Why won't this cursed LAN end? And other questions.
Catchphrase of the LAN so far? "This is how people die" - Said by my good friend Pat as he drunkenly drove us towards oncoming traffic. I had already spent the night sleeping face down in a Chinese guys crotch in some kind of unconcious search for warmth in the night time cold. Winter LANs are bad. Camping is bad. BAD. I'm actually willing the car to hit me. But let's do some kind of review of what has happened so far...
My day began with a balding man vomiting only inches away from my penis. No joke. I was trying to rid myself of the numerous poisons essential to life at LAN when one of the people from the xciteuk community came running over to unleash a massive portion of what looks like refried beans onto the grass. Heave after heave, it just kept coming... He looks up at me afterwards as if nothing has happened and says "That's a relief".
Yesterday was the first day in earnest, the games being played with no real surprises unfolding results wise. There nearly was a story when fnatic had a default awarded against them against a team calling itself the gonzo appreciation society. They actually HAD to lose their game, or they wouldn't be allowed to compete in other tournaments and they are, after all, primarily a TF2 team. Luckily after much arguing with the admins / badmins (delete as applicable) they overturned the result and made the game go ahead as normal. fnatic were in rape mode, no mercy and won 27 - 3, but one of the gonzo guys got a knife on air-raid. How many people can say they knifed a member of the world's best team at LAN? The result, had the default stood, would have seen fnatic out at the group stage, an unthinkable outcome for the top seed. Happy to say they are still with us.
CTX got a draw with Complete Control and seemed happy with it. Everyone said it dispelled the myths about them. I'm of a more moderate viewpoint... I think they did well, but they have a long way to go yet. Rottich is carrying his side, far more effective here than I've ever seen him play and he is going to be happy with his LAN no matter what stage they go out at. I know Vinih must be drunk as he's starting to babble about how they could make it into the top 8...
This is where Team Coolermaster fancy themselves when I spoke to them. It's their second LAN, but typical of most teams in the UK their first "as a team" but they also want to rid themselves of the "ED baddies" tag. Fair enough, they've been top of ED for so long now it is just stupid. A lot of people told me they bashed their way to the top and now they don't play real matches, like a heavyweight champ who wins the belt then gives title shots to chumps instead of contenders. I'm not sure about that, but these guys have probably taken more shit online than every other team here combined, that I am certain of. It's only natural to sort of lean towards people who have that kind of pluck, who can just take that sort of shit, still turn up to LAN and just keep on playing without any grievance. They've won all their games so far and we'll see how the knockouts treat them.
I tried to fit in an interview with Birmingham Salvo, bumping into them in the lifts. Harriman, with his ever present ready-brek style glow, obviously hasn't forgiven me for some of the things I said at CGS. When I asked him if he had time for an interview on the theme of "what are your favourite memories of an i-series" he simply answered "the best bit of an i-series is when you leave" and stared at the ceiling. Where is the love?
The way the seedings have worked out the groups have become a pretty uninteresting sideshow, only one possible upset in the fixture list and even that one unlikely at best. Already the top seeds are mingling with other sides that they may face and trying to unsettle them. The lesser teams, the tryhards, coming to terms with the fact that their LAN is already over and it's only fucking Saturday.
I have also hit on a brilliant idea - Guest writers. Fuck doing a diary when I could be partying with Rasta gaming - now featuring an actual genuine Rasta for the first time in their history as the ED admin of the same name has joined them - I can just get some random to do it. There's been a few people who seem interested, and perhaps by this evening you will be reading a whole new brand of nonsense. The winner so far is "my kind of LAN - by dmg7" someone who owes me a huge favour after I told people he was highly under-rated and he went on to be an online failure and SOL to boot. Yeah, tonight just got a whole lot easier.
To be honest it's like being on the fucking death star in this place... The non stop buzzing of walkie talkies sounding like stormtroopers making smalltalk. Nothing screams importance more so than the walkie talkie and each admin clutches it as the prized possession it clearly is. It is doing nothing for my manflu hangover combination. Just how dramatic do you want to be? Seeing some guy in a red T-shirt screaming "we got a default people, we got a default" as if they were co-ordinating a SWAT team strike just makes me want to scream. Except I can't as I can't do much but croak. You shall be spared my drunken ramblings on tonight's radio show as I try and use the down time for some kind of rest and recovery. See you down the bar then? Pat's driving not withstanding of course.
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Posted by Penguin on
Saturday, 10 November 2007, 14:12
