LAN Was Freaking Awesome

This year's LAN was just an absolute blast. I went to last year's LAN and had a great time too, but for some reason this year seemed to kick it up a couple notches. It is definitely recommended to get to the LAN Thursday night for the pre-LAN festivities. Typically, this involves meeting up with everyone in the hotel bar for drinks and bullshit. The hotel bar closed kind of early (midnight), so we went to White and Ceasar's room to have some more drinks and hang out. So me, White, Caesar, Laud and Dahji head over there and start drinking. They had some liquor, and I managed to consume a pretty good amount of it in a short period of time. With liquor, I don't get tired and decide to go to bed. I actually accelerate and drink more and more, which is why I try to avoid drinking liquor these days. Definitely got hammered on that night (don't remember all of it) and apparently I was speaking the tongue of another language from a previous life.

On Friday we got all set-up and me, Laud, Dahji, White and others secured a couple blocks of tables for Profanity to set-up. Gaming got underway around 2:30 or so, once the monitors arrived. We had some great 4v4 matches going on for the rest of the day, some FFA matches and some random "fun" type games. I packed it in around 1am because I was just exhausted from not getting much sleep for the last few days. It was just awesome to hangout with everyone, play Halo and have cocktails. And man, H3 on LAN is WAY WAY WAY better than playing over XBL. Having no lag actually makes you BR work like it is supposed to. It is really going to be tough going back to playing over XBL and all the frustrations of lag, latency, etc.

On Saturday we got some breakfast and then went down to the gaming room and started at it. When I got down there, I remember thinking, "How awesome is this that I have two solid days of doing nothing but playing Halo/gaming with friends and having some beers." It was great to completely forget about everything else and just have a blast. So we got to it and today was the day of the Halo 3 FFA tourney. I think there were about 35 people or so signed up for it, and it started around 2 or 2:30. There were four different rooms in the first heat of 3 FFA matches. The four with the most kills from each room over those three games would advance to the next heat. And the second heat was the same to get to the final heat. The final heat was five FFA matches and the ranking would be based on total kills. These matches were all really intense and got tougher and tougher as you got through the heats. I was fortunate to make it into the final heat and ended up getting 3rd place - but by a whisker. Ceasar and I tied for 3rd based on kills, so the tie breaker was based on deaths. I managed to have fewer deaths than C did, so I ended up with 3rd and he got 4th. I think the final order was 1st = Normal Guy ($1,000), 2nd = White ($500), 3rd = me ($300), 4th = Ceasar ($200), 5th = Soup (Sweet Master Chief figure) and I can't remember the rest of the placings but I am sure Doodi or someone will post it somewhere. Those games were intense but a blast. Big thanks for Smoke & Taxi for organizing and running this thing.

I saved the last five games from the FFA and a few of us were talking about capping the games and posting them somewhere so anyone on the site who was interested would be able to watch the matches from different players perspectives. I know Ceasar has some server space, so maybe he would be willing to host the vids (no pressure C).

One unfortunate thing that happened Saturday evening ... between one of the FFA heats I got a call from my wife. She told me that she fell off a stool in our closet and broke her wrist and was in the emergency room in a lot of pain. I felt bad that she was in the emergency room with a broken wrist and I was in Chicago playing Halo and drinking beers with friends and there really wasn't anything I could do to help her. But one of her friends met her at the hospital and the ER people were really nice and admitted her very fast. Once she got some pain medication, she was fine.

Unfortunately, the end of the evening game quickly and we had to pack up our gear and head back to the room to go to bed. I can't wait to the 2009 LAN. It was great to hang out with everyone. It was also great to meet Ceasar and get to know him better. Also, we got to meet a guy relatively new to the site who is an awesome Halo player and a great guy - Killthrash. Look forward to gaming and hanging out with him more. Though, I don't think the combination of tequila and dip is his friend I also got to game with Sparhawk who is a good player and a cool cat. It was also great to share a room with Laud and Dahji - two funny jack asses. And great to hang out with all the other peeps in Profanity that made it this year (Drost, Bump, BC, Fetal Injury, Five by Five, Ken, Tman, Taxi, Laud, White, Royal, Dahji, Soup, LB, LB75, Smoke, Icey, D, Hubristic - may be forgetting a couple others).

The other cool thing that seems to have emerged from the LAN is that Vulgarity appears to be getting the team back together, with the addition of Ceasar. There still may be some paperwork to be ironed out with our lawyers and agents - not sure if we keep the Vulgarity name or not. It was great playing with White, Royal and C and I'd love to start playing more competitively again as a team. The team chemistry is instantly there since I've teamed with White and Royal for more than a year previously. And C has played with White and Royal for a long time too, so it all clicks well.

Hopefully more Profanity guys can make it to the LAN next year. It really is a blast and should not be missed and keeps getting better and better every year. Huge thanks to Doodi, D, Taxi, Phreaks, No Game and everyone else that put it together. I'll edit this post as/if more thoughts come to mind. It was just a great time - best weekend in a long time.