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Mod Meet 2009 was cancelled and reconfigured into the Denver Meetup, centering around the Great American Beer Festival coming to town. This time I brought my pals Joe(SleazeRocker) and Josh(kelwynshade) with me. We created Crystal Lake together, and Josh has also provided music for my other games like Territory War. They had been wanting to make it out to a Newgrounds meetup so Beerfest seemed like a perfect opportunity.

We flew out on Thursday to get settled in early for the festivities. We started off with some food and drinks from the hotel bar, and eventually met up with some of the NG staff later that night for pool. We called it a night pretty early so we could get back to our rooms and rest up for the next day. And I mean rest up, because we slept in pretty late. But who am I kidding, I always sleep in. We skipped out on Psycho Goldfish's cookout and headed down to Beerfest early to get a place in line.

A small part of the Beerfest line

We were actually pretty close to the front

It wasn't long before we were inside and sampling beers. Upon entrance we were given 1oz sample glasses to take around to the booths with us. As cool as Beerfest sounds in theory, it wasn't actually that exciting. It started off fun but became pretty crowded over time. It became hard to squeeze in and get samples. Not to mention that mixing so many different kinds of beer together isn't so pleasant.

Ready to drink

Time for a break

Wizard World Philly marks the first appearance of a Newgrounds in booth in their home state of Pennsylvania. Check out Luis' coverage here with plenty more pics. I was long overdue for some airport shenanigans this time. For whatever reason I had to make a connecting flight in my own state. When I got to Cleveland I found out my flight to Philly was flat out cancelled. I've had delays but never a complete cancellation. Instead of waiting till the next day and possibly paying for a hotel room, I took the next flight into Allentown, which was about an hour south of Philly. Tom was awesome enough to come pick me up at the airport there. Thanks Tom!

When I got in the booth was more or less set up, so we met up with everyone back and the office and hung out for a while. We had quite a few out-of-towners including me, Luis, Swain, Egoraptor, liljim, HappyHarry, Jonas, Sardonic-Samurai, Tomomoto, and 36Holla. We stayed till about midnight then headed into center city where we had some hotel rooms to store all of us.

Luis and liljim

Tom in the conference room

Friday we grabbed some food at Dunkin Donuts and headed into the convention center. I have to be honest, by this point the appeal of the conventions themselves is starting to wear thin. I'm not huge into comics and anime to begin with, so the booths start to blur together. The reason I come of course is to meet up with everyone that I would otherwise only talk to online, and to help with the Newgrounds booth. It's always enjoyable to meet actual fans of the site- even the... ahem... most dedicated ones ;)

The booth

Surveying the crowd

The streak of good airport luck continues! Amazing, really.

I really wasn't even planning on attending Comic-Con this year, to be honest. Last year was fun but I'm really not that big of a fan of comic books. Plus this year Newgrounds was not having its own booth anymore. And besides, that place gets really damn crowded. Luis talked me into it though, after our meetup at the NY Big Apple Con in June. It turned out a lot of NG regulars were still planning to attend, and flight tickets weren't as expensive as I was expecting.

This year Luis and I stayed in the Omni hotel, which was right across the street from convention center (awesome). We also bunked up with Krinkels and BlueHippo. Friday was a short day at the con, since we were all trying to meet up together at the hotel, and were arriving at different times. I had just enough time to check out the Behemoth booth and see some of the surrounding video game booths.

Full-size foam figure of the Blue Knight

People line up to play Castle Crashers

After everyone was accounted for we hung around the hotel room for a bit before getting ready to head off to the Castle Crashers launch party! Well, pre-launch party. The game was complete but comes out August 08. This was a great idea, since it's so hard to get a group of people this big into any bars or restaurants in downtown San Digeo. Food and drinks were provided, so we didn't have to split up or go anywhere else. It was here that I got to meet and talk to a bunch of Newgrounders that I hadn't seen the year before like Egoraptor, RubberNinja, Rina-Chan, Danomano, Hans Van Harken, and others. They had some Mario-Kart going on upstairs, and some pinata-bashing on the main floor.

Overhead view of the party

I really wanted to play Smash Bros

Beating up the pinata

The candy inside was pretty good!

Ok I should start off by mentioning that I'm getting REALLY lazy with taking pictures. Usually I select some for the article page out of a big group, but this time all the pics you see here are almost all the ones I took total. I'll try and get my act together for Comic-con and PAX.

Anyway, this year's meetup was a bit different- instead of spending the weekend in the city in some hotel rooms, we hiked it out to a cabin in the woods. More on that in a second though. We were supposed to get to the Newgrounds office on Friday morning so we could all get shipped out to the cabin. This posed a problem for a lot of travellers though, since some (me included) wanted to arrive Thursday night. So I got us all a room for the night and we had a pre-meetup meetup of our own. We were scheduled to arrive at the office by 9am the next morning (waking up at 7), so naturally we decided to stay out till 5 and walk around for a while. Whoops.

No refrigerator in the room?

We'll make due

Our nightly adventures included a walk to the Philly Art Museum (tradition), and a race to the top of the steps. On our way back we stopped by the fountain in Logan Square and met some LARPers (I'm not gonna explain, just google it) who directed us to a 24/7 diner that was open down the street. Some of the late-comers that night hadn't eaten yet so we stopped in for some 4am fixins'.

Everyone piles in

Stopping at the diner

June of 2008 marked Newgrounds' first appearance at the Big Apple Con, located in New York, New York. Being a presence on the web is great, but getting out to conventions to setup shop and actually meet fans is another thing entirely. Technically, Newgrounds already had a booth of its own last year at Comic-Con in San Diego, but it was a bit overshadowed by the bigger companies and game studios. Apple Con was the perfect place for NG to stand out and serve as a gathering place for fans and contributors alike.

My intial plan was to fly over to Philly first and help the guys load up the van with NG merch and materials- but between Swain, Luis, and Mindchamber, they already had that under control. So I just took a flight straight into NY and met up with all the guys on Friday night. Not surprisingly, my flight in was delayed two hours. This time though it meant I arrived right after all the unpacking and setup. Maybe it wasn't so bad for once? When I arrived we all went out for a bite to eat, and swung by one of the rooftop bars near Madison Square Garden.

Krinkels, Swain, and Tomamoto

Back in the hotel room

We got to sleep *relatively* early so we could be up for the start of the convention on Saturday. Krinkels and I slept in a little longer than the others, but we also couldn't get in early like everyone else because we didn't have exhibitor badges. We waited in line for about 20 minutes before the doors opened, during which period we also met up with NG regulars Radioactive24, and Nathaniel and Bryce Milburn.

The booth itself was a pretty nice arrangement. We had a monitor on the left side playing a mix tape of NG animations, and a monitor on the right hooked up with a fullscreen version of NG Rumble and four game pads. Both were big hot-spots. NG merch like shirts and DVDs were laid across the tables themself, and at the end of the booth we had a big yellow posterboard for everyone to sign.

Mindchamber dishes out pain in NG Rumble

Tom meets the fans

So, this is actually the second time I've been to Canada. The first time I went to Toronto, late last year. I never wrote about it though... well.. because we didn't exactly do much. Montreal on the other hand- this might possibly have been the best meetup I've been to yet, and that counts mod meets. (Sorry mods :()

The Montreal folk have had a few meets already, but this is the first one I made it to. It was also the biggest, as many people from around the US and Canada made their way up for it. Once again I made all my flights on time. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this airport stuff. I arrived in Montreal on Thursday, where I met up with Moses and soon a group of others. Only a few people were coming the first night, but we still went out to eat and found some entertainment. We ended up a pretty cool place called Sharx, which was a combination bar, pool hall, and bowling alley. Ok so most bowling alleys have beer and pool anyway, but whatever. This place was still cool. I'm terrible at pool in case anyone was unaware, but I actually managed to get lucky in bowling and beat everyone. That never happens.

Pox pretends he's going to beat my score

Me, trying to figure out how to use this wooden stick

Friday was the 'real' meetup night. During the day we hung out at Michelle's house and watched Pulp Fiction, as we tried to get a hold of everyone and get them all directed into the city. Also, I'm not including my accounts of meeting everyone individually cause.. that would take up about half the article. Plus I already knew half the people there anyway, so writing about meeting them (again) isn't that exciting. MOVING ON. That night we had reservations at 'Les 3 Brasseurs,' or in English, 'The 3 Brewers.' That's a funny thing to note about Montreal- here in America everything is English, subtitled in Spanish. In Montreal it's French, subtitled in English. The difference being of course that we actually refuse to learn any language but our own. So you can still make your way around pretty easy in Montreal if you're a hopeless American. Dinner was good, minus the part where I had to eat poutine. In case you don't know, it's basically fries with gravy and cheese. But I don't like gravy, so I don't really like poutine. It could have been worse. We also felt the need to hurl peanuts at each other from various locations at the table. I'm pretty sure I accidently threw one at the waitress, but cmon, you have to expect that when you serve peanuts. Sorry.

I officially despise airports. But more on that later...

The San Diego Comic-Con: The largest gathering of nerds in existence? I suppose E3 is a large contender, but considering Comic-Con is indeed based around comic books, it tips the scales. It's not ALL comics though, as there's an ever-growing game and web presence, with video game booths from Sony and Square-Enix, and website booths from Maddox and Newgrounds. Which brings you to me. This year is the first year that Newgrounds had its own booth. So me and and a crew of NG artists and users made our way to San Diego to represent the site. (and nerd it up)

Instead of breaking it down by day, like I usually do, I thought I'd do it different this time. Each day more or less consisted of the same thing, so I'm grouping everything together by sights/activities.

The Hotel

Luis and I shared a room at the Ivy Hotel, a fairly upscale joint in San Diego's downtown 'Gaslamp District.' Their motto is 'Excess cloaked in Luxury.' I couldn't tell you exactly what that means, but I was inclined to agree with them.

Seven pillows per bed = necessary

Fancy sink

Fancy Shower

Part of in-room minibar. Yes, that's a sex toy in the back

The Convention

This was actually our fourth time attending the Indiana Smash Brothers Tournament (MELEE:FC), but my first time writing about it. I figured I had to document the experience at least once.

So here's the deal- MELEE:FC is one of the largest smash tourneys you're going to find. Hundreds of competitors come from around the world (although mainly the US) to compete for thousands of dollars in prize money. The event runs a full three days, consisting of singles, teams, and crew battles. Basically, it's non-stop smash for the weekend. If at any point you ever thought you were good at Smash Brothers, then please come to this tournament and get proven wrong. First up is the car ride. Luckily, the tournament is located about five hours away, so the ride is pretty bearable. It could be much worse.

Ben is pumped

The only mosque I've ever seen

We arrive, check in, and start playing. The teams tourney starts almost immediately, so we get some matches in and then get ready to go to our pools. We actually did really good in our first round of pools. 8 teams per pool, top two advance. We (Matt and I) went 6-1 in the rounds, meaning we got to advance. Unfortunately, Ben and Emily didn't do so good :(

Barely eeking out a victory against AZ and Overswarm

Losing to Darkrain and Tink in style

Mod Meet 2007- the tradition continues in year 3! I got an extra day there this year, because last year I was still in school and had final exams. Airplane was my transportation choice, and once again I had less than favorable luck. This time it was my fault though- I arrived at the airport 15 minutes before my flight (would have been earlier if not for traffic) to find out that I had to be there 30 minutes early. Luckily I was able to catch another flight two hours later, and it was smooth from there. Until the return flight. But I'll get to that later...

I hit Philly around 5pm, and after finding my way through the airport and riding the train I got to the hotel around six. Most everyone was there, and it was happy hour, so I grabbed some drinks and said hi to everyone. After a bit we headed over to Friday's for our usual first-night dinner. This time we also got to hang out with Bob (CSS programmer) and Jeff (Johnny_Utah, NG artist). Bob decided he's not going to cut his hair until the NG redesign is done, so he had a 'do that was gaining on me. After dinner we took a walk down to the local pub to grab some beer, since Philly has Nazi beer laws in place.

Afro buddies

On the way to Mace's Crossing Pub

The bed situation was a little messed up that night, with some people in the wrong rooms. I ended up on the floor with a big bed blanket but it was still pretty comfortable, so no biggie. I woke up early with some terrible heartburn though, so I decided to stay up and be early for the hotel breakfast. Our hotel is famous for having a pretty awesome free breakfast, with bacon, eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, bagels, and more. No one else was up though so I sat out on the patio and played my DS for a while. By the time I was done everyone else started making their way downstairs so I just sat around for a bit.

Way more than 'continental'

Everyone looks.. wide awake

I live in Newark, Ohio.

Newark is an average town I suppose. Not too big, not too small. Full of its own little bits of history and such. Unfortunately after you live here for 20+ years you start to realize that Newark doesn't really keep up with the times. Aside from the movie theater most of Newark's attractions outlived their coolness in the mid-90's, leaving kids pretty bored.

My pal Ben was in town from the Navy this week, and he wanted to have a night out on the town. A night out in NEWARK. It's pretty hard to imagine to be honest. That is, until we realized something- The people who run Newark have a fascination of placing copper statues around town. Armed with car, a camera, and a KFC bucket, we vowed to make Newark fun.

The first stop was the Downtown square. Once the center of activity in Newark, it is now slowly being overrun with abandoned stores, bars, and stip clubs. Ok, just one strip club. The solution? Copper statues.

We're not sure what this one represents

Newark's monument to the 10 commandments. Not pictured: the strip club

Continuing on our way we found a pair of old ladies (Phyllis and Dyllis we'll call them) who seemed to be in a heated debate about something. Old ladies aren't very interesting though, so we made the most of it. Phyllis caught Ben's eye, while I took the opportunity to challenge Dyllis to a thumb wrestling match.

Ben moves in

Arrrr