My Weekend in San Diego
This past weekend, I went to San Diego to attend Winter Game Fest 2009. WGF was having a load of tournaments for several games, including Halo 3, Smash Brothers Brawl, and Starcraft. At first, I wasn't really going to go, since I had no way of getting there in time for any of the tournaments that they were having. But a last minute save by a fellow player helped me get to SD, and what a trip it was.
It started on Friday night. I was just sitting around surfing the internet, when I noticed on All is Brawl that a guy by the handle of TC1 mentioned that he had extra room in his car to go to SD. I let him know that not only was I free to go, but I lived about 10 minutes away from him. He said I was in, and I grabbed my stuff and went to his place to get ready to leave with his crew, "FTA" (FTA = Foot 2 Ass).
Holy fuck, I was not expecting the car ride to be nearly as long and uncomfortable as it was. We had a dvd player though, so we were watching Fight Club in the car as we went. The trip was about 8 hours, and we got to SD at around 4 in the morning. We were staying at another player's house, because he was letting most of NorCal stay there free of charge. Shit was so noisy, I was barely able to get any sleep at all. I managed to get 3 hours before we all had to get up again and head to the tournament location.
The actual venue was pretty nice. It was big enough to hold all of the games they were holding, plus have room for free play. I got in some friendlies with my Lucario until the tournament actually started. Since there were nearly 300 people in attendance for the Brawl tournament, they did pools to weed everyone out. I came in 2nd in my pools, losing only to a Metaknight player by the name of TKD. He complained after the match, saying that I was a "camper," which made me wanna slap him in the face, since nobody who plays Lucario would, in their right mind, not camp a Metaknight. But I was happy, since I knew that I was going to go to Day 2 of the tournament.
After a lunch break, one of my friends nearly got kicked out of the tournament for joking around with one of the several Korean kids playing Starcraft (an unwise mistake). We were standing behind him, amazed at how fast he was playing, and he started saying things like, "oh DAMN, look at him mine that shit! Oh shit, better hurry up and get that! He's the new fuckin' Zurg master!" The Korean kid was not pleased with this, and he turned around and said "would you please shut up and go away!?" Sky (the name of my friend) was, for some reason, not done with this guy, and tapped him on the shoulder and responded "sure, but you don't have to be so fucking rude about it." So the Korean kid gets up ultra-fast, and walks up to Sky, and starts talking shit, to which Sky does the same thing. The situation damn-near gets out of hand, when some of the Smash players separate Sky from the Korean guy's friends. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the Korean guy's girlfriend was laughing, and trying hard not to show it.
Once it became too late to continue, we all went back to our housing, played Brawl until the wee hours of the morning (again), then went to sleep to get ready for Day 2. Most of us noticed that there weren't a lot of SoCal people in the tournament, except for a certain few (who ended up getting to the Grand Finals). I bombed in my pools that day, and just spent the rest of the day playing friendlies with people, redeeming myself in my eyes. Chris convinced me to play in the Halo 3 tournament with 2 other people, despite none of us having touched the game in months. We lost horribly to the guys who ended up winning the whole damn thing, but we shrugged it off since it was free to enter. Once again, the tournament ran long, and we had to move the venue somewhere else to continue the final few rounds.
In our new, smaller location, we set up some tvs, and the guys who made it to the finals had their games while the rest of the onlookers played friendlies, and I played Tatsunoku vs. Capcom. I got a lot better with Chun-Li and Viewtiful Joe, but one guy came along who just wrecked everybody's shit with Ryu and Mega Man. Seriously, this guy's Ryu was completely untouchable. I got a lot of practice in though, so that was one of the good things to come out of that. I played until it was finally time to go back to the house to sleep a bit before we had to drive back to Sacramento.
I think the drive back was a lot worse than the drive up, although it felt a hell of a lot shorter. My knees were cramping up, and it felt like I wasn't sitting on a cushion, but a piece of lead. But it was soon over, and I got back to my house, showered, and went to sleep.
Overall, the trip was pretty fun. I don't really feel like going back to SD however, or at least not in a fucking car. But it was free, so I can't complain too much. My only regret is that I didn't get a chance to eat any Carne Asada Fries, and I truly believe that is why I lost on Day 2. =(
Whitebear totally didn't copy and paste this from his other blogs.
Live in your world.
Die in mine.
It started on Friday night. I was just sitting around surfing the internet, when I noticed on All is Brawl that a guy by the handle of TC1 mentioned that he had extra room in his car to go to SD. I let him know that not only was I free to go, but I lived about 10 minutes away from him. He said I was in, and I grabbed my stuff and went to his place to get ready to leave with his crew, "FTA" (FTA = Foot 2 Ass).
Holy fuck, I was not expecting the car ride to be nearly as long and uncomfortable as it was. We had a dvd player though, so we were watching Fight Club in the car as we went. The trip was about 8 hours, and we got to SD at around 4 in the morning. We were staying at another player's house, because he was letting most of NorCal stay there free of charge. Shit was so noisy, I was barely able to get any sleep at all. I managed to get 3 hours before we all had to get up again and head to the tournament location.
The actual venue was pretty nice. It was big enough to hold all of the games they were holding, plus have room for free play. I got in some friendlies with my Lucario until the tournament actually started. Since there were nearly 300 people in attendance for the Brawl tournament, they did pools to weed everyone out. I came in 2nd in my pools, losing only to a Metaknight player by the name of TKD. He complained after the match, saying that I was a "camper," which made me wanna slap him in the face, since nobody who plays Lucario would, in their right mind, not camp a Metaknight. But I was happy, since I knew that I was going to go to Day 2 of the tournament.
After a lunch break, one of my friends nearly got kicked out of the tournament for joking around with one of the several Korean kids playing Starcraft (an unwise mistake). We were standing behind him, amazed at how fast he was playing, and he started saying things like, "oh DAMN, look at him mine that shit! Oh shit, better hurry up and get that! He's the new fuckin' Zurg master!" The Korean kid was not pleased with this, and he turned around and said "would you please shut up and go away!?" Sky (the name of my friend) was, for some reason, not done with this guy, and tapped him on the shoulder and responded "sure, but you don't have to be so fucking rude about it." So the Korean kid gets up ultra-fast, and walks up to Sky, and starts talking shit, to which Sky does the same thing. The situation damn-near gets out of hand, when some of the Smash players separate Sky from the Korean guy's friends. I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the Korean guy's girlfriend was laughing, and trying hard not to show it.
Once it became too late to continue, we all went back to our housing, played Brawl until the wee hours of the morning (again), then went to sleep to get ready for Day 2. Most of us noticed that there weren't a lot of SoCal people in the tournament, except for a certain few (who ended up getting to the Grand Finals). I bombed in my pools that day, and just spent the rest of the day playing friendlies with people, redeeming myself in my eyes. Chris convinced me to play in the Halo 3 tournament with 2 other people, despite none of us having touched the game in months. We lost horribly to the guys who ended up winning the whole damn thing, but we shrugged it off since it was free to enter. Once again, the tournament ran long, and we had to move the venue somewhere else to continue the final few rounds.
In our new, smaller location, we set up some tvs, and the guys who made it to the finals had their games while the rest of the onlookers played friendlies, and I played Tatsunoku vs. Capcom. I got a lot better with Chun-Li and Viewtiful Joe, but one guy came along who just wrecked everybody's shit with Ryu and Mega Man. Seriously, this guy's Ryu was completely untouchable. I got a lot of practice in though, so that was one of the good things to come out of that. I played until it was finally time to go back to the house to sleep a bit before we had to drive back to Sacramento.
I think the drive back was a lot worse than the drive up, although it felt a hell of a lot shorter. My knees were cramping up, and it felt like I wasn't sitting on a cushion, but a piece of lead. But it was soon over, and I got back to my house, showered, and went to sleep.
Overall, the trip was pretty fun. I don't really feel like going back to SD however, or at least not in a fucking car. But it was free, so I can't complain too much. My only regret is that I didn't get a chance to eat any Carne Asada Fries, and I truly believe that is why I lost on Day 2. =(
Whitebear totally didn't copy and paste this from his other blogs.
Live in your world.
Die in mine.