BLOG: JoCoCruise 2016 or: Why Come I Was Offline for a Week

If you don’t know what a JoCo is or why there’d be a cruise about it, JoCo is Jonathan Coulton, a musician with a severe bent towards the geek and sci-fi/fantasy realms, often laced with dark comedy. If you’ve ever played (or, I should say, beaten) Portal or Portal 2, he wrote the songs that play over the end credits. Check out Example 1, Example 2, and/or Example 3 if you want.

OK, cool. Geek rock musician. But a cruise?

Heck yeah, a cruise.

The JoCoCruise is aimed at people who like just about all things geek. There’s a 24-hour tabletop game room; readings from authors like Patrick Rothfuss, John Scalzi, and N. K. Jemisin; live podcast recordings, including SPONTANEANATION with Paul F. Tompkins…

Oh, and there’s a cruise going on, too.

The whole thing is overwhelming, not least of all because this is the sixth JoCoCruise and, as happens when geeks gather, there are layers upon layers of in-jokes to decipher about fezzes and Soon™ and booing John Hodgman. I learned the best thing — if not the most comfortable thing — is to just go with it.

My personal highlights from the trip include, but are not limited to (in roughly chronological, but otherwise no particular order):

• Wil Wheaton answering my question about “Titansgrave: Ashes of Valkana;” I asked if there was a contingency plan if any of the characters died; he said not specifically, but character death was always on the table, and the actors would have instead played prominent NPCs, etc.
• Allie Brosh opening up about weirdness and wrestling two ne’er-do-well easels
• Molly Lewis in concert and in office hours, reaffirming my notion that she is rad as all get out and you should go buy all her albums because she is great
• Imogen Heap in concert after battling being sick and getting limited rehearsal time and still putting on an AMAZING show (check the video I got of one of her songs if you want)

• Spontaneanation Live was terrific, and I’m going to have to catch up on the back-log of episodes, because if they’re anything like that one, I’ve been missing out
• Participating in the Ukulele Melee, performing an as-of-yet unreleased Molly Lewis song; I’ll let her reveal it when she posts the video, because I’d hate to be the one that spoils the surprise (Here’s last year’s video, to give you an idea of what’s going on)
• The Hamilton sing-along, which was surprisingly fun and excellent even though we had to abridge it to fit it in an hour
• Scorekeeping for the Celebrity Game Night Afternoon after raising my hand and apparently looking like someone who can handle numbers (who whoulda thunk it?)
• Astoundingly excellent David Bowie tribute at the final concert; everyone’s love and respect poured forth to make some beautiful music and moments

I also met some neat people, learned some new games, and got off the boat once and only once to visit one of the islands, stick my feet in the water on the beach, and get back on the boat. (I’m what you might call “outdoorsy.”)