Distractible - Conventions

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

On this episode of the pod, the guys get nostalgic for conventions and all the good and bad that come with them. From notable failed attempts, to bizarre themes (like "pizza" and "baby"), to post-COVID predictions, conventions hold a special place in Mark, Bob, and Wade's hearts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractible, a Wood Elf production, with your hosts Mark, Wade, and poor Bob of Calamitous Fridge Renown. This week, the Tangential Trinity banter back and forth about mass gatherings of the wacky, weird, and wonderful. Conventions. Please don thy cosplay, and enjoy the show. cosplay and enjoy the show. originality, how much I like the person, bribe, quality of the bribe, quantity of the bribe, pretty much whatever I want. It doesn't matter. I'm the judge and the rules are arbitrary. The theme for this week is stories from conventions. It can be any kind of story and any kind of convention. The three of us have been to a lot of gaming conventions like PAX and BlizzCon and things like that, but it could be from anywhere. I leave that up to the storytellers. Also, I'm joined by my two storytellers this week, Mark and Wade.

Hi. Heyo. We're here too. Now is the part where you tell me your titles and we decide who goes first. You're not even going to ask us how we're doing. I'm just going to get all business with you. I mean, I'm doing it. How are you?

I'm good. What's happening in your world lately? You know, I've been working on stuff. I'm leaving town soon. You know, I got... Interesting. Fascinating. Fascinating.

I've got nothing interesting to talk about at all. I was ready to dive right in. You hear that? He admits that he doesn't have an interesting story. Well, we should just... No, no, no. My story is interesting. My life is...

Is the story about your life? No. This is someone else's tale i have to tell today but it's a doozy all right okay that's fair are you satisfied with the small talk mark well i mean you know i thought it would be a little more okay a little more a little more um a little more organic not a little more are you eating no okay i thought maybe you were eating something are we allowed to eat i would love to eat i. I'm the host. I say what's allowed. And I say the host is allowed to eat.

Are we allowed to eat, almighty host? What does only the host mean to you? All right. Tell me the names of your stories. Let's do this. Small talk over. Friendship established and maintained. Let's do the thing.

All right, Wade, you can go first. Thank you. I was going to because I'm pretty confident. I got a winner here. The title of Wade, you can go first. Thank you. I was going to because I'm pretty confident. I got a winner here. The title of my story is A Con Job? That's Just Show Blizz. That's really terrible, man. You can't laugh and say it's bad.

That's really bad. You laughed before you said it was bad. You conceded before you even counted. No, it was a scoff. It was a scoff at the terribleness. Anyway, my title is There Will Be Balls. Oh, wow.

Just go right for it. Oh, man. Let's talk about body parts. That'll get me a point. I mean, I get what you're going for. I like that movie. That's a good movie. Did you go to some sort of oil drilling convention uh you just have to listen to my story it's tantalizing right you really want to hear it so is a con job i'm trying to figure out how yours could be good i guess so yes i am i am scintillated good it's good what do you

mean it could be you the one who desperately wants it to be good i mean i don't even need to be desperate i know i've got gold you know what mark you're so confident you go first wait okay cool thank you i thought i was more confident we'll be balls thank you all right this is there will be balls it was july 11th 2014 it was early maybe 4 a.m i can't quite remember but i didn't want to miss out on anything and'd hurt that you could miss out if you didn't get there early. I didn't know you could get there too early, though. When I arrived, I thought I'd mixed up the addresses. The parking lot was empty.

If I didn't know any better, I thought it was abandoned. It looked abandoned. A building this big should have some kind of security, right? I tested the door, expecting it to be locked, and yet, it opened. The squeak from the rusty hinges echoed in the cavernous, empty hallway. Or at least, I thought it was empty at first. Until something colorful caught my eye. Sitting alone in the corner, in a vast concrete building.

A feeling of dread crept up my spine as I approached it. My mind couldn't comprehend what I was seeing, but I felt compelled to approach. It called to me. My feet moved towards it as my brain tried desperately to understand what it was seeing. I walked up to the edge. A voice deep inside me whispered, Jump, jump, jump, jump. I didn't know where the thought came from, but I couldn't fight it.

You just said it came from the voice. The desire to throw myself into it grew louder with every thundering heartbeat. I couldn't fight it. I don't remember when I leapt, but the next thing I knew I was flying through the air. And then I was falling, falling. Down, down, down, down, down. Into the bullpen. And it was pretty good, and then I got out of down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down, downcon is, well, it was the Tumblr convention.

It was supposed to be a fan convention. And I didn't even know about this, but the name Dashcon, I thought it was a brony convention. I think there's a pony called Dashy-do. Dashy-do, that's the one, yeah. Yeah, Dashy-do. We all know Dashy-do. Yeah, everybody knows Dashy-do. I love Dashy-do. Is that actually the name, Dashy-do? Yes, don't look it up. I love DashieDoo. Is that actually the name? DashieDoo? Yes. Don't look it up.

I looked it up. It's not that. Anyway, so because on Tumblr you have a dashboard, it's called DashCon. They were going to call it TumbleCon or something like that or TumbleCon. I want to go to TumCon. Yeah. Eat Tums. That's great.

So in the lovely place of Schwamberg, Illinois, is apparently a real town. The inaugural convention. You've never been to Schwamberg? Have you been to Schwamberg? Maybe. What happens in Schwamberg? Well, what happens is Schwamberg stays in Illinois. It's in Illinois, yeah. Everybody knows that.

You're right, that's my fault. I apologize. Home of DashCon, obviously. Yeah, of course, of course, of course. Anyway, July 11th, 2014 in Schwamberg, Illinois, the inaugural convention quickly became infamous for allegations of mismanagement and corruption among organizers. An alleged abrupt demand by the hotel for upfront payment of cash for

use of its facilities, and celebrity guests being forced to drop out of the convention after they were informed by the hotel that they would be responsible for paying for their rooms. Like, we've all been to conventions, we know the general schtick. There's like booths, vendors, people selling things, there's panels, celebrities talking, or just creators, or just random people talking, you know, it's about a discussion, it's about being a fan of something and going to like meet other fans and like consume the content and derivative content thereof.

The only problem was, with TumbleCon, I don't know what the main draw was supposed to be because Tumblr itself is like an aggregate for different fandoms. Everyone can talk about whatever they want. And back then there was a lot more porn. Like a lot of porn. Like a lot of porn. So really when it got organized, it was off to a bad start from the get-go because this convention center could have like 3,000 to 7,000 people attending. There were 350 people that came here.

I know 350 people is not a small amount of people, but these convention centers are in the tens of thousands of square feet. Huge places. And they're usually attached to hotels and they run deals where things can like get there. hotels and they run deals where things can like get there. What it all boils down to is it was so horribly mismanaged that it didn't have the funds to pay for anyone to arrive, let alone the people that said they would go without pay to get even a hotel cost compensated. They didn't have any sort of security. There was no system for vendors to actually sell their stuff. And then to top it all off, the hotel got paranoid that they weren't going to get paid and then immediately demanded a whopping $17,000 to get their rooms

paid up front. And so the organizers of the convention, and I don't know if this is a legitimate quote, but someone said, we were sitting there and this girl ran in and said, quote but someone said we were sitting there and this girl ran in and said they're gonna shut us all down if we don't get $17,000 right now and literally ran around the convention with a plastic bag asking people to dump money in it they said quote we're taking money right now. And people actually threw money into it. Someone said, I had a friend who dumped $400 into it, but there's no tracking of any of this. The original announcement was around 9 p.m., so a little after 10, which was supposed to be the deadline for the hotel. The con was saved and everything was good thank god who was putting

this on by the way i don't actually know it wasn't like affiliated with the website was it no no because i think what it was was someone had a tumblr and they were just like let's make let's do this let's make a convention let's make it happen you know everyone's entrepreneurial or whatever it wasn't officially endorsed by tumblr it was just a convention catered towards the users of tumblr oh no i found a little bit of info on it organized by dashcon llp a hudson ohio based llc owned by megan eli and roxanne schiderman. It's an Ohio... Oh, God, my poor state. Don't do this to me.

No, no, no, no, no, no. Illinois, Schwamberg. Took place in Illinois. Everybody knows about Illinois and Schwamberg. Yeah, get them. Get Illinois, you stupid Illinois and your dash cons. Okay, well, there's nothing wrong with people actually trying to get a convention together, right?

That's not a problem. Well, there's a lot of conventions that are small that are totally fine. A convention doesn't need to be thousands and thousands of people to be successful as long as it's planned correctly for the right number of people. Like, what did you say?

They got 350. 350 arrived. That could be enough, theoretically, maybe. It would be totally enough if you rented like a hotel ballroom or something like that. They rented a 50,000 square foot convention center and i don't even know where they got the money for this like where the hell did they get the money and then they also booked out block rooms and the hotel that was attached to it because they were saying like oh yeah there's gonna be thousands of people

and apparently the hotel and this particular convention center this is how exciting schwamberg is they were used to model train conventions oh damn and apparently the model train crowd just absolutely floors the tumblr crowd because like that's apparently like consistent good business for schwamberg illinois convention center but no matter what happened they had numerous cancellations of panels and all of the problems, and they even had a raffle to go into the ball pit in addition to a bonus hour. It was like you get an extra hour in the ball pit, and then there was also a raffle for more time. This ball pit, for those of you listening listening if you're not looking at the image this ball pit is like big enough for like three or four small children to sit in this is not a big ball pit well it's a it's a kiddie

pool right i mean that's an inflatable kiddie pool yeah it's intended for like a couple children to enjoy yeah it's like maybe a one to two hundred dollar bouncy castle and like maybe a fifty dollar inflatable pool i can only imagine like if they had decided to throw this in their backyard it would have done great like blockbusters but you know they probably would have the cops call them but i imagine it would have been a more fun experience even you know 350 people in one room is a lot of people but you put 350 people randomly distributed around a 50,000 square foot convention center. It seems really lonely and sad. And the fact that that kiddie pool can house three children and this picture shows four adults in them.

It's just very funny. Plus four people waiting their turn very patiently to get into the kiddie pool. The most concerning thing you've pointed out so far is the putting money into a plastic bag situation. I totally get the idea of being somewhere and being really personally invested in something. Like if there was a convention that was like, Oh, something I really cared about pizza convention, but it was a small time pizza convention and it was run by my buddies and i was like yes this is gonna be the best pizza and they and one of my buddies had a plastic bag and came running around like they're gonna take all the pizza unless we can get twenty eight thousand dollars

i might chuck i might toss in some cash no questions asked yeah i don't know if i'm tossed in hundreds or thousands in a bag but like i got 20 bucks so they saved the convention so they got 17 000 i don't know if they got all 17 000 i'm not familiar with welcome to night veil but apparently the cast of whatever that is was supposed to um have an appearance but it ended up being canceled and instead of giving refunds to people who would purchase tickets for the panel they gave people tickets to another raffle for various autographed collectibles admission to a different concert and they could also win an extra hour with the ball pit they didn't give refunds they did god man this is worse than i even thought yeah no it's it's just as bad as it looks. And that picture tells the entire story.

If you look at that picture, you're like, man, that looks... Oh, it's weird. Yeah. Apparently it was just that weird. And they even had the gall to try to plan another convention. They were going to do a DashCon 2. They're going to rename it to Emoticon. And, well, that didn't go through.

I can't imagine why anyone would not want to back them after the thing that happened the first time. I'm shocked. Yeah. It's kind of like a counterpoint to Fyre Festival. Do you guys know about Fyre Festival? Yeah, I've heard of that one. I just, the other day, watched the Netflix documentary about Fyre Festival, and I love it.

Yeah, I hadn't heard of it, but that's the opposite problem, where you have too many people in such an obscure place. That's such a good story. You should absolutely watch the Netflix documentary because it's so crazy what they do and how it plays out and what they get away with. Wasn't there another one called like TanaCon that was very similar to these two? I was in the area for that. I don't know exactly what went down, though.

Like, I still have no idea. TanaCon had some drama about like having too small of a venue or having people were like waiting outside in the hot sun. And it was a similar sort of thing where the convention was a total bust. I think that one had a lot more money and people involved because there were like big crowds of very upset people. Is this the problem of like people trying to do too much or too little or not anticipating planning setting expectations or just generally like trying to do things in an organized manner i mean planning convention is hard like i can't imagine all the stuff that goes into it and i and i'm sure it's easy to make mistakes but when you rent a place like that there's an agreement right it's not

like at the end of the weekend they're like here's your bill and you learn how much it's going to cost they tell you up front it's going to cost twenty thousand dollars to rent what you want to rent for this amount of time i would have looked at that and been like these things don't make sense together one of these needs to change we either need like ten thousand more people or twenty thousand dollars less space i just can't imagine ball pit looks fun though yeah apparently someone peed in it not what ball pits are for ball pits and pools just public urinals where no one can see that you're doing it i can actually confirm that those playgrounds from like mcdonald's and like with all the slides and stuff not mcdonald's specifically

urine water parks yeah absolutely you know you know you know how know? You were the kid making the urinals? I was a kid at age, I think I was like five or something, but that's not an excuse. I don't know why, but for some reason I saw the slide and I was like, I have to go to the bathroom. I don't know how to get out. I don't know where the bathroom is in this building. It goes down and away and I can't see where the slide goes. Even though I had been sliding on that slide, and I knew exactly where it went, I was like, perfect.

It's just like the urinals in the bathroom. I just peed in it. And it's one of those memories where you look back in your life, and you're like, no, why? Oh, my God. It's just like, I guess I was five. I didn't know better, but oh, my God. So, yeah, kids, they're just so dumb.

They're so dumb. But, yeah, i peed in you invented a sterile water slide don't take away from that yeah i'll take that away from it okay cool yeah sterile yeah invented a sterile water slide take how germy that was before you came just as good as clorox bleach or whatever our sponsor is for cleaning we should sell our urine well is there laws against that pretty sure that's a hazardous material is it hazardous or whatever our sponsor is for cleaning. We should sell our urine. Mm, well. Is there laws against that? Pretty sure that's a hazardous material.

Is it hazardous? I thought it was sterile and good. Those are different qualities. I don't think urine probably is still not a good thing to be mailing around to places. What about those sneakers we talked about? Can we make urine sneakers, like a drop of urine in our sneakers?

That's Mischief's next drop. Holy water water human blood urine semen spit although all the other bodily fluids going in sneakers coming your way you know what mark yeah for timely references plus 100 points for for bag of money holy plus 100 points. For urine honesty, plus 300 points to you, sir. Are you at 500 points? Yeah. Thank you. Dang.

That feels good. I enjoyed that. That's a good one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, Wade, what was your title a con job that's just show blizz

struck me as funnier the first time but I'm still excited to hear what's going to happen I believe it could be good I believe so I'm here to be impressed alright so this is the tale of Tom and Lisa I replaced the names and their experience at 2017 blizzcon rewinding back to 2017 blizzard's biggest pull i don't know if it still is but it

was overwatch overwatch was booming and it was really exciting because this was going to be the second year i believe they had the overwatch world i think it was called the world cup sounds right that was a good one that was a really good year for the world cup it's huge yeah have you guys seen what the arena looks like where they hosted the world cup it's an actual like arena i think i'll share a photo you guys listening can look it up but they have this actual fully like round arena with the competitors sitting like on an elevated stage in the middle of the room with these giant TVs kind of like hanging from the ceiling where people can see the gameplay I believe they'd also cut to like images they had cameras aimed at like the actual competitors too so they would

occasionally show like who they were talking about they had announcers sitting off to the side behind the seating there were hallways with like food and restrooms and stuff so it's like an actual like if you go to a sporting event, like a football stadium, very similar. A basketball game, I guess, is a better explanation, like a basketball arena. Very similar layout. Like, very professional, very amazing, honestly. It was really, really awesome to see whenever I got to see it.

Anyway, 2017, the Overwatch World Cup is going on at BlizzCon. And Tom and Lisa had media badges to BlizzCon. They were getting to enjoy, you know, media access. They got a little bit of early, like, walkthroughs for some of the things. But the most important thing is they wanted to go see the Overwatch World Cup. And I believe, if I remember right, it was a two-day event. I think on Friday they had the quarterfinals or something. Saturday I think they had the semifinals and the finals.

And so on Friday, they attended. They walked up. There was basically like a hallway that you'd walk up to. You'd show your badge to somebody. They would let you in. There was a designated media section with media seating. So there was plenty of seats for media. And then the rest of the stadium was pretty open to first come first serve. There was like a family and friends section that was kind of like on the floor. If you look at the photo, you can kind of see like family and friends had seats on the floor kind of nearby the stadium. Point being is they went, they got to watch the quarterfinals. No problem. And they enjoyed it.

I remember whenever I got to see some of the competition, it was actually really cool. Like people were super into it. I had no idea what to expect, but like they sold jerseys. People were buying jerseys for USA or South Korea, Canada, whoever they were supporting. And it was like actually being at a sporting event. People took it really seriously. They were having fun. There was a lot of cheering and everything. It was very like lighthearted and just enjoyable. So Saturday comes along and Tom and Lisa are here with some friends and their friends messaged them that they're already at the arena early in the day because a lot of people are trying to get in and they wanted to make sure that they could get seats

even though they had media badges they were still worried enough media might show up to where it might fill up so tom and lisa go to the arena they kind of bypass a lot of the rest of what's going on at blizzcon because again their main focus they want to see what's going on with the overwatch world cup and when they arrive they see a huge line of people trying to get into the arena and they're like man that sucks i would not want to wait in that i feel bad for people that don't have like the media access or whatever else so they walk by the line they walk up to the front and one of the enforcers walk i think i don't know if they were called enforcers at blizzcon but one of the enforcers or security people uh walk up to them and like stop them and they're like hey uh we're

media we're trying to get to the media section to watch the overwatch world cup and the guy says well right now we're basically at capacity so we're grouping media and general admission together you all have to wait in line together to try to get in looking over the man's shoulder they see the media section is actually like half full at most the rest of the stadium's getting pretty full but the media section is maybe half full and they point this out like well the media section doesn't look like it's that full right now and the guy he was kind of a dick about it he was kind of just like brushing them off kind of like didn't want to acknowledge them and was you know probably overwhelmed a little stressed and overworked at that time but he was kind of a dick and tom's the kind of person who is very nice but

when he gets pissed off, he gets kind of spiteful. So he treated the guy with respect, you know, let the guy tell him otherwise, like, oh no, the media section is very full, whatever have you, and however kind of like dickish tone he was being told this. But he was determined to find a way in because he felt like this guy was just dicking him around. So Tom and Lisa turn around and they text their friends as they're slowly walking away, like, hey, we're not able to get in right now, don't know if we're gonna be dicking him around so tom and lisa turn around and they text their friends as they're slowly walking away like hey we're not able to get in right now don't know if we're gonna be able to join you as they're finishing up this message they see a couple walk up to a side door they'd

never noticed before and they knock on the side door another security person opens up and standing there and asks to see their badge they have a badge that looks unfamiliar but tom has an idea what if we are a part of the next group to go through that go through that door because the security person wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to the badge they kind of get a quick glance and then they just walked on so tom and lisa stand they loiter a little bit waiting for another person or group to come up to that door and after a few minutes another couple approaches knocks on the door tom and lisa shuffle in behind them the same security person answers the door the front two people that had knocked on the door

show their badges tom and lisa tom makes sure show the back of their badges which weren't showing a whole lot of the actual graphic of what badge they had security person overlooks that assumes they're all part of one group and they follow behind now at this point they realize they're not supposed to be here because sitting all around them are the players in the tournament team south korea is to the right, nomming on food. Team Canada across the hall, hanging out, talking strategy. This is literally the backstage green room where the competitors are hanging out. And Lisa's just on her phone, not really paying attention.

Tom is sweating bullets. This will get them thrown out of the convention if they get caught. What have they done? What are these badges? Oh no. So they keep walking. The security guard's talking to them. Tom's trying to play it cool. And they get up to like a little like refreshment lounge and the security person turns them like, hey, if you guys want to grab like a cup of water or something, we don't have a whole lot for you guys here. But if you want like a cup of water, take out with you, whatever. Feel free to grab to grab something hang out go say hi to people if you want to real quick but then i'll take you to your seats the other two obviously have somewhere to go they know people here so they go and like say hi to someone real quick tom and lisa are just left

with a security person and tom looks down kind of like casually trying to make sure his badge is still flipped over the wrong way and talks to the security person says something along the lines of like hey i really appreciate you you know just looking out for us and making sure we could get back here and everything it's kind of crazy out there super casual yeah i just wanted to make sure you knew that you know we appreciate you you know looking out for our friends and stuff and uh getting us back here security guard doesn't think twice just like oh yeah no problem you know it's my job but happy to do it and uh thank you for saying that and after a few moments of like mild chit chat banter whatever the other two come back and they're like okay we're ready to go to our seats so security guard

leads them out of like this double curtained doorway and they are on the walkway to the main stage the entire audience sees them coming out onto the walkway to the main stage and they're thinking oh god we're obviously not competitors they know we're not competitors where are they going to lead us and after a few steps like this little staircase leading down i think there's a section of people sitting facing the main stage that looks to be family and friends but tom realizes like okay we got in we're at the family and friend stage how do we get from here to the media section without all of this blowing up so tom looks to the security guard again who's made small talk and says hey uh i know you guys said you had like water and stuff backstage but we were looking for some actual like food haven't had a chance to grab lunch are there like general concessions or something we can go to and security

guard goes yeah well you're gonna have to kind of go back into the main hallways like you know where the general admission is so it's gonna be worth staying in line and wait for it but once you do i would say just walk back out knock on the door again i'll lead you back through again and he's like oh i'm so sorry for you know causing a hassle just didn't know best way to get food uh didn't know what you guys have or anything she's oh no no problem so Tom and Lisa walk back up onto the the stage and they go toward so there's like three or four different hallways that kind of open up into the arena and they go to the nearest one which happens to be where the general admission is coming in. So they walk probably two feet behind the guy that denied them admission.

This time from the inside. See him there. Do everything they can not to make eye contact. Pass by. Go get their refreshments and make it to their seats. And then they got to enjoy the semi-finals and the finals. And that's it. That's the story

sounds like one of those stories and i definitely have a bunch of these where it's like it feels really secret agent-y like you're doing some real shit oh yeah but like i don't think they would have been kicked out for that i don't know man i don't know either but i know i'm a super nervous person and i would have passed out from the stress of like trying to sneak around like that i think it's actually probably happens more often than people assume where you just like go through a door at a convention because it's all cavernous and like you know there's back rooms that lead everywhere if you just happen to go in a door and you're just like i'm suddenly in the underground you know i imagine it happens all the time i have a hundred percent done that before when we were on tour in amsterdam when mark and ethan were both really sick and it

was awesome after the morning where we were hanging out doing warm-ups like trying to see if the show was gonna happen yeah mark and ethan i think headed off and you flew across the channel to england maybe or whatever you flew to like the next location try and get medical assistance the rest of us were like all right evening in amsterdam and the theater that we were at was part of this huge complex that also had a convention center in it it was a baby convention it was like a like a caring for your oh like an actual not a small convention like diapers and milk and like it was like a mommy convention or something. I don't know.

We tried to go from the theater to the outside world to go hang out in Amsterdam and get some dinner and just see the city. We wandered through a bunch of long hallways that somehow connected the backstage of our theater to a random door that pooped us out into the dead center of this baby convention. This Dutch baby convention. Everyone had badges. We had nothing. We're just all looking around like, yeah, these breast pumps, right? Were there actual babies in this place, or was it just chaotic stroller pushing? Babies on display, buy a baby, build a baby.

It was the same as every other store, except the only people there were exhausted parents with children in strollers or in backpacks. How do I make my baby shut up? You got a baby shut up device? Yeah. You got a baby shut upinator? And at the time, we were like, whoa, we broke into this convention. But the dude at the door of that convention was like, oh, yeah, you see the baby stuff okay you go into baby convention that's okay and yes i'm

dutch that's how dutch people talk yeah yeah oh look how we had a rule we were over in europe like don't make fun of access once we get back to america yeah it's off the baby convention have a good look also we had that rule and in the first moments of the first show anywhere in europe ethan comes out of his life hey it's so good to be in the bag what is up tillberg and everyone in tillberg was like we're not whatever that is we're oh what were the two languages he couldn't figure out who spoke where oh god all of them it wasn't swedish and and uh denmark he couldn't figure out where what they spoke in denmark oh he didn't think danish was a language he was trying to figure out what language they spoke in denmark he thought i was german and then he didn't believe us when we told him that it was

danish yeah so anyway some of those convention people can be real turds i've had the opposite experience where like i was at a convention and my brother was there visiting and like his badge was like one of those where when you're a guest at a convention a lot of times you need to get your badge from like the person who's greater you know relations or something and they're inside the convention and it's like well how am i supposed to get in there if i don't have a badge to get my badge and like i there people are such douchebags where it's like no you am i supposed to get in there if i don't have a badge to get my badge and like i there people are such douchebags where it's like no you don't have a badge you can't come in this is my only job this is my only value but most of them are volunteers anyway i don't think anyone's

getting arrested in the blizz blizzness what's it wasn't show blizz story yeah con jobs and do you think that conventions are going to come back in a big way because we've all known that conventions are like the plague haven oh yeah spreads in conventions because everyone's breathing out everyone gets sick based on how uh at least in the u.s the virus was handled overall i would say there's a good chance it's going to come back pretty similar to how it was yeah yeah i would like to think people learn some lessons but um if i was a betting man i mean i think the big thing about conventions is some people are going to be scared away off the hop probably people who are vulnerable to getting sick or who it affects more intensely who would

be like i just don't want it's not worth it but i think a lot of people are going to be willing to go back until there's like the great pax east 2023 novel novel coronavirus outbreak covid 23 comes out and like the entire convention gets sick and maybe tens of people die or a bunch of people get hospitalized i don't at all judge people who are so desperate for stuff to get back to normal i'm gonna get my second dose and like i don't know what i'm gonna do but it's it feels like freedom it's gonna be hard to resist the urge to just go lick strangers on the street because i feel that i'm immune bitches but like i get that i'm desperate for things to go back to you know i'm not sure how this is gonna change everything going forward i don't know how it'll change conventions probably not good would you guys go back to a convention? Probably not.

I've always been of the mind, like, I knew that I get sick every time I go. I douse myself in hand sanitizer. Every single time I get sick. And I don't have a weak immune system. It's just like, everyone wants a hug. Everyone wants a hug. No, I'm tough.

Not anymore. Not lately. You know what changed that? Actually getting exercise and some sun. And not going to convention. You can't even drink alcohol, man. You basically have no immune system. Alcohol's not immune system. I'm sure water at this point might make you ill. I drink lots of water.

And I'm not. I haven't been sick in a while. I haven't been sick in a while. And I think it's chalked up to exercise and getting sunlight. They say that's good for you. They do. And I do. Would you go back to like a Disney?

Yes. Yeah. I mean, that's a very similar type thing though, right? That has more value for me. The product is different, but the crowds are the same, right? See, I mean, this is a privilege thing or something. In our position, the context that i've gone to gaming conventions in almost exclusively is not like i bought a pass and i'm going to see some stuff i got to do e3 that way

actually i went to the last i went to e3 2019 not as like a creator guest but as like i worked with a company and so i just got a pass and got to do the convention like a normal human yeah but when you're like a creator at these things and you're like doing autographs and we're doing the hugs and you're doing special stuff, that is a lot. It's a lot to meet that many people face to face. It's a lot to even do the backstage stuff. Like you meet all these different creators, like people,

you know, and look up to people. You have no idea who the hell they are, but you have to make small talk with because you're at this thing together. It's exhausting. I don't get a lot of positives other than being there with friends out of gaming conventions. Going to like Disney is mostly positive. The crowds are the only negative.

You have to deal with the crowds and people being around, but they're not trying to touch me. They don't want my autograph. They don't want me to look at them because we're all trying to do our own things. It's just focusing on hanging out with friends and just dealing with crowds of people you know i wonder if this is more of like an introverted perspective than an extroverted perspective because i goes i was getting burned out on it that kind of stuff's never bothered me because i enjoy eating people because i'm energized by crowds as an extroverted person so i wonder if that's i mean obviously the whole pandemic has changed our outlook slightly too but just in general like if you were feeling

that way about it it seems less about pandemic-y and almost more just like an introverted, like I'd rather just go hang out with friends than deal with a whole bunch of people. And on top of that, the chance of illness and plague is there. Yeah. It's hard. I know that people like want to meet me, but honestly, like the, the obligations are a lot like we've we've done mean greets for so long but also just like that can go on for days at a time we've done some that were poorly set up or planned or poorly run where what was that one not to name any names but we did one convention where the three of us plus jack was there we did we met and signed things and hugged people for like 20 hours over two or three days and most of it was the first two days because the third day i believe

was your anniversary so we didn't do anything that day so in two days it was basically like 21 hours of signing that was a whole different kind of hell on earth we didn't take food breaks the most we did was run 10 feet to use the restroom for like 10 straight hours the first day if not more people would go in the line again and again and again so it's like uh yeah we wait another four hours thanks i'll see you in four hours i enjoy meeting as many people as we can like i've always like i said as an extrovert that i enjoy that i know people do want to meet us but like the negative to us getting to the point we're at is like no matter how long and how much we dedicate we cannot physically get to everyone

we can't it sucks it's it's great that you know we've gotten to that point but it really sucks when i slip into the sweet embrace of irrelevancy maybe then i will go to a convention again and then i can enjoy it that would be nice i don't know that i care enough about anything at a convention to want to go to a convention it It was more so to hang out with friends and meet fans. That's kind of what my motivation was to go. Most people go just to be with their friends. That's usually it.

A lot of people do go for Comic Con and the panels and whatnot, but most people just like hanging out with their friends at a convention. Something to do. Yeah, I guess that's true. Expensive hobby. I mean, what hobby isn't expensive? Listen, judges. I am that's true. Expensive hobby. I mean, what hobby isn't expensive? All right. Listen, judges. I am your judger.

This has been a very nice, friendly conversation, but at some point, there's got to be a loser. And it can't be me. So that's a pretty exciting prospect. Yeah, I think we all know Mr. 500 points didn't quite get enough. Well, I don't know. You have no idea what my scale is, so. Sorry. Don't be smug, sorry don't don't be smug mark i i won't you have no idea what my scale is either i don't at all but it's a great scale no matter what it is it's it's actually the best scale i've ever heard of i'm not gonna kiss ass your scale is your scale and i accept it okay so we already

ran through mark's score 100 for timely reference 100 for bag of money 300 for urine honesty bringing mark up to a total of 500 on the uh bob scale uh wade your story plus 200 for quality title it even made mark laugh and he was trying he was consciously trying to talk shit and tear you down it made him chuckle I appreciate that he did laugh plus 100 for keeping it real casual with the security guard

that was good spy work plus 1 point for suspense that's a big one point though that one point is probably my favorite so far it wasn't a lot of suspense but it was enough suspense that I was like where's that going we'll see plus 50 points

for subverting authority because I do appreciate that you stuck it to the man and you literally got to sneak behind the back of the douche bag Tom and Lisa did it it's your story you did it in my mind I was imagining it was you and Lisa whoever that is I. Tom and Lisa did it. It's your story. You did it in my mind. I was imagining

it was you and Lisa, whoever that is. I guess Molly. Now I'm going to be in even more trouble. Oh no. You and your mistress Lisa. You told it in my mind it was you doing all the sneaking. And that brings you up to what is that? 351 points

with only one more entry on the scorecard for your story i have to say i really appreciate the convention nostalgia it spurred a nice conversation we got to talk about our experiences at conventions it's really fun i miss it a lot until we did the tour that was kind of the way that i got to hang out with you guys the most we were always busy but that was one way where we all got together and we would always have like a dinner out or something i remember a time when you and i and molly were at um i believe a convention in louisville and you and i stayed up till like four in the morning just having casual chit chat and like the hotel room was like the first time we really had a chance to

just bs oh yeah we ordered pizza and i accidentally ordered a hilarious amount of wings. Yeah. A huge box of wings. Yeah. It's good times. For that quality nostalgia, I award you plus 200 points. Oh. This is outrageous. You didn't have any nostalgia, Mark. You didn't bring it to the fight. His story wasn't even about him.

Your story, you did not go to DashCon. Your story was not about him. Your story, you did not go to DashCon. Your story was not about him. but I'm saying, but I'm saying his story couldn't have had any nostalgic purposes because it wasn't even about him. It connected to our lives. Even you talked about

the joys of conventions. I say that my story was so impactful that it resonated across and over and through his story straight to your heart. Plus 75 points to Mark's story for resonance how do you like that yes yes yes yes that puts me above are now ahead

that's true yes is he because i how much it was 351 you have 551 and mark now is 575 75 so what do you have to say wade you gonna kiss ass now no No, I don't feel necessary to kiss ass I just wanna say That I appreciate and miss you guys And I hope we can get together and do either Something like the tour or convention or whatever soon Your point Signing Bob I feel like has been done If you wanna award more points that's your prerogative

But I just generally like I don't know, getting to do all the cool things We've gotten to do together I guess I'm still on the nostalgia Train of just, it's wild to all the cool things we've gotten to do together, I guess I'm still on the nostalgia train of just... It's wild to think about the things we've gotten to experience and may still have yet to experience. It's still pretty cool what we've gotten to do, gotten to see, even if we don't all go to a convention together like that again. I'll never forget even the first time that we were on a panel together at PAX Eastmark. I don't think you were at that one, Bob.

But the first time that we were escorted behind the scenes, cutting through a kitchen and like people that were just legitimately preparing meals and stuff, taking secret elevators and going through like back doors and these little tiny hallways. It was just such a like the president of the United States being like ushered around and stuff. It was just such a surreal experience. Certainly felt weird having like two or three people with earpieces escorting us around and whatnot and just getting to experience all that stuff with you guys i don't know cherished memories cherished memories last points of the game go to wade plus 25 points for genuine

sincere shared memories and i think you will find that means the winner by one point a real squeaker is Wade's story a con job no that's just show blizz thank you Bob thank you very much I appreciate it Mark no hard feelings as one of my favorite people actors is uh

you shut up oh my god I want to say to you Mark he's there everyone knew what he was doing thank you for listening I want to say to you, Mark. Oh my God. I want to say to you, Mark. He's there. Everyone knew what he was doing. Thank you for listening to the distractible podcast. Make sure you follow the subscribe.

What do you do to podcasts? You add it to your thing on the, I don't know. You follow, subscribe, host, click. Buy a jar of Wade's pee on our website. Probably all the images. Maybe some of them, no promises, might be uploaded to the website from this. I don't know. You know. Gamer guy piss jars.

Gamer guy piss jars. That's the most unappealing thing ever. Let's end on that. Yay. Good night and good luck. Don't buy gamer guy piss jars. Or do. Podcast out.