i33
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So, I spent the bank holiday weekend at i33, the Multiplay i-series LAN events held at Newbury Racecourse.
The Cast
Simon “Demented-Idiot” Mott
Niall “Rivernile” Scott
Shane “Dataforce” McCormack
Thursday
Thursday was fun. I got home from work and did what I normally did, went on IRC and made tea whilst pondering whether or not to go to salsa or not. Then the others came on IRC and basically swayed my decision for me (they were having all the fun 45 minutes down the road whilst I was at home…), so I quickly packed up, bought an Early Arrival ticket, hopped in the car and went to Newbury, the home of sweaty, smelly geeks.
I’m pretty sure I didn’t play any games on Thursday. We went to Tesco’s and bought a tent among other essentials (which for me was Coke Zero, oranges and crisps) and then had fun setting up the tents in the gales that were occuring at the time (with lots of innuendo: “Simon’s pole is longer!” “No, put your pole into Shane’s hole”) and Shane saying “Ow, ow, ow” a lot when getting whipped by the tent in the wind, and still not moving out of the way until we told him to… Still, my Scouting knowledge came in use when it came to putting up tents (epic fail on Niall’s behalf tbfh), and then we retired back to the Berkshire and played some more multiplayer Notepad…
Friday
Okay, this is the day I actually started playing some games: EVE Online, Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 were the games of the day, followed by an amazing Chinese in Newbury, but then I decided to give up and head home for the night – I needed sleep and I wasn’t going to get any sleeping in the cold and wind of Newbury (I only got about 4 hours the night before) so a quick trip home to Oxford later, followed by a solid 8 hours of sleep, I was set for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday
Despite having to travel from Oxford, I still managed to get back gaming before anyone else was up – catching up on gaming from the night before.
Saturday was the day of the DDR qualifiers, which I qualified absolutely no problem, alongside yet more gaming
(if the above video does not play, click here, or download full quality here: http://www.pling.org.uk/static/i33ddrqual.mpg)
This was followed by yet more gaming and then the big announcement, where Multiplay were holding i34. It didn’t really matter because we weren’t going to be there, but we went along for shits and giggles (and also free stuff, but we didn’t get any), but it was good fun, and we then decided to try and get the Golden Tickets in the quiz, but failed miserably…
Anyway! After that fun, we headed off into Newbury, grabbing some food from Pizza Express before disappearing off to Varsity (which had a dance floor and women, including one who wanted to dance with me – a rarity in my life!)
Sunday
Sunday morning started off with drunken wanderings around the Racecourse with a camera, followed by tentage and yet more gameage, mainly EVE and then in the evening my nickname was called over the tannoy to report for the DDR final! Okay, only one other person in my class turned up, and only 2 in the Intermediate class turned up making the tournament a lot simpler than it needed to be (it was basically me vs. this guy called Sheriff) and after the finals, we were still neck and neck so TopTotty (the DDR admin) decided to hold a tie-breaker, which I lost by 3%, despite being marginally (0.07%) ahead at the final…
Still, it was pretty close!
(if the above video does not play, click here, or download full quality here: http://www.pling.org.uk/static/i33ddrfinal.mpg)
This was followed by a trip to the Toby Carvery, and yet more gaming into the night
Monday
Monday was the last day, which was kind of sad, but also a relief because I needed a shower and a real bed again. Sunday was just more gaming, then packing up and going home… So not much there
THE WHOLE WEEKEND!
Photos: i33 set on Flickr
VIDEO
(if the above video does not play, click here, or download full quality here: http://www.pling.org.uk/static/i33.mpg)
