LAN, Blah, LAN, Blah, Awesome Town, yadda yadda yadda

17.5 hours. 1,000 miles. Fuck. Me.

That's how long it took for Speedbmp and I to get back to Dallas yesterday. I didn't make it home until 1:30 am and then still had to do a load of laundry so I'd have some clothes for work today. Ick.

Was it worth it? Fuck yeah! It's great to be able to see friends that you've gamed with for the past 4-5 years (or more). It's great to socialize with those of your clan, but to also meet other members of the site who've you may have talked to in the past or gamed with in the past.

It's great to meet new people and start new friendships.

Too many thoughts and memories to share at the moment, but here are a few.

Thursday Night - DSmooth eating an entire 48 oz porter house steak. Gristle and all. I mean... 48 oz!!! That's 3 lbs of MEAT. On top of that, he also had appetizers of Oysters (I think?) on a half shell, and Tuna Tartar. What. The. Fuck.

Friday - Sitting in traffic for 2 hours on the way to Microcenter with Midnighter and Emminent, so Emminent can buy a brick (power supply) for his Xbox and supplies (switches, router, etc...). Emminent is a bit of a spaz (no offense buddy), and I can understand why security anal probes his ass every time he goes to the airport... But he also has some off the wall stories and Mid has some real "interesting" friends. The butt-plug story has been burned into my head dude.

Thursday evening - great stuff, the impromptu 4x4 H3 Tourney went off quite well with minimal problems or issues. The alcohol was flowing quite well and we gamed until 2am. Some of us went to bed, others stayed up and played poker. Maybe next year for me.

Saturday - The FFA tourney. I loved it. I honestly did. I haven't really played die-hard H3 for over a year, but I held my own for the 1st round, going into the final game tied for 4th place. I ended up having a monster game (something like 67 kills, and +23 on deaths). That game alone was good enough to boost me into 2nd place for the round (I think).

The 2nd round, I started out huge with another monster game, finishing first with 60 kills and +13 deaths or so. Unfortunately, our room was stacked with really good players, and I couldn't maintain the pace. I missed the cuts for the finals by 3 kills. Frigging 3 kills. I feel like Drost did last year when he missed the finals by 1-2 kills. WTF? *sigh* :)

Caesar did a great job running the FFA, as he does whenever he runs any of the Halo leagues for the site. My only complaint was how long the FFA took. I don't think the finals finished up until sometime around 7pm, after we started at 12:30pm. We need to come up with a way to lessen the time so the tourney doesn't suck up all our gaming time on Saturday. Maybe have one of the rounds on Friday night and finish it out on Saturday. But that is something for next year.

Also, Rockband folks. Holy shit. When you turn up the volume on your game, and it drowns out the sounds on the other side of the room of our Halo games (or other games) through our head phones, IT'S TO FUCKING LOUD. 'Nuff said on that subject.

Saturday evening - was really fun again, with plenty of alcohol flowing and lots of gaming going on. The raffle was held and my sister and I donated equal amounts of cash. She came away with X-men origins game, an ODST Superintendent shirt, and some Peggle shit. I was able to snag one of the Rock Band kits. Good shit. Next year I won't put all of my tickets in to those (2) cups. I promise. Maybe. ;) I think I'll pass on my Raffle title to XS Ice. Her tickets were picked as much as mine. So were Tdrag's... I mean Taco's. LOL.

Oh, and Dsmooth was such a cockbag that night. His prize descriptions were horrendous. Antiquated technology. LMAO.

Sunday - Groan. Aimed for an 8am departure. Left at 8:12. Thinking was that it took us only 10.5 hours to get to Chicago from Stillwater, OK on Thursday, that we'd get into Stillwater around 7pm and Speedbmp and I would be able to get back to Dallas sometime before midnight. Didn't happen. Traffic was worse, construction back-ups fucked us on (2) occassions, and our stops for food were a bit longer. And, Drost wasn't raging while driving like he was on Thursday. Seriously, if we recorded him while driving and played it next to a recording of him playing Halo, it would sound exactly the same.

Anyways, I finally got home around 1:30 am. 17.5 hours after we left Chicago.

We'll probably drive up again next year, circumstances permitting. It was so much cheaper then flying. Something like $30-$40 per person for gas (after splitting it 4 ways). That's it. Granted, the drive is a grind, but Awesome Town is worth it.

I'll leave you now with a few choice quotes, and a picture of D "tool" smooth.

"Hippies don't eat meat!" - Doodi to BCKinetic at Profanity's Steak Night.

"Pwning n00bs at 30,000 feet!" - Killthrash describing how he was able to play COD4 on his laptop during his flight. (Free on-board WiFi)

"Tastes like Kevin Smith!" - Bubba to Dsmooth after pwning Dsmooth during a Halo game.

"You were rubbing a giant cock on my head." - Drost describing something at last year's LAN. Better left unsaid what it was.

"And the winner for the best clickity click click on the plastic guitar goes to..." - Speedbmp describing his love of Rockband.

"Antiquated equipment..." - Dsmooth describing the cases for the Blackberry phones and older iPods.

"You're doing this out of duty, not out of love!" Dahji to a certain someone who was removing his shoes for him because he was too drunk to do it himself.

More of those to come, along with pictures.

Dsmooth (what a fucktard):

(not sure why it looks like a vein is popping out of his head - maybe he was trying to push 48 ounces of shit out of his colon)