EPTDave and Busters meetup by lilsusie
Cybercraft Tournament 3.0
I will write the adventures from my perspective as I try to recall what happened the past few days. Usually, someone writes up a recap of each event to share with others.
Day 1
As I have written from my last blog, I go to Barnes and Noble in Union Square to check out new books. I got to the store around 3 P.M., and the first book I noticed on the front table was Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. If you don't know what that novel is about, this is the thread that spawned all the rage.
"Why Chinese mothers are superior"
I read a few pages of the novel and didn't find it interesting. Next,I headed to the music section of Barnes and Noble to listen to some Classical; sadly, Barnes and Noble does not have a section dedicated to Asian Pop/Rock. After an hour, I received a text from ZoW that he's inside the store, while Kibibit just got out of the subway. We all met up at the front of the store, and proceeded to tour Barnes and Noble.
First thing we searched was The Starcraft Bible, but the book wasn't in the store. We were disappointed, but I think that the novel is too recent for the bookstore to carry it.
As we reached through the Psychological/Self-Help section of the store, I couldn't help but notice the Dating for Dummies book, accompanied by the Relationship for Dummies as well as Sex for Dummies. Sadly, there is no Marriage for Dummies to follow.
After browsing through self-help books, we moved on to the comic/science-fiction sections of Barnes and Noble. There were World of Warcraft, as well as Starcraft comics; both were mediocre. There were a lot of science-fiction novels that lined the shelves. What I've noticed in the George R.R. Martin series of A Song of Ice and Fire is that the titles are the same structure: A (verb) of (noun).
Soon after, Phyrexi texted Kibibit because he was bored at his hotel, and joined us to go to Forbidden Planet. We browsed through the Gundams and discussed how long and meticulous the process of building one took. After browsing for about thirty minutes, we proceeded to go to Best Buy, where there were two guys trying to sing in falsetto about products.
Throughout this time, we were thinking about food, so we went to the Pizzeria and ordered a Sicilian Pepperoni pie to split for the four of us. Over there, we discussed about Starcraft and Team Liquid mostly. While we were there, lilsusie posted that she was going to be late; we decided that we were going to be there first and reserve the table.
Once we reached Dave and Busters, we attempted to reserve the table for 30, but the manager told us that 85% of the party needs to be present for them to take the order. So the four of us stood outside and talked. Hollowlord joined us to make us more recognizable, with his Micro/Macro shirt hoodie from The Handsome Nerds. This would make our party much easier to identify rather than looking for Kibibit's hair.
Newborn and his friend showed up after five minutes, then lilsusie cane out of the car with three cakes from Paris Baguette. The cakes were for R1CH's surprise birthday that came up. Pokebunny showed up shortly, and we joked how old lilsusie will be when Pokebunny turns 21.
I have no idea how mnm and her boyfriend slipped past us through Dave and Busters, but we saw them there making the same reservation. Still, we had to wait because there were not enough people, though our group got bigger once more people joined us. Going back downstairs to the lobby, the moderators showed up soon after: Hot_Bid, R1CH, and TheMango. With their arrival, we situated ourselves in the party room that we got for free.
Once we sat down, mnm suggested that we make nametags and put on our shirts. Of course, being the trolls the moderators are, Hot_Bid puts Incontrol/Geoff, Flicky puts IdrA, and R1CH and TheMango switched identities. I had a discussion with HollowLord about how long the Artosis videos take, and how he doesn't find the names funny anymore after hearing it over and over again.
Eventually, the room that we ordered did not have enough chairs to accomodate, as we already exceeded the maximum occupancy of 18. Yen and his pregame party showed up, then fanatacist and Clazziquai, then Niten and his wife. Conversations were going around everywhere, the ones I remembered were lilsusie's stories of Nal_Ra, Sea, Stork, and the car fire on the George Washington Bridge when she was trying to get here.
When we brought out the cakes for R1CH's birthday, everyone sang Happy Birthday, and he blew out the cakes before we got any photos. So we had to light them up and take the photos again. In regards to the group picture, Pokebunny tried to pull a fast one and took his arm around lilsusie's waist. She resisted, then Poke put his arm over lilsusie on the shoulder, and everyone in the group laughed after that happened.
Since the dinner was over, everyone headed over to the games. Hot_Bid, being the troll that he is, screamed out the wrong answers in the trivia game to try and mess everyone up. After some time, Hot_Bid and lilsusie got seats in the trivia game and started to duel in the battle of wits. I believe Hot_Bid won more games in trivia and both of them got lots of tickets. TheMango was raping the coin machines, the tickets were coming out faster than two people were folding them and putting in the cup. Apparently, he cleaned out one machine of tickets before moving to the next one.
Eventually, the night at Dave and Busters was winding down, and Team Liquid managed to get four horses. Three were given to the moderators, and one was given to Phyrexi. The groups split up after, since Teamspeak Open was the next day. I dropped lilsusie off with my unlimited Metrocard, then tried to get to Bikini Bar as fast as possible. When I got there, the other members that joined us were not there, and they managed to arrive after me even though they had a head start. Eventually, everyone that followed showed up, and there were eight of us.
Photos of the Dave and Busters meetup are in lilsusie's blog:
Dave and Busters Pictures
We had various drinks, and tried to get GOM streams via our phones to watch, but we couldn't find one. On my table, the conversations were about crystal meth, and Meatnose's life as an architect. After drinking, the group split off and went home, leaving ZoW, Kibibit and I to head to 53rd and 6th at 2:30 in the morning. The line was fairly short when we got there, and the line was longer when we got to order. After this, we all went to the train station and had conversations about our problems in life, and split off.
If you don't know what 53rd and 6th is in NYC, this blog by Clazziquai should explain a lot.
53rd and 6th
Day 2
I got home at 4 AM, and I couldn't sleep, probably because of the Coke I drank on the train. I woke up at 7, and proceeded to watch some television. Of course, the only thing that I managed to watch while channel surfing was an interview on Amy Chua. She says that she has been more flexible in her standards as of late, allowing sleepovers, and realizing that every child is different and have separate needs.
Getting on the train and heading to Flushing took a while, with all the maintenances and renovations by the MTA. I reached Cybercraft around 12:15, and saw that Pokebunny was playing in the TL Open. I introduced myself to Schamtoo and spaceghostcoast, people who I have interacted on TeamSpeak, but have never met. SLoG was there in the cafe, at least he didn't oversleep like last event. Soon, AlLaboUtyOu showed up shortly after and he was trying to participate the TL Open.
I knew I wasn't going to far in the tournament, because I haven't played SC2 in over a month, and I was using a different keyboard than I'm normally used to. Also, I was running on three hours of sleep, and that probably had to do something with it. I managed to get into the round of 16 before being knocked out into the Loser's Bracket by NrGGun.
During this time, I was watching AlLaboUtyOu playing against Naniwa in the TL Open. The final match for today was going to be him going against Pokebunny, and I volunteered to cast that match. Unfortunately, too many poking jokes were inserted, and AlLaboUtyOu beat Pokebunny 2-0, and earned ten dollars from the anonymous person that knocked Pokebunny into the Loser's Bracket.
As we headed into the Chinese/Korean restaurant and split ourselves into two tables, Pokebunny lamented that he didn't sit next to a girl this time, breaking his streak. Surprisingly, my table was split by nationality, with the Koreans, Chinese and the two white kids. We ordered our foods and talked about school and tournament matters.
Pokebunny ordered dumplings; when his food arrived, we had to get him a fork. He searched around to see if any non-Asians in the other table were not using chopsticks such as Schamtoo, but Schamtoo knows how to use them. Sadly, he was the only one that needed a fork. I told him: "If you're going to like Asian girls such as Smix, you're going to need to learn how to use chopsticks." He agreed with me by saying, "You make a good point there." I don't recall why Pokebunny slapped me at the end of the dinner, probably because I dared him or something.
Everyone went home afterwards, and there were quite a few of us that needed to take the 7 train from Flushing. We managed to get an empty car all to ourselves. However, as more passengers boarded, there were three people on the train that stirred up some commotion, drinking their 4lokos. The three people moved to a different car on each stop. During the train ride, a Hispanic person comes playing with his guitar. If you have ever rode the 7 train, you would know that these people are everywhere, playing and singing. The three males came back and trailing behind the guitarist, singing lyrics such as needing money. After this event, the train ride was relatively peaceful and everyone said their goodbyes at Times Square.
Day 3
I got to Cybercraft around 11:30, and started setting up my equipment on one of the computers. As the competition slowly rolled in that were still in the tournament, I watched Zeroes play DotA until 1 PM. I had to face Newborn in the tournament, someone who was in the Master League.
After the series was tied 1-1 between us, I selected Delta Quadrant as my map choice. Unfortunately, I made a boneheaded move and walled with depots, which invited a baneling bust. In my mind, I thought I had a lead after my SCV killed 6 drones, but the baneling bust proved to be too powerful. Also, I didn't know that 2 barracks do not make a complete wall at Delta Quadrant. Thus, I was knocked out of the tournament.
The match between Combatwood and Dhalism on Steppes of War was certainly the most interesting match of the day thus far; when do you see Battlecruisers on Steppes out of all maps? Dhalism won in the end of that match, and managed to advance to the next round. Pokebunny was playing his Team League against Sjow on Delta Quadrant, and made a shout out to Smix. (Or at least that's what I remembered)
During this time, some people wanted to go drafting in Magic the Gathering, eventually we got enough people to accept. However, asking Kibibit, ZoW, and I to go to the card shop that had no prior experience in Magic turned this mini-event into a failure.
Pokebunny charged from the lower brackets to face FXOmooNan, aka (AlLaboUtyOu); he changed his ID because he is part of FXO now. Thus, we had a TvT finals. Pokebunny won the first best of 3, 2-1, but lost in the second best of 3, 2-0.
After the prize money was distributed, I got a phone call from my teammate in the CSL, and how no one showed up except him. Everyone was waiting around, talking to the winners, while I had to rush to get a computer, using an unfamiliar keyboard and mouse and play a 2v2 and a 1v1. I had to finish the matches quickly since they were all waiting for dinner. I lost both of my matches in the CSL, and our team proceeded to lose 3-1 to University of Ottawa. That is why I am not in the group picture at the end of the LAN. I apologize.
Dinner for today was at Picnic Garden, an all you can eat Korean Barbecue place. There were nine of us there, and we all sat at a cramped table. The waiters were nice to us and that we got complementary sodas for free. Knowing that Kibibit and I were there, there was much food to be devoured between us. I manned the grill because most of them have not been there before, plus I eat the most out of everyone on the table. The eating and talking took about 1.5 hours; spaceghostcoast, Certified, and AGIANTSMURF had to go, so we decided that everyone would leave together.
Walking back to the train station, and riding the train, I talked to Kibibit once everyone left on 74th-Broadway. He told me his adventures about getting home the previous day, and how it took him 2.5 hours to get back to Staten Island. Once Kibibit got off the train at Whitehall St., I managed to get back home around 2:15. With that, my weekend was over and that I have a few days left before I head back to Binghamton to finish my last semester.
I had a lot of fun this past weekend with other Team Liquid members. I hope you both had good birthdays, R1CH and ZoW.
Big thanks to lilsusie for hosting the Dave and Busters and taking photos along with mnm.
Thanks to Phyrexi for taking care of the bill, as well as having a really cool first name.
Thanks to btway and Certified for hosting the Cybercraft Tournament 3.0.
Also, big thanks to everyone that showed up this weekend, this was a blast and I hope to see you guys again soon.
Edit: I forgot to write this but Pokebunny lost to Newborn on Steppes of War with a 12 drone rush.
