Harvard University Trip (Tuesday 10th)
We got reasonably late played some games had coffee and then bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast.
After that we headed out and got on the bus to Harvard. It took us across the river past MIT and then further up to Harvard Square.
We had a bit of a wander and then located the building where they had the tour. We signed up and waited for it to start. We eventually joined a large group of many nationalities led through campus by a senior.
Harvard University is the umbrella organization for a series of different colleges like Harvard College and the various graduate colleges. Contrary to popular myth the university was not founded by John Harvard he donated his entire collection of books and half his land to the preexisting university which changed it’s name to honor him.
All the first years live on campus in a series of halls of residence. They share rooms depending on the hall with as many as 5 students. Something like 98% of all students live in some form of campus housing as when they get to their second year students are allocated a house which is then their social hub (it was explained a bit like the houses in hogwarts though they used a computer instead of a sorting hat).
There are two and half halls on campus that didn’t house students. Harvard hall was one it was built 3 times and used to house lecture halls and the library with all of the books donated by John Harvard. The first time it had wooden foundations which rotted and had to be torn down. The second time someone late with their homework took a book out of the library (which was a expellable offense) and also left a candle burning. So he burnt down the library all john Harvard's books but the one he nicked. He then tried to claim to be a hero for saving the last book of the collection but was expelled instead though he was later allowed to graduate. Also lost in the fire all known portraits of John Harvard. The current building is then the third iteration so third time lucky.
The other non residential hall was the one across from the Harvard hall which was designed by the same person that did the Boston state house. It houses mostly administrative stuff.
The point 5 is the top two floors of Massachusetts hall (next to Harvard hall) as the bottom two floors are the office of the president. Local lore has it that the president selects the quietest and most studious of students for that hall. However our guide suggested that might not be the case.
Massachusetts hall is the oldest standing structure on the campus and the second oldest academic building in the USA.
Between Massachusetts hall and Harvard Hall was Johnson Gate lore has it that you can only pass through this twice as a student once when you arrive once when you graduate otherwise you fail. So students mostly use the side gate.
Next we saw the fire pump that they put in after the fire but never used.
Then we saw the science hall and what looked like a church was actually memorial hall. Our guide told us a little about the educational ethos of Harvard that every student should know a little about everything and a lot about one thing. They have various general education requirements but rather than saying maths or english they use weird names. They idea being they then are much broader categories. Personally I think Maths is a pretty broad category and covered everything she mentioned as examples but I guess that’s just me.
We then went inside the Memorial hall that has a series of plaques for soldiers who died for the north side of the civil war. The south side are not commemorated. It also had some nice stained glass. One end of the hall is a cafeteria for first year students (no one else can enter) and the other end is a theatre which is patterned after the globe theater in London.
We then passed the only church on campus which is a non denominational church. The area where it is is where they hold the graduation ceremony. They have so many graduates that they don’t hand out diplomas (they are handed out at the students house in a smaller ceremony) they just have speeches and the like. The opposite side of the courtyard is the library building. Built to commemorate Harry Elkins Widener a harvard graduate and bibliophile who died on the titanic. This library was opened with money from his mother who gave 3 rules if they wanted her money. Its facade could not be altered, the had to have room inside that was a replica of Harry’s study which had fresh flowers every day and every student had to learn to swim. Rules one and two were kept to but three proved too difficult.
Rule one posed some problems as they ran out of room so they came up with a clever solution that left the building as was. The building now has 9 stories 5 of which are underground and the whole library extends under the quad area in front of the library. It’s one of Americas few underground libraries and it’s anchored to the bedrock without that it would literally rise up from it’s underground location. It holds the worlds second biggest collection of books and some 5 miles of shelving.
Last stop was the statue of John Harvard the 3rd most photographed statue in America other two being Statue of liberty and the Lincoln memorial. So now I have two out of the three :D
It’s also called the statue of the three lies. One thing is the likeness is not that of John Harvard all known portraits burnt with the library in Harvard Hall, they think it might be a grandson of one of the presidents or perhaps just an attractive student. Secondly he didn't found it just donated books and half his land and thirdly the date is wrong. For some reason people were touching the statue’s toe which was worn shiny by this practice but the guide didn’t mention this.
After that we headed to a nearby cafe and had some tea. I had a lovely cup of lapsang souchong while Byrnie and Jen tried Bubble Tea. Which is a drink invented in Thailand in the 1980’s that uses a flavored tea in this case cold with little balls of tapioca in it. We all had non dairy brownies that were quite good.
Then we headed over to a shop to buy some supplies and then made our way back to the bus stop.
We rode the bus back to the stop across the road then popped into the sandwich and booze shop to get some bits for dinner. We got lasagne fixings and some Sriracha beer.
Then we headed over to a shop to buy some supplies and then made our way back to the bus stop.
We rode the bus back to the stop across the road then popped into the sandwich and booze shop to get some bits for dinner. We got lasagne fixings and some Sriracha beer.
Heading home we got back and put our feet up.
We made some nachos with the remaining chips and then some more burrito style enchiladas. We washed the nachos down with the Sriracha beer which was quite fiery. It was very tasty we watched some tv and turned in.
Post PAX Relax (Monday 9th)
We were all pretty tired after PAX East so we had a fairly light day of things sleeping in then playing some games watching some TV ate toast and drank coffee.
I tried out the Tales of Borderlands ep1 which was one of the games I got with the Telltale pack that they gave us during the PAX keynote. It was pretty fun I hadn’t played the more recent Telltale games which adapt based on your choices and it was pretty good fun.
Eventually toast wasn't sufficient and we needed real food which we had very little of. We faced the choice of takeout or cooking and decided to go with cooking. This naturally necessitated shopping, luckily we had spied what looked like a small supermarket on our way to P.F.Changs last night.
So Byrnie and me went out to buy some food leaving Jen to rest since one of her feet was troubling her due to an accident with a large bag of dog food sometime previously.
As it turned out the supermarket was more of a Merco catering to students from the nearby music college. It carried lots of snacks and ready meals and some things approaching food, as well as a surprisingly well equipped barbecue section despite the fact they stocked no meat, but very little actual cooking ingredients.
Google pointed out a Trader Joes not far away so we picked up what we could in the mini shop then headed over to get the bits we couldn’t. This turned out to be a shop installed through a small door that lead to a labyrinthine basement that was full of a surprising array of stuff. It also had an enormous queue that snaked it’s way round most of the store. We grabbed most stuff then joined the queue and picked up the rest as we went past it based on targets of opportunity. This lead to some doubling up.
We were also persuaded to try pineapple salsa by the lady in front of us which turned out to be a good decision as it was really good slightly sweet tangy and with quite a slow burn. Anyway once we had escaped trader joes we made our way to the sandwich and booze corner shop to stock up on beverages. I went in while byrnie guarded the shopping bags. I looked for some sort of lager but most of what they had seemed to be stouts or IPA’s which seemed less suited to what we planned to cook (enchiladas). In the end I grabbed a six pack of what was labeled white ipa the brand was Two roads Honeyspot Road White IPA. I also grabbed a pack of the same cider as we had a few days back for options.
We headed home and then began the cooking. The kitchen had just enough things to be vaguely useful but lacked enough to be flexible. We made do as best we could there was a lot of odd little appliances we just used the main stuff.
We cooked up some meat stirred in onions lots of garlic and some soy chorizo we browned that lot off added spice and pepper and then added some tomatoes and beans. After simmering and cooking some rice and cheese to the mix we added portions to corn tortillas and then put those in a dish topping that with salsa and cheese then bunging it in the oven.
The results were pretty delicious and the beer went well with it. Although it turned out to be out of date although it tasted good and out of date beer is supposedly not actually bad for you it just could taste bad.
We ate all of the enchiladas (leaving half the chili left for another day) and then collapsed in a food coma in front of the tv and watched Archer which I’d never seen before and was pretty funny.
Tomorrow we intend to start up the next holiday phase with a trip to Harvard and IHOP.
PAX East Day Three (Sunday 8th March)
Got up lost an hour due to daylight savings that annoying time thief. I think all time shifts should give you more time not less. I know that would eventually make day time in the night but thats why Swan invented the light bulb. We had gotten sandwichings the previous day so we made up sandwiches of cream cheese salami and corned beef on the smallest slices of bread imaginable. We also lost a third of a slice of corned beef it just evaporated somehow.
We took the T in and then walked the last section rather than take the bus which was busy. It is noticeably warmer today I didn't need gloves and was feeling quite hot riding the T. The ice over the harbor was starting to melt at the edges a bit and the huge banks of frozen snow were diminishing. It was still cool but the bite in the air that was present when I first arrived had gone.
We got there about 940 and joined the gearbox line which was already longish. We were still in the first half so plenty of room.
As we entered the main theater and took our seats there were some nice fan art works from their games on display.
They had Mikey Neumann a few others, whose names I forgot, up on stage and then as they progressed they brought out various people to discuss this project and that. They started with stuff on dlc for the pre sequel which was inside claptraps brain which looked ok.
It turned out Randy Pitchford couldn't make it so he gave a video message thing which turned into a magic trick where he had predicted the outcome of some fan contest they did on stage. It seemed to work out so that was cool
After that they talked about telltales tales from borderlands ep2. They had the two main voice actors come out and they showed some clips then had various cat stories.
Then they talked homeworld discussing their work on the remastered edition and then joked about possible merch including a homeworld branded jet ski and baby sling.
Next they showed two characters (Claptrap and Nisha) in a harmonix dance game Dance Central. This got the biggest cheer of anything.
Last they talked about the handsome edition a re-release of borderlands 1 & 2 and pre sequel with all the dlc on the ps4 and x-bone with 4 player coop. The split screen thing is interesting as even 2 player split screen is very rare these days so 4 player is basically unheard of. I’d consider getting that just as it’s something I could play with others when they come over.
They finished up and we went to eat our prepared sandwiches. Which were tasty.
Next we lined up for acquisitions inc which was filling super fast it got to 2/3 with an hour and a quarter to go. They were handing out pipe cleaners and the gentleman next to me used a single pink pipe cleaner to make a second set of glasses frames round his original ones.
The live DND was great fun carrying on the story from last pax prime but with less pageantry and props. They had the usual crew of Jerry Mike Scott and Patrick Rothfuss with Dungeon Master Chris Perkins and it was very entertaining. A lot of the Acquisitions Inc games are recorded and up online for people to watch and they are worth checking out.
After we grabbed some refreshments then we wandered the rooms around the conference main floor. Jen fondled a super Famicom in the classic consoles room. We wandered down to the show floor and towards the tabletop area saw an upright non beanbag beanbag you could lean on shaped like an aubergine, magnetic dice towers, and several games.
Then we began queuing for the omegathon final round. During this process someone serenaded us with journey on a ukulele.
We got in and took our seats the stage was shrouded in mystery the final game always a mystery. With PAX East they play as teams so it was the final two teams left one the runner up last year. The prize a trip to Germany and a games conference held there.
The final countdown by Europe played and Mike and Jerry took the stage introducing the teams. Then finally the game was revealed a rare machine, 4 player Pacman Battle Royal where when power pilled up the players could devour not just ghosts … but each other. Though it was 4v4 game they played it in teams as a 2v2 game.
It was an intense game with surprises upsets and amazing levels of skill throughout. The competition, narrated by Jerry and Mike, had the whole room on the edge of it’s seat. During the three rounds of the game the teams battled it out and everyone was enthralled. In the end last years runners up were victorious and left the stage triumphant. Jerry and Mike wrapped things up and wished us well till next time we made our way to the exits elated tired and a little sad for the experience being over. Such is the way of PAX.
We walked back to the T having missed the shuttle making our way back to the normal stop. We then wandered into town a bit to locate some food. We looked for a cheesecake factory but when we passed a P.F. Changs we settled for that. A short wait later we tucked into first a nice soup Hot and sour for Byrnie and I wonton soup for Jen. For main Coconut Vegetable Curry, Pad Thai, Crispy Honey Chicken, and some brown rice. It was delicious washed down with a Kirin Ichiban a very good Japanese lager. We finished off with a slice of salted caramel cake for Byrnie then Jen and I had vanilla and chocolate raspberry wontons we each had one of each. They were interesting things tasty little sweet filled pastrys.
Well fed we made our way back home watched an episode of family guy then retired to bed worn out.
It’s been a great PAX with some good panels. It’s always an exhilarating exhausting enjoyable experience and it will be good to recover a bit. Now we have some time to enjoy Boston and all it has to offer which should be great fun. But first rest.
