Okay, time for the big post.
Wednesday:
Got on the bus way the hell too early. Had a good trip from Asheville to Winston Salem. Greyhound, not failing yet? As you may have gathered from my later rant, it made up for it later. It even made up for it on this trip. But, early on? It was fine. IIRC I got my own seat the entire way there. So that was pretty nice.
Winston Salem's kinda a weird town. It reminds me of Asheville...about four times as big and without the hippie vibes at all. Which...isn't...that much like Asheville on net. You'd have to see both towns to understand the resemblance. I didn't really like the place for some reason, but what the hell.
Anyways, Winston Salem's bus station fails. To be specific, it fails at being a Greyhound station.
To explain: Greyhound evidently has a deal with some bus stations, as I learned later, to use some of their space.
In...Winston Salem's case this is about, oh, three gates for a fairly busy near-hub terminal.
And a dozen gates for in-city bussing. Uh.
So, I chug into this god damned mess with like five minutes until I get on my next bus! I rush inside, mill around for about a minute, slap my forehead at being so stupid as to think that Greyhound would tell me anything at all in here, go back outside and pester some driver. Make it in time without even much risk of getting left. At this point I'm feeling pretty good about my ability to counter Greyhound's fail. Again, see earlier rant for how well that fucking worked out. Greyhound's fail escalates.
Anyhow, the only other notable things on the trip there were:
-Getting crowded out of your seat by a moderately good looking girl is superior to getting crowded out of your seat by a random gangly mexican, but...not all that much. And your leg falls just as much asleep.
-Danville...VA, I believe? Is the most puzzling city I went through on the entire trip. I have to guess that it's what used to be a thriving industrial city or something that got left when all of our manufacturing jobs parted ways. Half the city is reasonably kept up and the other half is dilapidated to the point of almost impressiveness.
The thing is, these two parts weren't...separated by space at all. Seeing a half-crumbling covered in graffiti building paired up with one of the city's governmental buildings was weird, and seeing a couple of buildings with a completely exposed, obviously not being worked on or anything, area between the first and second floors, just, you know, open air, in the middle of downtown? Weirdness. I think I've seen cities in worse condition, but never with the bad parts just mushed into the good ones like that. It's like it just got mostly abandoned as a town.
-Richmond's a cool enough town. Kinda feels a little touristy somehow, although I can't put my finger on how. Otherwise pretty nice.
Anyways, I make it to Xer's place. Xer's mom is pretty cool albiet worries too much, Xer's dad is nice though kinda grumpyish. Basically normal enough parents.
Stayed up way the hell too late playing SF4 some(Completely wrong impression of Chun-Li in 4 gotten riiiiiight here from playing a few games with her; I figured she was pretty similar to before. She's not.), Blazblue(Meanwhile, I was right, Rachel is my main and I picked up on that from damn near the first try. The surprise is later finding out that Tager is probably my secondary.), Gundam Musou 2(Gundam Wing was fun~), watched some Sengoku Basara, probably a few things I'm forgetting. Got two hours of sleep as a result. That's okay, I wasn't getting actual sleep lately anyways, and I never sleep that well on the bedroll, so hey.
Thursday:
Got up around five, after a couple hours of sleep. At that, I think I got more sleep than Xer. Anyways, the trip up until Washington DC was so unmemorable that I don't actually recall anything about it. Well, I recall napping. Does that count?
Then we hit Washington DC.
Okay, now, Xer and his dad were using Googlemaps to figure out where the hell to go. Googlemaps is bad at a few things, as you might know if you've ever used it. One is figuring out what the blue hell it means by subtle details(slight right/left turn? What?).
Another is that it doesn't tell you when roads change into other roads while being named the same thing. I suspect at this point that was the problem we had, that we just needed to go straight at a certain point. But I wasn't sure. Also I wasn't really sure you could go straight. Maybe the map was just fucking wrong.
Well, for whatever the reason, we ended up going in a circle to the exact same spot four times before finding someone that could tell us where to go(Which, naturally, was very easy to find and Googlemaps fails miserably. As you'll learn, it fails more than this.).
On the upside, I got a moderately close view of the Lincoln Memorial, Capitol Building, Supreme Court and the Senate. So, for my part, the only unpleasant thing about getting lost for two hours was that Xer and his dad were unhappy... <_<;
On the record, DC, horrible roads of nightmare aside, was actually a pretty neat city, despite being the biggest one I've ever been in. Oddly poor, which made going by such gorgeous buildings at points weirder. Then again, maybe a confusing as hell city with a weird intermeshing of over and underabundance of resources does fit America spiritually.
Incidentally we also got some epic traffic slowdown, but I still say the stuff coming back was more epic.
Delaware tolls are fucking insane and the roads aren't that good. What the hell. No, really. What. The. Hell. I appreciate that toll money goes to more than just the road and all, sure, but it should be a better fucking road than most local NC highways if you're charging 11 in tolls one way and 7 the other. Say what you will about Jersey Turnpike, at least it didn't manage that.
Jersey it's self is much nicer than I expected as a state. I mean, it's not NC wilderness or anything, and it's more built up than Richmond was even, but it's pretty nice, the parts I went through. Jersey Turnpike fails but not as much as Delaware's crap, at least it only cost 5 both ways and was an actually good condition road. Still fails, especially since it sounds like Jersey fucking drains huge amounts of money in every direction. (NC level sales tax and *those* property taxes *and* tolls on a major highway? Where does all that money go? Mom's comment was "Mob." I think.)
Naturally we got lost again like three miles from Meeple's house. People ain't kidding about Jersey road signs. They really are not. It was also partially Googlemaps fault(See that thing about slight turns...).
Finally make it to Meeple's house. Meeple's house/neighborhood is about as I envisioned it, somehow. Too bad I didn't get to talk to his parents at all, though it felt like they were just this side of tolerating the massive bunch of loud young adults and stayed away from us as much as possible.
Naturally I walked downstairs into complete trainwreck as people were playing Castlevania Judgment and mocking the hell of it. Yeah, this is a RPGDL meeting alright.
Managed to play a bunch of that, I think I was the one that figured out that Maria can floodspam everything into ridiculous joke levels. >_>
Also got to play Apples. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY REGRET FROM DLC2 OVER. It is fun fun. Arkham wasn't there yet.
Played Smash. Which is normal for the DL. Did...remarkably well to the point where I thiiiiiiiink people started gang smashing me because half the time I'd win even with my poorer characters if they didn't. >_> I think it's because I'm a jerk in team matches and won't die. Time's my worse format, too.
Probably forgetting some stuff here, the middle of most of the days was a happy blur to a degree.
Anyways, made it back to Sopko's. Instantly crashed as I was exhausted. Actually slept reasonable amounts! Like six hours. Wait, that's not that reasonable.
Friday:
I remember less about this day than the others, I think.
Met Soppy's mom, Janice(I hope I recall her name right. I didn't think to properly introduce myself until the last day. Which was embaressing, though better than not doing it at all.). Cool lady, very nice about people staying there. Drinks substantially more coffee than I. Has a dog that reminds me of a border collie stuffed into half the space for personality, with the added relative energy that that implies. I had exactly one bag that he could have gotten into and he did. Not for very long, since it was just filled with dirty clothes and was just a plastic trash bag for sorting simplicity. That came later though.
Soppy's house is actually in a really nice spot. Has a view of a lake and generally was less built up than Wayne. Nice place in general. Inside of the house is actually as cluttered as mine though. I feel better.
Activities...IIRC I played a lot of Smash most of the day. Which, for most people, must have been old hat. For me it was playing a fighting game I hadn't played in two years with a bunch of friends. This is awesome.
Music quiz...I did like twice as well as DLC2 because I got into the mental zone I need to actually remember songs and as such did things like somehow beating people to a frigging FF7 song(I am not the biggest FF7 fan for OST). Five is pretty damn good for me and made me very happy.
I never could get in on a game of Arkham. Never. The entire con. This felt like a running gag. I even ended up napping on the couch on the last full day because everyone else at Soppy's was in the game but me. ._. Oh well, I'll get in on an online game or something.
Mall was mall. I enjoyed it in the sense that it's been ages since I've wandered around a mall and even more ages since one so big-I like big malls. But I didn't find any games for myself, too cheap and too many piracy tools to. (In retrospect, I actually should have picked up Orange Box, but I still think I can get that cheaper online. I do actually have the money left over for it even at 30$, which stuns me as I came in with just under 100$.) Sadly food court showed the largest inflation from NC to NJ, as picking up Taco Bell cost like 33% more.
Got the biggest drink ever, after someone else(Dhyer?) mentioned that one of the places, Hardee's I think, had a stupidly large medium. I ended up going around the entire food court looking for root beer, getting it there, and getting a large that is probably bigger than most extra largest. I love large drinks and drunk it in nearly the same time as I ate my food~
Cheesecake Factory rocked. I almost was too stingy to get a desert. I would have been terribly regretful of this, as the cheesecake I had is the best desert I'd had in memory. Mmmm Kaluha coffee cocoa, I think it was. I don't think I've ever had a sugar rush wake me up before. I don't think I've had coffee do it as tired as I was there, for that matter. It was impressive. Naturally I was a hummingbird for a while~
Also I think I was like one of two or three people to get through their desert. >_>
I think that's all the pertinent stuff for Friday.
Saturday:
Fighting game tournament! Had been looking forward to this a completely ridiculous amount, because I was hoping to get my ass kicked by people, as while I'm naturally good at games in general, I had no experience in any of these. Was surprised by how I did on so many levels.
First, Fantasia. This didn't surprise me too much, my best advantage is how well I do in games I just pick up blind and play. I saw Olivia being played, went "Oh, Sakura-like shoto, minus fireball and plus dash thing. With pokes. This looks awesome." and picked her up. The fact that she's a pretty pretty princess obviously had absolutely nothing to do with it. Nope.
Anyways, was stunned by how much fun the game was and was to watch though. Very remarkably decent balance on the surface at least, balanced around a lot of 50-50ish intros on people via having low long range damage and high close range combo damage in general. Basically you can play safe or you can play risky. It's actually a neat design, at least superficially. God knows how it is on high end.
Didn't really have much trouble until Shale, IIRC? I could be recalling wrong, I seem to recall an...Urs? giving me some trouble in the semis right beforehand. The fight with Shale was fucking awesome, Shale really had learned Deathbringer well and Olivia, who relies on moderately ranged pokes, has a hell of a time getting in on him. Does a lot of damage if she can, Heat Up does like 400 damage on simple pokes or something crazy because Deathbringer is the size of a semi and takes more damage from stuff(His HP is misleading. He takes hits gamebest, but it's clearly not 60% over average gamebest.). Shale was just killer with his zoning stuff though. So much fun as a fight.
Then came Hatbot's rape rape rape. I got called to do BB against Andrew as my *opt-in* match, then SF4 against Meeple first round.
Both of these people went on to win their respective tournaments in that game. I still like to think I could have put up a better fight in BB, I was doing remarkably okay the night before when Andrew, Soppy and I were mucking with it, but for some damn reason I never got a qcb to come out.
In and of it's self, losing that move is bad enough, George the Thirteenth is incredibly good Rachel zoning, but the fluster that came with it was far worse. I didn't do hideously, but that was mostly because I started pulling out some ridiculously confusing stuff in an effort to make up and I just didn't manage to do well.
This alone would have been bad enough to make me lose to Meeple, but I suffered my second shock; Ryu's hit areas are pretty different from SF2 and Chun lacks a lot of the air priority I'm used to. I should have just went with a shoto, logically, but I don't really like shotos that much. Oh well. Depressing Hatbot rape.
However, I can't complain, as I didn't really play either game and I did very well on the other two.
SC4 I basically pulled out my old non-specific modified button mash skills with Siggy and got to the finals with them. Somehow. Against people that actually played even, I think? Then CK won. I don't get SC4's tourney. It was weird. But awesome. In later mucking, I think I probably should have risked using Amy, as she is really excellent and I was doing really well with the faster than hell pokes and overheads and the like. Ah well, I can't complain.
Also very, very stunned that I did as well as I did in Brawl. I lost to Zenny but I made it a better match than I did with Elfboy in Melee despite Zenny being comparably good in Brawl as Elfboy was in Smash, I think, and only a stupid SD made the Tal match not pretty awesomely close as well(though I think I'd have lost that too). Zenny went on to win, so basically I always lost to the champs, which also makes me very happy. Just flabbergasted, though, I expected to be one of the worse Smash players, as we have so many people that play it a ton, and I uh don't. Second overall in the tournaments and a first and a second place in two of them=Very very happy all in all. Just, screw you Hatbot.
Bowling was also really awesome. I did 30 points better than last year in a hilarious fashion where I did things like bowled 1-/-1/strike/7Spare or something like that. It was so much better than last time for awesomeness. Also sorta getting the idea of how to bowl down. I also got to see Sopko make insane comeback of doom. Then choke on it, which kept him from beating Tal. Poor Soppy.
Wandering around the strip mall was oddly fun. Also I didn't expect a cheese steak place to make such a good veggie sub. Seriously, I think that was the best dinner I had the entire trip.
Sunday:
Mostly uneventful. Soppy slept until like 11, and I had to head back at 1 or so, so I didn't get much time to hang out. Did get a bunch of time to hang out with Grefter(Got that a lot, actually, Grefter is really cool and has awesome music taste. I need to listen to all these CDs he's burned me. Too bad the FO copies don't work and the BG stuff didn't work out, but I have a hell of a lot harder time finding music than games. I already have the BG2/ToB copies and am torrenting FO1 today.), though, so it's not a complaint or anything.
Trip back was pretty good. Xer's dad had evidently found a way to go around DC. This is the final and most impressive way that Googlemaps fails, it thought that going through downtown fucking Washington DC was faster than going around it. What the fuck? I mean. Really. What?
Anyways, outside of rain for a bit of intensity that I rarely see up here(And here is, you know, like over 70 inches of rain), which was weirding, and some hilarious traffic(Well, hilarious to me, not to anyone else...) that was there for.....evidently no reason, just...slow....yeah. Not a bad trip back at all.
Ate dinner at Xer's parents place. Good dinner and got to meet his sister, who is basically the cliche way I always wanted a little sister to be(Ultra energetic and vaguely nerdish.). Naturally she annoys the hell out of everyone else. <_<
Went back to Xer's place, played ESP Galuda(Which was fun, even if I didn't exactly have any hax after that much tiring trip/fun stuff/etc.) and chatted and got four hours sleep.
Earlier post sums up Monday well enough, despite being less coherent than if I wrote it now. Just yeah, take my advice, if you get stuck doing some kind of weird-ass transfer chain that wasn't planned, find other people in the same situation that look talk-to-able and stick to them. And burn my brother.
People notes:
Meeple: Seems more calm and happy, but he's at home so that doesn't necessarily count. (Also most people were in general less stressed seeming.) Otherwise it's Meeple. I mean, come on. He doesn't change. Well, no, actually, thinking on it, he was easier to understand this time than DLC2.
super: Pretty sure he's lost a decent amount of weight, which is cool. Also seemed less snarky, which makes sense considering online lately but is a shock in person. Just less though. I mean, he was making sarcastic comments more than most two people instead of most three~
Cmdr: Again much less stressed. Can't see how he could fail to me, since he had to go less distance(And he couldn't fail to go less distance either.) than at 2. ACTUALLY TALKED SOME. YAY!
Metroid: Is a foot and a half away from being a little girl. Much closer than last time, I'm sure this will be later improved on.
Gate: Somehow didn't get to see as much of him as at 2, and he seemed a little less active(Thinking on it though he had a farther trip this time himself.). Is awesome for how he squashed Meeple's brother's sillyassery during the tourney.
Xer: Is pretty damn cool when he's not worrying about offending people by misspeaking. Aspergers sucks ass. I felt for him every time he'd get mad at himself for a simple misspeaking.
Shale: Is still Shale, is still awesome, was not notably different. I talked to him a bit less this time, but yeah.
OK: Does what OK does. Actually seemed less wired up, I think he must have been under much more stress at 2 than now, which makes sense from what I can recall. Really, many people seemed more relaxed this time.
Soppy: Really even keeled, quiet-but-not-hideously person, neat to be around. Also is the reason I was able to make it at all which is awesome.
Tonfa: Has the sexiest accent in the DL, although Grefter's is a close second. Tonfa just being Tonfa is also just somehow more badass in person, I don't understand it. Maybe it's the fact that he's cheesy. <_< >_> Is exactly what I expected, except in appearance. I kept thinking surfer dude for appearance when I met him. It was awesome and I can tease him with it if I ever feel like lowering my own dignity by doing so~
Nitori: Did not spin, but did tilde. Is too quiet, we need to forcefeed him one of those pieces of cheesecake next time, that should do it. Sorry I never got around to playing Melty, there just weren't enough hours and it somehow never happened. ;_;
Notmiki: Seemed around what I expected, although I didn't actually get to talk to him much. Pity. Oh well, 28 people is a lot of people, and IIRC he got in later than most.
Niu: Still has the awesome wailing powers. Didn't get to talk to him much this time, he seems about as insane as usual though~
Djinn: You know, I think the reason he comes across oddly online is because of the time spent in japan; I've noticed that japanese language structure, even well translated, sometimes comes across a little overly formal often, and Djinn's completely ridiculously laidback yet comes across a little oddly formal on paper. It may be due to being used to using both languages a lot? I dunno, it's a thought. Or I could just be completely wrong. Which is to say in person he's probably as cheerful as I am. Also the bastard walked up to me and rickrolled me. >_>
Dhyer: Didn't get much of a chance to talk to him either. ._. Ah well, I did hang out with him some at the Cheesecake place IIRC? He hasn't changed much from last time~
Zenny: Probably even less snarky and more laid back than at DLC2. It's neat.
Pyro: Sadly didn't get to talk to him much, he seemed a lot more laid back in person than online and generally interesting to be around, but just didn't get much time in the same circles. Again, 28 people is a lot.
Grefter: Spent a lot of time with him. Again, second most sexy accent in the DL, incredibly interested in music to a level that doesn't even come across online(Yes, he comes across interested, but in person it really hits home that he cares more about music than games.), gave me tons of cool music that I still haven't listened to because I want to be in non-burnout mode before I listen to it. Actually a lot happier/non-angry in person than you'd think, although it doesn't really surprise me somehow.
Ciato: Is Ciato. Not noticably different from last DLC(Except that I want to say she's lost weight. But I'm not sure. Two years is a long time.).
Fnorder: Never saw him. ;_; Damn timing!
Tai: Had a taigraine the entire time evidently, didn't get to talk to him much, actually missed this fact until I was told it. ;_; Damn obliviousness. I will get that damned mod working for you somehow, though.
Tal: Mmmm...about like I expected, pretty...I don't know, normal for the kind of nerdy person that's at the DL, if that makes any sense. And it doesn't. Didn't stand out as hyper or overly emotional or as different from my expectations or anything like that, just is a normal Tal. I know this doesn't make any sense, and none of the DL is exactly bland or boring so that's not what I'm saying at all there. I'm just not sure how to put it better.
Andrew: Is moderately happy and peppy without being bouncing off the walls like say Djinn and I. Generally a person with a wide range of obviously shown emotions, very open and fun to be around.
Lady: Is the most normal person in the DL, hands down. Hell, she could walk by anywhere and wouldn't look out of place! She doesn't even seem nerdy at a glance! It's incredible! Stunning as hell, I tells you. Seriously, pretty cool person.
Elfboy: Sadly didn't get much time with him, which is sad as he seemed a lot more energetic this time despite just having gotten there. Ah well, there's always another con.
Jeff: Meeple's little brother is a lot like Meeple... except you know how Meeple once in a great while gets this way where he gets into rant mode and starts getting slightly angry sounding and rants about triple speed and it's about something weird and you're wondering why, like, say, a Hatbot roll or something? Yeah, Jeff's like that all the time. It's tiring.
Mandy: Is awesome and I didn't even hear her shrieking ToV quotes.
I think that's all of it, or at least enough of it. If I missed anyone, I apologize, I'm still a little on the burnt out side still.
