PAX was wonderful, but not everything goes off without a hitch.  The short of it folks, is, and this is painful, the video didn’t turn out. It’s nobody’s fault really. Just dumb luck and the fickle finger of fate. See, because of the overflow from last year’s speeches they didn’t want to stick me into a conference room that seats only a few hundred again.  So they booked me into a 1500+ seat improvised theater. An open ceilined warehouse that, if filled with crates, would look more at home in a first person shooter.

Perfect for the semi-finals of the massive Omegathon tournament (scheduled just before my speech) but less perfect for taping a GamerDad speech. The Serpent theater was makeshift at best, featuring lighting best suited for the D&D tournaments surrounding it. The result? Poor cavernous sounding audio and truly dim lighting (Cary’s got a photo showing the problem pretty well).

Disappointing to say the least.  The speech was an overview of GamerDad.com, some thoughts on the big media topics and a big thank you to Tycho and Gabe. Last year’s speech was better and more on topic, maybe I’ll put that up.  Even though the video was kinda the point, it wasn’t a waste. I was still part of the most authentic thing in gaming, I still got to speak, I got to hang with some friends, and I got to say thanks to people who really stood by me when the chips were down.

I’ll just have to be more careful next time – I’m giving the keynote at the American Library Association convention in Chicago this November.  More on that later!

Tags: Misc