Mr. Flibble and I go to OVGE (lots of pictures)

[ubikuberalles]

This year marks my third visit to OVGE (formally OKGE) and, as usual, I drove there. SInce it's a 9 and a half hour trip I decided to take my pal Mr. Flibble (who I introduced in this thread) along to keep me company.

Day One: The Trip to Tulsa

Whenever I start a long road trip, I always take some doughnuts and a big cup of coffee. This year Mr. Flibble and I went to Krispy Kreme for our morning treats:



After getting the doughnuts, Mr. Flibble wanted a Krispy Kreme hat but I told him that it would be to big and he would look silly in it. But, he insisted on it, and so I fetched one and he tried it on for size:



Well, he learned the hard way.

I usually don't start on the doughnuts until we are well on our way and are at least out of town. Mr. Flibble, the impatient little penguin he must be, dug in before I even started the car.



Driving from Albuquerque to Tulsa is, for the most part, uneventful. By that I mean boring. BORING. That's because the panhandle area of Texas is a big flat piece of nothing. NOTHING. Here's an example of the typical view from my car while I was in the panhandle area:



So, whenever something cropped up on the horizon and looked interesting, I would grab the camera and take a picture of it:



(That Mr. Flibble is SUCH a ham. )

At the very eastern end of the panhandle of Texas, near the town of Groom, we saw this GIANT cross near the highway. It must have been nearly 200 feet tall.



Not much later we also saw this big water tank that was tilting like the leaning tower of Pisa:



About an hour east of the Texas-Oklahoma border we also came across a whole bunch of these contraptions:



There were at least 20 or 30 of them and they each were at least 100 or even 200 feet tall.

So, I guess the panhandle area isn't so boring anymore after all. (At least it's a little less boring anyway.)

Finally we reached our destination:



And the view from our room, though not spectacular, wasn't all that bad:



After a change of clothes, I went to get something to eat. Mr. Flibble wasn't hungry (too many doughnuts, I guess) and he stayed in the room to watch some TV:



I made a mistake in my reservations and the room only had one bed. It was too late to change and so we were stuck with the one bed. We flipped a coin and I, as usual, lost. Mr. Flibble got the bed and I got the floor :/ (I need to examine the coin that Mr. Flibble uses).



Day Two: The Show

The next morning, after a shower and some breakfast, we entered the show shortly after it opened:



Here's a couple views of the show shortly after we entered the room:




The first tables I walked up to belonged to Atari Age. The game you see below is the 2600 version of Boulder Dash written by Andrew Davie. Unfortunately the game wasn't for sale because the owners of the copyrights for Boulder Dash are very protective of their property. However, they did allow Andrew to demo the program at OVGE.



(That's Andrew on the right playing the game).

Here's some more info about the 2600 version of Boulder Dash:



Here's a picture of Andrew standing next to Albert from Atari Age.



I spent some time talking to Andrew and he's a very nice fellow. It turns out that he's from Austrailia and he also owns an Altair computer! As you can tell from my username, I'm a big Altair fan too and we spent a few minutes talking about our Altair computers.

Later I checked out PDF's booth:



He had some really cool Sci-Fi and video game related toys:






Mr. Flibble loved the toys and just HAD to meet Mr. PDF:


PDF was very pleased to meet Mr. Flibble.

Mr. Flibble doesn't play many video games because the controls are too big for him. PDF had the perfect solution and introduced Mr. Flibble to a miniature cocktail table version of Space Invaders.



He was there for hours! PDF and Mrs. PDF didn't seem to mind and Mrs. PDF, when she met Mr. Flibble, was quite enchanted by Mr. Flibble (a bow tie and tuxedo has that effect on women).



Next, we visited Flack's table:



Flack's table was all about Star Wars and it was an impressive sight, especially when you consider he built it on such short notice (16 hours I believe).

When we got there we found Flack playing a Star Wars game on one of his systems:



Mr. Flibble wanted to play and so Flack kindly handed the game over to him:



Since he lacked any fingers (only flippers), Mr. Flibble didn't do very well. He was getting kinda cross and so it was time to move on.

Here's an Atari kiosk we found at the show that was for sale. I don't know if the system, monitor and games were included in the price but it was impressive nonetheless.



The price was too steep for me and so we checked out the arcades at the show:





As you can see, the arcades were very popular and included games such as Tetris, Star Wars and Joust. PDF and I played a couple rounds of Joust and it was quite fun.

Since I had a long drive back home, I had to leave early but not before the Halo 2 tournament started:



It looked like a lot of fun but I only saw a few minutes of the tournament before we had to leave.

It took a little more than 9 hours to get home and I was able to get there before midnight. Shortly before I went to bed, however, I had to check out my stash from the show:



It was pretty modest but I had a limited budget.

Anyway, that was my trip to OVGE. I hope you enjoyed the pictures!

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

"And after it was all over...Mr. Flibble was very cross indeed." I'm tellin' ya, the little guy just takes over the room the moment he walks in the door. Of course, I'm sure the same could be said of any penguin waltzing into a classic gaming convention.

Excellent pictures!

[Drexel923]

Mr. Flibble rocks!

Please tell me that you and Mr. Flibble will be making it to CGE

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Perhaps next year will be the year of the Mr. Flibble vs. Burchuss grudge match at OVGE.

[Flack]

All I have to say is, screw Mr. Flibble. It's pretty rude for someone to stop by your table and beat all your high scores -- flippers or not. I also have reason to believe that Mr. Flibble may have chewed up my Pengo cartridge out of spite, although we are still reviewing security tapes to confirm that it was him.

Watch your back, tuxedo boy.

[ubikuberalles]

Mr. Flibble was very saddened by your post, Flack.

All the way back home from Tulsa and OVGE Mr. Flibble wouldn't stop talking about OVGE and the people he met. He would go on and on about what a great guy you were and how wonderful PDF and Mrs. PDF were. It was Flack this and PDF that. He wouldn't shut up! So, when I stopped for gas, I threw him in the trunk. :/

I warned you about giving him some Sprite to drink. Sugar makes him VERY hyper and, incidentally, an EXCELLENT gamer! (After eating the doughnut at the start of the trip, Mr. Flibble played Tetris on my GBA SP and made a high score I have yet to beat).

I don't know anything about any Pengo cartridge. Mr. Flibble generally dislikes Penguin themed games* and would have had nothing to do with your Pengo cart.

*Except "Attack of the Mutant Penguins". Mr. Flibble LOVES AotMP!

[ubikuberalles]

Please tell me that you and Mr. Flibble will be making it to CGE

No, sadly, I can't afford to go to CGE this year. It will be the first year I will ever miss a CGE.

That means, in turn, that Mr. Flibble won't make it to CGE (unless some other travel arrangements can be made for him).

[mills]

that penguin is awesome

[Flack]

After reviewing the security tapes, it turns out it was in fact my wife who chewed up my Pengo cartridge.

My apologies to Mr. Flibble.