The Upswings and Downswings of Life

"The wind is a lot like life - it's unpredictable..."

That quotation there was a cute little statement made by one of my students for a summer school speech and debate class for middle school students, for his first ever impromptu speech (on the topic "wind"). Pretty insightful statement for a little guy, though, since some recent experiences of mine have reflected that reality, of the unpredictable swing from good and bad (hopefully I'm not sounding too dramatic here, for the sake of perspective the bad is more of a really annoying incident, and it's definitely nowhere near the end of the world. I just feel like venting).

First, the good:

My brother, two friends, and I all decided to go to our first ever big LAN event, MLG Anaheim 2012. And it was freaking awesome. We drove from Norcal to Anaheim, leaving around 9:00am and getting there about 8 hours later (including rest stops) at 5:00pm. We checked in to the Ramada, feeling awkward as we were a bunch of college guys surrounded by clearly Disney-venturing families. But it didn't matter, because we were there! So off we went, and walked over (it was a block away) to the Anaheim convention center.

We start walking inside the convention center towards the entrance, when I see my friends start exchanging looks, and a moment later they whisper "oh shit, did you see him?" "that's him, right?" "yeah, it's definitely him!" Confused, I turn to them, and reading my mind they excitedly whisper, "we just passed ThorZain!" Of course, one of our favorite players, I whip my head around instantly looking for him. I was instantly mentally face-palming at my lack of awareness, as we missed him, and made a mental note to keep on the constant lookout for the pros ^^. And of course, as we enter the main doors, we see Grubby walking right in front of us.

And then we didn't do anything xD. As a noob to spectating LAN events, we felt really awkward when it came to approaching pros. Especially before competition began, we didn't want to disturb them, derail their focus, or waste their preparation time before really important events. I know that a lot of pros wave that off and love it when fans come, but I know that some pros get disrupted (Nony, I recall, mentioned that he sometimes does), and we didn't want to risk screwing over one of our favorite pros.

First stop was the HOTS playing booths. The main stage games hadn't started yet, so we went out for a quick try. My friends were matched, and I was matched with my brother. My brother doesn't really play SC2, and was just coming because he was interested/was also checking out LoL (which he did play), so we weren't evenly matched, but I did get to try out all the new units. I've definitely got to say that the Widow Mine is my favorite, it seems really interesting and has many different possible uses

. I wrote a response blog for the HOTS contest here.

Anyways, after that, we checked out the main stage for awhile when Stephano vs. Polt started up, but couldn't get that good seats so we decided to explore a little bit. We stumbled upon the side games (stations 1 and 2), where we found pros playing some of the other pool games. There, we got our first signature, with Grubby ^_^. Following him for a bit, I was already a big fan of him, but meeting him in person, he's definitely become one of my favorite players. He was totally chill, talking with all of us and taking the time to sign for a huuuge mob that clustered around him (I think the picture we took with him is on my friend's phone, I'll have to get it from him, but he was my first signature on my SC2 box :D). Grubby was also a joy to watch, especially this one time where he won a key match in group stages - he pumped his fist up in victory and gave a shout of joy, and started hi-fiving the fans all around him. Grubby's the man.

Anyways, we spend most of MLG doing the same, wandering around ambushing pros for autographs and pictures and occasionally stopping for seats to watch main stage games. We sat and watched some of the more notable matches, like the MKP vs Stephano series that was insanely back and forth and awesome. Our voices were already starting to get hoarse from the cheering. We had a couple of other random "approaching pros" faux-pas, like our being too timid to approach Nazgul while he was watching Nony play Ranged in WCS (again, didn't want to disrupt his observation in case he was gonna give tyler some tips or analysis), and we also missed getting Nony's signature multiple times (this was after he was done with WCS, so we weren't worry about messing with his game). The first time we missed him was when he passed right by us when we were in line for lunch, and we didn't have our gear ready in time, and by the time we tracked him he had joined the whole liquid group, and we decided to back off haha, and the other was when TL was doing the after-party signings, and he left for the pro-panel right before we got to TL's table. Later, we found Demuslim wandering about alone far away from the competition area and everything, and grabbed a picture with him. We then found out that he had just been knocked out in an upset, so we felt bad for getting to do him right after that happened. Having competed in stuff before, I know how badly it feels to get knocked out in such an upset, and I personally wouldn't have been able to give a cheery grin with some random people for a picture, so props to Demuslim for being awesome.

Some other notable stuff: we happened to be just in the right place and the right time when they announced that Tastosis was signing autographs :D. We pretty much missed out on almost all of the other officially scheduled signings, getting there when the line was already miles long. But this time, we were right in front. Dan and Nick are awesome, chatting with everyone with the utmost friendliness. And they had a neat little archon signature

. Unfortunately, my two friends got Huk in a picture, and I missed it because I was looking for my brother because we were going for lunch :/. But I still managed to get MC ^^.

And of course I can't forget - DAY9!!! We didn't see him on Friday, but once we checked reddit and found out he was there, we were on the constant hunt. He later appeared doing interviews of the Kespa pros, but it was impossible to approach him for autographs and whatnot. But after the finals ended, we spotted him finally signing for fans! Sooo many people crowded around him, and it was a weird mob without a line that seemed to be neverending because more and more people showed up. So eventually, they directed day9 to move along and form an organized line, and we had a hilarious little mob-half-running-jostling escort group of fans that tried to be first in line. I didn't fare too well and was pretty far back. I literally waited for forty minutes, and my two friends had already gotten signatures from Sean - just when I was three people away, a woman (presumably his manager) came over and apologetically announced that Day9 had to leave! Inside I was screaming "NOOOO," and Sean was profusely apologizing to everyone. BUT! My amazing older brother, super awesome, came over (again, he doesn't play sc2 much so he wasn't really getting signatures or anything) and talked to the lady, persuading her to at least let day9 wait just for me to get some signatures and a picture. And she did. Holy crap <3 for my bro. Hell, bro-ness in general is just awesome (Tasteless later came by and hugged Day9, there's a picture on reddit I think, was a cool Plott bros moment).

Okay, wow this is getting way longer than I thought. Finals, of course, was awesome. Sase getting so far was awesome. Alicia really surprised us with his run, especially with the upset over MKP, but DRG is DRG. We stopped briefly at the afterparty, grabbed some more signatures. Saw some of the hilarity of the Live on Three 2v2s. The guys going shirtless....yeah....um......well, probably better not to go there. It was also cool that the guy who won the Alienware pc (teamed with Select) sat next to us and was chilling/chatting with us for awhile before he went up ^^, incredibly that he got a pc for his terrible dancing (Select carried him so hard in those games

). And then, we left.

But wait, it doesn't end there. You see, we never got any of the Kespa pros' signatures. It's been a long day and I'm kinda out of it, when one of my friends suddenly whispers: "Flash." I spin around and I see Flash enter the bathroom (this is in the hallway outside of the afterparty). My jaw drops and the adrenaline pumps. I grab my shit, and grab my friend demanding the silver sharpie. After fumbling a bit, we approached. The Kespa pro's manager/translator or whatever sees us, and asks, "who do you want?" [That guy is awesome, letting us get their signatures :D. Of course, he had to mediate and grab our stuff to go inside the bathroom and get signed, because letting us in directly would attract the mob of fans from everyone]. And duh, I ask for Flash. Unfortunately, I didn't get Jaedong because my friend only whispered Flash, and I didn't know/see that Jaedong also went into the bathroom. But still. FLASH! :D

So, all in all, we return with some 25+ signatures and photos with pros. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to nab signatures from a number of notable people - still missing Nony, MKP, DRG, Huk, and of course, my favorite, TLO, who wasn't there, but hey, I guess that's what other MLGs are for

. I also won a t-shirt in one of the small raffle things, wish I got some PC gear, but still, not bad. It would've been really helpful to win the alienware PC in that 2v2 thing (unfortunately I'm too high league >_<), because of the other stuff that happened more recently...

Of course: pictures! Apologies in advance for any shoddy quality, didn't bring a camera so these were all taken on my phone. I'm also missing a bunch because a lot were taken with my friends' phones or my brother's phone

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Front: (top) Liquid'Jinro, (middle) Grubby, (bottom left) Dignitas Select, (bottom right, sideways) SK.MC
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(Left, upper half) Tastosis [awesome combined signature], (Left, lower half) Day[9], (right top, in black) Liquid'HayprO, (below HayprO) ThorZain, (below ThorZain) Liquid'Zenio, (below Zenio) Stephano, (below Stephano) Liquid'Sheth, (below Sheth) Liquid'Ret

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(middle in gold) EG Puma, (above Puma, hard to see, on the thor) col Trimaster, (below Puma) EG JYP, (top right) goswer, (middle right) EGLzgamer

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(Top) Col Killer, (middle): KT FLASH!!!!!

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A viewer's perspective, from the back. Really nice screen setup by MLG, and great audio, too. They're not showing it at the time, but the two side screens (with ads) showed first-person views of each player, which was really cool.

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The side stations, stations 1 and 2, where the other streamed games were being played (ThorZain playing, with IdrA and SirScoots watching, I forget who he was playing against)

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Day[9] interviewing Kespas pros (Flash had just left a few minutes before I took the picture)

Pictures I took with pros and don't have here include: picture with IdrA, picture with Grubby, picture with Polt, picture with Demuslim, picture with Day[9]

...The bad:

This stuff will be pretty short. I stopped by at the mall earlier today to shop around for Father's Day. I return to my car an hour later to see a window broken and my backpack, containing my laptop and some paperwork with important personal information, stolen (I had it with me because I had just gone there straight from work). T_T. Filed a report with the mall and the local police, now to wait and see...I have the laptop serial number - I wonder, can that help track down the laptop? I don't use any desktop besides my laptop, my laptop is the only pc that I use (using family one right now) with SC2, my work stuff, my research stuff for school fellowship, etc...ugh.

TLDR: Went to MLG Anaheim, was awesome, had my car broken into and laptop stolen today, quite the opposite of awesome.

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