The Con

Some of you may have heard of a little get-together called Comic-Con; it’s just a small gathering of over 100,000 of the world’s biggest geeks. Even if you haven’t been living in a cave long enough to know about Comic-Con, surely you have heard of RowleyCon. RowleyCon is an illustrious multiday event where the geeky 1337 are invited to work up a gaming sweat (deodorant optional) and compete for uber status. It’s sure to become the hottest thing on the nerd radar since D&D.

Our friend Jeremy Rowley is a gaming aficionado extraordinaire and he decided that instead of going to Comic-Con he was going to bring the Con to him. He and his wife Amber hosted a weekend teeming with everything nerd: board games, Star Craft II, DDR, Dance Central, and even some classic Nintendo games.

Since competitions were held in every gaming category, and used to determine not only each division’s champion but an overall mega geek, I decided I had better become somewhat familiar with all of these geeky pursuits so I could at least lose at RowleyCon with dignity. My desire to not be the suckiest led to Jason teaching me how to play Star Craft II. I had never played this game before last week but he taught me enough that I could give the impression that I knew what I was doing as I lost miserably. To be beaten gracefully was all I was hoping for; I seriously doubted I had the sweet skills necessary to win a round. But somehow, despite my minimal aptitude, I did manage to whip Jacob’s Terran hinny during the tournament even though he owns this game. (No Jacob, the force is not with you.)

There was one competition that I definitely didn’t need anyone’s assistance training for: Dance Dance Revolution, AKA DDR. While I am certainly no expert at this game, the hardcore DDRers would step all over my face, I can dance dance good enough to impress the easily wowed. I ended up winning the DDR competition undefeated. Good thing Jeremy excluded himself from the contest; that boy is unnatural when it comes to DDR. I never would have beaten him.

My esteemed teacher, Jason, won the Star Craft tournament. He technically got second place but the first place winner, Adam, won the title of uber nerd making him ineligible for a Star Craft winning too. Surprisingly, I actually gamed my way into a close second place for overall nerd. Dang that Adam! If only I had been proclaimed the biggest geek in the world then I could have retreated to Valinor satisfied.

Even if I didn’t vanquish all the other gamers at least Jason and I won the prizes for best costume. The competition was really tough…okay, so Jas and I were the only ones that dressed up and consequently we could have just worn underwear on our heads and won…oh wait, that’s pretty close to what happened-just kidding. Although tighty whities may have been involved we actually did put together some pretty cool costumes at the last minute using pieces of costumes I had made previously and a few new accessories. With a little creativity we each ended up with two different outfits so we could wear unique attire on both nights of RowleyCon.

RowleyCon was a little chaotic, with an abundance of tournaments going on simultaneously and sometimes haphazardly, but it was a lot of fun. It was also very refreshing not to be in charge of this party; being guests instead of hosts was a nice change. We are looking forward to geeking it up again next year. You nerds are going down!