326,924 TRIBBLES... Jean-Luc Simard Greetings everyone! My name is Jean-Luc Simard, and I'll be reporting to you live from DecipherCon all weekend long. Getting to Orlando wasn't easy for everyone, and Yours Truly almost didn't make it. Luckily, Kirk and his friendly Tribbles helped me get through the most bizarre customs check I ever saw. It was a sunny Sunday afternoon in Montreal, and I was at the airport to get on my plane to Orlando. The only step left before I could sit down and enjoy the flight was going through customs, which is normally a simple matter. My discussion with the customs officer went like this: Customs officer: "Hello sir. Where are you going?" Jean-Luc: "Orlando, Florida." CO: "And where do you come from?" JL: "Montreal, Quebec." CO: "Why are you going to Orlando, business or pleasure?" JL: "Pleasure." CO: "And what will you do there?" JL: "I'm going to a gaming convention." CO: "A gaming convention? What is that?" JL: "It's a convention where people meet to play games..." CO: "Hmmm... And what do you do for a living?" JL: "I am an engineer." CO: "So you're an engineer, and you're going to a gaming convention... Okay, please follow me sir." So the lady took me to a little examination room very similar to the ones you see in movies, and called another customs officer. I was in shock and didn't know what to think: they were questioning me for being a gamer? The second customs officer asked me the same questions. He also wanted some details about the convention, so I told him about DecipherCon and Decipher's Star Wars and Star Trek games. He then asked me to open my luggage for inspection. Now before going on, a side note: since I planned on playing only in sealed-deck events at the Con, I didn't bring any Star Wars CCG, Young Jedi or Star Trek CCG cards at all. The only cards I had with me were Tribble cards. Alright, back to my story. I opened my first suitcase, which contained clothes - no problem. The second suitcase was filled with boardgames and strange card games I intend to play with friends at the Con between tournaments. The officer looked at them, and picked the box on top (it was Ra, an excellent Reiner Knizia auction game BTW). He then asked me with complete seriousness: "Is this a game? How do you play it?" I gave him a quick overview of the game, not knowing if he was testing me or just looking for something to play... He then asked me the same questions about other games in my suitcase, finally getting down to: "You said you were going to play Star Wars and Star Trek games. Yet I don't see any Star Wars or Star Trek products here. Are you lying?" I took my Tribbles deck and showed it to the officer. He looked at the 1 Tribble card and exclaimed: "This isn't Star Trek, it's only a puppet in a plastic cup!" I was getting desperate. I flipped through my deck, but the officer just looked at the cards without any sign of recognition. Finally, I reached the 100 000 Tribbles card, the one with a picture of Captain Kirk. I exclaimed: "There! You see? This is Kirk! Surely you know him? He's the perfect Star Trek symbol!" The officer luckily agreed that it was indeed William Shatner, and seemed to believe my story. He let me pack my things, and I was on my way to Orlando! See you soon with more stories about DecipherCon, and the first results from Day #1 of the Star Wars CCG World Championship (on the Star Wars CCG DecipherCon news board). I hope people reading this from the Con had less trouble getting here than I did! Jean-Luc Simard DecipherCon 2000 Guest Writer P.S.: For those wondering about the title of the article, 326,924 Tribbles was the number of fur balls I brought with me to Orlando... Last time I heard, the city was swamped with millions of them...