Previously On...
For anyone not in the know in terms of the hows and whys of this shirts existence, you can check HERE to see where the pre-orders took place and HERE to see how the shirts were actually screened and produced.
Arriving in Boston
So when I arrived in Boston Thursday, it really hit me how much shit I was going to have to carry around. It was literally two giant boxes filled with T shirts and hoodies. (60 shirts and 15 hoodies) The big problem though was the hoodies since one hoodie took up roughly 3+ shirts worth of space and also weighed just as much.
Luckily, besides the ones for the GB staff, most every single hoodie was for a group of people I was hoping to meet that Thursday night for dinner. That allowed me to drop off a solid 1/4 of the volume of stuff in one go =D
Huge thanks to PAX buddies @epicsteve@sparklykiss@chaser324@brewmaster_andy@matt@rolyatkcinmai@pseg@marino@heavyduty32@wafflestomp@mahonay and @natetodamax for picking up early from me Thursday night. Sorry I had to leave the meet up early to catch a showing of Book of Mormon with Celine and our gracious Boston host Ji Seon =P
PAX East 2014 Deliveries
There was a message chain that was created right after the close of pre-orders that was created and within it, we decided that the best time and place to meet would be in the Handheld Lounge on Friday morning at 11AM. So when Saturday rolled around, I filled up a large trashbag with everyone's shirts and my back pack with the extras I had printed and headed off for day 1 of PAX. Since only about 5 or 6 people were actually active on the PM chain here on the site, I was sorta worried that not many people would show. Those worries were quickly laid to rest as duder after duder made the meet up.
![I set up shop by laying out a T-shirt and lounging in a beanbag chair =]](https://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/original/3/38925/2619772-photo%20apr%2011%2C%207%2027%2008%20am.jpg)
By the end of the hour, I had met up with, exchanged names and shook hands with @patvb@meatsofevil@cpsterndog@epidehl@ateatree@finaldasa@robopengy@omniscientcajun@mcribs@jeanluc@benguin@rivaldi22@dalai@plainzombie@mtcantor@fauxben@endoworks@th3irdeye@thdemn@frootsnax and @vikingdeath1 . Out of the huge list of people who ordered a shirt, only 4 people were missing. Two of which had informed me earlier that they were unable to make the scheduled meet up. I found @code3xbl working the Console Freeplay and @olqavtoras working at the Hotline Miami 2 booth. It was super cool meeting people from the community and putting faces to user names.
While I was handing out shirts and taking cash, I heard mentioned a couple times that I looked like I was a damn drug dealer keeping track of transactions in a little notebook I carried around with me. The notebook was so that I could track who's shirts I had given out and who needed to pay me how much since a good number of people had already paid me via paypal. I doubted anyone would try to get a free shirt by claiming to be someone they were not but just in case, I set up a system where I'd ask for the person's real name (retrieved from the payPal system) and their photo ID. Turns out it was completely unnecessary but hey... can't help to be too careful =P In fact, most people were super generous and left me with a sizable $4 tip for the $16 shirts. I don't know if this was due to me asking for exact change and most people just carrying $20s, I'm leaning more towards duders just being straight awesome. I want to give a special shoutout to Desmond (code3xbl) for slappin down a hot $50 for his shirt. He single handedly knocked a big chunk off my expenses and also picked up an additional second shirt for a buddy of his =D
After the Meet Up
I still had around 17 extra unclaimed shirts that I was hoping to sell to cover the costs of free shirts/hoodies for staff, shipping and unexpectedly expensive custom ink costs. Surprisingly (or maybe not) they went pretty damn quickly. Somehow people seemed to know who I was and would come up to me and ask me "Aren't you the guy selling shirts?" or "Are you Fobwashed?" and boom, sale. The most interesting random sell was a guy who I had apparently street passed while in the queue for Patrick and Zoe's panel. He found me at the Gamespot/Giant Bomb meetup hours later and approached me saying "Hey, I street passed Fobwashed at the Patrick panel and he looks a lot like you... are you Fobwashed?". Him and his friend both bought a shirt =] I also later ran into @landonrobinson who had pre-ordered a shirt but didn't make the meet up. I had already sold HIS labeled shirt but had an extra in his size. I also gave Mr. Eric Pope a shirt because he's fucking Eric Pope and dropped one off for Dave Lang because I had a spare 3XL that I doubted would fit anyone other than that massive man. All said and done, at the end of the first day of PAX, I was down to just 3 or so extras. I was no longer afraid that I'd be coming home with a wardrobe full of em =]
SATURDAY!
I planned on hitting up the GB panel and that seemed like the best time to dump all the staff stuff in one go so this was the last day I would be carrying a full load of shirts. A lot of them wanted hoodies, so I was still going full backpack.
I was lucky enough to be allowed to come along into the pre-panel lobby area where I was able to hand them all out in one place. Of course before that, I had been lugging them around all day but by then I was used to the extra weight =P Checking my FitBit, on Friday/Saturday I had walked over 20+ miles and over 40 floors. When I checked my weight back home in Bellevue, WA, I had lost over 5 pounds over PAX weekend =D Just after the panel was finished, I sold off my remaining shirts. Again, I was approached instead of me having to hock my wares like a street sales person =]
Shirt Sightings
It was probably in large part because of the panels I went to and the areas I hung around in but I saw the shirts EVERYWHERE. Mostly in queues but very frequently walking around on the show floor and in the aisles. It was pretty damn cool. In addition to that, the group I was hanging out with for most of PAX had a bunch of the hoodies and the weather was such that they were kinda perfect for keeping warm while not getting too hot or cold so we were roaming around in em. Which maybe mighta looked a bit weird but fuck it, I thought it was awesome =] Mr. Pope also wore his shirt for both his 404 and Royal Rumble panels while Alex ripped off his Harmonix jacket to reveal his GB one! All awesome! Some community people tweeted me pics of them wearing them as well =D
Fin
PAX East 2014 was my first 3 day experience and it was a goddamn blast. I literally only played 2 games. The dolphin test cheating one because I wanted to try on an Oculus Rift and the Pachinco game because I wanted to donate towards a charity that helps disabled gamers. Beyond those, it was all about hanging out with cool ass people watching stupid ass shit and having a blast. Thanks everyone for making this stupid endeavor such a great thing! I can't say I'll ever do it again (because holy shit carrying all that shit was tiring) but I have zero regrets about doing for PAX East =D
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