EPTI also wanted to do a big write-up but as mnm more or less crushed any competition this will be more of a personal appreciation thread from my point of view
First comes of course my "all-event-buddy" ret aka Jos who was just really cool company the whole of WCG and I could also sleep in his room from friday-saturday.
We had a nice taxi ride to his hostel together with Tasteless and Draco and ret was so drunk he told the taxi driver all about the "famous superstar Tasteless - in your taxi!! Can you even imagine the awesomeness of this?!?!" - was so funny how Nick just shrank back into his seat, haha.
Yeah, so was a great time with you Jos. Gonna meet again sometime and smoke some of the weed you told me about Mr. Amsterdam
WGT-Baal (though he doesn't post here very often) has also been a great companion. He told me all about his many travels and I got jealous when he said there is hardly any country in Europe he hasn't visited plus he has been to the States and China as well.
We spent sunday night together with the referees and as we both needed to get a train at like.. too early.. we stayed awake the whole of the night drinking, playing poker and then walked to the station in streaming rain. Doh.
French accent is sexy man
... and Fire)Templar is just so nice (insider)Michelle (mnm) was one of the first persons I met and it was funny to see her surprise that I didn't look like Tom Cruise in "Interview with the Vampire"
+ Show Spoiler +That's only at night, baby 
I enjoyed her company pretty much as well and I'm still disappointed I missed her awesome guitar hero performance
- which song did you play btw?It was really nice I could borrow her camera to make some photos (that was originally because the incident was so funny that Mondi was filming for the mym interview and at the same time messaging his GF [-I guess]).. lots of trust going on between teamliquid people
I'm still so glad you couldn't find your camera :D Now it's only a myth! This never did happen! ^^
Another really interesting person I met was snowbird. He was there as a translator for Harry from FOMOS and as far as I can tell did a pretty fucking good job at it. They talked to the seemingly very strict and unfriendly Jaedong coach and afterwards he said he's actually a pretty nice guy once you get to talk to him. Jaedong even stayed till late at the meetup though at first it said he couldn't come at all. Maybe you build a little bridge there, Marc
Apart from that I also enjoyed our conversations and what you told me about life in Korea which was extremely interesting because I got to ask questions first hand and you seemed really knowledgeable about the culture and people.
Hope we meet again sometime, maybe if I'll come to Munich someday and you're still there and not in the land of (hopefully) everlasting starcraft
The whole bunch of referees was an absolutely awesome bunch. We had so much fun together on sunday night. Playing poker (Ok, I refrained, but Dknight would have bashed me anyway - I mean, he bashed Legendary 2:0), drinking and generally having a fucking good time together. Here again it was really great to hang out with the chinese people (who are absolutely crazy about poker.. game after game) and come closer despite all cultural and language barriers. Phoenix and Legendary stayed at our room and luckily Phoenix could speak some English so we could also communicate a bit with Legendary. Frank (Erkenbrand) later got really close with Phoenix talking about stuff, lying on the bed together - almost looked romantic
And when they were leaving, Phoenix was so enthusiastic that he said something along the lines of "Next year at WCG you definitely need to come and I will ask my government to pay for all of your trips" Which was of course only a kind of compliment, but a very sweet one. When they left there was finally time to torment Kevin aka Choblar... man this guy is so funny. He desperately wanted to sleep and they were poking him, carrying him around the room, stealing his blanket and he was like "man, why you do this to me, I want to sleep, please guys, please" with the most miserable face ever :D Loads of fun. We went to McDonalds at like 4 or 5 am (half hour walk still) and even convinced him to come.
If I had the grasp for starcraft they have, I would also apply for referee - it's really a pleasure to hang out with these guys.
=> Special thanks to Armin and Scott for being my brains and eyes in times of darkness
Another really.. illuminating.. acquaintance was Nony. Some time ago I didn't really like him much from a few passages I read in interviews and so on, thought he would be arrogant, but that was purely due to my lack of information or let's say due to my ignorance.
When I met him in person he was a really smart and friendly fellow who was comfortable to talk to. Of course he seemed tense when I met him on friday and saturday and when he was out of the tourney he was obviously disappointed but when we started drinking at the tl-meetup and got to talk it was really interesting and - at least from my point of view - it was a lot of fun. Tasteless also sat at our table and it was quite entertaining to have his gossip from Korea and all the stuff you normally only imagine about life there. Quite a lot of insights I gained there.. like 80% confirmed of what I only dared suspect
And Nick, it was really refreshing to know that you are the person you always seem to be: An open and easy going person who approaches anyone, making friends, and no hint of arrogance or condescendence on your part. I think, in fact, you're the one who talked to most people at our meeting ^^
Meat, who came along with Nazgul and Pooruser, has also been someone I really got to like. We talked a bit on friday and had a fairly long - like "deep" - conversation at the meetup which made me go up to Nazgul and tell him "I want to steal your roomate"
Yay man, was cool to chat with you, anytime again : )
Yeah and Nazgul: Thanks for the beer - you're the man
Wow, this is actually getting long. I guess I'll stick to shorter shoutouts from now on.
On saturday I spent some time with Midian and we watched a horrible singing performance which was only lightened up by the first participant: Susie. She really sang beautifully, no doubt, but what came after that made me bleed from the ears. Brrrr. Still can't properly sleep at night.
Midian was cool. Didn't know he was also this succesful at Poker (I could always get jealous, Pooruser told me at the meetup he lost 400k in one week and was smiling :D -_-;; ) and we talked a bit about the hardships of becoming a poker pro.
Cheers man, you got a golden grin *cough*
. I already replied to Twisted in his own blog, would have wished to (like with many other people) one could have hung out together a bit more but there were just so many cool and sympathetic guys around you had no chance of meeting everyone properly.
Draco is awesome as well. We were drinking together with ret (though Draco takes it better than him - yay Poland) and he is a really cool guy irl though he keeps to himself a bit more, but that's just his way I guess. He showed me a picture of his girlfriend and yes, I can confirm, she is indeed pretty. Tasteless and Nony know as well
Warm wishes of course fly out to THE Puertorican
I really envy you for your jacket And warm wishes fly out to Petra aka Ilvy who just came to my mind and definitely deserves a spot here
There were also some teamliquid users from Germany I talked to and who were really cool. Unfortunately they catched me at my attempt to pretend I came from some English-speaking country: "Why? You just said "Entschuldigung", so.." "I did? Noo I didn't- you imagined this.". Yeah, I liked you guys as well though I didn't get your nicknames apart from Prof. Protoss :D But I don't think anyone recognized my nickname, so it's evened out.
Nyovne and I only had brief conversation - we were sitting right next to Susie and Jaedong when they did the interview and were talking at like full volume until zatic hushed us
- still can hear a bit of it in the i-view But Nyovne is definitely cool. I think he didn't drink anything the whole weekend because he was driver and he still always seemed cheerful and sociable. Thumbs up!I didn't really want to include any photos because I didn't take any (at least not with my own camera) but this was very funny:
![[image loading]](http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/photos/414180320_U3pUo-S-1.jpg)
You can see zatic standing there and doing the live-reporting for teamliquid and Naruto and I stood exactly where the photo was taken and couldn't see the screens. So Naruto took out his iPhone and we read the "live-live" reports on tl zatic was typing into his keyboard like 5 meters away from us
Ok, that's it more or less, I guess. I may have forgotten someone but if so it may come to my mind later. So many people there. So much beyond the game going on there
One thing I want to say at the end is that there was seemingly nobodoy I really disliked. That was a really cool experience, all these different types of people together and still so much fun and sympathy. In fact, I prolly could be (real life) friends with almost anyone I met
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/images/gallery/10660.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/photos/414216443_8eQgu-S-1.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/photos/414178696_JigbW-S-1.jpg)
