Yearly Armageddon -- Day 1

New convention, new neckties in the rotation...

It's that time of year again... the time where Loquacious and I lose our minds. Luckily, we have a great group of Gophers who are used to it all and help find our brains when we have seemingly lost them.

Gopher-Piranhas attack the store in directed ways, picking only the selected bones clean...

These are folks who volunteer their time and effort to help us move the store at this time of year. They are fantastic folks and a game store couldn't ask for a better core crowd to be blessed with...

Far off shot of our booth...

This was earlier today. Sales have been good and steady, and we had an active Friday afternoon of the convention. Being local, we usually the first dealers here, and this year was no exception. The initial boost we get when the doors open and we are the only dealers currently here is nice... Sort of proves the old quote of early birds getting the worm...

Right now I'm in a side room writing this up while Loq and Hi-Sign run the booth. I'll be rejoining them here soon, but it's kind of awe-inspiring to look out in the main room and see all the Gopher Mafia shirts that are about. It makes me proud to see what we have wrought... =)

Thank you, Gophers... For all your help... all your loyalty... all your friendship... we *could* do this without you, but it would be rather maddening and not *NEARLY* as fun...

La Gopher Nostra... represent...  =P

-- GopherDave

Say It With Me Now...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's the day before the convention, and things are avalanching down at breakneck pace. We;re only slightly behind the curve, but we are actually less behind than usual. There are still a couple of things to dig-up just in case our various "Plan A's" hit critical fail.

I'm getting to play Champions tonight, but my mind will not be on it. Too much stuff rattling around in my mind. I fully expect, while playing, to make a Notepad list of things that come to mind that need to be done before we hit the convention tomorrow. Then, once I get home, there is laundry to be done. From the looks of it, sleep will be that thing that other people get this weekend.

I've said it before, though... I wouldn't change a thing. It's one of my favorite times of the year. While my focus has shifted from convention attendee/event judge to vendor, it's still a blast for me. I never could do it any year without Loq's help, and as a store, Loq, Skribl, and I couldn't do it without the Gophers. Those guys rock... ...on toast.

-- GopherDave

T-Minus Two Days And Counting...

Got an early start to the day and have been knocking things off of my to-do list. Tomorrow will be hectic as well, but not as much so I think. If I can get the last two things knocked off of my list today, we'll be in great shape for the weekend, I believe.

I forgot to mention in my last entry about the (then) impending DC Adventures session that occurred last night. Everyone got into things, we split the party, Marathon got to sink an Apokoliptan robot, Fahrenheit got to wear Zeus' Thread of Life as a belt (don't ask), we saved pretty much the whole of the Greek pantheon (except for Circe, who was stabbed dead by Myrmidon, but in his defense,there were some vengeance issues going), and the ever-awesome Necromancer got trapped in a ring. All-in-all, a great time was had... Thanks once again to KnightErrantJR for running such a great game.

In other gaming news, I've been invited to join a Pathfinder RPG game. Not my go-to genre in terms of play (I've done fantasy to death), but it's a completely different group of people to game with and it's off-site, so I can concentrate on being Dave and not GopherDave. A lot of y'all think they're one-and-the-same person, but trust me, they're not. Do they share traits? Yep, but there are differences... Those who know me well can tell you exactly what they are, too. I won't elaborate here.

Still more game-related stuff, the store has been chosen as a playtest site for D&D Next. Full details on that are still forthcoming from Wizards of the Coast, so not much to report. I'm also getting an itch to run a home-brew game once again... This itch has been building for a while, and the font of creativity behind it has only been contained by a plethora of other things to do and a severe lack of time. With the hiring of a couple of part-time folks, and placing more trust in Skribl to run the store on his own, I feel the logjam beginning to break free. What form the home-brew game will take is still nebulous, but I have a couple of ideas percolating...

Finally, Winter War... It's coming up in two days (hence the entry title), and I feel we're more prepared for it than we've ever been. What we're bringing will be reduced from years past, but not because we are dogging on the convention. No, this year we're not bringing a lot of items that traditionally don't move for us. We've done several years of "bringing the store", but now we're being smarter about and bringing what we think will sell well for us as opposed to EVERYTHING. Plus, we have a lot more stock now. Everything is quite a load...

That's it for now... time to turn my "to-do" list into a "to-done" list...

Toodles...

-- GopherDave

Plod... Plod... Plod...

Lateness plagues me... Impending workload plagues me. Can't sleep, clowns will eat me... ...or something like that.

To all the folks coming to Winter War, we will see you there. To folks coming to our MtG: Dark Ascension Pre-Release on Saturday of this upcoming weekend, we will see you at the Gopher. How can we be at two places at once?

We're talented that way... =P

-- GopherDave

One Step Down, Many More To Go...

Running late... Point-of-sale is done, now onto some early tax stuff right before the convention... Plus other stuff...

Gotta go...

-- GopherDave

Slow Going...

Went home early last night as it was one of Lo's nights to cover things at the store. Once home, I began to realize just how sick I still am. The early evening went well, but once it got late, I felt like absolute crappage. This morning, I woke up with a combined sinus headache/migraine. Lo went to the store to cover...

I have an absolutely wonderful wife.

I'm just now getting motivated, and it's after 2PM. I need to get to the store so I can let Loquacious get home. I also have a bit more to do with the point-of-sale system before I'm done. It should get done tonight. I'm going to get moving, so it can be so.

-- GopherDave