LAN Party Recap

Post-LAN greetings! A quick post tonight, as a recap of the LAN, which was in many ways a success. It didn't last as long as I'd hoped, but most of us made it through the night. We were basically done by 9am Saturday - a far cry from the 24 hour mark I was ambitiously aiming for.

I only snapped a couple of pictures - but Jayson had his camera out constantly, and was taking tons o' pics, so when I can grab a few from him, I'll post them.

I transformed my downstairs into LAN central, setting up a couple tables, and rigging power so everyone could get up and running, as you can see here.

This photo was taken in the early hours of the morning (not sure the exact time), unfortunately the pic was taken after Zack had left, so he is not in the pic. Shannon was still there, though. That empty seat there between Shannon and Keno was where I was sitting. That's Dave-O there in his gaming kilt, between Dimitri and Yanni. That's Dave-O's girlfriend/fiancé Kat asleep in the bean bag.

Odds & Ends:

• There were 12 people maximum that attended, including my brother John who stopped by for a while, and ended up playing some console games with Jayson.

• Jayson and Dimitri brought their PS3's, which they set up right next to them, so they could switch from playing PC games to PS3 games as they felt the urge. Never pondered that before - I always assumed you have to hook up to the livingroom TV to play console games, but Jay had his connected to his monitor, and Dimitri had his hooked to that little TV between he and his friend Ryan.

• Had plenty of food, it turned out, and plenty left over, to get me through this week on my own here.

• I made it until about 8:30am, at which time I needed to sleep. When I woke up at 10:30am, everyone had left but Keno and Laythe. When Keno left, Laythe was the Official LAN Last Man Standing. 

Last Man Standing

• Battlefield 2 was a bust, I'm not sure why. Just about everyone got it installed, but it didn't really click with anyone. In fact, of the 6 copies of the game I bought for the LAN, I still have 5 of them here. No one wanted to take it with them, even as a gift. 

• Dimitri and his friend Ryan consumed a staggering amount of soda/energy drinks, as evidenced by this picture.

I didn't realize they were consuming so much soda. Not sure how their systems could take it. I'm impressed and freaked out at the same time...

• I was the only one with a desktop rig. There were 2 iMacs, and the rest were notebook computers. Says a lot (to me) about the ability of notebooks to provide an adequate gaming experience.

• Highlight of the night (for me) was the 8-person round of Left 4 Dead we played, where it was 4v4 and we alternated between being Survivors and Infected.

• Yanni, Dimitri, Shannon and Ryan tried to go down to the pool at midnight for a midnight swim, and got hassled (as I anticipated). I didn't think it would be a good idea, but they went for it anyway.

Summary: All in all, I think it was a great success. We had a few hiccups, but nothing too major. I believe everyone had a great time. It's too bad Vye couldn't be there - it would have been great to see he and Zack go head to head in Warcraft 3, since they are both so good at it.

I'm sure y'all are tired of reading about this event, so this will likely comprise the last of the info on it. I won't go on about it anymore, except if a few good pics show up via Jayson.

On a somewhat related topic, I almost had to cancel the party, as well as the Wagner Women's trip to Albuquerque Friday morning... we loaded up in the car so I could take them to the airport, and right here at the main intersection by the mall, as we proceeded through the intersection, some guy in a white sedan completely ran the red light going cross traffic, and made a bee-line for the passenger side of my car full of Wagner Women. I spotted it in my peripheral vision and jerked hard left on the steering wheel, and even to this moment, I have NO IDEA how he did not hit us. I mean, in a moment, I knew we were going to get plowed into. He never stopped or slowed down... he must have also swerved, I don't know. In any case, it was as close a near-miss as one could hope to survive unscathed. With pounding hearts, we proceeded to the airport, and the day proceeded. Nothing like a little Divine Intervention to get the day off to a good start.

Now if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go to sleep! I am thoroughly exhausted.