I expected Wil Wheaton’s opening keynote to be pretty good. Really good, even. I didn’t expect it to be utterly fantastic! He spoke about his experience being a gamer, growing up playing D&D, and how it all impacted his life. It was interwoven with brilliant humor, some digs at Jack Thompson, and lots of gaming references for the enjoyment of the hundreds of geeks in the audience. By the end of his speech, I felt more proud than I ever have to be a gamer.

My favorite part of the entire thing was his example of being emotionally invested in game narrative: Dragon Age. I won’t repeat what he said since it contained some major spoilers, but for anyone who may have seen/heard/read the keynote… damn. It almost brought me to tears.

It was followed up by some hilarious Q&A with Gabe and Tycho (a.k.a. the Penny Arcade guys, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins). The best part was when someone decided to narrate an impromptu round of Action Castle and start Gabe and Tycho off in a cottage with a fishing pole:

(Sorry about the shaky camera; I was laughing really, really hard.)

For those who have no idea what is going on in that video, it’s a nod to the old text-based adventure games that were notoriously picky and repetitive.

After the Q&A, it was time for some dinner (which meant I wolfed down a tuna croissant sandwich from Starbucks) and then time to walk in the way-too-cold-for-no-jacket weather (with no jacket on) to the nearest Best Buy. As you can see from the quality of the video above, I was using the standard lower-end Flip camera (instead of the HD version I was supposed to bring with me). I needed a Flip Ultra HD badly enough to speed-walk through downtown Boston with my eyes trained on the blue dot on my iPhone’s GPS.

I got back to the convention center just in time for my next panel, Bringing Up the Next Generation of Geeks. The panel consisted of the assistant editor and five contributing writers to Wired.com’s GeekDad blog. I walked up to the theater 15 minutes before the panel was supposed to start, and they were just announcing that it was down to standing room only. I weaved my way through the crowd and grabbed a spot on the back wall. That panel was fantastic, and it was filled with great “oh that’s so damn cute” anecdotes of little mini-geeks. It also addressed some great topics like how technology affects kids growing up today, and how gaming can be a tool to make kids more well-rounded and cultured rather than less.

I left that panel early to make it to the Girls & Games panel, which had a line longer than that of the Wil Wheaton keynote. The panel got started late, and I barely made it in the line before it got cut off at max capacity. The panel itself was, unfortunately, pretty disappointing. It was much more dry and boring than what I expected.

Anyway, after that, I decided to spend my final 45 minutes in the convention center waiting in line to buy a t-shirt. I followed that up with a chocolate ice cream cone from a nearby Ben & Jerry’s, and came back up here to dump my video and write this blog post. Now it’s time for bed!

Tomorrow is the big Blueberry Muffin Tops/Joystiq breakfast. Woot!

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