We grabbed a quick free breakfast with the other chowhounds at the Embassy, and quickly headed over the Exhibition Hall.
Folks were flowing through the Hall easily and it was actually cool inside the massive space. I took this as a good omen. I spent the next few hours with A wandering up and down the rows, checking out the various booths. We paused for a quick demo of the latest Ticket to Ride boardgame at the Days of Wonder booth (they don't take unsolicited submissions anymore, damn them all to Hell!), perused the latest Osprey books at their booth, examined assorted minis, and marveled at all the varied Cthulhu merchandise.
I wandered amid the booths in a near daze, surrounded by hordes of gamer geeks happily hip deep in their element. Some vendors had set up gaming areas, particularly for the board games (there's no better advertising than watching other folks obviously enjoying a game) and tables of gamers played away, seemingly oblivious to the throngs of customers streaming around them.
Afterward we worked our way over the Art Exhibit (Jeff Easley was there sketching away—how cool is that?), and soon fell in love with a morbid collage print by Rick Sardinha. It wasn't really for sale, but was basically hanging as an example of non-fantasy work, but after a bit of conversation we made arrangements to pick it up toward the end of the show, glass and all. (This is not to say I don't like Rick's fantasy work—especially his awesome blue dragons—and we had sympathy for a man that drove all the way to Indy from Rhode Island!)
A dead guy plays a few hands of Award Show (Twilight Creations):
A highpoint of the day was having a book signed by Ed Greenwood (author and creator of the popular Forgotten Realms setting). He wasn't hawking a thing, merely signing whatever folks brought up, and I was embarrassed to only have a book that he co-authored for him to sign. All the same, he was quite cool and rather funny. (The rather serious-minded fellow just before me dropped off a mysterious manilla folder with "Ed Greenwood" scrawled across the front and said, "My friend made me promise to deliver this to you, he wants you to read his thoughts on some matters." Ah, the price of fame.) Down the desk from Ed sat Eric L. Boyd and Steven Schend—all the great 'Realms minds in one place!
For dinner we struck the Rock Bottom again and were promptly recognized by our waitress from the day before. Alas, they were sold out of the ribs!
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