MarCon, oh MarCon

Monte joints Rob Stewart (as Bluntman) and Chris Nickel to discuss the future of gaming.

After Monte's d20 System panel, some of the audience members hung around to chat.

Staging area for the Lego BattleTech event.

Jon assembled his 'mechs from mostly Star Wars and Mars sets.

Sue and I just flew back from Marcon in Columbus, Ohio, during Memorial Day weekend, and boy are our arms tired!

Actually, they're not tired at all. On the way back, the overbooked flight got us bumped up into first class. That was nice -- a pampered end to a pampered weekend.

Sue and I can't say enough nice things about Marcon, at which we were both guests of honor. We've had really good experiences with other conventions in the past (we've both been to a lot, together and separately) but for sheer guest relations, Marcon takes the cake.

They flew us in on Friday. Of course, as we told you last week, we just got Arcana Unearthed out the door on Friday morning. That basically meant no sleep for Monte or Sue Thursday night. Luckily, we both can sleep on planes, and sleep we did. Slept right through the starchy breakfast and right through The Recruit (saw it already anyway, and it wasn't all that great).

Once we finally got to Columbus, they sent a car to pick us up at the airport and then had people waiting for us in the hotel lobby. Dale and Kyle welcomed us with our schedules, Marcon programs and information, and gifts, including bags of candy and other goodies. (Sadly, Sue and I couldn't partake -- we're on a low-carb diet at the moment. Don't worry, I'm sure I'll bore you with the details in an upcoming Line of Sight.) Dale was in charge of guest relations. Kyle, as near as we could figure, was in charge of us. The "Cook wrangler," as it were. He made sure we had everything we needed, helped us acquaint ourselves with the convention, and then made sure that we were at each of our panels and events. Our "handler." Not that we minded. Kyle was very nice, very helpful and you know, it's really not so bad to have someone around to tell you where to go, when to be there, and so on.

I could get used to this kind of guest of honor treatment. Now all I need is an entourage. Does my pet rabbit Wilbur count?

Anyway, we were treated to a nice guest dinner (actually, the con picked up all our meals) on Saturday, night where we dined with the staff and the other guests, including Jack Vance, Kenny Baker, Ruth Thomson, Eugene Rodenberry, Rob Stewart, Gregory Keyes, and, much to my surprise, the guy who played Otho in Beetlejuice (Glenn Shadix). I say "much to my surprise," because we'd met previously in the hallway and I thought, "Man, he seems just like Otho from Beetlejuice." Only hours later did I learn that that's who he was. (Cons are like that.) And there were a lot of other guests too.

All in all, a good convention. Most of our panels were well-attended and I got a chance to meet a lot of gamers, which is always great. They even had this amazing Lego Battletech game going on, which, of course, I was very enamored of.

I don't have any amazing stories to relate or wacky anecdotes to share about the weekend. We just had a great time. Enjoy a few pictures from the weekend...