This impressive fellow is a HUUUUGE fan who made the absolute most bad-ass Witch Hunter outfit I’ve EVER seen. I’ll post more shots later, but trust me – the detail and skill of the crafting was astonishing. It’s a nearly perfect rendition of the concept art from the game, down to purity seals, real steel breast-plate, spiked metal boot-tips, taggers, holy oils and guns, guns, guns. And the HAT.

I thought The Hickman was going to try and kidnap the guy.

We’re actually in Leipzig now, but I added a bunch of pictures from our last day in London to the earlier gallery:

We hit Camden market, Covent Garden and had dinner on Brick Lane. Camden is basically a weird mix of scenes out of Blade Runner and Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, with the left-overs of the punk and cyber-punk sub-cultures trying to make a buck off of tourists in the streets. We mostly went to let the ladies shop, but Jeff and Paul wound up spending far more than anyone else buying boots.

We got to Covent Garden a bit too late, but we managed to catch the gents working at the GW shop there just before they left for the day and they were nice enough to let us come in and fuss about for a while. It’s a great little shop, lovingly referred to as a “Hobbit Hole” by one of the staff.

Dinner on Brick Lane was something Aubrey had championed after hearing tales of it from Paul and Kate. It’s basically two city blocks full of curry houses. Each restaurant has a doorman of sorts who sits out on the street and tries to convince people to come into the restaurant. By “convince”, I mean “bribe”. They’ll walk up and start offering you things like free bottles of wine or rounds of drinks or appetizers. If you stop and haggle, you can get them to up the freebies, throw in crazy discounts, etc. Paul was awesome at it, but it seemed to make Jeff VERY nervous. I thought it was a hoot when we’d get two guys playing off of each other, basically smack-talking neighboring vendors (“HIS restaurant is empty for a reason, you know.”) and trying to outbid them for your patronage.

After dinner, we headed back to the Miller’s for drinks and candle-light chilling. Then we enjoyed three hours of sleep before heading to the airport this morning.

Now, it’s nap-time.

We arrived in London yesterday, on our way to Leipzig for Games Convention. Our little gang is made up of myself, Aubrey, Paul, Kate, Jeff and Raine Hickman. As per tradition (well, it’s a tradition for Paul and I, at least) we’re staying at the Miller’s, which is just a hoot.

We were jetlagged horribly, but managed to do a bit of running around last night before we settled into the drawing room for drinks and chatting. I took a few pictures, which you can see here. More to come as the trip progresses!

From London – Augu…

He’s trying to cram all of his stuff for Leipzig into a carry-on bag.

I’ve learned that the only sane way to travel for more than a few days is to treat the entire trip like an expedition to the darkest depths of some uncharted primordial jungle and pack absurd quantities of every possible medication, device, article of clothing, tonic or tool that might conceivably be of use while I’m away.  Any attempt to skimp on provisions guarantees that I’ll be struck down by some obscure foreign malady or inexplicable hardship within hours of hitting the ground.

But who knows, maybe Justin will have better luck.  Or MAYBE he’ll find himself in desperate need of a left-handed sextant mid-week with only one place to turn for help.

Regardless, you all need to go and comment on his blog.  The positive feedback might encourage him to post more than once a month.

I fly across the pond to the UK tomorrow night, en route to scenic Leipzig.  As a result, I’m doing laundry and packing tonight.  In the middle of a load of whites, I happened to notice water leaking out of the ceiling above my hot water heater.  A fair amount has already poured out and collected in a catch-basin under the heater, so it’s not just a minor drip, but none of our stuff has gotten wet as of yet.  Anywho, I called the after-hours emergency number for our complex and reported it.

Now comes the test.

This is either:

1) A terrible inconvenience that couldn’t happen at a worse time.  Water streaming in from above, technology gone horribly wrong!  I need to clean my collection of WAR shirts and fly off to Europe shortly!

or

2) Surprisingly good timing.  Replacing a leaking water heater will probably take DAYS.  Days with no water for showers, laundry, dish washing, etc.  Days filled with whole crews of plumbers and carpenters and cleaners going in and out at odd hours, making all sorts of noise.  Days during which I’ll be thousands of miles away, shacked up in a nice hotel, enjoying the hospitality and good cheer of our European friends and fans.

So… which one do YOU choose?

P.S. GC Leipzig is going to be AWESOME.  You’re going, right?