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| HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | |
| Posted By: Avateur <avateur@gmail.com> | Date: 1/30/13 4:57 p.m. |
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It had been years since I was involved in anything remotely close to a LAN environment. I don't think H3 was even out yet, and while Xbox Live is a blast, it lacks a very special feel that comes from playing with and against your friends in person. Add in a snowy environment, a cabin, and blunders, and you know you have yourself a really awesome event. Day One - January 18, 2013 Travel Who knew getting to Utah could be so difficult? Wilshire and I boarded our plane for our early flight to Utah and got seated. All of a sudden some guy came walking up from outside and got onto the plane and went right into the cockpit. And we sat. And we sat. And then the announcement came that there was a fuel leak and everyone needed to get off the plane. Well, at least they caught it before we were in the air. Unfortunately, every other available flight was completely booked, and the only option appeared to be a two hour drive to another airport somewhere else with the chance that they might get us in the air by 7pm. We stood outside security debating whether or not to do it when all of a sudden we get word that they're reboarding the plane. Apparently everything was good to go with that same airplane, so we rushed back over and got back on. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to us, kanbo's flight was delayed due to hardcore fog (he didn't end up landing in Utah until around 7pm even though his flight was originally supposed to have him in some time during the afternoon), and KP got stuck in some sort of endless traffic nightmare, eventually making it to Utah shortly after 2am on Saturday. Thank goodness everyone made it to Utah safely. But back to our flight! Wilshire and I landed and weren't quite sure where Crazed, Nart, and Schooly were going to be, and as we came down an escalator there they were, Nart holding his netbook with our names displayed on it. Pretty nifty! rowboat and elessar landed next, and we all hung out and waited for Tex to show up. And show up she did, in the wrong terminal and waiting at the farthest baggage claim from where we all were. Figures. We eventually found her and went out to eat at California Pizza Kitchen before going back to the airport to get Bryan Newman. Bathroom breaks, Tex got ditched, and parking patrol people didn't like us sitting around waiting, so we had to go park far away. Schooly, Nart, and elessar waited in their car while rowboat, Crazed, Wilshire, and I waited in our car. Anyone remember HBO's The Avengers? Well, most of the Avengers had assembled, and Crazed took the opportunity to buy himself Captain America's shield (more on that later), Hulk fists for rowboat (not pictured), Thor's hammer Mjolnir for me, and Iron Man's repulsor core for Wilshire.
Just then, Schooly drove off to pick up Tex and Bryan. We decided to wait for them, and a discussion broke out about whether or not they'd pull up behind us and we'd leave in convoy fashion, or if they'd just ditch us. I said that if I were in their shoes, I'd Warthog it and zoom right up beside us while leaning on the horn. And sure enough, that's exactly what Schooly did! It was hilarious, made even funnier due to the prediction. We sped off to keep up with them and began the journey to the cabin. The Cabin Give or take missing some turns and an actual literally named Short Cut to get to the cabin, the drive went smoothly. When we got to the cabin, everyone got comfortable and began to set up for the awesome weekend. Many 360s were hooked up, the N64 was brought out, the NES emulator was connected, and foods were purchased. While all of this was happening, Nart bestowed upon me an awesome gift. It speaks for itself:
Thanks again Nart! My battle damaged (aka travel damaged) Bulbasaur is so awesome! Nart also gave Tex a flying Pikachu:
Eventually, Nart got The Legend of Zelda going on the emulator and the inevitable discussion broke out about which Zelda game was the greatest of all time. Wilshire proclaimed that A Link to the Past was. "Oh yeah, Wilshire? You like A Link to the Past?" Nart said. He suddenly and mysteriously stood up and left the room. Befuddlement? Rage quit? Not at all! When Nart returned, Wilshire received an unexpected gift:
And with that, the gaming commenced. It would be a while until dinner, and Nart decided he'd do some speedrunning of H2 while Crazed played some H4.
It didn't last long, though. Nart, Crazed, Wilshire, and Bryan decided it was time to go play the original Mario Party on the N64, which lasted for hours and led to many good and frustrating times.
Finally the Shopping Crew came back. Bryan was so excited to get some Diet Coke! He's also an evil fiend hellbent on destroying the world's normal Coca Cola supply. While allegedly attempting to get some Diet Coke, he exploded a two liter bottle of regular Coke. Blunder, or maniacal plot? Both? Either way, it was pretty funny. The Coke blunder was cleaned up, and the cooking began. Schooly gave an awesome pre-meal speech to officially kick off the HBOMB, and Tex did a great job with the meal. It was absolutely delicious! Get jealous:
From then on everyone mostly played Halo and hung out while waiting for KP to arrive. Top Gun RiffTrax was viewed, Schooly was made whole by it, KP finally made it (give or take a gate), and everyone got some sleep. Day Two - January 19, 2013 Team Comfy Team Sanic, made up of Schooly, elessar, Tex, and Bryan, left to go skiing. I decided I wanted to go build a snowman, but the snow had other ideas. It just wouldn't pack, and ended up as the bottom of a blunderman. Or a mountain. Whatever.
It was at this time that I decided to assemble Team Comfy, which included myself, Crazed, Wilshire, kanbo, Nart, rowboat, and KP.
Team Sanic was out and Team Comfy had officially taken full control of the cabin, but we needed an outpost. kanbo began work on Fort Comfy.
The rest of us managed to find some snow that would pack and had ourselves a snowball fight. Some people cheated, though. Take Crazed, for example. Equipped with snowball blocking Captain America shield and a giant shovel, he was determined to defeat everyone.
As I stood there waiting to see how things would play out, and looking at the picture right now, I put my money on Nart. Speaking of Crazed's shield, he decided that he would actually be like Captain America and give it a good throw! That shield always hits its target and comes flying right back, right?
Wrong. Welp, that sure was unimpressive. Poor Crazed. Nearby, Nart and I found some ice weapons and engaged in battle.
Meanwhile, back at Crazed...
What a dilemma. Keep trying buddy! You'll figure it out eventually! Back to more interesting matters, the battle was legendary, but in the end I was defeated by Nart and his mighty axe.
Or was I?! The tables were turned, and Nart would meet his end.
In the end we decided that we were both too awesome to be defeated or destroyed, and Team Comfy was clearly far more awesome and had a much more action packed time than Team Sanic, so we awarded ourselves the Aggro Crag. Yep, Team Comfy, the self-proclaimed champions and all around badasses of the HBOMB.
For the record, though it wasn't easy, Crazed managed to get his shield down from the roof like a true champion. All was right in the world. Sledding Crazed, Nart, Wilshire, and I left to go buy some sleds and the official HBOMB football. Sure, Team Sanic went skiing and snowboarding, but anyone can do that. Babies can do that. Pros go sledding.
And unlike people who ski, using lifts to take them from the bottom of a hill to the top, pro sledders march their way back up like champions before sledding back down some more! Yeah, that's us all the way down there.
After sledding for a while, we decided it was time to throw the football around. You can call me Tom Brady.
A while later, and not pictured, rowboat ran and dove for a football that I threw to him. He wanted to catch the ball while in motion, from a distance, and while diving to make the catch--and he did! Unfortunately, upon crashing into a rather solid patch of snow, he may have cracked or bruised a rib. At least he scored the touchdown, right? Team Comfy headed inside for dinner. Nart was cooking his spicy shrimp scampi, and Wilshire was cooking spaghetti. Wilshire and I tried the spicy shrimp scampi and found it to be incredibly spicy. What was going on? It was so good, but the burn wouldn't stop.
Yeah, that. The spaghetti was great, too, and not spicy at all. Both meals were fantastic and complimented each other nicely. All of us were done eating, and it was time to get the real party started. Interestingly, the cabin had a Japanese copy of ODST, and we considered playing it.
Surely enough, ODST and H3 weren't even played at the HBOMB. Plenty of H2 and H4, with a bit of Reach and H1, but for some reason H3 and ODST got neglected. Why was ODST skipped on this night? Because it was Hero Time! Shrek 2
Why play anything when you can play Shrek 2?! When you think about it rationally, it's quite clearly the only right choice!
And you want to know the crazy part? Shrek 2 has a longer campaign than Halo 4. The next many hours were spent playing that awesome game. Burro Blasts were blasted, Hero Times were heroic, and time was slowed to a near crawl on many occasions as we conquered that amazing game. Speaking of conquered, and unfortunately not pictured, Crazed decided he was the best thing ever at Super Smash Bros. Well, he sure was mistaken. Crazed got stomped by my Pikachu, and then Nart stomped him the next day. We'll rematch some day, Crazed. Team Sanic arrived during our gaming session and decided to eat some scampi not knowing just what was in it. Surprise! Burn baby burn. And with that, the night was Ogre. Day Three - January 20, 2013 Blunderville The day started out relatively calm. People went snowmobiling while others stayed and played games. The NFC and AFC Championship games were on later, and it was going to be an eventful day. While others were out snowmobiling, rowboat and I played some co-op H1 campaign. Nart raced us by himself on a different screen, convincingly pulling away as rowboat and I blundered about Truth and Reconciliation. Schooly even got in on the action, switching out with Nart for a while. In the middle of playing campaign, it became rowboat and elessar's time to go snowmobiling. They left, H1 campaigning ended, and everyone hung out while a few us played Halo 4 and waited for the football games to start.
Hours began to pass. Where were rowboat and elessar? There were plans to play snow football, and there were also plans to play petetheduck's HBO card game, but as rowboat and elessar continued to be absent, those plans were put off. A few of us went sledding for a bit, jokes were made about renaming the HBOMB to HBO Mountain Burial, and the sun was starting to set. Luckily, right before the AFC Championship was about to start, rowboat and elessar made it back. One snowmobile was missing, but thankfully they were both okay. Well, they were frozen, but they were okay. Poor rowboat had to go back out to show where the other snowmobile got stuck, but he made it back from that journey just fine. To add to the blunders, the Patriots got beat by the Ravens. Lame. It had been a busy day, and it was time for dinner. What time for dinner? Taco Time! No, not the restaurant all the way over in Park City. TACO TIME! Okay fine, the classy place in Park City. We all loaded up and made our way to Park City, driving through extremely crowded streets packed to the brim with people visiting for the Sundance Film Festival. Rage quit! Crazed pulled out his veto card and Nart wasn't having anything to do with that mess, so we rage quit out of there and found the next best alternative to Taco Time: The Taco Maker!
Look at the size of that taco. All of the food was great, and so was the dessert. From there we went back to the cabin. To close out the evening, more Halo was played, gifts were exchanged, sweaters were worn, DBZ was talked about, and hilarious videos were watched. Day Four - January 21, 2013 It's Ogre It was time to clean up, pack up, and get out. The weekend went by way too quickly. Time really does fly when you're having fun or nearly dying in the frozen wilderness. Check out Moosy D, getting one last picture in with a moose before preparing to vacate:
A few more pictures were taken before we loaded up and made our way back to the airport. Surely no more blunders could occur between now and getting everyone home safely, right? Wrong! A day or two prior, Schooly's car ended up Tokyo Drifting on some snow/ice. He recovered just fine and all was well. Crazed decided he'd make fun of that event, getting our car to slide on purpose while acting like he was losing control. And then he lost control. The car spun around before Crazed regained control from the elements. We came to a stop facing Schooly's car, which had been following us, and immediately flashed them the thumbs up. A text message arrived from Tex: Achievement Unlocked: Tokyo Drift!! No one slid off a cliff, no one crashed into anything, and we all made it to the airport. We all spent the remainder of our time eating and speaking with one another for a while before everyone departed. Continuing the theme of things potentially going wrong, rowboat had flight delays, Tex's flight experienced some issues, and kanbo had to rent a car to get home after landing due to even more fog. Still, everyone made it home just fine, and with that the HBOMB was officially Ogre. Thanks again for organizing this whole thing, Schooly, and thanks to everyone who went and made the entire weekend a Burro Blast!
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| Replies: |
| HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | Avateur | 1/30/13 4:57 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | rowboat 000 | 1/30/13 5:58 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | Kermit | 1/30/13 6:00 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | Avateur | 1/30/13 6:45 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | ZackDark | 1/30/13 6:29 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | Schooly D | 1/30/13 9:38 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | pete_the_duck | 1/30/13 9:40 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | elessar787 | 1/30/13 10:22 p.m. |
| Re: HBOMB 2013: A Retrospective | NartFOpc | 1/30/13 11:00 p.m. |
| HBO Mountain Burial (Grounds): Soon™ | MoltenSlowa | 1/30/13 7:53 p.m. |
| WTF? The Japanese ODST was actually Chinese?! | Tex | 1/30/13 8:28 p.m. |
| Mind blown! | Avateur | 1/30/13 9:28 p.m. |
| Re: WTF? The Japanese ODST was actually Chinese?! | KP | 1/30/13 11:39 p.m. |
| Re: WTF? The Japanese ODST was actually Chinese?! | Bryan Newman | 1/31/13 10:39 p.m. |
| I hate regular coke. *NM* | Bryan Newman | 1/31/13 10:37 p.m. |
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