How IPL5 made the best weekend of my life

Fast forward to November 29, which is when I left Oregon for Las Vegas. I took a bus from Albany to Portland at 2:30pm, and from there we were supposed to fly to Vegas. Unfortunately, we were all hungry when we arrived at the airport, and two of us missed our flight by a couple of minutes while we ate. Luckily, we showed up only 2 minutes late, and the people there rebooked us for a flight later in the night.

Unfortunately, the flight we were booked for left an hour later to Seattle, and then from Seattle to Vegas after another hour layover. We had a few drinks while we waited for the first flight, then ate again in Seattle. So our two hour flight that was supposed to arrive in Vegas at 8:00pm turned into a five hour flight that arrived just after midnight. Plus, the dude sitting next to me on the Vegas flight is HUGE, and he puked while we were landing. The fact that I had no room to breathe for two and a half hours was actually worse than listening to him hurl and swear.

We didn't get to our hotel, the Imperial Palace, until around 1:30am, and waited in the check-in line for almost an hour. I got to sleep around 4:00am. What a day.

I knew I didn't have a ticket, and I had been told mixed things about the availability of tickets at the door. I decided to wake up around 7:20am to grab breakfast (which I didn't eat) and head over to the Cosmopolitan to see if any GA tickets were available. The Strip is fucking confusing as hell if you're alone and there for the first time. I arrived around 8:00am and found the Chelsea. Found ticket registration, and got in line. That's when I met Jessica Nigri. She wasn't in cosplay. She seems pretty normal, and she's pretty good looking, but I still don't really like her. She helped me find out that the only tickets for sale at the door were VIP tickets at $300. Damn.

Luckily, I had previously contacted various people on Reddit to purchase a ticket. I started pulling strings to see what I could bring up. One Redditor from /r/leagueoflegends by the name of mrreK got back to me, and still had a ticket. This man is one of the kindest Redditors I've ever met, and my weekend literally wouldn't have been possible without the assistance of he and his friends. I wish I could do more to express how much I appreciate his help. More about this in a bit.

While I was waiting for mrreK to get to the Cosmo, I wandered around the Chelsea lobby area. First I met megumixbear. She's much shorter in person than I thought she would be. But that's always what happens. She has cold hands, but maybe that's because seeing me in my shirt and tie caused her heart to stop. Anyway, I introduced myself and gave her my business card. What a nice lady. She gave me a hug and wished me luck on getting a ticket.

After a little more wandering, I was feeling a little awkward. People had started to get their badges, and I didn't have one. Plus I was dressed up for my birthday (shirt, tie, slacks). I spotted Stephano walking toward the stage area, and turned around to catch him. I told him how I hadn't had a chance to watch any of his matches because of traveling, and he responded with "You didn't miss much." At that point I realized he's everything I had expected, and that I still love him. I think he got knocked out of IPL5 that day. Whoops. My fault?

Mr. Chae arrived at the Chelsea lobby area soon afterward. I chased him down and waited for his colleagues to leave before I approached him. I thanked him for bringing GSL to Vegas for IPL5, and complimented on his team's production quality. I had seen a few matches before leaving on Thursday, and was incredibly impressed. I feel like Reddit agrees it's some of the best production for an SC2 tournament to date. I shook his hand and bowed nowhere near low enough to show the amount of respect for him. He's pretty quiet, and I'm pretty awkward.

I went to the elevator lobby and had a seat while I checked my phone. Through the corner of my eye, I spotted some tall dude with a strange gait walking toward the elevators. My instinctual reaction is to look at the person. At that point I realized it's DJWheat. By the time I decided what to do, he was getting into the elevator. I jumped up and ran into the elevator with him, and who I'm assuming is his assistant. They were talking while Marcus chose his floor. I stared at Wheat in disbelief. DJWheat is the person in eSports who I respect ten-fold more than anyone else. His story is amazing, his passion is unstoppable, and he's kind of tall, too. His assistant asked which floor I needed, and I informed him that I just wanted to say hi to Wheat. We shook hands, and I told him how much I love him and all of that, and passed him my business card. He wanted to know what a Visual Communication Consultant is, and I told him what I think it means. Then he got out of the elevator. I went back down to the Chelsea with a HUGE smile on my face. Then I realized how awkward that shit is.

Something was going on in the lobby. Apparently, it was 5 minutes until show time and both Grubby and TB were nowhere to be found. I listened to the staff people talk about it and one of them said they'd watch the elevators. I took the opportunity to talk to this guy, and asked him if he's ever star-struck. He told me about how he knows pretty much every one of them because he runs ESV_TV. Oh. I never got his name, and unfortunately I'm not intimate enough with ESVision to know his name off the cuff. Their maps are sick, though. I handed him a business card just when Grubby came sprinting out of the elevator toward the stage area.

Some time after that, mrreK show up with a ticket. He had a promo ticket that one of his friends had given him. Unfortunately, because of how ticket redemption works, he was not allowed to pick up the ticket. His friend had to be there to pick it up, but he wasn't able to be there. So this man tried just about everything to get the pass, and after talking to the manager for, informed me that he just needed a photo of the ticket purchaser's ID to redeem the ticket.

While all of this was happening, something happened that, this time, stopped my heart. Lanibot was walking toward me and I said hi. I've had this mini-crush on Lani since she first got on camera at IPL3, and I've wanted to meet her since. Plus, she tweeted about a free hug deal at IPL5, which I intended to cash in on. Unfortunately, it stopped at a greeting, and she spent the rest of her time chatting at mrreK's group. But I knew there would likely be other chances to say hi properly. I realized shortly afterward how awkward it probably was with me just standing there staring down the hallway over Lani's head. She's pretty short.

Not long after, my two buddies Tyler and Matt arrived. They had slept in late before leaving the hotel. I hate them. I introduced them to mrreK and his crew. At this point, Tyler hadn't gotten his ticket either, but he was waiting on another generous Redditor by the name of BlueBoxSC. Apparently karma is a real thing, since BlueBoxSC got to 1v1 NaNiwa later in the weekend. I'll let Tyler praise that guy, though. Anyway, I got my ticket from mrreK, and passed him $40 for his trouble. Actually, I offered $60 when he only wanted $30, and he gave me $20 back as a birthday gift. mrreK waited around for what seemed like a couple of hours to help me get a ticket. Seriously. This guy is a boss, and I'd be friends with him any time. His lady friend sure has a pottymouth, though.

While we were waiting for Tyler's ticket to arrive, we went back to the elevator lobby. MC was sitting with some of the other Korean players, and Tyler kind of freaked out. I hate him. Tyler wanted to take a picture with MC giving him a high-five. So we bugged MC, who looked kind of down, and got some high-five pictures and told him "Four more years". The Boss Toss. He's so awesome. We talked about it afterward, and decided that he had been knocked out of IPL5 not long before we met him. Whoops. That's awkward.

We continued to our seats and I decided that, at this point, 2:30pm, I could not function any longer without food, and ate my McDonald's breakfast. It had been almost 20 hours since I had last eaten.

That's when we saw Sheth dressed so sharply in his casting suit. I had seen him casting before I left home and was really impressed. None of the three of us are particularly big fans of him, but he's the MannerBear and you can't not like him. So Matt, who I hate, took high-five photos with him, too. It was obvious Sheth had somewhere to go, but wasn't going to tell us, so we let him go. That was also awkward. It took three tries to get a good photo.

We went back to our seats, and after a few minutes, I spotted another person who I respect a lot: Alex Garfield. I had to beg my friends, who I hate, to help me talk to him. We actually had a very good and insightful conversation with Mr. Garfield, which validated how incredibly intelligent I had previously thought he is. EG is my favorite team, and Alex smokes e-cigs. Can't go wrong. It's so hard to tell whether Alex has a really dry sense of humor, or if he was serious about what we talked about, or both.

We were bored of waiting for Tyler's ticket, so we went to the Casino to get drunk. We sat at the slot machines and bitches brought us drinks. Then I double my money up to $40 while Matt lost all the money he played. I hate him.

When we finished getting not that drunk and eating, we went back upstairs. On the way, we encountered a woman who started dancing on the escalator, and promptly apologized, while I thought about the fact that I almost started dancing, too. She had huge jugs. Awkward.

Tyler got his ticket. I hate him. Since we all had our tickets, we went to watch some Starcraft. We watched Starcraft, but it turned out to only be 1/6 of Starcraft, if that makes sense. For six hours or more, we watched TvZ. A grand total of, I think, 15 games were played before we left.

Some of those games happened during the GSL 2012 Season 5 Semi Finals. Before the semi finals, while they were setting up, Tastosis entered the stage area. I awkwardly exclaimed their names, but they didn't hear it. When they were done, and leaving, Matt snatched a high-five from both of them. I tripped over Matt trying to get high-fives. I hate him. I didn't get the high-fives, and I looked like an idiot, and my chest hurt from being beat up by the back of the chair in front of me.

The semis happened, and there was a raffle afterward. My number was 0092. There were probably around 3000 or more numbers available, but only about 600 were present. All of the numbers called were over 400. Most over 2000. One guy won with 1337. I hate him. But I wanted to be his friend. That raffle took like 40 minutes, and they gave away 10 items. Someone didn't mix the tickets up enough.

On the way out, I met someone who no one seems to like: Slasher. I'm actually a fan of Slasher, and respect him more than some other people in the scene. Rod looks a lot different in person from what he looks like online. Plus, his hair. His hair. I talked to Slasher about his work, and how it's good and stuff, and found out (although I think I already knew and wanted to forget) that we share a birthday. I offered to buy Slasher a drink, and he mentioned he needed to interview MVPSniper first, but that he'd "definitely hit [me] up". I gave him my business card. That was a waste. He didn't hit me up, but I understand he's probably always incredibly busy. I spent that drink money on food, anyway. #fuckslasher <3

We were hungry, so we started looking for a place to eat. On the way, Matt spotted Artosis going to a Mexican/Chinese food restaurant. Matt got a high-five before I noticed Artosis. I hate him. But I wasn't about to let this one go. So I turned around amd ran toward Artosis yelling his name. When he heard it, he turned around and looked at me like I'm crazy, but still gave me a high-five. Then I ran away.

We didn't find a place to eat in Cosmo, so we went back to our hotel to eat at a place called Quesadilla. I wanted a Quesadilla so bad. Quesadilla was closed when we got there.

We went to the Korean food place next door and listened to Gangnam Style twice. The food is really expensive, but I needed to eat, so I ordered a delicious Bulgogi dish. Yummmmmmm.

Tyler decided we had to continue our night, and so we went on a hike to the Wynn from our Imperial Palace with some Sapporo in our hands. On our way out of the palace, I missed yet another high-five, but this time it was a woman who was walking by saying "You guys are lame." The way she was holding her hand gave me the impression she is just a sassy diva, not some lady looking for high-fives. I guess Matt and Tyler thought differently. I hate them.

At the Wynn, we stopped to play some slots. I had gotten pretty tipsy by then, and played a $0.01 machine that had a minimum bet of 100 credits per line. I did my normal 15 lines, and pressed the button before I realized the minimum bet. It didn't take me long to realize I had just lost $15 in one roll. There goes most of what I had won earlier in the day. I tried to reconcile some of it with the remaining $5, but lost it all in the end. Oh well. Breaking even isn't a bad thing in Vegas.

We decided to leave after taking some free drinks from a woman who said she could be our mother - our super hot mother, and for some reason I mentioned that we should make sure we have all our shit. I realized at that point that my phone was missing.

Tyler and I turned around and found one of those people in a suit to ask if there's a lost and found somewhere. She took us there. On the way, we passed through a magical door that opened when her hand passed by a magical electronic panel. My phone was at that lost and found kept by a guy who looked horribly, horribly hungover. When we left, we passed through another magical door, but this one had no panel. That's some cool shit.

Before returning to our room around 2:30am, we met some guy who plays Starcraft. He knows words like "zergling" and "cannon rush" and "zerg rush" and "noob". Cool.

Not feeling any sort of pressure to get to IPL5 in a hurry, I slept in. I had gone to sleep around 4am, again, and woke up just after noon. This time I waited for Tyler and Matt instead of leaving. I hate these guys.

We had a few hours before the matches that we were interested in started, so we went to "Secret Pizza" and brought some slices up to the elevator lobby in the Chelsea. Alex Garfield walked by and waved to us. That was special, actually. Glad he remembered us, as it seems a lot of other people didn't remember just me. Next, we got to do something that *I* wanted to do: visit the Adidas Outlet.

Before we left, though, we met GLSnute. I went from thinking GLSnute is pretty good to being a HUGE fan. Talk about a humble guy. He actually seemed surprised that fans were approaching him, and he talked about why he had lost his match from the night before while doing this nervous kick-his-own-feet sort of thing. I can't wait to see more of him. We actually had to go, so we initiated the departure, and that felt awkward. Imagine: "Yo we're pretty big fans, but we don't have time to talk to you. See ya!"

We had just left the Cosmo when Matt noticed that LiquidHero and ST_Bomber were behind us. Without thinking, I stopped, turned around, and put my hand out toward Hero whilst bowing, and shook his hand. I said not a single word. Then, I turned around and caught up with Matt and Tyler. I bet that was pretty awkward for Hero. He had that "what the fuck is this?" look on his face.

On the way to the Adidas Outlet, we noticed Batman jumping off of curbs and other types of ledges while holding his cape out. He also stopped to say hi to babies and shit.

I bought new shoes at the Adidas Outlet for $70, and we left. I wore them out of the store with the tags on. They're bright red Grand Prix. So comfy and way fucking cool.

Then we grabbed some beer and went back to Cosmo, where we caught the beginning of the GSL World Championship. We cheered twice at everything that the hosts said; once when they spoke Korean, and again when John the Translator translated it. But the part I was looking forward to most was seeing something other than TvZ. Both teams had at least one Protoss player, which meant we'd be able to see the best race play a few games. Most of you probably know how it went.

I had gotten up to take a piss during the World Championship, and on the way back I met John the Translator. He looked like he was in a hurry to get to the bathroom, but I wasn't sure. Anyway, I told him he does a great job and he's pretty cool, and tried to keep saying stuff while we passed each other. The handshake was pretty weird - one of those "can't stop walking opposite directions" handshakes.

The Code S Finals came next. Before the finals started, I went to take a piss. On the way back I caught Mr. Chae and asked him if he's excited. His answer was yes, and he asked me if I'm excited. I said yes and we exchanged more words, but I was kind of tipsy, so I don't really remember all them. There's nothing really special to say about the finals themselves, but Sniper winning came as an upset to me, so I was only a little disappointed. Plus, I was already getting a little sick of ZvZ. During the match, I left the stage area to take a break where I met Scarlett. Her set in the World Championship was absolutely amazing and I had to tell her about how good she is at Starcraft. She was kind of backpedaling the entire time I was shaking her hand. It was pretty awkward.

The match was over pretty quickly, and I decided I wasn't really in the mood to hang around. But first I had to say hi to someone I had intended to meet the entire time. He had finally gotten back to me and told me where he was hanging out. We approached that area and I yelled "Which one of you is Blitz_Dota?" Blitz pointed at himself and introduced me to PurgeGaming and then I introduced myself and my friends. We talked for a while about a bunch of crap and then it got real awkward.

Aside
Before the trip, I had five 8x10 prints made with my face on them. I signed them and xoxo'd them, and intended to give them out, along with my business card, to my favorite people as I met them.

I hadn't given any of my face out yet, but I figured since the chat we were having with Blitz wasn't exactly not awkward, I'd make it more awkward. So I gave him my face and business card. He told me he had kept it when I saw him on Sunday. Cool dude. Much love, guy. While all this was happening I happened to glance behind me to see Lani and her entourage walking by. She noticed me and gave me the good ole' wave-and-smile. My heart melted again.

We parted ways because Tyler wanted to find Kitty Glitter, though, so we asked about that and found it. I hate Tyler. We played for a while and had a couple drinks, then moved to other machines where I kept spending Tyler's money. At that point I really was ready to go home. Wearing dress shoes on Friday had opened up a couple of blisters on my foot, and walking around Saturday made them worse. I ditched Tyler and Matt because I hate them, and went back to the room to take a massive dump. I got to sleep around 4:00am again.

I still had people I kind of wanted to meet, so I woke up early again on Sunday to give myself a better chance of meeting them, and also so that I could watch some Starcraft. I started out just watching IPL5 stuff; getting up occasionally to take a walk around. Before anything had started, Kibbelz wanted to announce the winner of that IPL caster idol thing so they could cast the first match. Kibbelz stood on the stage waiting for his cue, and then a bunch of promo videos started playing behind him on the main screen. Every time one ended, he'd stand back up and wait, and then another would start. That was awkward and funny, but eventually he got to open up the day, and it was awesome.

GSL World Championship was coming up after a long break, so I took that opportunity to get some food. After eating, I went back inside and found the "cheerful" supplies. So this is where people were getting their signs made. More on that soon.

I made my way to where I intended to sit, only to find Lani standing right next to it. She smiled and waved again and I knew this was my opportunity to properly say hi and introduce myself. Instead, I said "Oh, hey I have something really corny and awkward for you." She responded with "That sounds just perfect for me." That's when I busted out my face and a business card. I was surprised at her pretty casual reaction when she took it, and when I told her to keep it, she seemed pretty excited. We chatted for a while about Tastosis, after-parties, how to get free drinks at the casino, pros using "drugs" (ibuprofen) and other stuff. She had to go, so I stopped her and asked to cash in on the free hugs she tweeted about. It was really neat. This literally made my whole weekend! Two awkward people tend to communicate pretty smoothly between each other, or at least we both thought so.

Back to the signs. I made a sign for my friend Clint, and a sign for myself. My goal was to get Tastosis to wish me a happy birthday, even though the day had passed. I like to think the entire weekend was my birthday, anyway. The sign for myself said "BEST BIRTHDAY EVER" and the other asked Clint if he's jealous. You can actually see them in the Set 2 VODs @ 1:39. When Tasteless wished me a happy birthday, I almost cried. Then I realized it was streamed and it got even better.

Watching Stephano slay Koreans was fun, too.

I left at some point during the World Championship to take a piss, and on my way out I saw Grubby on his way to the stage area. His hands were full of food, so I made eye contact and put my hand out for a handshake. I was joking, of course, and I hope he noticed because I was smiling and chuckling. He stuck his elbow out and yelled "elbows," but I didn't catch it immediately because I wasn't expecting it. I turned around almost immediately and said "Oh, elbows. Let's do it right this time," and I got to elbow battle Grubby for a brief second. The fact that he stopped and turned around to battle is pretty awesome. It probably would have been pretty awkward if one of us hadn't turned around. Grubby is a boss.

The rest of the match went by quickly with a few drinks in me, and then we went out to some Mexican food bar that Tyler and Matt had been to the night before. I hate them, but this time they brought me there and Tyler bought me the Quesadilla I had been craving the entire weekend. It was delicious. I still hate Tyler; just not as much as before.

The IPL5 Loser's Bracket Finals were played, and I continued to drink. That was a long match. We were all pretty sick of TvZ already, but ViOlet and Polt decided to put us through some more. By the time the finals came, I was pretty happy ViOlet had won, even though I am a Polt fan.

Some time during the finals, Tastosis came in through the door with the Sons of Starcraft crew, and got bum-rushed by fans. I was kind of one of them, and I brought my "BEST BIRTHDAY EVER" sign. I didn't really want it signed. I just wanted to say hi, and was going to use the sign as a foot-in-the-door. Unfortunately, when I got there a bunch of jerks on IPL5 staff said "Sorry, but you guys are going to have to wait until the formal signing." But before I went back to my seat, Tasteless turned around and saw my sign and said "Best Birthday... EVER!" While that was so fucking awesome, I was still crushed because I wouldn't get to speak to them in candid. I prefer to catch folks in candid like CreepShots.

After a few minutes, I realized I had a better idea. I was going to hunt them down and give each of them one of my face. I saw them standing around near the stage and started making my way that way. When I saw a bunch of disappointed fans walking away, I knew they had been rejected, and decided to find a place to sit down so I could make my way in there slowly and stealthily. That's when I saw Lani again! I sat next to her and we talked a bit about my situation. She and her friend talked me into approaching them, anyway, but one of the staff guys caught me and sent me back. None of that Metal Gear Solid shit helped me. So I sat down and talked to Lani some more. That's almost as good as talking to Tastosis, as far as I'm concerned. I parted with Lani to go back to my seat. She gave me another hug *swoon* and told me some pertinent information about things we had talked about earlier.

I fell asleep a lot of times during the finals. A LOT of times. ZvZ can be real boring at times. Also feel like ViOlet deserved the win more than Leenock, but Leenock played a nearly perfect tournament up until then, soooooo. Well, whatever.

In the end, I never had a chance to give Tastosis my face. I'm hoping I might be able to ship a couple of the prints to the Gom studio to be given to them.

At some point I decided to call it a night. It was 11:00pm, and we all had to be awake at 6:00am to check out and get to the airport. Tyler wanted to explore Caesar's Palace, so we stopped there first. I hate Tyler. We walked around for a while and tears started to well up in my eyes. I was quickly realizing that the greatest weekend of my entire life was coming to a very abrupt end. I wasn't even sure whether I was supposed to be happy or sad about the transpirings of the whole weekend. While I met a ton of people at IPL5, I was leaving all those people without knowing the next time I'd be able to talk to them. I love eSports, but I love the people in eSports more. I don't take photos or get autographs. I create memories. Every one of the awkward interactions will last in my mind forever, or until they're replaced with something better. Plus, I passed out my business card.

We got back to our hotel, and I started writing this shit. Didn't get to sleep until 3:30am.

IPL5 went from being what I figured would be just a fun birthday trip to IPL5 to the greatest, most stressful, most exhausting weekend of my entire life, and I don't know how I'm going to ever top it. I managed to stay out of trouble and stay within my $200 hard-budget with the help of Matt and Tyler and my bank account. I managed to stay coherently sober/drunk most of the time, and didn't rage much. While I was grumpy most of the weekend, my best friends Matt and Tyler dealt with it. I can't imagine that anything could have gone better, but I want to do it again; and better at that.

The trip back to Oregon went a little better than the trip to Vegas, by the way. But my feet are so messed up. I hit the Strip so hard that my feet's blisters have their own blisters.

The tears I mentioned earlier returned multiple times while I wrote this. This is how I figured I'd find closure on my weekend, and I think it helped. I hope it was at least remotely entertaining for those of you who read the whole thing, because these are all the things that made my weekend special. Imagine if it happened to you.

I managed to sleep a total of 18 hours from Thursday morning to right now - Monday afternoon. I ate maybe six meals in that time, and most of them are barely 1/2 the size of what I normally eat in a meal. I took a shower every morning except this one. I wore deodorant every single day. I'm tired. Sue me.

Anyway, that's my story.