After ducking briefly in anticipation of the inevitable explosion, I made the acquaintance of the Sugar Land based Techno Chaos company. They were the minds behind the creeper, which was being used to great effect by sneaking up on people (And apparently got into a fight with a Darth Vader).

Techno Chaos hosts everything from summer camps to field trips hoping to interest kids in robotics. They use some of the most fun things in existence like LEGO and Minecraft in order to jumpstart a love of building and experimenting. They told me, "Why buy a toy when you can make one."

In addition to the impressive creeper, which they sensibly wouldn't let me pilot, they also had an impressive game of robotic LEGO soccer set up. Using little more than standard LEGO mixed with a wireless sending unit, I and another man got to steer small plastic cars around a field obstinately with the goal to kick the balls into goals but in reality just seeing if we could knock the other one over. See what I mean about not trusting me with the creeper?

That was enough bettering myself for a moment as far as I was concerned, so I started exploring. All the usual vendors seem to have come back this year, and I stopped by our friends at 8th Dimension Comics chat. Half-Price Books brought their A game this year, but I was out of luck if I was going to pick up more Doctor Who books at a discount like last year because they were already sold out. They do have a really fantastic choice of audio books, though, and that's pretty stellar.

Game Over was hawking a legacy system for $80 that allows you to play SNES, Genesis, and NES games all on the same console. It makes up for earlier this year when an April Fool's Joke about an Atari legacy system made me delete a 700-word article once it was revealed as a prank. Game Over is actually hosting an entire retro-gaming convention in Austin in July called Classic Game Fest. Maybe a road trip will be in order.

I'm not really much for celebrities at conventions, and the cancellation of Peter Davison ended my only real nerdgasm hopes. There are two other Doctor Who alumni in attendance, though, Frazer Hines and Gary Russell.

I've already done a nice bit of background on Hines, so I won't repeat myself, but he was free this early in the convention so I stopped by to annoy him. I didn't know that he had written a book (Hines Sight), which I quickly bought. He is also selling audio versions, which if you can you should grab because he is a master storyteller in the Big Finish audio adventures. His impression of Patrick Troughton is just uncanny.

I can't wait to read his story, already sold out in hardback, because Hines is a really enchanting and hilarious person to be in the same room with. He speaks warmly about his time on Doctor Who, as well as growing up riding horses and working with Charlie Chaplin. I'm always surprised at just how accessible the English celebrities are, and how ready they are to talk to you. I'll have more on that after the panel on him tomorrow.