WHAT: Seattle Geeks who love to go shooting, and thusly determined we should all go shooting together.
WHERE: Wades Eastside Guns and Outdoor Range
13570 Bel-Red Road, Bellevue, WA 98005
WHEN: Wednesday, September 22nd at 7pm, until we abandon ship for beer (Wades closes at 10pm)
COST: Lane rental is $15 for the first person, $10 for each additional on the lane up to three people. Gun rental is as little as $8, or bring your own. Targets are $.25 – $1 each, depending on size. (Stay tuned on this, we may have a sponsor, which will make it cheaper!)
WHY: Who doesn’t like to blow stuff up? All geeks are welcome, whether Republicans, Democrats, marksmen, n00bs, or anything in between. Just be safe and have fun.

Please RSVP with a comment so I know how many people to plan for so I can give Wades a heads up. Also, please use the #SeattleGeekShootout hashtag on Twitter to pass the word along, and feel free to bring a friend!

Special thanks to Beth Goza, Karen Clark, and Alexis Hebert for being such great co-panelists; and to Harmony for recording this.

First, some epic nerd awesomeness:

This one isn’t my style musically, but the content is kind of cute/funny:

Cartoon Fun

Semi-resembling Gorillaz nifty style:

War Again – Balkan Beat Box from Paul Griswold on Vimeo.

Fire Ze Missles! New Releases!

HOLY CHEESESTEAKS, BRUCE WILLIS IS IN THE LATEST GORILLAZ VIDEO! Embedding is not allowed, so go watch it here. Actually, the entire new Gorillaz album, Plastic Beach, comes out tomorrow, and is a great listen. Cameos by Snoop Dogg were a bit weird, but they actually fit.

And speaking of releases tomorrow, checkout Broken Bells. As if you haven’t already. Broken Bells is Danger Mouse plus James Mercer, best known for The Shins, and for being my favourite male singer. Well, at least tied with Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie / The Postal Service).

Listen to Broken Bell’s single, “The High Road” below, over and over and over again.

In Closing…

I love sharing music. Let me know if you enjoyed this post. :-)

P.S. There’s a great interview here about the making of this video.

Suffice to say, Mindcamp 6.0 was really fun. :-) Seattle is the best.

And there’s reason: we’ve had some good times. In 2007, we got to experience a legendary keynote by Wil Wheaton and joined a band of pirates in a con-wide game of assassins.

In 2008, we dressed up like characters from the Penny Arcade video game (ala 1922). We also played a hilarious 4 hour game of Munchkin that year consisting of 13 random strangers (a world record, I’m sure). At the end of it all it was so late it was early and we all went out to breakfast together.

2009 was packed full of fun as well. This year we got to go with CoDa, our gaming crew, and took lots of goofy pictures on the expo hall floor, with special effects added in thanks to some of the more creative booths. Pictured is one that even went the extra mile and emailed me the photo. Other booths printed out photos for us, I’ve yet to scan them. My favourite, of course, was taking photos at the area for Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare’s new KOTOR MMO. We donned Jedi robes and posed before a blue screen; Star Wars backgrounds were added in. Imagine my joy at discovering not only this, but also they had taken an entire room and turned it into a Star Wars cantina. Epic!

Some of the swag giveaways were really very creative this year. For instance, 2K Games had a special booth setup for their game Mafia II that looked like an old-style saloon. On their Facebook Page right at the beginning of day two they posted, “PAX attendees: Tell the bartender, ‘Joe said you have a package for me.’ Be discreet – we have a very limited quantity.” Harmony and I raced to the far side of the expo hall as soon as the doors opened to get to 2K’s saloon, then pulled the “bartender” aside and told him the code. He was totally in character with his thick 1920s Chicago accent as he leaned close and muttered, “Joey sent you, eh? Here’s the package…” he glanced from side to side and tapped his nose, “Tell him I send my regards.” He handed us some rather nice fedora hats which turned out to be the envy of other PAX attendees. But what really made it was how he stayed in character. Major props to 2K for making an extra fun experience for us.

Panel highlights included one from “The Guild” (watch it if you haven’t) and of course, drawing a panel with Gabe and Tycho. I went to a panel on how the iPhone is changing the mobile gaming market, and I’m hoping to share my notes from that after I get a chance to play some of the games mentioned.

Unfortunately, the after effect of PAX is more than just a homesickness for the friendly gaming community. It was easily noticed via the powers of Twitter that many, many people from this year’s PAX became ill shortly thereafter. Then it turned out that this particularly bad case of “Con-SARS” was perhaps worse than originally feared: the dreaded swine flu was confirmed. Luckily, I feel okay, as does my sister. News on #PAXflu is still developing.

Update: Wired is reporting “H1Nerd1″ has spread to over 100 confirmed cases.