I took the day off from work yesterday and took a leisurely drive (starting at 9am) up to Seattle to meet a friend of mine at Microsoft who's working there as an intern. It just so happened to also be the weekend of PAX. We didn't get into PAX until 4pm yesterday, so we just looked around the exhibitors area. Looked at some Starcraft 2, Fallout 3, Little Big Planet, etc. I'm hoping to play more of all of those today. There were also D&D tables setup for people to play as well as lounge areas for people to play their DS games. However, since I'm not very familiar with D&D and do not own a DS, I was unable to get involved. Perhaps if there's a beginner's table of D&D somewhere, I'll give that a shot today.

As far as my impressions of PAX so far, it is way more nerdy than I had anticipated. I am fully aware that I myself am a nerd, but I believe myself to be a vastly different type of nerd--apparently. There were a plethora of cosplayers and there was an overwhelming stench of BO. Also, I had expected at least some developer presence, but there really is very little. You have some designers from companies, but I figured there might at least be some companies showing off development tools or engines, but PAX really seems designed for the gamer. This may be immediately obvious to the people who keep track of PAX, but I have read very little about it. There are also a number of talks that you can go to. They seem to all be very high-level which may prove to be interesting. We didn't get to go to any yesterday, so I'm hoping we get to go to some of them today. I'm interested to see the level of interaction and the amount of intelligent input from the audience. That's the other noteworthy aspect, there is a really wide range of ages at this convention. The conventions and conferences I generally attend are primarily people mid-20s and upwards. This makes the atmosphere of the place feel even more diverse, which is perhaps a good thing.

Alright, I'll stop rambling about this for now. We are going to catch the public transit today instead of driving, since it seems like a faster and cheaper way to get there. Hopefully it turns out to be true. Back to the geeks!