The first day of DunDraCon XXV, the oldest running RPG convention. Woke up and decided that this year I'd stay at the con all the time. The last 2-3 years I'd usually go home to watch tv and work, but this year I resolved to tape what I could (three VCRs help there) and not worry about the rest. That means I'll have like 30 hours of material to watch Tuesday, so I'll be busy that day.

I had to pick up Christopher. The drive took a long time, as I left at 14:45 and hit heavy traffic immediately and most of the way to Davis. I got there right at 17:00 and we left by 17:15. I was really tired so I let Chris drive, but apparently he was tired too so it was all he could do to stay on the road. By the time I woke up we were somewhere near Richmond, having missed the 680 and 780 cutoffs. Got Chris steered back on the right path, but now we were following the weekend traffic so it took us a while to get to San Ramon. But we finally arrived a bit after 19:00, after getting off at Crow Canyon Road by mistake and wandering about for a bit (Chris: "Where did the Target go?").

Dave finally got adjoining rooms this year. Though it looks like that still won't be enough space if Pick and Woo also stay over on Saturday. We have Eric, Chris Van Horn (Big Chris), my brother (Little Chris), Dave, myself, and Ken Hite sharing what passes for four beds, an egg-crate-looking mattress, and a cot. I should have brought that fold out couch thing I have at work, though I didn't think of it at all until Dave expected me to have it with me when I got to the con.

Not much going on the first night. Dave and Little Chris helped Eric start to set up his Wizard's Attic area. Eric now has a whole half of a room to himself, the other half being Chessex. It is pretty impressive what he sells now. At 20:00 there was the Skotos party. They have a suite with six computers connected to the Internet so that people can try out Castle Marrach (didn't know that's how it was spelled). Now that I see people actually playing the game, I must say the interface is impressive -- it looks quite professional and is a far cry of what I think of when people say "MUD". Shannon was being shown the development version of Galactic Emperor and it also looks quite impressive. Totally different interface than Castle Marrach, more having to move your forces around and build things. Eric commented that the setup was like King of Dragon Pass in that you have to pick out your political leanings and your species strengths and such, all with lots of description and flavor text.

Then we headed up to our rooms and settled in. We watched The Matrix which apparently Dave loves. Eric and Big Chris hadn't seen it so they got to watch the last 45 minutes or so. Then we watched Idle Hands which has Jessica Alba in it. Ken is a bit too graphic about that girl (and watching The Matrix he kept saying that Gina Gershon would have been so much better as Trinity). Somehow we got through the movie (which is not that bad, but it *is* a horror movie) and got to see Jessica in her underware. Big Chris had left by then to go run a Fading Suns LARP in the hot tub.

So that's the first day. Looking through the schedule, I doubt I'll get into any official game since I want to keep Saturday night open for the drinking and Sunday I want to play a miniature game (and I don't fancy waking up for an 08:00 morning game). We did go to the arcade room and saw that this year at least they have a nice variety of games. It's not all Streetfighter-type games, lots of multiplayer games. I'll go there later and try to beat one of the games. Allie's Grill (the hotel restaurant) seems to be partially closed this year for remodeling. That's a shame for they have good (if expensive) food.