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| Seven More Minutes: a LANbex retrospective *stuff* | |
| Posted By: Max Power (aka- dewbe) <chrisdewbe@gmail.com> | Date: 8/13/06 7:40 p.m. |
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Months ago, dolbex posted here at HBO about throwing an old-school style HBO lan. I've always wanted to go to one because of the obvious reasons: lots of Halo and frosty beverages... but even more than that, the cool people. Putting faces to the names. Hanging out and just... hanging out. Since they've always been very far away from me (and for the last couple of years, invite only) I've never been able to go to one. But dolbex saved the day and said he was going to throw a house-warming-big-ass-LAN party and that it would be a measly 3 hours away from me. It took me about .7 seconds to sign up. Well I got off of work and planned for it, and when the time finally came I packed my car to head out (actually my wife's car, it's much better for large electronics). I brought with me a big bagful of prizes (HGNs, RvB DVDs, giftcards, lots of random crap), 49 sticks of deodorant (seriously, but nobody forgot theirs), two complete xbox/tv setups, various accessories, and nametags/sharpie. Fairly uneventful trip, except for some reason I was surprised when I hit a little traffic coming through Atlanta at 5:30pm on a Friday. I arrived at 6:30pm on Friday night and was greeted at the door by someone I would later learn was a drunken "dizzy" (I think he fell asleep within 10 minutes of this encounter). I headed downstairs and looked around at a handful of guys deep into a Halo 2 match, so I started making trips to and from the car and setting up. We got my setups connected and I started playing before my car was finished unloading. People showed up all night and the room would greet each one with shouts and/or handshakes. Games of Halo, then Halo 2, then Halo, then Halo 2, then Halo carried on until about 6:30am. Only about 8-10 people were left playing by this time, though... with fallen soldiers covered in blankets lying on the floor of every room. Mintz actually slept in an unfinished basement room using insulation as padding for the concrete floor. So if Mintz gets cancer or something, don't feel bad: he kinda asked for it. I decided to get some shut-eye at about 6am, but I couldn't find a spot that wasn't in the den of noise. So I walked up and found me a nice spot at that halfway point on the stairs where there's a flat spot about the size of a twin bed. That lasted about 45 minutes until the crew that was playing until 6:30 came rumbling up the stairs and sat in the kitchen. Now my sleeping spot was unbearable, so I trudged (which is the only thing you can do at 6:45 am with flannel pajama pants on) downstairs and slept under a table for a little while. I say "a little while" because it had only been about two hours before I realized that Miguel was playing Burnout Revenge on my 360, and that I was sleeping right next to my subwoofer. :) Needless to say, I promptly woke up. Went upstairs and sat at the kitchen table while Miguel cooked some delicious breakfast. I waited patiently and let others get food before me while I sat and chatted with folks but when Furhman woke up, walked into the kitchen and said "oooh, eggs!" I bolted for them. After eating, Dolbex started to write down gametypes for contests and what prizes were available for them. After some brainstorming, we all came up with a good list and headed downstairs to the thunderdome for some action. The games were great fun. We had rocketball on Warlock and other similarly awesome yet arduous gametypes. One of the last contest games was a 99 lives swat-with-carbines survival match with eight 2-man teams on Lockout. I hate camping, so I was the first one eliminated and about 10 minutes later, others started dropping. The last three teams pitched their tents and the game lasted for a long time, but I didn't care because I was outside talking with folks on the deck. The deck is also where the next chapter of the story takes place... The Tijuana Mama is the unofficial "official Bungie foodtuff." It's a 6 inch long hot sausage made from whatever's left over after they clean the floor at the sausage plant. Then they pickle it and seal it in a little plastic pouch (like a fat, quarter pound "slim jim" made of unwashed asses soaked in vinegar). I figure this LAN is a great opportunity to share these fine treats with as many people as possible, so I buy 36 of them (hooray internet) and plop down some super-cool prizes for the winners. But really, in a Tijuana Mama eating contest, the only "winners" are the spectators. We all go out to the deck and prepare. The 6 brave contestants lined up in chairs with the whole crowd around them, making sure to leave a fast-travel lane to the front of the front of the deck where they can run if their stomachs reject the delicious meat. The cameras started rolling and the sausage wrappers were peeled. The clock was set to 5 minutes and the guys went to work. In a surprising turn of events, eat-master Furhman fought to hold back the spewage and completely quit after less than a minute and less than half a sausage. After 4 minutes the other 5 were still eating. Neogenics and Thanos were tied for the lead with roughly 4 Tijuana Mamas consumed, while 3rd place honors were being fought over by Mintz and TRUbored. Words cannot describe the joyous laughter, the pure adrenaline-fueled emotion, the flat-out excitement that the crowd was feeling. Screams must have been heard blocks away. Furhman and I have alternate angles of video, but my file is 461mb and it'll take some time before there's a way to share its glory. With 30 seconds left, Neogenics had almost a half sausage lead on Thanos. The crowd wouldn't have this, though. The loudest screams of the weekend erupted, urging Thanos to shove one down and win. He gave in to the pressure and bit off half of the thing at one time. Very few men in the world can successfully put half of a Tijuana Mama in their mouth... and Thanos isn't one of them. He ran for the railing of the deck and let his gag reflex do its job. With 10 seconds left Neogenics looks to be the victor, but his face looks unhealthy. The crowd screams the countdown 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! As soon as the time is up, Neo runs for the rail and lets his own gag reflex kick in. He gets the prizes and the glory, but at what price? The price?... Well, when I was packing up this morning, Neogenics came to me and described an unpleasant bowel movement he'd just had. When I got home this afternoon, I had an email from Mintz that I will not repost here because it is BAD, but he did say "I'm going to have nightmares featuring those forsaken foods in sombreros,
After the contest, some folks headed back in and started playing a little bit while others went upstairs to watch Dolbex cook hotdogs and hamburgers on the grill for everyone. They were fantastic. After a few beers and some chat, went back to the thunderdome for more Halo. Needed another beverage and went up to the kitchen, came back down and noticed a few HBO'ers were not in the room. The game being played had a while to go, so I went outside and came across the missing peoples. We sat outside for hours just talking about stuff. Halo stuff, Bungie stuff, stuff stuff. Well, when I say "we" I mean everyone but KP. The rest of us talked about Master Chief's sex drive (Mig), talked about relations to Marathon (Ma1agate), threw footballs and did the phone signal pose (Schooly D). We just got to know each other and chatted about random stuff. We even gave our best guesses at Halo 3 story content while KP just sat there and didn't utter a single syllable. He's good at that. Those hours ouside with no Xbox around were the best hours of the weekend, by a long shot. Went to bed last night at about 3, which felt early. No stairs this time, I slept in a room with KP and Mig... no details on that, but I can say that there were hard dickings. I remember waking up for a second and Schooly D saying "nice to meet you" and then we did a sleepy, fumbly hand/fist shake thing. Next time I woke up there was no one in the room, so I went upstairs where the remaining peoples were and hung out for a little while. Went downstairs, packed up stuff, and said goodbyes. Took KP to the airport, and drove back home. Now I'm here with bags still packed and sitting just inside the front door. When I got home, I walked straight to the computer and turned it on. I had to document this. I had to try and replay every memory I could and put it here so I wouldn't forget. It hasn't quite sunk in that I finally got to go to an HBO LAN. I'm pretty sure it's the altered state of mind from not sleeping much at all for the last two nights, but it feels like I just had a great dream and I don't want to wake up yet. I know it happened, I have the pictures... but the alarm's going off and I reach over and I want to hit that big, fat snooze button. I want seven more minutes. That's all. Just seven more minutes. I hope you enjoyed the rambling tale of my experiences, congratulations if you made it this far. This is undoubtedly my longest post ever, and I'd like to end it with s7yle: You ever see KP outwit someone online and you wonder what that would look like in person?
Jynx takes Ma1agate to school...in Fight Night Round 3.
I love this picture for so many reasons. At first, I thought it was a crappy shot, but upon closer inspection it looks like KP is spitting back into his drink, sorahn has a truly awful look on his face, Jynx is sporting the rare double-bottle-boner, Foxcross either doesn't understand the concept of holding the controller or she's about to use it to bash in the head of her BeanBag chair, which is currently comprised of an unnamed dude.
This is the postgame for the rocketball warlock game. Lots of kills. I was actually about 3rd place in oddball time, but I guess something happened and I quit or my box froze or something. Proud of having the most deaths, though.
I haven't seen HBO in two days, but the spam was unescapable.
Schooly D and his startingly accurate nametag.
This is an unaltered, real photopraph of dizzy's breakfast.
Getting ready for the Tijuana Mama carnage.
Mintz fighting the urge to let those sausages fly into Dolbex's back yard.
This is actually only about half of the Tijuana Mamas eaten by 5 people (Furhman doesn't count).
Schooly D makes the 7th of about 237 attempts to get a signal on his cell phone.
Mintz and Ma1agate engage in deep discussion about the intricate details of the Halo universe.
Miguel engages in deep discussion about the insane sex drive the MC must have.
Mig, KP, and myself. Can you spot the product placement?
GROUP SHOT!
If any of these pictures are linked to anywhere else or see any wide exposure, I will probaly exceed my bandwidth limit, be gentle. P.S. When's the next one? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? P.P.S. apologies to Matt Sharp for blatantly stealing his idea | |
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