Battle Royale – Oct 2009

So I’ve been skimping on the blogs… well on the whole work thing, to be honest.  I’ve decided to dive back in but doing more of a personal one instead of my project stuff.  Let’s face it, I haven’t really done too much work the past week and a half… so there’s not too much to write about.   Of course, I’m planning to change that this weekend.  I’m weird like that… slack off during the week only to do work during my free time.  Anyway, this blog is going to be about last weekend and my trip to Ottawa.

So, as the title suggests, I went on a trip to Ottawa to do some gaming competitions in Battle Royale.  It’s a 24 hour LAN where there’s a whole bunch of gamers doing tournaments and pretty much playing video games all day over a local area network.  It was tons of fun but I’ve never been to a 24 hour LAN before.  And not one with great sponsors like Valve, EA, Bawls, Steelseries, and many others.  Here’s a picture of me, my setup and the people around me (please note it’s been about 6-8 hours at this really hot auditorium and that’s why I look horrible):

Myself chillin at Battle Royale 3 with Peter (ukm) beside me.

Here’s a better look at how big the actual event is:

Now, I was able to win in two tournaments that weekend.  Mostly because I was on such great teams, but I helped out here and there.  The first tournament was Counterstrike: Source.  The second tournament was for Team Fortress 2.  I’ve got pictures of both my teams that will be shown below, with some of our winnings and one of the LAN organizers (she arranged a lot of the sponsors, if not all).

left to right: Alex (lopert), Peter (ukm), Donny (Helix), Myself (aSydiK), Richard (Sharpshooter)

left to right: Kurt (rambo), Myself (aSydiK), Tyler (0ptik), Jess (pinkNinja - Organizer), Alex (lopert), Peter (ukm), (hoppypotty)

For prizes, I got an awesome mouse pad, a little mushroom candy container that looks like it came for the Mario Bros world, a Shamwow, The Sims 3 video game, and two awesome dog tags that have TF2 and CSS Tournament Winner designed onto them courtesy of CCGgraphix.  A picture of what they look like is below:

It wasn’t all fun and games that weekend though.  I did get into a car accident the night before, which rendered my vehicle useless.  It had to be towed away and I was car-less for the whole weekend.  I was, also, stranded there until Monday… or so I thought.  At least, when I checked several Enterprise branches (the company my insurance used), most were closed by Saturday noon and wouldn’t open up again until Monday.  So, I thought I was out of luck.  Monday came rolling along and I found out that the branch I was renting from was open on Sunday.  Which meant, I stayed an extra day for pretty much nothing and missed one of my best classes.  Anyway, for anyone in the Ottawa area that needs to rent a car on Sunday, click here for the branch I rented from that’s open almost every day.  Aside from this mishap, and personal ones I’m not willing to put up on this blog, it was an awesome weekend that I would be willing to do again in a heartbeat (and might do so next year if there’s another).

Thanks to this man who put me up that weekend and let me and my friend stay with him an extra day (your hospitality is greatly appreciated):

Mike (KnightTemplar AKA KT)

Note:  All images courtesy of Jessica “pinkNinja” V, and more photos can be found on her BR3 Flickr page.  Thanks Jess!