Another Year Another LAN

Big0ne

Shared on Mon, 08/10/2009 - 12:03

I'm back at work after a nice long break to attend the 2009 Chicago LAN. As usual, I had a great time meeting new people, seeing some old friends and meeting new people who apparently have been old friends for a while. The Librarian and I got into town Wed. this year so we could spend some time just hanging out together before being fully sucked into the LAN's whirlwind of activity. We headed downtown on Thursday and spent the day doing "touristy" stuff just as we've done for the last 4 LANs. We were both a little disappointed that the Ethel M store has closed since last year, but drowned our chocolate sorrows at the Hersey's store for a while to make up for it.

Thursday night we met up with Banjocut, NormalGuy, BukuKungFu, Slappins and a host of others for a traditional run to Giordano's for authentic Chicago Style Pizza. What started as a group of 8 or so turned into a gang of 17 by the time word got out we were going. Everyone had a great time and then the first "incident' of my LAN experience took place. About 10 minutes before the check arrived NormalGuy excuses himself from the table. Now, you might think he was just trying to get out of paying the check, but alas no, he really did need to go to the bathroom. I mean, he REEEEAAALLLY needed to go. after 45 minutes of waiting for him to come out most of the group headed out to the liquor store to stock up for the weekend. Several text messages later Normal finally showed up apparently the proud father of what had to be the biggest shit in the history of shit.

Once we made our stop for liquid refreshments, I headed back to our suite to start getting some Rock Band action fired up. 4-5 guys trickled in to start playing and over the next several hours, more and more people started showing up. At one point, I think I counted nearly 20 people packed into the room rocking out and having a great time meeting and, of course, drinking. I brought zero beverages into my room, but by the end of the night the bar counter looked like a scene from Cocktail. Sometime around 1 in the morning, most everyone headed off to bed or the bar or wherever they went and I broke down the RB setup so I could get it re-set up the next day for the LAN.

After a lovely 5 hours of sleep in the worlds noisiest hotel room, I was up again getting ready to start LAN 2009 official. Our room, though huge (it was a two room suite) was located directly under the landing path of O'Hare and had a giant wall of windows over looking I90 giving us lovely sounds of sirens, motorcycles and a parade of cars that I'm not sure even could be considered worthy of the title "clunker" all night long. Nonetheless, I'm used to working on limited sleep during the LAN so I wasn't going to let that get me down. I met DSmooth down near the LAN room as we headed to breakfast and he let me know that set up wouldn't get underway until sometime after noon. With that in mind, I took the opportunity to spend a little bit more time with just the wife. Get your mind out of the gutters perverts. We went to the mall and she did a bit more shopping.

Once we got back I started the process of setting up my Rock Band equipment for the weekend in the LAN room. The set up included an Ion Drum Kit, dual bass pedals, guitars, projector, Xbox, light and fog kit and much to my liking, Ceasar's sound system. It took nearly 2 hours to get set up and go get extra cabling but it was worth it. The room this year was by far the largest we've ever had so we were able to crank up the tunes a bit more without disturbing the rest of the LAN......too much. BukuKungFu brought another Ion Drum Kit and Banjo brought the rest of the equipment necessary to get another full Rock Band set up going and we spent about an hour balancing out the sound so one didn't over power the other. I'm not sure we ever got it quite right but it seemed to work out. Some songs just need cranked up after all.

Friday night Rau ran the 2nd annual 2o2p Rock Band tourney. I may get into more of the details later in a Plastic Rockers column but the short version is my band (BanjoCut, Slappins, EC300 and yours truly) won once again. WOOT! Finally a game I can win at. lol. I really didn't do much other gaming outside of RB on Friday, but I had a good time playing with some new people.

Saturday, I was once again awake after a mere 5 hours of sleep and Lisa and I headed out to IHOP for breakfast. We sent some texts out to a couple of guys to see if anyone wanted to tag along but apparently everyone else was able to sleep just fine. In fact, when I got back to the LAN room around 11, there was still only a couple dozen or so people playing. I threw some Peggle up on the projector and managed to complete another Challenge board before Bubba and BC came over and started an impromptu Rock Band dual. This got the competitive juices going and I joined in along with a couple of others. Then the next most memorable moment of the LAN for me took place. Mike James jumped in to take on the current "champion" and then proceeded to go on a winning streak unseen in the history of mankind. Everyone who tried to take him down fell like a house of cards in a hurricane. I think he finally just gave up on the song he lost in just from the boredom of beating all of us.

Saturday afternoon I decided I had better get some practice in on Gears 2, having only played it one time in the past 6 months. Why did I decide to start now you ask? ( or maybe you didn't, doesn't really matter, I'm going to tell you anyway) On a lark I told Fatal Poison that I'd "compete" in the Gears of War tourney that she and TDrag were running for the first time (that I'm aware of) at the LAN. The tourney was set up with 10 teams matched up randomly by picking names out of a proverbial hat. AOW Jedi Kez drew the short straw and got me has his partner. This was a wingman tourney and so on top of not having played in months I really had no idea how to play a wingman style game beyond the couple of times I tried it when the game first shipped. The teams were divided into 2 rooms and we were underway around 7 or so that evening. Our room played on the 3 designated maps and it was HIGHLY competitive. In fact, the other room was finished with their round before we were even half way done with the second map. Much to my surprise Jedi and I managed to move on to the second (and final) round. Overall we finished 4th out of the 10 teams and narrowly missed 3rd place so I was quite pleased. Suffice it to say Jedi Kez did most of the heavy lifting and didn't seem to mind having to carry my noob ass all evening.

I want to give huge props to Fatal Poison and TDrag for getting the Gears tourney going and running it. It was one of the most fun things I've ever done at any of the LANs. The way it was done was excellent and I think everyone who played enjoyed it. I'll definitely be looking to try to incorporate some of what they did into the Rock Band tourney next year if it's possible.

Overall, I had a great time. A lot of people like to use words like "best ever" or "greatest". I'm not really into hyperbole. Each year there's things I like better than others and things I wish were different. This year is no exception. I've learned you can't compare LANs from year to year, each has it's own personality. The important thing is that I had a great time and from what I could tell, so did everyone else. Ok, that's it for now, I'm going to try and post a few pictures below and start counting down to LAN 2010.

The Band - Combo Breakerz

Myself on Vocals, Slappins on Guitar, BanjoCut on drums and EC300 on Bass