After a short flight aboard a dilapidated United airlines plane (the friggin tray was even broken), I'm back in Colorado, snuggly ensconced in my tower of mud.

I'm feeling a little down. I miss those PAXers. Sure it was hot, smelly and packed wall-to-wall with lines, but there was an overwhelming sense of family, of friendship, of belonging.

I was with my own kind and it felt good.

This was my first Penny Arcade Expo, but I hope to make it an annual pilgrimage, not because I'm a fan of the Penny Arcade web comic (though I am), but because I just like hanging out with other gamers, talking to friends and playing games on giant bean bags.

People who've never been to PAX ask if it will replace E3. Once you go you realize it can't. It's just not that show.

It's got more of the Game Developers Conference feel to it, but not quite as heady. I once said I expected GDC to be packed to the gills with professors in smoking jackets chewing on the ends of pipes as they talked about the uncanny valley and persistent worlds.

PAX is sorta like that but instead of smoking jackets, professors and the uncanny valley it's t-shirts, drunken members of the NESkimoes and pirates or ninjas. (Pirates FTW, btw.)

Gamers of all ages roamed the expo, they brought their wives, their husbands. Jerry and Mike brought their kids. MC Frontalot brought his mom.

People helped each other out when they needed it. They shared, they joked, they gamed. No one stole, despite the expensive hardware just lying around.

It's sorta like a mini-Woodstock for gamers, but instead of barbiturates the drug of choice is Bawls.

For those of you who don't get Penny Arcade or don't like it, you still need to go at least once to bust your PAX cherry. Brian Crecente