For those of you who have no idea what PAX is I will sum up by doing a cut and pastie from Wikipedia:
The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) is a semi-annual gamer festival held in Seattle and Boston. PAX was created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the authors of the Penny Arcade webcomic, because they wanted to attend a show that gave equal attention to console gamers, computer gamers, and tabletop gamers.
Created in 2004, PAX has been hailed as a weekend-long celebration of gamer culture. Defining characteristics include an insider keynote speech, game-inspired concerts, panels on game industry topics, exhibitor booths from independent and major game developers and publishers, after-hours parties, tournaments, and freeplay areas. Every PAX also features the Omegathon, a weekend long tournament of randomly selected attendees competing for a grand prize. The final round makes up the show's closing ceremony, past games for the final round have included Tetris, Pong, Halo 3, and Skee ball.
Jerry Holkins has said that the effect of PAX and Child's Play on gaming culture will outlast that of the Penny Arcade webcomic, "substantially."[1]
After many successful years of PAX, an east coast group seceded from PAX West and in 2010 the first PAX East was held in Boston, MA. Though it was said that PAX East was created to assuage the massive attendance to PAX West those in charge of PAX West considered this an act of rebellion and declared war. Those of PAX East were insulted that west coast PAX had asserted itself in such away and had tried to assume the title of PAX Prime. PAX East then challenged PAX West to a battle royale for the title.
The two factions of East and West raised volunteer armies primarily composed of PAX attendees to fight in the battle, set to take place at 10:00am PST on September 2nd at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington.
I'm a little fuzzy on that last part but overall it's pretty accurate.
I think that our coverage of PAX this year is will be much better than last considering that we didn't have to sell our blood weeks beforehand to raise funds for the trip. I anticipate having much more energy this year. Also I'm glad I won't be forced into wearing long sleeves to cover the subsequent suspicious bruising and track marks.
Our road trip from north Idaho will start Thursday afternoon and will be a straight shot to Seattle. I can't wait to head out to that great big nerd family reunion and see that huge banner saying "Welcome Home".
