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Post by on_the_edge on Jul 2, 2024 15:03:59 GMT -5
I usually post more of a recap after Galacticon but I have been traveling alot just since Sunday as I have been to Cooperstown to see the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I stayed last night in Vermont, I am currently in New Hampshire, and I will be in Maine tomorrow. The drive today from Vermont to New Hampshire was very scenic as I drove through Green Mountain National Forest and across some amazing bridges and alongside some impressive river creeks. This area is very different from Las Vegas. I am in Concord, New Hampshire and after making the drive I stopped at a 7-11 to buy a beer to unwind a little at my hotel The woman clerk was training somebody there and she pointed at me, without carding me, and said "You will get to know your regulars and you don't need to card them but anybody you don't know you need to card no matter how old they look." I am not a regular at that 7-11, I just drove into this state for the first time a couple of hours ago. I think tonight I might go to the local AA baseball game which is in Manchester less than 20 minutes from my hotel. As the others have said, you need to stay and find your clone. I mean, what if he is being groomed for evil purposes. It will be YOU that will take the fall.  I am glad you are having a great time and got to see New Hampshire. Hopefully you have time to see Old Hampshire and of course, Current Hampshire. |
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Post by TTX on Jul 2, 2024 16:07:40 GMT -5
He'd have to cross an ocean to see Old Hampshire, probably couldn't do that and hit Mass for the show on the 4th.
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Post by db1091 on Jul 2, 2024 16:29:10 GMT -5
He'd have to cross an ocean to see Old Hampshire, probably couldn't do that and hit Mass for the show on the 4th. As a resident of Old Hampshire, I can vouch for this. He'd never get here and back again in time |
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Post by on_the_edge on Jul 2, 2024 16:46:34 GMT -5
But you both forget. Zeke has superpowers. If anyone can do it, it is him.
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Post by Swarm on Jul 2, 2024 17:01:49 GMT -5
Overall I had a wonderful time. Most of the people in this group I see at GCON are people I’ve now known the majority of my life. Tim Dalton told a story at dinner about meeting me when I was 15. That was definitely a long time ago.
That video they showed was pretty powerful. Seeing people who are no longer with us, and seeing ourselves throughout the years enjoying this game was really moving.
I’m glad I have the friends I have I’ve made through this game. It makes the game extra fun when we can not only play it but share our experiences and enjoyment with each other the way we do - on the boards, on other social media and once a year at GCON. Truly a special group and i’m proud to be part of it.
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Post by on_the_edge on Jul 2, 2024 17:29:15 GMT -5
Yea it was funny hearing Tim talk about how at the first Con it was mostly a bunch of kids and he was like one of only two adults. From that humble start the Con has grown and keeps on chugging along.
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Post by TTX on Jul 2, 2024 17:46:15 GMT -5
three if you count Tom. Now most of those kids are in their 40s and 50s.
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Post by on_the_edge on Jul 2, 2024 17:56:31 GMT -5
Can we count Tom as an adult? I am starting to feel like he is the real version of Peter Pan. Yet another character from Myth Worlds that came into our fables and tales.
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Post by TTX on Jul 2, 2024 18:01:02 GMT -5
Age wise at least.
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Post by Tournament Master on Jul 3, 2024 13:14:14 GMT -5
I wanted to give my recount of the weekend before the week is out and I forget some of it.
Thursday afternoon I set off from Connecticut about 1PM to head to New Jersey. I met up with Sinestro24 at the Wrestling Collector, a pro wrestling shop owned by the guy who puts on the 80s wrestling con. The shop was not well organized, but I was able to find what I came for, the first two PWI issues with Filsinger Games ads. We then headed to Pandoras box Toys, which is one of the bigger and nicer vintage toy shops in the Northeast. Jack was supposed to meet us but ran into a ton of traffic on the way up (took 5 1/2 hours from Baltimore). While we waited for him, we went to the cheesesteak place in the strip mall as I never had lunch. Eventually we went into the store and Jack met up with us and all was good in the world. Some great big ticket items like the original LJN ring in the box, a Macho Man stretch wrestler in the box for $600 and the original Rancor in box for $350. The one thing I thought about and probably wish I got was the Jake Roberts wrestling buddy for $160, which is a good price and a hard find. I did walk away with a Bruno figure for the auction, a Darth Vader Black Series figure and Demolition socks from a Pro Wrestling Tees crate.
We said goodbye to Sinestro and went to find a place to park Jack's car for the weekend so we could ride up together. Eventually we decided to go to a garage in Scranton, as it was about equidistance for both of us to get home from Sunday and Jack could avoid 95. We continued our ride up and made a stop at the exit was have traditionally stopped at before which had an 80's style Toys R Us up until the chain closed, which was right after our last Jamestown Gcon. To our surprised the Toys R Us was now a gigantic car wash, but still retained the TRU exterior shape. We got some Popeyes chicken sandwiches and continued on before a gas stop just shy of midnight...which was one of the oddest gas stops either of us ever had. The first place the pumps were turned off, so I went inside to ask and there were a few workers and he said yes, they had to turn off the pumps for 10 minutes because it was 11:55 as said it as if I had any idea why they would have to do that. Instead we went down the street to a gas station where no one was working at all, but the pumps were operational for 24 hours and successfully got gas. We eventually rolled into town around 12:30 and missed everyone who came in Thursday. However, we did get room 316 and Jack and I talked like Steve Austin all weekend.
Friday morning I headed downstairs to move my car at 9:00am as the meters would begin charging, and found a spot in the way too small parking lot that was a challenge all weekend. After coming in I saw Kevin M, Stu, Milton and Ty and caught up a bit. I went upstairs across the hall to find Mike M and greet him. After showering and whatnot, Jack and I headed to Resurgence Brewing in Buffalo to meet up with J and pick up the GalactiCon beers. We grabbed a glass of the 10th anniversary IPA, which was excellent. J then grabbed the Gcon beers and a selection of their other IPAs and loaded up my car. I'm glad that I told him to reduce the number earlier this week as we had more than enough for the weekend and for folks to bring home. We then headed off to Destroyer Park Golf, where we got their just in time to check in before our tee time. The inside had a fantastic collection of Destroyer memorabilia. We had a great group of 10 of us split into 2 5-somes, I was with Barry, Milton, Stu and Destroyer Park Golf's all-time hole in one leader Tim. What an amazing experience on a lovely day. Park Golf is right up my alley, with the shorter holes and the crochet like club and ball. We described it as potentially being the next pickleball. I will absolutely play the course in New Jersey when that opens up.
After our round of golf and group picture we headed to Ilio DiPaolos on the other side of Buffalo for our only meal of the day. We had 27 of us there including Kurt Beyer, who got to see his card and card art for the first time that night for the new Legends prime release. The food and company was great. The short rib was my favorite of the food everyone got, but I did get to try the eggplant parm, as we had an extra vegetarian dish and that was phenomenal. The service was great and we also had Ilio DiPaolo matches playing on the TV during the meal. One thing I didn't know was happening but luckily Jack caught before we left was a "Welcome Filsinger Games" sign on the video board on the sign out front. We caught a picture as I bet most people missed it as it was in a rotation with other messages. We eventually got back to Jamestown, I brought in the cooler and we had a few "Con-weisers" in the lobby before heading over to Shawbucks for karaoke night. We walked in just as Tom's friend and local wrestling ring announcer Ken was signing "Hashpipe". Eventually, Jack was able to get up to perform a song as well. I did unfortunately miss Kevin M's performance.
Saturday morning was a little tough to get up for, but we made it out around 10:15. Jack and I hit the McDonalds drive thru for breakfast...which was probably the slowest McDonalds drive thru I have ever been in. We went next door to the grocery store through a (gorilla) monsoon for some waters, chips and other necessities. We got to the JCC a bit after 11 and unloaded thanks to the help of Alex and a few other promoters. I got things set up and started check-in folks in and giving out con exclusives. Troy and Kathy got us started on the first tournament of the day, the GWF tournament. After some communication issues, I helped take over the bracket. In the finals I was able to take Shayne to victory over Pinnacle, which guaranteed me a spot in the G-con Cup, and allowed me to miss the Indies and Legends tournaments. I was able to order the pizza and wings and bring those back just before 2PM. During lunch we played the home movie that Holly made, which featured clips from Gcon 1 and 8 and was really fun to see a bunch of us old guys in our younger days. I'll try to post that to youtube soon.
After lunch we eventually got things set up for the panels. Tom did his talk about GWF and then brought up Chuck Carter, who was a surprise guest, and Tom Rickert. It was great hearing from them, as well as the Indies and Legends team, although not too much in the way of spoilers yet for the fall releases. We then had the auction, that raised over $2500 for the TNT hall of Fame, and also a little Wolf-themed auction to help out long time promoter Jim Steel, who had to miss the event. We finished the day at the JCC with the Lucille Ball women's tournament, which I had to enter to try and win the cool trophy Jack made, but flamed out quickly.
With the baseball game rained out we headed back to the hotel to find dinner. Jack and I went to Brazil, which featured vegetarian food from Labyrinth Press Co, which was excellent. We ran into Tom and Chuck on the street on our way out and all headed back to the hotel and Shawbucks yet again. I had to make a quick stop to set up the virtual tournaments for Sunday and by the time I made it to Shawbucks everyone was headed to the Cherry Lounge. I went up with Kevin F, Chris B, Mike Fortune and Chris S and was glad I got to chat with them as I was so busy during the day I didn't have much of a chance before. We met up with the meleskys, zeke, Pete B, Tom and Chuck and had a great time chatting, as Cherry Lounge is no longer a dance club, which we didnt know until we got there. I was amazed to buy a round of drinks for everyone for under $30. We then headed back to the hotel and brought in the cooler on con-weisers and kept the evening going until about 3am when Barry and Milton came down to head to the Buffalo airport for early flights. One big topic of conversation was coming up with a 5 year plan of GalactiCon locations, with Gcon 40 back in Jamestown. More to come on that I'm sure!
Sunday morning was rough to get up as always, but I did get out by 930 to get some Tim Hortons for the group, ran back to pick up Jack and then ended up at Venue 31 for the Sunday portion of the con. The space was great for what we needed that day. I got things going for the virtual tournaments and helped run one bracket as unfortunately Greg Hunter feel ill and couldn't make the con. Thanks to Carlzilla for helping run the other bracket and for Troy stepping in to run things once he won the Comedy wrestling tournament so I could play the Canada Cup. Our Canada Cup bracket ended in a 5 way tie with everyone at 2-2, so we did a playoff and I wound up winning with Lou Thesz over Marcus with Randy Savage. Thesz made it to the Canada Cup final but lost to Josh with Jack Brisco. Once the virtual tournaments ended we began the GalactiCon Cup. I had pick 7 and got Bruno Sammartino, who I brought to the finals before losing to online Legends Tournament winner Larry D, who beat me with Big Van Vader. At that point we all said goodbye and I did a final cleanup at the venue.
But the Jamestown adventure continued as Jack, Pete B and I visited the National Comedy Center museum a block away. It was a really fun and interactive experience and I highly recommend to everyone to check out next time in Jamestown. Some highlights included the Blue Room, with an ode to cursing, standup karaoke where you chose a standup set instead of a song to perform, and the fact that they had someone going around to sell you beers and mixed drinks while you walk around the museum. I found out my favorite comedy styles are parody/spoof, observational and absurd/surreal. I think that makes sense. From there we made a stop at Ollie's, which I have never been to before, and then got food at Taco Bell, which is a Gcon tradition. Jack and I eventually made it back to Scranton around 10pm and then I made it back home around 1am.
It was a long but very fun weekend. I'm glad we were able to make it back to Jamestown and bring some of our newer Gcon attendees back to where it all began. Thank you to everyone who attended for making it such a great weekend. I did hear from a couple first time Gcon attendees that it will certainly not be their last, which warmed my heart. I hope to see you all again next year for our next family reunion!
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