Back from GenCon

For those of you who do not know, I play a collectible card game somewhat competitively. I am not quite so into the game as I used to be, but I still very much enjoy it. This past weekend was the North American championship in Indianapolis

I decided, more or less last minute, to catch a ride with some players from Quebec. Of the three of them, only one was bilingual. The others spoke about as much English as I speak French, ie pas tres bien. I can form simple sentences and make myself understood, but French-speaking people probably think I am an idiot. You know, as opposed to when I speak English and people are absolutely certain that I am an idiot. In any case, I learned quite a bit of French in the five hour trips there and back, which was nice. Nowhere near bilingual, but a bit more confident in my parlez-vous.

Scariest experience ever. When I was buying my GenCon badge and event tickets at the booth, the woman behind the counter takes one of my American twenties and strikes it with a black marker. She then looks up at me, frowns and waits for me to say something. I simply look at her quizzically, having no idea what she is doing to my money. She pauses and then says to me, "It's counterfeit", as if I perfectly well know that, and then again waits for me to explain myself. My jaw drops. I offer her my best excuse: "Umm, I'm Canadian." (This excuse will serve me well over the next few days, as it turns out.)

I hand her another twenty, which also fails her counterfeit test. And another. At this point, I am wondering why the TD Canada Trust bank in Windsor would give me $400 in counterfeit US bills, but more importantly, I am wondering how I am going to survive in Indianapolis with no money. Gah!

Fortunately, the person at the counter next to Miss Amateur Detective notices that she is using the wrong fucking marker. We all have a good laugh, and I politely tell her not to worry about her mistake. Phew.

The tournament games were fun though I did not perform particularly well. Thursday's tournament was a qualifier for the next few days' tournaments. The top nine players of sixty on Thursday would qualify to go on to Friday etc. I was number ten. This was less disappointing to me than it was to other people who spent the next few days offering condolences to me for my bad luck. Bah, I still had fun... I would have loved to play in the final, but hey, I don't mind. I like to think of my almost-qualifying position as akin to being the "world's tallest midget". That's still an accomplishment, eh? I think I'm just not as competitive as I used to be, to be completely honest.

It was nice to see some old friends and make some new ones. People that play V:tES are, on the whole, very cool and intelligent and nice and fun to be around, with a few notable exceptions. I saw some extremely bad sportsmanship (sportspersonship? bah, whatever) and was witness to some unfortunate and unnecessary tirades against other players. Such happenings really make me wonder what this game is coming to. This sort of thing probably happens in all games, but really, I think our game is especially susceptible to it, for reasons I can't properly explain.

But overall, a great experience. I'm looking forward to next year...