Special Report:
TriXie Does the 2005 GDC
By TriXie
Tuesday, March 8, 2005
It's 70 degrees in Seattle when I leave—it's like Bizarro World or something! I get to the airport early, breeze through security, and settle in at my gate to read a trashy novel called Hotel Babylon about the guests that misbehave at a luxury London hotel. About half an hour before we're supposed to board the plane I realize I haven't eaten all day and I probably won't get to eat until after 9pm. So I pick up a Whopper and stuff it in my bag thinking I'll inhale it before I get on the plane. But I run into Vik Long, an Xbox® Account Manager, and we discuss the GDC party scene. He puts in a call to some dude to get me on the list for the IGN party that night—apparently there's a chick shortage and they've put out an APB on girls. I ask him to get me into the Xbox party, which this year is extremely limited, but he can't come up with an extra ticket. We also run into Charlie Scibetta from PR, who is traveling with his wife and two adorable curly-haired kids. Shane Kim, the General Manager for Microsoft Game Studios is on our flight too, and, surprisingly, is flying coach.
Anyway, I don't get a chance to eat my burger because by the time I get on the plane it's ice-cold. I prefer McDonald's anyway. I end up in a seat next to this guy, Jeremy, who lives in San Francisco. He keeps me entertained the entire flight with stories of alcohol-fueled adventures with his brother Thumper. He also gives me chewy Spree candy and eats the bad-colored ones so I can have the reds and purples. Yes, I'm high-maintenance. When the plane lands he gets my bag out of the overhead thing for me and invites me to join him for beer pong. But, alas, there is no rest for the wicked. Major Nelson is expecting me at the convention center.
I cab it to the Palace Hotel, which is swanky but kinda stiff. The only non-smoking room available is the handicapped-accessible one on the second floor. The toilet is up on risers and the desk is jacked up so high that I feel like a toddler trying to sit at the Big People table. The good part about the room is the handrail in the shower which ends up coming in handy—but never mind about that.
How to unpack quickly and efficiently.
I head to the Moscone West Convention Center where the rehearsal for the keynote address is going on in the Grand Ballroom on the third floor. I find Major Nelson geeking out in the back of the room with all of his equipment set up to record the keynote.
Major Nelson's 'good side.'
J is running through his speech while the PR posse watches and takes notes. The crew backstage makes sure the videos and demo are running smoothly. Occasionally, J says, "That's an awkward sentence. We're gonna work on that." When he gets to the part of his speech where he says "I'm not going to tell you about the next generation console," we all boo. J laughs and says, "Oh shut up. You knew that."
Pay attention, ladies!
The surprise HDTV giveaway is so top secret that they don't even practice it—J just says, "And then a human being will come out on stage and say some words." When he's done with the run-through the PR posse and some folks from the Advanced Technology Group gather to give him their feedback and go over their notes. The consensus is that it's too long and they need to cut at least ten minutes out of it. That missing ten minutes is where all the Xenon secrets were (kidding!).
Maj and I were hoping to do a pre-keynote video interview with J, but it's apparent that he has a long night ahead of him revising the speech. So, since Maj refuses to take me out to dinner, and it's too late to go to the IGN party, I go back to my room to post some rehearsal photos on my blog and order a cheeseburger from room service. Poor TriXie.
Blogging at the Big People desk.
This teeny Diet Coke is insufficient for my needs.
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
I get to the ballroom about 9 A.M.—although most people have been there since 7. Maj and I drop by the green room to see if J needs anything before the speech. He's chatting away in fluent Swedish with a lovely Swede, Mariana, who's helping him get ready. Turns out J spent his senior year of high school living in Sweden when his dad took a job there. J doesn't want to leave his stuff in the green room during the keynote, so I end up hanging onto his jeans, T-shirt, and cell phone for him after he changes into his keynote outfit. No, I didn't take a picture. Yes, I peeked. A woman comes into the room and tells me, "The audio guys need J in two minutes." Me: "Um, okay?" Am I J's personal beeyotch now? And, if so, is that a promotion?
Out in the ballroom the place is filling up fast. I snap some pictures of the Xbox kids in the house while Maj "checks his levels" or whatever.
Xbox Account Managers in the hizouse.
ATG dudes await J's speech … and list to the right.
I'm not going to tell you about the keynote itself; you can read the transcript, read an overview,watch the video, or listen to Major's podcast. Or heck, do 'em all—knock yourself out.
After the keynote I push my way through a thousand happy yellow-badged developers and two thousand black- and blue-badged sourpusses. I find J backstage accepting the praise and adulation of his peeps. When I dig his stuff out of my backpack to return it to him I notice that his Smart Phone had a reminder: "GDC Keynote." That made me laugh. Like he'd be watching TV or snowboarding and the reminder would pop up and he's like "Crap! I gotta go give a speech!"
The Xbox suite. Welcome to Fantasy Island.
Keynote over, I head to the Microsoft Exposuite, and am horrified to find that only Diet Pepsi is in the lounge. So I hold my nose, down the foul liquid, and accept my fate as a word-monkey in the Xbox Crew room. Major Nelson is there encoding his video of the keynote—and if you were waiting for that bad boy to show up on Xbox.com, you know how long it took. Maj's poor little laptop couldn't take any more and he had to start over on a different machine. Meanwhile, I'm writing a story and complaining so much that Maj finally turns to me and says, "Can I trade you in on a new model?" Ouch. Meanwhile, I'm still gettin' no love on that Xbox Party invite. I went to last year's and it was amazing. I can't miss this party … I will do whatever it takes to get that damn ticket!
Maj shanghaied my camera for this shot.
Me and the Major head over to a suite at the Argent Hotel to do our video interview with the dudes at BioWare. They're showing offJade Empire™, and we're all excited about it until the marketing guy tells us that there's a press embargo and we can't run our interview until after the 18th. Poop. It's a cool one, though. Here's my teaser: "Our goal is to let you kick ass as fast as the ass comes at you." Embargo that, baby! Oh wait. The embargo's over. Damn it. We'll have the interview video up soon.
Maj grills Mike Laidlaw about Jade Empire.
We finally get all our stuff done, and I head back to the hotel to drop off my laptop and stuff before strolling over to the Argent to meet up with some people in the lobby bar. On my way there, a homeless guy yells to me "Hey country girl" (my hair was in pigtails). "I'll take you out to the country! To the bottom of the haystack!" It just got worse from there. The street scene in San Francisco: lots of fairly aggressive panhandlers, cute girls talking on cell phones, pretty boys walking with other pretty boys.
At the Argent I met up with some Xbox kids and had a couple of Cosmopolitans. Some cheese ball says "What's your name, sweetheart?" I hate being called that. Then me, a Brit who used to be at Argonaut, and two Bethesda Softworks guys went to a steak house for dinner, where a certain upper management Macedonian animal lover decided to order two bottles of wine. It went downhill from there. We end up at the W Hotel's bar (which is called "XYZ"—cute, huh?) where I proceed to fall asleep on the shoulder of the aforementioned Bethesda zoophile waiting for two Xbox TGMs named Mark to show up so we can all head over to the Sony party.
We have this idea that, it being so late, we can BS our way into the Sony party (I was all set to do a little recon), but the sidewalk outside is riddled with San Francisco's finest and the chick working the door definitely did not find our names on the list. Wah. I head towards home and proceed to get lost in the block and a half between the Argent and the Palace.
Get home, fall asleep. Then the drunk dialing begins. But don't worry your pretty little head about that …
Thursday, March 10, 2005
I wake up just enough to call room service to fetch me two Diet Cokes and an OJ. Why are the room service monkeys always smirking? Please. I make my way to the Xbox suite at the convention center where the lovely and talented Jen Puzio informs me that I missed my 10:30 meeting (Yes, it's that late! So sue me!) with ATG Director Scott Henson. Now I'm in trouble. Not a pleasant way to start the day. So I kiss some ass and reschedule the Henson interview.
Maj had left that morning, so I didn't have him to deal with, but I perk up when a) there's finally Diet Coke in the lounge fridge, and b) Jim V comes up with an Xbox party ticket for me! Apparently you have to show up at the club with both the paper invite and the shark tooth necklace or you will be turned away.
Oooh, shiny.
They ain't kidding about that warning, kids.
So anyway, I hang out in the suite noshing on the snacks (although Vik ate all the ice cream—thanks, dude) and playing with the shark schwag until it's time to go back to the Argent for my meeting with Scott.
Here fishy fishy fishy.
That evening I go out for a pre-party dinner at Colibri Mexican bistro with some of the PR kids. It's crowded and we have to sit at the bar, but the food is great and the margaritas are even better. For some reason the bartender believes it is Erica's birthday and begins plying her with alcohol. Before she can slip off the barstool, we head over to Ruby Skye for the Xbox Party—Aqua.
The lovely ladies of PR—plus Charlie.
Aqua, baby! The party is just amazing. Veronica Naughton, who put it all together, told me Wednesday night that this party wasn't going to be as cool as last year's Risqué Café party. But she totally downplayed. It's terrific. Just check out the pictures.
Everything has that underwater glow.
The mermaid contingent.
The mermaid contingent.
The mermaid contingent.
J's buddy offers you a sip of his "fin and tonic".
PR girls gone wild!
Jellyfishing! Jellyfishing!
My XNA cup glows in the dark.
Xboxers hang out under the sea.
The party rocks thanks to Erica, Bridgette, and Veronica.
I end up leaving the party pretty early. No, really. The Dev Punch catches up with me. It tastes just like Kool-Aid, but by the time I've had a few tumblers of it, I begin to suspect it's Jonestown Kool-Aid—i.e., I think I am gonna die!
Friday, March 11, 2005
It was another late night. I wake up around 11 A.M. Time for room service. Are they snickering when I demand my two Diet Cokes and an OJ? Fine, I'll try messing them up with a toast order. Take that! Back to the convention center for the booth crawl. You can read it all here. This is the last day of GDC and I'm just thankful I don't have to tear down the booth and pack up all the stuff. That would suck big time. I take my photos, I write my little words, and I leave the heavy lifting to someone else.
I head home on Saturday afternoon and am horrified when my laptop sets off the explosives alarm at SFO. Suuuuper. So they have to go through all my bags and give me the pat-down. If I wanted to be felt up by a chick, I'd … well, never mind that now. I listen to 3 Doors Down on my iPod all the way home, then I sleep for 14 hours straight. Ah, GDC. Gotta love it.
You still with me? If so, you deserve a prize. I've got four exclusive GDC schwag packages to give away. Each includes a long-sleeved DEVS T-shirt that the booth staff wore, a foam DirectX shark, a bag of Swedish fish (the ones Puzio didn't eat), and an XNA pen. I hope you appreciate this because I had to check a bag so I could bring this home for you. Send me an email at xlmail@microsoft.com and I will send a GDC schwag pack to the first four gamers that can answer the following questions: 1) Where did TriXie stay in San Francisco? 2) What is the relevance of a haystack in this story? 3) Where was the Xbox party? Good luck!
TriXie out.
Congratulations to MASTAglach820, MEGAMAN SOLID, Dylan, and Philly Fats … your schwag packs are in the mail. Thanks to all those who read to the end!
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