Prelude to CanCon

Ah Canberra, the nation's capital.  A semi deserted, semi rural, cityish sort of thing located midway between two places you would rather be.  Canberra, the place we send our politicians to in an attempt to remove them from anything valuable and limit the damage they can cause. But on the 23rd-25th of January Canberra became something else.

In a poorly airconditioned barn on the outskirts of a city that is nothing but outskirts a convention of gamers took place.  People who normally avoid sunlight for fear of spontaneous combustion emerged blinking from their burrows and, their backs bowed by vast quantities of gaming supplies, gathered amongst others of their kind for three days of gaming, dreadful food and unexpected human interaction.  Hordes of people in black t-shirts descended on a reasonably inoffensive portion of Canberra to mingle, game and provide proof of why deodorant is a vital human commodity.

Slightly above this noisome pack a small group of ASL players slunk into an upstairs room and, after having barricaded the doors, proceeded to conduct their own modest competition.  Once again the skilled wargamers of the ACT would match their skills against their brilliant out of state opponents (and me) in five rounds of cardboard bloodletting.

But that's for the future.  First we had to get there, and once there get around.  Canberra is easy enough to get to, you just ignore all the warning signs telling you you're getting close to Canberra.  Getting around it is somewhat harder.  Canberra was designed by Walter Burley-Griffin, an American architect (Australia at the time not being deemed capable of producing such things).  A brilliant architect Burley-Griffin might have been but it is fair to say that the man hated right angles.  The street layout of Canberra resembles nothing more than an octopus orgy.  For people with even a vague concept of a grid pattern (and since we were from Sydney our concept of a grid pattern is very vague indeed) Canberra represents an opportunity to get lost on multiple occasions while still being within walking distance of your starting point.  No wonder most people from Melbourne stayed away.

Despite having been lumbered with my company last year Ivan Kent very kindly offered me a lift on the condition that I would shut up about cows.  With my fingers crossed I gave the promise and he, Aaron Cleavin and myself set off on a miserable Friday afternoon to journey to the political heart of our great land.  We made our job harder than it need have been.  Every time the rain showed signs of lifting we made some idiot comment to that effect whereupon the rain returned in a fury to prove us wrong.  Aaron took the prize for this when he pointed to the solid grey sky and noted that it was clearing.  We practically had to swim the last twenty kilometres.

As we reached Goulburn a sign in one direction pointed to an abattoir and another to McDonalds.  It was a close run thing but we eventually wound up at the most overstaffed McDonalds in the southern hemisphere.  The personnel were quite literally tripping over each other which didn't make the food arrive any quicker.  In fact Ivan's Big Mac took so long to arrive that we opined they may have had to do a quick run to the abattoir for ingredients.  Still everything eventually arrived and once Aaron had sent back his coke and got it replaced by something that vaguely resembled coke we tucked in.  Fifteen minutes later having swapped hunger for nausea and self disgust we were on the road again.

I had originally chosen my accommodation on the basis of proximity to Ivan thinking to ease his driving duties slightly.  Ivan then changed his accommodation (or rather had it changed for him) leaving him some fifteen minutes drive away.  This wasn't a hardship for me but then I wasn't driving.  Ivan bore up nobly and generously picked me up and dropped me off each day.  I was staying in a very nice room in a block of flats (thanks airbnb) in Kingston, a rather nice area very close to the abandoned mechano set that masquerades as the nation's parliament house.

Having met my host (a charming young gentleman named Michael) I settled in.  Ivan would pick me up the next day and we would proceed to breakfast (where Ivan only got a bit lost trying to navigate the carpark) and then onto the first days gaming.  Do I need to mention the day would bring me only defeat?