2014/08/13

3600 Miles to GenCon: No Nukes!

I carried on the Nuclear War game.  Showed to a manager type on the way in and they said no prob just pop it right back in my messenger bag and pass it right through.

👍

3600 miles to GenCon: Uh Oh

Traffic stopped about 30 min north of airport...

3600 Miles to GenCon: Final Packing

Found a stowaway......

3600 Miles to GenCon: Packing

Farewells said to the wife and kids and I am packing my bags. 
As I am going straight to Indy, I need to take my gaming stuff.  I wonder if Illuminati and my 40th Anniversary Nuclear War card game will get me in trouble.  I think I will carry on the nuclear war game and just flip it open as it goes through the conveyor.  On second thought I think I will just leave them....

2014/08/12

3600 Miles to GenCon: Night Before

Besides my badge I think I may need a lot of this.

More in the morning.

3600 Miles to GenCon

Well, the family van blew up, just before GenCon.

Good News: Found a new vehicle.

Bad News: It's in Surprise, AZ

Good News: I should be able to get to GenCon, as I have every year since 2003, inclusive.  This year, I'll have to wait to get there until late Friday, rather than the traditional Tuesday.

Bad News: I'm going to have to travel over 3600 miles to get there, despite living 72 miles away.  That's a 50:1 ratio to what I normally travel.

Tomorrow, I get on a plane, and the Odyssey will begin.

This is ridiculous.

2013/08/05

Something else to consider when funding kickstarter projects.

Third party pledge managers......

So, a kickstarter I chipped in for completed last week, and was successfully funded.

Today, I get a note saying that they have decided to use a third party pledge manager.  This is like the 3rd or 4th time this has happened to me, and it's starting to piss me off.

I understand doing this sort of thing frees up the people working on the actual product to do what they do best, but why should I be expected to cough up more info to a third party, especially when there was no expectation of such a thing when I pledged in the first place?

I mean, at a minimum, I'll have to surrender my kickstarter username and associated e-mail address.  If I was getting a physical product, this heretofore unknown to me entity would be getting my home address.  If I wanted to add anything to my pledge, post-funding, I'm presuming I'd have to cough up some credit card info.

It's one thing to pledge for a funding drive by some guy I've never met, but who is creating something I am interested in, and let amazon.com handle the monetary transaction.  Amazon.com is a company I already have a relationship with, who I have chosen to share personal information with.

But now, if I want to actually get what I pledged for, I'm basically forced into sharing some or all of this information with a new, unknown to me entity.  Who the hell is this guy?  Why the hell should I even have to worry about it?