KAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Now that the last shred of VGC '13 World Championships has left my world, I should probably stop putting off that journal entry.
Just after moving here, about a week or so, the World Championships for pokemon took place in Vancouver, Canada - and since I had just recently moved to Seattle, the commute was considerably easier than Hawaii. I road tripped there with Mike, Sam, Tiffany, and two new people (new to this journal, not new to my life necessarily), Rina and Jesus. Rina came to the States after qualifying for the World Championships but couldn't quite afford the trip, so I told her she could stay with me while she was there. Jesus - and yes his name really is Jesus - has been around the community for some time, but he tends to be loved enough that he is hard to get to hang out with one person directly. Despite knowing him for several years, this is the first he really hung out with my side of the community. Oh, and the host with the most Nick was there too!
I should also mention Nationals too. In light of last year's cardboard cutout incident (TL;DR Nick was laid off due to budget cuts and we brought a cardboard cutout of him at Nats that appeared in tons of photos and got a lot of positive attention and he was invited back to host the 2012 World Championships), we were spoiled by the assumption that if my group of friends started Nick propoganda we could get him his job back for his fifth year in a row. Sam, Gabby, Mike and I were having dinner way back in April, before Nationals, and I asked the question, "How are we ever going to top a cardboard cutout?" And Sam replied "Nick Masks, obviously." I then put Sam's vision in motion and made about a hundred Nick McCord face masks, carrying them around Nationals in a bag and giving them to fans.
It looked kind of like the above image. The masks received mixed reviews, some calling them creepy and some calling them creepy but awesome (the word creepy was used a lot). But they grew so popular that they put a live Skype call over the big screen, allowing him to chime us into the seventh round of Nationals. Two weeks later, he sent me a private message saying we did it again, and that he would attend Worlds.
By this point I was already pretty satisfied with my work from Nats and Worlds, but I did end up playing a bit. I used this team:
Sableye
Politoed
Kingdra
Tyranitar
Thundurus
Metagross
There were about 167-200 people in the LCQ, and I finished in the top 32, losing to Satoru Masukada, the 2012 Japan National Champion. I knew this because he told me:
SM: I am the 2012 Japanese National Champion!
Me: Wow, that's really cool!
SM: Sorry, I don't speak English!
Me: Wait, so you only know enough English to say that one phrase, plus a second explanatory phrase?
SM: Sorry, I don't speak English!
Me: Good luck in this next match.
It was a very close 2-1 series, with me winning the first game, losing the second handily and losing the third to luck. We played a few more times in side tournaments, and we still had trouble with the language barrier. But I discovered that if I yelled "KAAAAAAAAAA" really loudly then he would get excited, so I did that all the time.
That weekend, Jesus went missing as well. Nick sort of laughed it off morbidly, saying it was a tradition for something to happen to a player every year at this point, but we split off from our respective duties to look for him. He left our hotel the night before around 10:00, and he reported to me via text at 2:00 a.m. that he had arrived at Ray's hotel, but said friend said he never showed up.
Eventually, we learned from another competitor that he was found asleep outside Ray's door - evidently Jesus was expecting Ray to just open the door and Ray was expecting Jesus to knock at some point - and then the other guy took Jesus in for the night, where he overslept and missed the morning. I wish I had known that before I called the cops and local hospitals and gotten reprimanded for asking if they had found Jesus.
Rina sported her LGBTQ pride by representing her home country of the United Kingdom with rainbow UK flags. I wore one, telling foreigners that I was here representing the country of U-Gay. No one but Americans thought that was funny.
Nick was a beautiful host as usual. We had drinks in his hotel room, along with some random assorted foods on Pikachu's dime, and he thanked me again for getting him back after he was told the previous year was his last year. I credited Sam partially, and when Sam asked how we'd top next year I told him I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this again. In the down time of the last year, Nick had mentioned he was working on playwriting and going back to school, and he had his first successful play performed (Good Night, Doctor) earlier this year. I feel like, even if Nick was polite enough to deny it there, that Nick might have other interests he wants to pursue. Nick then admitted that because the last few years have given such short notice he often has to cancel plans abruptly to come, and in previous years he's had to quit jobs and come back unemployed to make it work. Nonetheless, we decided to enjoy the moment and soak up the good of the tournament while we still had each other.
The World Championships themselves meant the end of America's three year reign, with America getting 3rd this year, Japan getting second, and Italy taking the gold - making the very first Italian champion in the history of the video game.
Oh, I almost forgot - the last shred of VGC I mentioned? While we were drinking with Nick, we played a game called Cards Against Humanity, where drunk Gabby laughed at me for being terrible at the game (even a drunk Tiffany who couldn't stand upright was still beating me), and said she'd always beat me. That night, I said I'd beat her the next time we played. We played this weekend with her friends from work, and I joined late, got six cards before she got five, and then dropped out. As I left, I imitated the "mic drop" animation the internet currently loves so very much. It. Was. Glorious.
-Chalkey
Just after moving here, about a week or so, the World Championships for pokemon took place in Vancouver, Canada - and since I had just recently moved to Seattle, the commute was considerably easier than Hawaii. I road tripped there with Mike, Sam, Tiffany, and two new people (new to this journal, not new to my life necessarily), Rina and Jesus. Rina came to the States after qualifying for the World Championships but couldn't quite afford the trip, so I told her she could stay with me while she was there. Jesus - and yes his name really is Jesus - has been around the community for some time, but he tends to be loved enough that he is hard to get to hang out with one person directly. Despite knowing him for several years, this is the first he really hung out with my side of the community. Oh, and the host with the most Nick was there too!
I should also mention Nationals too. In light of last year's cardboard cutout incident (TL;DR Nick was laid off due to budget cuts and we brought a cardboard cutout of him at Nats that appeared in tons of photos and got a lot of positive attention and he was invited back to host the 2012 World Championships), we were spoiled by the assumption that if my group of friends started Nick propoganda we could get him his job back for his fifth year in a row. Sam, Gabby, Mike and I were having dinner way back in April, before Nationals, and I asked the question, "How are we ever going to top a cardboard cutout?" And Sam replied "Nick Masks, obviously." I then put Sam's vision in motion and made about a hundred Nick McCord face masks, carrying them around Nationals in a bag and giving them to fans.
It looked kind of like the above image. The masks received mixed reviews, some calling them creepy and some calling them creepy but awesome (the word creepy was used a lot). But they grew so popular that they put a live Skype call over the big screen, allowing him to chime us into the seventh round of Nationals. Two weeks later, he sent me a private message saying we did it again, and that he would attend Worlds.
By this point I was already pretty satisfied with my work from Nats and Worlds, but I did end up playing a bit. I used this team:
Sableye
Politoed
Kingdra
Tyranitar
Thundurus
Metagross
There were about 167-200 people in the LCQ, and I finished in the top 32, losing to Satoru Masukada, the 2012 Japan National Champion. I knew this because he told me:
SM: I am the 2012 Japanese National Champion!
Me: Wow, that's really cool!
SM: Sorry, I don't speak English!
Me: Wait, so you only know enough English to say that one phrase, plus a second explanatory phrase?
SM: Sorry, I don't speak English!
Me: Good luck in this next match.
It was a very close 2-1 series, with me winning the first game, losing the second handily and losing the third to luck. We played a few more times in side tournaments, and we still had trouble with the language barrier. But I discovered that if I yelled "KAAAAAAAAAA" really loudly then he would get excited, so I did that all the time.
That weekend, Jesus went missing as well. Nick sort of laughed it off morbidly, saying it was a tradition for something to happen to a player every year at this point, but we split off from our respective duties to look for him. He left our hotel the night before around 10:00, and he reported to me via text at 2:00 a.m. that he had arrived at Ray's hotel, but said friend said he never showed up.
Eventually, we learned from another competitor that he was found asleep outside Ray's door - evidently Jesus was expecting Ray to just open the door and Ray was expecting Jesus to knock at some point - and then the other guy took Jesus in for the night, where he overslept and missed the morning. I wish I had known that before I called the cops and local hospitals and gotten reprimanded for asking if they had found Jesus.
Rina sported her LGBTQ pride by representing her home country of the United Kingdom with rainbow UK flags. I wore one, telling foreigners that I was here representing the country of U-Gay. No one but Americans thought that was funny.
Nick was a beautiful host as usual. We had drinks in his hotel room, along with some random assorted foods on Pikachu's dime, and he thanked me again for getting him back after he was told the previous year was his last year. I credited Sam partially, and when Sam asked how we'd top next year I told him I wasn't sure if I wanted to do this again. In the down time of the last year, Nick had mentioned he was working on playwriting and going back to school, and he had his first successful play performed (Good Night, Doctor) earlier this year. I feel like, even if Nick was polite enough to deny it there, that Nick might have other interests he wants to pursue. Nick then admitted that because the last few years have given such short notice he often has to cancel plans abruptly to come, and in previous years he's had to quit jobs and come back unemployed to make it work. Nonetheless, we decided to enjoy the moment and soak up the good of the tournament while we still had each other.
The World Championships themselves meant the end of America's three year reign, with America getting 3rd this year, Japan getting second, and Italy taking the gold - making the very first Italian champion in the history of the video game.
Oh, I almost forgot - the last shred of VGC I mentioned? While we were drinking with Nick, we played a game called Cards Against Humanity, where drunk Gabby laughed at me for being terrible at the game (even a drunk Tiffany who couldn't stand upright was still beating me), and said she'd always beat me. That night, I said I'd beat her the next time we played. We played this weekend with her friends from work, and I joined late, got six cards before she got five, and then dropped out. As I left, I imitated the "mic drop" animation the internet currently loves so very much. It. Was. Glorious.
-Chalkey