mentally draining, but you're right, it does kind of feel like being a rock star.

Did Jason EVER post the recording of the table?