Stuicide

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Day 4.

By this time people were hitting near exhaustion from the constant party that had been raging since Thursday afternoon.

The day was spent mainly in the LAN room. I did get breakfast with Ballistic and Fenix at a place next door called Beef and Brandy. It had the coolest old fashioned cash register, all I could think about is that I need to take a picture of it, but I didn’t have my camera with me and I think I would have gotten some strange looks. It’s so old school, I loved it.

Around 3 or so, Venus needed to start heading back to feed her cats (one of which is named after me. Stubenator) Gunny, Chicka, and I walked her back to Millennium Station which looks like one of the places the Bat pod rode through in The Dark Knight. Awesome.

We gamed into the night. To be nice to the hotel, DeeJ had ordered pizza for dinner. It was good, but rumor has it deathly expensive. (It was delivered by a guy in a Tux though)

The 4v4 was a lot of fun to participate in, 7 teams all playing Round Robin style. My favorite was Team Awesomesauce needing a win in their last game to tie for 1st and watching Chicka go +14 on Guardian, most of which were with a sniper. I think she started off the game 12-0. It was still a close game but she carried them into the finals. A 3 way tie, first to 75 on Last Resort.

One of Awesomesauce’s members had been enjoying the lag free weekend and Bjorni who had been on a hot streak a mile long really tore it up in the finals. Awesomesauce rode out the adrenaline rush of the last game and never lost the lead in the final.

After that was the Auction. This year we thought we weren’t going to have one, but at the last minute L askan pulled through and really sent more than we ever imagined. 50 Halo Action figures from Bungie HQ. It was awesome. All in all we raised nearly 1,000 bucks from those and a few other misc items from members. Demag0gue donated two printed, signed, and framed episodes of Reclaimer. Very cool. Bunny donated his Guitar Hero 2 guitar which everyone signed, and Los even tagged with some cool art.

I won a Warthog mini that is super cool. I don’t have a picture of it yet, but I’ll snag one of it soon and make a new post.

Elnea, of Halo Action Figure Theater fame was in attendance again this year, and got a Teal Spartan which will lead to a new character in her hilarious comic. I gave her a hard time since I knew she needed it that I was going to outbid her, but she’s too nice and honestly, I’m kinda hoping there’s a Stu in future episodes.

(Please go comment on HAFT and mention that a Stu character would be perfect for the series, I don’t even mind being Teal, although I prefer being Steel)

Sunday night, Miller’s Pub.

First night in a long while that I didn’t drink. My liver was telling me that enough was enough. Oddly enough, had a ton of fun just talking with everyone.

The trip was coming to a close, I flew out the next morning.

Monday morning, wake up. Eat food. Check out.

Also, I need to note that out of all of the goodbye hugs I received, Chicka gave the best ones, I went back for seconds….. and thirds. Gunny, Ballistic, and myself headed towards O’hare to end what would be considered an epic weekend.

*I’m not sure if Gunny appreciated it as much as I did, but everytime I saw a beautiful lady (of which Chicago is filled) I made sure to point it out to him no matter what was going on. It didn’t stop from the moment we landed until the moment we got back on the plane.

The weekend was over. Looking back, it was one of the best trips of my life and I can’t think of anything that wasn’t top notch fun. I ended up with 133 photos of the madness. Most of them were taken on the first half of the trip, as during the second half I was mentally exhausted. If you want to see my entire collection, I will send you to Flickr. CLICK HERE

Another restless night. It’s hard to get a good night’s sleep when everyone in the room snores, especially after drinking.

However, I manage to snag enough shut eye to be functional the next day. Saturday morning. LAN time. Luckily I didn’t sign up for Set up at 6 a.m., that would have been murder. We had plenty of warm bodies sign up to help with set up. I just don’t have it in me to be down there that early.

I make it down around 10. The room has been set up. It’s beautiful. 6 projectors line one wall, Another 10 stations make a corner opposite of the projectors. There’s a lone Rockband corner with flat screen. The far side of the room has the Schwag table. 50 Halo action figures greet us. L askan did very well. Not only did he find a box of goodies, but 5 of them. Demag0gue kindly had two Reclaimer comics framed and printed out. Very cool.

As I walk in, people have already begun to game. The sound of BR fire across the room is a welcome sound. That is how it all began after all. Some people come to game, and to game a lot. I used to want to do that as much as I could at these events. Not this year. I need to take some pictures and socialize. I game 300 days a year online with these people. I only see them face to face for about 7.

I check the countdown Timer at the “command center” that Action has built in the center of the room. Complete with projector, Podium, Microphone, and Laptop to keep tabs on the scores from tournaments. Something tells me he has built a fort out of pillows and blankets a few times as a kid. 35 minutes until the Opening Ceremony, the rumor that is going around the room is that it could possible rival The Olympics.

I grab a quick breakfast, McD’s again. It’s the cheapest and closest thing I can find. Greasy food has started to take over my body.

The opening ceremony was great, DeeJ gave a quick welcome speech and laid out the schedule for the weekend. Then Action gave a speech for “The LAN Cup” which Fate won.

After that, gaming commenced. A few games into the morning, we loaded up Standoff Multi-flag. As the game was about to start, Jericho started yelling “Nade the Hog!” to his team, however the whole room caught onto it and all 16 players in the game were screaming “Nade the Hog!” and lofted their two grenades across the map to try and stop a Warthog Blitz. Neither team was successful, but the moment was pure mayhem.

Gaming continued, for a while then I had to go with Gunny to pick up Venus from the Metra station a few blocks away. Venus has been a little hesitant to come to the LAN, so it was awesome that she was coming out. It’s always unique to meet 40 of your best friends all at once.

We returned back at the LAN just in time for the FFA. 28 contestants in 2 heats of 14 getting whittled to Top 16. I had a crappy 2nd game of the 3 game set in Heat 2 and was not able to make the cut. Which is fine, FFA sucks. (I promise I’m not bitter).

The final ended up being between Bear and Thrashy. Thrashy made a few early mistakes and then Bear started camping with Rockets, and well… it wasn’t pretty. Cold Storage with Rockets, always ends up one-sided but hey… that’s how it goes.

After an afternoon of gaming, Loco, Ballistic, Bunny and his lady, plus Stu were going to try and grab pizza from Giordano’s. We walked there and it was packed. The reception area had a 10 minute line to get your name for a table that would take about an hour to get. We were hungry and instead went over 2 blocks to Elephant and Castle, an Irish Pub that had some decent pub food.

I got Chicken Quesadillas and they were tasty, but I was still hungry afterwards, Ballistic scarfed down his Open faced Steak Sandwich pretty quickly and was still starving so we got dessert. Bunny was working on a mountain of Nachos. When the waiter asked us if we wanted to wait for Loco to get back to order dessert, we took about a half second and both said no. I guess we’re not the most patient group around…

Dessert was delivered with extra spoons “in case we wanted to share” which Ballistic didn’t. Instead he decided to double fist spoons and ate it in about 2 minutes flat.

After stuffing our face holes with the large amount of food (for me, not Ballistic) we headed back to the party central. Gaming commenced until late, then we were going to head back to _________?

Can you guess where? That’s right, Miller’s pub. Darren was working as he always does. DARRRREENNNNN (that’s for Fate).

We roll in around 1 a.m., so I already know it’s going to be a late night. Shortly after we take over our territory, a wedding party comes in. Awesome, they crowd in next to us and the party ensues. At one point mvuakali is talking to the groom and tells him that the bride is a freak. Without batting an eye, the groom turns to his lovely bride and says “Show him your ass” she turns around and let’s everyone take a look, and the groom gets behind her and says the best line of the weekend. “Built like a tank”

Priceless.

Venus was at the bar with us that night, and it was our job to make sure she had a good time. From the looks of the pictures, I would say mission accomplished.

Friday morning arrived quickly waking up somewhere between 8 and 9 a.m. Amazingly Ballistic was the first one up, after his performance the night before, I was sure he’d be the last up. The dude’s “Built like a tank” (more on that later). After waking up, Mvuakali and Ballistic had a quick wrestling match that started on my bed, went over to the next bed, and then finally the ground before Kali got on his stomach and had to tap out. +50 LAN points to Ballistic for winning the unofficial Wrestling tournament. +25 points to mvuakali for silver.

Around 10 when everyone in our room had gotten ready, Ballistic and I swung by McD’s for some breakfast. As we were headed back into the hotel a crew of our guys were coming out and headed to Ada’s Diner for breakfast. We decided to tag along, and while I had no intention of eating again, Ballistic was thinking otherwise.

Ada’s was the home to breakfast many mornings in Chicago and usually provided great service and good food. While this trip was another of the same, some of our buddies had a bad experience their the next day so I never went back.

It was at this breakfast that Cuteness (pictured above, in the center) declared that he would win the LAN. Now, we’re not just talking about the tournaments, and awards, but the entire weekend. He was going to Win it all. If you had seen the determination in his eyes, you wouldn’t question it either.

After breakfast Fenix and I went over to Millennium Park to take a few pictures of Cloud Gate or “The Bean”. It’s my absolute favorite piece of Chicago and has tons of cool things for pictures, and I wish I was able to go back, but the weekend was that packed and that busy that I never got another chance.

By the time we got back, it was just about time to head to Sir DeeJ’s so we took the walk down Michigan Avenue about a mile until we got close to his place. We went up to the 34th floor rooftop deck and got to see an amazing view of the South Loop area of Chicago. You can see Grant Park/Lake Michigan to the East, the Sears Tower/my old neighborhood to the Northwest.

During the afternoon, the idea came about to play musical chairs. Which we ,of course, did . Dweezle came out victorious and Cuteness is protesting the first round re-do as he was stating that mvuakali was clearly in his lap and that the chair was his. Unfortunately, there is no instant replay in musical chairs, maybe next season but this season we just replayed the round, which he was eliminated. However, that did mean he won Musical chairs. Dweezle lost 50 points for winning the game. He ended up in a solid 23rd for the weekend.

After the rooftop party, we headed back to the Palmer House to get ready for Fogo de Chao. 7 of us, Ballistic, mvuakali, Cuteness, Thrashy, Fenix, Loco, and myself were coming out together and when we were looking for a cab, we must have caught the eye of… well everyone on Wabash, because we were offered a limo instead to ride to dinner. Since Limo > Taxi we decided to take the offer and Team Win was off and away.

As we pulled up to Fogo, Deej and Action were having a smoke outside and here’s what was reported to be their conversation.

<Limo pulls up to the front>

Action: Are those our guys?

DeeJ: No….wait! Holy shit, yes they are!

DeeJ to Team Win: No, you didn’t?!?!?!

Team Win to DeeJ: Yes, we did. That’s how we roll.

The weekend had just become epic.

There’s not a ton to say about Fogo. We came, we ate a metric ton of meat, we paid for it. I did get to sit near Rodeo Mummy and talk to him about Facebook for a bit. I never game with the guy, but he’s one of my favorites to chat with at a LAN. Super cool dude.

After Fogo, Team Win hit up a couple of bars up on Division, including Shenanigan’s House of Beer. Then we went back to Miller’s Pub (do you see a trend starting here?) for the Meet and Greet with everyone. Same kinda story for Friday, drank too much, Loco was the one that ended up puking, and we went to bed around 3 a.m.

I did hear that kali and ran into Ma Deuce’s room where his fiance and Testa’s girlfriend were asleep and jumped on Beth’s bed and started humping her on top of the covers, which suprisingly, woke her up. Welcome to Chicago. That party was only there for a few minutes until they had a complaint call on them and had to change rooms. Thrashy, Cuteness, and Kali came down to our room where Ballistic, myself, and Bjorni were trying to sleep.

Cuteness couldn’t sleep in his room because Loco had just painted the walls, he was going to take the floor, and Thrashy came down to take Kali on in a 1v1. I didn’t mind that, but then more people came to the door, it was Bear, Wyvern, and Snipez. Being tired, cranky, and running on about 8 hours of sleep for the past 48 hours, we kicked them out.

Day 2 of the trip had come to a close.

I’m back in Memphis. I’m tired, exhausted, and haven’t slept more than 4 hours for the last 5 days. Everything aches. I’m glad to be home, back to someplace normal, someplace quiet but yet… I will miss the LAN for months to come. The atmosphere and community at these events is always unique and is something to cherish. We’ve built a unique community and our reach is much farther than the 109 Gamers that are on our roster.

It’s been a couple of days since I returned. My mind still races over the thoughts of what just happened. I have already forgotten some of the amazing stories and details that I should have shared, so I’m going to try and recreate my entire trip for you, constant reader.

Join me on this journey, It was amazing from the moment I left Memphis until the moment I returned.

Thursday Morning. 6 am

Alarm goes off, I stumble out of bed after 4 hours of sleep. Late night packing caused me to stay up too late and may interfere later in the weekend. I will need those few hours of sleep later, of course I won’t realize it until it’s already too late. Leave for the airport at 6:30 by hitching a ride with my Dad.

I had printed out my boarding pass but still had to check a bag. Welcome to flying in 2008, Northwest charges $15 bucks for the first bag. Pay it grudgingly and move onto security. No laptop this trip, so the amount of electronics in my bag that can be used to hijack an airplane are limited to my iPhone, iPod, and Canon DSLR. As I’m coming out of security, guess who approaches me? None o

ther than TTL Gunny, my southern traveling partner for this trip. We meet, after 2.5 years of gaming toge

ther. Great guy, just like I imagined he’d be and then some.

The flight to Chicago is uneventful, a nice big DC-9 and my whole row is empty so I’m not crowded while I listen to the Bungie Podcast. Arrive at O’hare around 10:30, my bag comes out quickly and we’re on our way to the Palmer House.

The blue line from O’hare to Monroe is about 45 minutes. So I got bored and

took a few pics of Gunny.

Once at the Palmer House, Gunny checks into his room and I drop off my bags. We met up with Sunburned Goose, XerxdeeJ, and Goody for lunch at Patty Burger. As we were eating, the Michigan train crew had arrived and came over to eat with us.

After lunch we snagged some supplies, I got to spend about 15 minutes waiting on a price check at Walgreens for RedBull, and Gunny snagged some sweet Halloween Champagne glasses to celebrate with. We took a walk a few blocks over to LaSalle Street where they filmed a lot of scenes for The Dark Knight, but it was middle of the day so we couldn’t go play in the street and pretend to be The Joker.

Went back to the hotel and up to Gunny’s room. Fouch had hooked up his Xbox and I watched him and a few others play some Soul Caliber IV and other games as we awaited everyone’s arrival. The 4 of us in the room soon turned to 8, then 16, and at last count ended up around 5:00 with 25 people in it.

As I was trying to get a hold of DeeJ to let him know who all had arrived I was suprised in the hall by the one and only Ballistic. He wasn’t supposed to go, but since he hasn’t ever missed a TTL LAN, it wouldn’t be a real party without him. He rolled in with Loco and Utopia from Midway, and only 2 people knew he was even coming to the LAN. A great suprise, even though I had suspected something.

Knowing that we were slightly overcrowding the room, we took off for Lucky Strike a bowling/bar area a mile or two uptown. It wasn’t crowded so we snagged a couch that was meant for at least 20 people.

Half of the guys took hold of a territory by the bar and let a 110 pound blonde bartender get them all incredibly intoxicated. Ann Marie was good to them.

I may or may not have been the one to drop my glass, but I apologize for the small puddle by the bar.

After Lucky Strike I’m having a tough time remembering if we went to Miller’s Pub, but we probably did because that’s what we do. I do know that Ballistic was enjoying Thrashy’s hospitality a bit much and ended up BalJar’ing (it’s a new term I’m trying to make popular) in the bathroom and slept on the floor so I got my own bed for a night.

The LAN hadn’t officially started but the craziness had. If this was the pre-game celebration, I was right to be scared to know what was in store for us the rest of the weekend…