Yes! That’s right! It’s time for everyone’s favorite convention, GeekGirlCon! And, like we do for all of our favorite conventions, we’ve got special events leading right up to it for all of our participants coming into town and looking to get into the spirit early!

Starting with Geek Girl Trivia on Thursday night featuring a range of geek and girl related topics and one of your last chances to actually win GCC passes just for knowing stuff!

Then, on Friday, after you’ve set up your booth and are ready for a late lunch and/or early drinking (Hey, we’ve all been there. The Raygun is a Judgement Free Zone, okay!) our friends from Runic Games are setting up their Hob Happy Hour for you featuring four stations of play and food and drink specials for all GCC pass and ticket holders! Say, did I mention that we have pizza?!

And, on Saturday Morning, well, what we call morning and most civilized folks call “noon,” we’ll be hosting our Ixalan Draft Day featuring great women-officiated play against fun, accepting, local players from a range of genders and ethnicities that, as a thank you for briefly leaving the Convention Center proper, is $5 off for all GCC pass holders!

Plus! Beer, pizza, espresso, pinball and so much more, every day from noon to 11pm (1am on Fridays & Saturdays!), all just a short walk away from the convention in our amazing all ages space in Seattle’s historic Capitol Hill Neighborhood!

Capitol Hill, where all the streets are paved with rainbows…

For us, the New Year begins on Labor Day. Labor Day is when everything shifts for us; the weather finally cools back down, the foot traffic shifts from visiting tourists to returning students, key members of staff inevitably move on so new staff step in, and both of my children return to school, necessitating and facilitating changes to my personal work schedule which affects everything else. All as we clean up and recover from our personal weeklong New Years Celebration, PAX.

And with every new year, comes changes. The two biggest for us so far this year are taps and our schedule.

Yes, that’s right. I just said TAPS! With custom D20 tap heads no less!

Thanks to an unprecedented collaboration between ourselves, Maeloc Cider, Fremont Brewing & the Seattle Indies, we were able to get our initial tap system fully installed, tested and operational just before PAX and now it’s ready for you try out too.

We’re currently offering our ever popular Strawberry Cider, Fremont’s amazing seasonal Lush IPA and Odin’s Gift Amber on tap and will be rotating through a range of seasonals, many of which will be selected by you through our tip wars voting system.

Draughts are $6 and pitchers $15. We look forward to serving you.

Additionally, after seeing how many people were trying to get in early every day to get some of our great espresso now that Stumptown has closed, we’re going to be opening every day at noon and staying open until 11pm, 1am on Fridays and Saturdays, making us a great stop for all your lunchtime and afternoon coffee needs.

So come on by, get yourself a drink, play some pinball, and check out some of our events. You’ll be delighted that you did.

– Eric

Though PAX is indeed amazing. And massive. And filled with everything that you love and are interested in. You may still find yourself wanting a little break.

Break? Break from what? Whatever could he be talking about?

And when you do, we’re just a short walk away in Seattle’s legendary Capitol Hill neighborhood.

A mystical land where all the crosswalks are actually rainbows!

And, just like PAX,* we’ve got everything that you love and are interested in here too as well, like and gaming, special guests, pinball, draught beer, pizza, and Dennis Rodman’s favorite sandwich, the Grilled Kimcheese! No, for real. We really do have those. Bolt invented them. They’re frickin’ good too. I know. I wouldn’t have thought so either. But they are.

Say, did I mention that we’re ALL AGES?!!??!

Or that we’ve got all your other favorite stuff too, like , espresso, and cocktails?

Heck! This Saturday night, September 2nd, we somehow even got permission to do a free screening of Rise of the Planet of the Apes in our private back lot. Which, if I’m following it’s trailer correctly…

…is actually a remake of 1972’s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes…

…thus possibly making it the greatest film of all time, ever, period. I don’t know. But we’ll find out together this Saturday Night!

Can’t wait to see you there.

-Eric

*Okay. How, “just like PAX,” we are is totally up for debate. But we do have lots of games.

Whether you’re visiting from out of town or a local with or without PAX passes this year, we are always your Capitol Hill home away from home for all things nerd, geek and pop culture. We are an easy walk from the Convention Center, have great food and drinks in an all ages environment, and are hosting five days of special events just for you so come on up and see us while you’re in town.

Thursday, Sept 1

7:00 PM
Geek Out Trivia

The hosts of Nerdhole and A Podcast for All Intents and Purposes come together for one night a year to challenge you and yours to a trivia night like no other. Free entry, the geekiest questions the world has ever known and prizes galore await you!

Friday, Sept 2

8:00 PM
Game Jolt Indie Arcade

For one night only, those indie madmen, Game Jolt transform our space into a free arcade to demo, play and discuss this year’s newest, hottest, and indiest computer and console releases.

Saturday, Sept 3

Noon & 4:00 PM
Conspiracy Drafting

Come experience Magic’s latest sensation for yourself. $15 buy in. Pods of 8. Smart, competitive, friendly players

1:00 PM
Hearthstone ‘One Night in Karazhan’ Official Release Party!

Orcas Distributing presents and hosts Blizzard Entertainment’s Karazhan Release Party and PAX PRIME Tournament. Registration begins at 1:00PM, tournament proper at 2:00. Come see what all the excitement is about!

6:00 PM
Pink Party Prime Preparty

Though PAX’s gayest, queerest, afterparty, Pink Party Prime kicks off at Neumos at 9:00, we are the Pink Party’s only for you to prefunk, test your costume, win prizes (including tickets to to the event itself) and have a generally grand time in between events.

7:00 PM
PAX CRITTERCONCRAWL

Those fervent Critical Role fans, the critters, are in town for PAX and they’ve chosen us to be their official crawlspace. The last time they did this, a bunch of surprise special guests showed up. This time? Who knows. But it is PAX…

Sunday, September 4

Noon & 4pm
Conspiracy Drafting

Come experience Magic’s latest sensation for yourself. $15 buy in. Pods of 8. Smart, competitive, friendly players

6:00 PM
Mark Dago & the Red Bennies
High Score Tour

Nerdcore Superstars DJ Shanty, Lord British & Jade Knight join Mark Dago for the last leg of his legendary High Score Tour and you’ll be there to personally witness the mayhem!

Monday, September 5

6:00 PM
The Book of Starry Wisdom Release Party

Strix publisher and collection editor Simon Berman and illustrator Valerie Herron invite you to join them for the release of their latest kickstarted work, .

You can always learn more about these and all of our events on our Special Events Page. We look forward to seeing you while you’re here, whether it’s for a day or for a lifetime.

Look, I miss Aric more than anyone. His sassy charm. His charming sass. I’m even a little bummed that nobody ever calls me and Rune brothers or mistakes me for the other employees any more.

But he’s gone now (abducted by wizards) and somebody has to manage this damn bar so, in a dictatorial style I’ve always known I was capable of, I’ve elected myself.

First order of business: review the beer. I want to bring in some deep cuts, flavor-wise. It’ll be only high potency micro-brews, all saint’s tears and artisinal owl pellets for us around here from now on. So I hit up the fresh sheets. Did you know they make a guide the size of a phone book just for beers I could buy? What a country!

Under my new regime, we’ll be bringing back some old favorites like Odin’s Gift and Green Goblin and unleashing a whole new mess of beers like Velvet Merlin, Sharkinator, and DJ Jazzy Hefe, whose too-clever-by-half names alone will have you reaching for a palate cleanser. And lets not forget those ghost pirates.

My second order of business? The business. Why is our menu all cluttered up with all these different prices? Who’s benefiting from all of this double-entry deviancy? After asking the hard questions and pounding on that bottom line, I’ve decided, all on my dictatorial own, to standardize pricing. That’s right! All of our 12oz beer, cider, and any pour of wine are now ONLY $5! It makes counting drinks easier for me and drinking them cheaper for you. There’s the invisible hand of the economy for you!

“But what about our Rainier?!”, I hear you crying out from beyond the vast reaches of the internet as if someone just blew up Alderaan again or something. Well never fear, I tell you! The Emperor of Beers lives on in his gold and white aluminum throne! $3 Tall Boys for everybody! May Yakima Valley Hops have mercy on us all.

So eat, drink, and be merry my lovely patrons, and know that my rule as bar manager is only just beginning.

Just wait until you see the new Tip Wars.

Hello, I’m Aric Fehrenbacher. You may remember me from such blog posts as Aric’s Last Shift (I came back) and Why You Should Be Watching Professional Starcraft (WHY AREN’T YOU!) or you maybe more familiar with my work was “that guy who is always behind the bar who wears stripped button-ups gesticulating wildly at the beer cooler”.

I’m here today to share with you some exciting news about my personal favorite subject booze. We here at The Raygun Lounge have slowly been refining our menu to more accurately resemble an establishment that sells awesome, interesting beers, ciders, and now, meads. As much as I love Deschutes and Newcastle they are pretty basic as far as beer choices go and we live in the PNW home to hundreds of small independent breweries making amazing brew!

With the help of Orcas Distributing we now carry some of the most unique and tasty brews available to a small gaming establishment without access to draft beer. But enough jibber jabber allow me show you some of my new favorites which a few of our bar regulars have “agreed” to model for us.

Uncommon Brewing Bacon Brown

So we picked this assuming it would be a kitschy novelty beer and probably be terrible in reality. I mean Bacon+Beer? Turns out it’s just an amazingly solid bodied brown ale with a subtle hit of delicious gristle at the end. Also, yes it is actually brewed with a pound of uncured bacon.

Celt Thirsty Warrior

I cannot say enough good things about this cider, and I think drinking cider is a sin against Raugupatis (look it up). If you think you like Angry Orchard (you don’t) one sip of this will make you realize that you’ve been wasting your time and money all this time sending you into an existential crisis the likes of which only protagonists in Lovecraft stories have ever experienced. I may have gotten carried away there but trust me, it’s really good (Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn).

Lost Continent Double IPA

You think you know what a Northwest IPA should taste like? Not until you’ve laid your lips upon one of these mega-hoppy bad boys you presumptuous fool. A miracle of modern brewing that somehow treads the line between tasting like you’re chewing straight hops and being immensely drinkable. Schrodinger’s beer?

Moonlight Meads

Some people (losers) say that mead is for neckbeardy weirdos who can’t handle real alcohol. Well those people hate and , hence losers. Regardless of your feelings towards nordic subjects this mead is bomb as #$*&.  Every flavor is different and interesting capturing the sweet honey core that any good mead should have while experimenting with berries, ginger, vanilla, and currants in ways that morph the flavor into something truly unique.

Are you thirsty yet? Well then come on down to the Raygun for this weekend’s Magic Origins Prerelease or come in next week for our other amazing events which I guarantee will make you want to drink. That’s a little bartender humor for you. Stay classy Seattle.

Come on up and see us!

We’re just a short walk away from the Convention Center through Seattle’s premiere Capitol Hill neighborhood. Not only do we have food, drinks (including a beer and cider bar), a tabletop game library and a retro arcade for you

but we’ve got great events for you all weekend long!

Starting with on Friday Night! Across the Board Games, , Skulldug and Sindicate Lager team up to bring you a fun, friendly, welcoming night of party gaming. This is a GREAT way to get to know people and start your con right.

Then, Saturday, at noon and 4pm. We give you your first chance anywhere to draft Magic’s exciting new Dragons of Tarkir set. Drafts will be 2 Dragons 1 Fate, cost $15 per person, run in three round swiss style pods of 8 and have generous prize support. This is a GREAT way to give the new set a spin and come out with some high value cards.

Then, on Saturday Night, come and join the creators of and their special guests from throughout the comics industry for our 2nd Annual , a meet and greet benefit for Gay City.

And finally, to help you recover from the Rat Queens Social Club and the Pink Party, our BFFs from Queer Geek are hosting a special Comicon edition of their monthly Boardgame Meetup for you to meet people, play games and have a GREAT Emerald City Comicon experience!

So come on up and see us! We promise that we’ll have something fun and engaging for you to do see and experience every day that you are here from noon until at least 10pm every night (later on Saturday 😉 ).

We’re a week out from Christmas (Which, according to the Tardis Data Core, is a small town on the planet Trenzalore. And if you caught that reference, you should totally come out to this . You’ll fit right in.) and, as I promised last week, we’ve still got a wide range of options to meet your holiday needs. Whatever they are.

Want to make a game donation to families in need?

You’ve only got a couple of days left to participate in our Used Game for New Game Drive as I’ll be taking the new games to Treehouse this Friday afternoon.

Need a wrapped White elephant or Secret Santa gift in a hurry?

We know. We get those requests every year. So we’ve prewrapped a bunch of mystery games by theme and price (they come in $5, $10 & $20 versions because we know most Secret Santa exchanges come with tight budgeting restrictions and you want to get the best bang for your preset buck). We’ll be wrapping new gifts daily with themes like “train,” “classic” and “star trek” (if you get the one marked “ferengi,” I promise you won’t be disappointed).

Speaking of wrapping, I’ll wrap one small to medium sized gift per customer, time permitting, when I’m around, for free, as a sign of appreciation and respect for your choosing us for your holiday gift source this year. For those of you who’ve seen my wrapping, you’ll know what a deal this is. I look forward to personally wrapping as many gifts as I can this year. We’ll see how I do.

Want to unwind from a busy day of holiday shopping?

This December, bring a receipt from Gamma Ray Games for $24.99 or more over to our Raygun Lounge and enjoy 10% OFF your purchase of any food or drink we sell, including our new grilled cheese and hot dog meal specials as well as our most popular (Seattle Cider!), hardest to get (Klingon Warnog! and seasonal beverages (Bah Humbug!). So come on in, take a load off, play a game with a friend visiting from out of town and enjoy a sweet deal on your meals and drinks together.

Running behind and need some last minute gifts?

We’ll be open every day between now Christmas, including Monday the 22nd and Christmas Eve itself. And speaking of Christmas Eve, we have a little tradition around here at Gamma Ray. Every Christmas Eve, I bring in a Special Guest and we co-host an intimate little gathering. Kind of like or used to do. This year’s guests will be internet sensation Andrew Asplund from a Podcast For All Intents and Purposes and Abby the Wonderdog from… well, my backyard. Because nobody puts Abby in a corner. At least not on Christmas Eve. We’ll be doing some song and dance numbers, drinking a little too much and selling and wrapping gifts together all evening long. Just like in the days of yore.

The holiday season is upon us! (I believe it’s a level 5 Encounter this year.)

And while this season comes with all of our usual holiday stuff, like the Used Games for New Games Drive, my mad wrapping skills,

our prewrapped Secret Santa and White Elephant gifts (for when you really care but have a preset budget and need to be there in 20 minutes) and our annual Christmas Eve show, that’s not what I actually wanted to talk with you about today.

No. What I want to talk with you today is… WE DID IT! As of last week, we actually got our certificate of occupancy! And although that’s HUGE, that’s not the half of it! Not only have the shop and the new art gallery settled in nicely (and legally) but the neighbors are actually gone (like gone gone) and the landlord’s actually redone the bathroom!

No longer does the bathroom look like this,

this

or this.

Not pictured: a naked 6 foot tall man towel bathing himself and his three pit bulls while his girlfriends attempts to flush her syringe down the only working toilet.

Now it’s a quiet, pristine, private bathroom! With a nice ceiling even! I can’t believe it. I just go in there to meditate now.*

For all intents and purposes (no, not Andrew’s podcast, I’m just using the expression), this is an ENTIRELY NEW space. And in that spirit, we’re having a GRAND RE-OPENING party all month long. Starting this Thursday, with the L|td’s amazing Fourth Annual Star Wars Art Show Opening; bring a new friend, tell the bartender that it’s your first time in since the remodel and your friend’s first time ever, and we will give you a buy-one-get-a-friend’s-drink-for-free-special. That’s right, we’re giving out (almost) FREE BEER (in certain cases, for qualifying recipients, see above for details).

So really, come out, see the new Star Wars show, try something off of our expanded Winter menu (now with hot dogs and grilled cheese!), take advantage of our shop’s free custom ordering system and check out our newly re-opened shop/lounge/gallery space!

And while you’re in the neighborhood, stop by some of our newest neighbors, like the recently opened Art Primo and Homestead Seattle. Lower Pine is making a comeback!

*I do not actually go into the bathroom solely for the purposes of meditation. But when I get in there, it just drops me into zen state. Luckily time slows down for me when I’m in a zen state so even though I feel like I’ve been in there for hours, I’m actually in and out in a very timely manner. Don’t hog the bathroom, people. It’s for everyone. And by everyone, I mean our customers only, 1 patron at a time, like God and the Washington State Zoning Commission intended it.

While we to allow the to become all ages so we can move into it we’re still going strong at both locations.

Which means it’s another great weekend filled with great special events!

It all starts off on Friday with our monthly Indie Dev Meetup, a night to see and show the city’s hottest in-development games when host Alex Schearer invites the brightest and best designers to, “Put down your keyboard […] grab your laptop […] and get feedback from other game makers.”

On Saturday, our indie game design weekend shifts from computer to tabletop when we host Seattle’s very first Unpub Event featuring completely brand new games from some of our region’s top designers. Our legendary weekly Magic drafting will still be in effect (M15, $15 buy in, prizes for top 3) but will be limited to 1 pod of 8 at noon and 4pm to make sure that we have room for this important event.

On Sunday, we shift back into our classic schedule with all of our regular weekly and bi-weekly events like Star Wars X-Wing with Rebel Leader Dylan Holmes and Elder Dragon Highlander with Legendary Commander Arcades Sabboth.

So again, come on down to the lounge for a beer, some pizza, and the best tabletop gaming experience in Capitol Hill.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

-Eric

A Preface

What’s cooler than going to the gym? Swordfighting. What’s cooler than reading up on what gear you need to most efficiently up your DPS in PvP? Being outside. What’s cooler than watching Game of Thrones? Well, not too much really (haha, Red Wedding). What is really cool (but also dorky, which is okay because everyone around is also doing it)? LARPing. Yes, it is totally nerdy, but it’s still cooler and more fun than not LARPing. Don’t knock it until you try it.

I mean, come on, this is badass.

Seattle hosts a fine LARP/Medieval Combat Society/Wargame/Sport via Dargarth where you are the hero. You get to crush baddies (your friends) and revel in the real-life feels of victory. What’s cooler than button mashing to slay goblins? Physically hitting grown adults that are acting like goblins with foam swords. I promise. Dargarth hosts a reasonable set of  developed by a former Darkonian, Count Andor.  You can even spot him in the incredible documentary for a second. Not only do fighters battle each other over fictional hexes of land for the good of their countries, but players engage in active and enriching role-play through their characters molding and forming the lore and realm around them. Plus, currently The Explorers Guild and The Holy Order of Mârdûr are engaged in the very first war of the realm and my character, Witchbane Cragon, is leading the first Dargarthian Inquisition!

Dargarth at this year’s All’s Faire.

I suppose no one can be expected to care about all this, but if interested you can refer to the schedule or check the . Even if hitting people with foam weapons isn’t your idea of a fun Sunday, watching other people hit people with foam weapons and engage in jolly cooperation is fun too, again I promise.

A Gay Olde Tyme

With the preface and plug out of the way, Dargarth is going to be having their Summer Fundraiser at Volunteer Park this Pride Sunday and the Raygun Lounge is excited as can be to host (and sponsor) the Afterparty! Expect to see proud LARPers in garb guzzling mead and overflowing with personality and reasonable eloquence (hic) spouting off about Malum (The Blood Goddess) knows what. Collectively, we will be raffling off garb, armor, and other various LARPing paraphernalia as well as some Raygun swag both at the Volunteer Park event and at the Afterparty at the Lounge.

Alongside of what other proud and gay olde tymes happen to be going on this weekend, we urge you to stop on by, drink some grog and play with us this weekend.

Wow, what a great year.

And to top it all off, we’re about to hit 1200 fans on . As 1100 of you know and 100 of you are about to learn, every time we get 100 new fans on facebook, we declare Facebook Fan Fantasy Festival Party Time

or FFFFPT as it’s known on the streets

and we give out free stuff.

For this particular FFFFPT we thought we’d celebrate the recent licensing of our new by giving out FREE BEER!

That’s right. As soon as you see us post an appropriate image to our page

say, something tasteful like this

or this

titled It’s FFFFPT 12! you’ll know it’s time to head on down to Gamma Ray Games and pick up your FREE BEER TICKET. While supplies last.

This offer not good on Panther Sweat.

We save that shit for Conan.