EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Zl5Lt.jpg)
Lame excuses
I knew a former Vegas dealer in college, and would pump him for information whenever I had the chance. His experience had been altogether fantastic, and he taught me some of the skills he had to learn to get the job. I had silly fantasies about moving out there and dealing cards, I practiced picking up stacks of chips until I could take exactly 20 off a stack with one hand and my eyes closed. I would practice my dealer shuffle between classes, and then sort and count the deck down. Poker games with my friends sped up noticeably, and I think if you’d asked any one of them at the time, they would have told you they were surprised I hadn’t left town yet. My heart burned for Vegas, but school came first.
Last week, nearly 10 years after mucking the dream of dealing cards, I was fortunate enough to finally step foot in Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show.
A day or two before my flight, I saw EGMachine tweet about being on his way to Vegas for CES-- and my excitement doubled. Pumped as I was for my first Vegas trip and seeing CES, I couldn’t believe I didn’t already know (or assume) that the StarCraft community would be represented. Naturally, I need to pay more attention to Twitter (also Facebook, as a brief aside, there are several fake / incorrect EG teams on FB, make sure you’ve “liked” the correct one, https://www.facebook.com/EvilGeniuses. /fanboy fail). Further research showed that the magnificent DJWheat would also be in attendance, and my excitement doubled again.
My travelling companion to Vegas was a long-time friend and business owner Kurt, for whom I work on occasion. His only exposure to Starcraft is my ramblings and watching me play in his living room on occasion, but my enthusiasm was contagious and he was looking forward to seeing Machine and Wheat nearly as much as I was (though, perhaps only to witness me geeking out like I did to the the MST3K guys at Dragon*Con)
Our first day at CES was the second day of the show, and the event was enormous. We wandered aimlessly for an hour or so, deciding to locate the important booths later.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BQsje.jpg)
It took about 5 minutes before I started making VROOOM noises, and about a half an hour before I started beeping at the people idling in my lane.
We turned a corner and stumbled on to the InWin booth, and standing right there was the Man, the Myth, The Machine, coaching a player while the other rig was set up. I stopped dead, and as subtly as I could, leaned over to Kurt and said, “OMG OMG THATS HIM!”
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KUeVB.jpg)
Like, for real it’s him
Not wanting to interrupt, I watched and listened to his lesson and read about the win-condition for the people who play against him: survive 20 minutes in-game. I got my chance to say hello, shake his hand and express my fandom, and told him I’d be back to take the challenge. Machine was very friendly and totally genuine, and it was a real pleasure to meet him.
A small crowd had gathered at that point, and a group of friends were discussing which order they should go in, but none of them wanted to be the first for the day. When DJWheat called for a volunteer, I jumped at it, and got to be the first game of the day.
“Alright, come on down here Jason”
I was bewildered in my excitement-- and my brain did an illogical backflip “DJWheat knows my name?”
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/N5sb8.jpg)
Name-tags are for more than looking cool. o.0;
I took a moment to set up a few hotkeys, and Machine was very gracious letting me pick the map.
Me: “Well, which is your favorite?”
EGM: “Probably Metalopolis”
Me: “And your least favorite...?”
He was all smiles, I decided that I didn’t really want to play Shattered Temple, and opted for Metalopolis and hoped for cross positions. He invited me to the game, and I immediately changed my race to Zerg and color to pink to try and get a psychological edge over Machine-- DJWHeat asked me politely to change my color back to red (or blue, I can’t rightly remember), and so my scheme was foiled, and I complied. Machine leaned over and told me that pink was the color he always picked (though he didn’t play pink at CES, I’m guessing to simplify casting for Wheat). The jig was up, and I came clean and admitted that I knew, and was intentionally trying to steal his home-team color to confuse him. He laughed at my attempted BM, and we started the game.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/AZdkR.jpg)
I was full of nervous energy and my hands were shaking, I could hear the crowd talking behind me and of course DJWheat casting-- the game started and I spawned at the 3 o’clock and promptly botched my worker split, I over-shot the mineral line with the top three drones, but corrected it quickly enough, set my hotkeys and commenced to spamming. Then the in-game chat started (reproduced here as accurately as I can remember it).
EGM: hi
Me: hi
Me: OMG real machine?
EGM: No just a fan
Me:
o okEGM: Overlord high five!
I laughed and the crowd laughed as well, and it helped relieve the pressure of all the strangers watching. We both went 15 hatch, and I watched his base closely-- he threw down a geyser and I immediately put mine down followed by a spawning pool and sent my overlord off to his third. That overlord was ultimately killed by a queen.
I decided I didn’t want to try to best Machine in a ling/bling micro battle, but I delayed my Roach Warren for too long. I was macroing away waiting for it and a spine crawler to finish when I heard DJWheat exclaim: “Here come the banelings!”
The following part of the game was a frantic blur, the first wave or two I managed to hold off with reasonable losses, but he sneakily hid some lings in my base and made more banelings-- and while I was running the ones in the main away, more banelings hit my natural with some lings, I recall DJWheat saying something along the lines of “But is the economic damage too much?”
I counted my drones and felt I was probably behind, but not completely dead, and then more lings hit, and I lost even more drones and didn’t have enough units to fend off the attack-- cue the GG at 7:30. One of the most fun games of Starcraft I’ve played, and it was without doubt the highlight of my trip.
The rumors are indeed true: Machine is a very manner guy, and incredibly nice. While the next player was setting up he gave me some pointers after the game and complimented my build for being streamlined, and asked if I was in Masters-- being in diamond I was flattered, but also more motivated than ever to hit the ladder.
For my participation, I was awarded a raffle ticket. I returned to the booth and had the chance to talk to the magnificent SIRSCOOTS! I confided in him that Bryce rolled my face hard, and he commiserated with me about the difficulties and unpredictability of ZvZ (Machine joined the conversation part way through, and I cannot stress enough how awesome he is).
I got lucky in the raffle, and was drawn second-- the prizes were Kingston RAM (laptop or desktop), a memory stick, and a 900W power supply. A month ago I would have taken the RAM, but I *just* upgraded to Kingston RAM (go EG!) so the power supply was the easy call.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/2FlGu.jpg)
I ran into DJWheat and Machine again at a hotel a few days later-- they were waiting in line for a cab, and my inner fan-boy was irrepressible. I had been drinking while playing cards at the MGM Grand, so I don’t remember what exactly I said, but I was along the lines of “Ohmygosh you guys I’m so glad you came out and it was a total honor to meet you guys.” Probably had a few more “ohmygoshes” and “you guys” in there somewhere. DJWheat looked awfully confused at my sudden appearance (sorry about the ambush) but was a complete professional, and a handsome nerd to boot.
The rest of the trip was pretty awesome, but I had a blast at the InWin booth at CES. The crowd was fun to talk to, and quite a few non-Starcraft players stopped to watch and ended up entranced by the melodious vocal stylings of DJWheat, the brutal beauty of Starcraft, and likely the electrifying EG chin-strap.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/5fMbG.jpg)
This guy did pretty well, but was no match
