Thursday, August 15, 2002

by the Writer's Guild of Wunderland

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• GinohnNews - Visitors of Ginohn
• Ginohn has a new tombstoner, a Hero of the Month, and snapshots of their NY trip
• The Ember Update: Balls, Stripes and Pie; Work; One Year
• Petra-wa updated her manicure page
• Last week's Haiku Review: Men in Black II

Well, we're back from Gen-Con and we had a jolly good time. Unlike Origins, where we run all of our annual tournaments and other special events, at Gen-Con all we do is staff a booth. As such, it was a much more relaxed and enjoyable show for us. Sales were quite good, though not great... since our booth was hidden deep in a maze of twisty little passages (unlike our prime front door location at Origins), folks had a difficult time finding us. And of course, we also didn't have that huge lab to demo games in... instead, we were just playing demo games in our booth. (But, of course, we love doing that!)

Moreover, from a schmoozing standpoint, it was an excellent convention for us. In a situation that was eerily similar to our Gen-Con '97, we found ourselves talking to several different game companies who are competing for the rights to publish Fluxx, this time in Germany. And we had some very promising meetings. It'll probably take another 14 months, but I think we're finally getting semi-close to publishing a German edition of Fluxx.

So, overall it was a great weekend. Special thanks to Carol Townsend, who helped out in lots of ways (not the least of which was fetching me some of those yummy little donuts each day... oh how I'll miss those next year, when the con moves to Indiana!). Thanks also to Keith Baker and Brad Weier for helping us demo Giant Cardboard Icehouse games, and to all the other rabbits who were there but who had a hard time finding us (and each other). Hopefully next year we can get some tournaments and such onto the schedule...

One year ago, in last year's post-Gen-Con report, I wrote the following: "With that realization comes the idea of getting an RV, setting up a mobile office/residence inside it, and HITTING THE ROAD! We could go on tour for weeks, even months at a time, just driving around the country from event to event, making game store appearances in between conventions, meeting fans and recruiting rabbits along the way, and updating this website and running the business from wherever we happened to be at the time. Wouldn't that be cool??? Well, it's an idea."

This idea has continued to occupy our thinking ever since, but like many long-term goals, we hadn't yet done a single thing to pursue it. With this in our minds, and with car trouble leaving us temporarily stranded in the suburbs of Chicago, we decided to visit a huge RV dealership near the very helpful Dodge mechanic we found to fix up our van Bertha.

At Crystal Valley RV, we met an incognito hippie named Helene who knew exactly what to show us: The Fleetwood Jamboree model 26Q. After listening to our desires & requirements, Helene knew the 26Q was the one for us, because it's apparently unique among RVs currently on the market for its "Large Exterior Storage Bay" which would enable us to bring plenty of card games and pyramids to sell, wherever we happen to go.

Helene was right... the 26Q is exactly what we want. We fantasized together about it all through the long drive home. We want one. Frustratingly, we're still in the middle of the fulfillment hand-off with ACMS that we figured would be long completed by now... and the financials are not yet feasible... but we're gonna get one of these someday.

However, a vital question remains unresearched: will it fit in our driveway?

Lastly, this week finds us bidding adieu to this summer's first intern Lillian, who's heading off to college, and welcoming aboard our second one, Liam, who has just moved to the DC area after finishing college. Here we see Liam finally receiving the Icehouse Scepter from former champion Jacob Davenport, who forgot to bring the coveted artifact with him to the Big Experiment and only today had the opportunity to pass it along. Congrats again and welcome aboard Liam! (And good luck Lillian... thanks for all the help!)

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