I thought the whole thing would be a wash when over half the group I
put together to compete dropped out, but heck if it didn't work out in the end.
Myself,
SwayDude and another friend managed to pop by Friday, late (due to
last-day prep issues) and stage in around 5PM-ish. My design entry
actually DIED during set-up. "Car-Ride death" was the best diagnosis.
Performance Build stayed up and ran like a champ. We missed most of the
swag, but I got some cool decals from the Antec booth, nothing from the
crucial booth except a pat on the back and well wishes. I actually went
home Friday disappointed and not a little angry at the dead system.
(2-3 year old socket 939 mobo SLI rig.) Got a few rounds of CS:S in, but mainly ended up being a pick-up game target for the teams that were practicing for the big competitions! The guys that are competing are GOOD -.-
Saturday morning I woke
up early and proceeded to rip the guts out of the Design rig and
replace with a old Crossfire test rig I had on the bench. Lots of
grumbling as I had to cut zip-ties and unmount-remount, then re-zip
everything up, then test on the bench and burn-in for a half an hour
while I showered and got show-ready. SwayDude decided to only get a
general admission, and had work so he ditched but met up later. JayJay
my other friend was registered so we met up around noon and staged in
again with the rebuilt design rig. All went swimmingly and SwayDude
even met up briefly w/ sammiches for all courtesy of Lee's Sandwiches
in Alhambra. While SwayDude and JayJay went out and played the floor
like schwaghounds, I focused on tuning my Performance build and taking a
few compliments from PMS-clan girls regarding my Design build. I saw
the competition and pretty much decided I wouldn't even place for
design, but was pretty confident in my performance build. My buddies
JayJay and Swaydude went back to their real lives early around 8ish,
but I stayed to get some game in and bring the EggXpert spirit to the
BYOC floor.
Key memories: The 2nd Place in Performance guy and I swapped a LOT of overclocking tips. Trying out the Crysis Demo on the NVidia/BFG Booth. The only other set of Dual Ultras you could see at the show... looked GREAT in 1280x1024... but when I tweaked up to 1600.. kinda lagged... hope they fix this!
The
power block feeding network for the table/row in front of me died,
between myself and a table-load of BYOC'ers we had power temporarily
rerouted and network up in less than a minute. I reported the
deficiency to the non-newegg staff, but they were pretty blase about
the whole thing. CSC event staff was really on the ball and had a guy
out to check, but after mentioning he had to "change the line for the
entire row" he left. One of the AWESOME newegg ladies came by to make
sure it was being dealt with, when I mentioned the CSC guy's in and
out, she left in a huff, and the CSC guy was back within 15 mins with a
fresh power block. During a lull in the gaming at around 2AM I quietly
swapped the data switch back to the new working block and fed the power
strips back to where they should go.
Around 1:00 AM was when I
did my photo-rounds of the busy, yet quiet and peaceful show floor.
Found another LANFest-er who had snagged a QX6600 CPU but had no tools,
a little rummaging in my kit and his neighbors later, we had homie up
and running (albeit with a stock cooler.. WTH?!) Glad I brought a
flashlight! Photos for LANFest and CAGG Labs can be seen at my Photobucket.
Sunday was the Big Day. It passed by in a blur of
Gatorade, tuning specs, and socializing. I met all the COOLEST industry
folks Sunday, and managed to get some real cool experiences in.
Lowlights: being called out by the crowd for the push-up contest for the $1000 case (I got the announcer back later).
Highlights: Meeting the NVidia rep and the 15 mins he spent to chat with me!
(FINALLY) Meeting the EGGXPERT folks and their boss! Way-Cool people all around!
Meeting
the Antec rep who hooked me up with some LED fans "The way you have
that laid out is awesome... but your DIMM's arn't cooled. Here take
this."
Met a fellow P180 owner who wanted some help w/ planning
some more nonstandard fan placements. Whipped out the trusty two-sided
tape and helped homie out.
WINNING THE BUILD CONTESTS!!! I have
*NO* idea what happened, but I think everyone dropped out once they saw
who was competing in design, but when judging came around, it was me
and the two fancy cases. I gave the crowd a sob story about the origins
of the clear case and neon lights (I built it for my ex and she dumped
me.. but I kept the PC!) I got the announcer back for the call-out when
he asked me how excited I was to be winning 2 8800 GTX's a 850W
Rosewill PSU a Seagate 750GB 7200rpm and a Rosewill gigabit NIC. "Eh,
I'm not excted at all. The system I won with is faster..." (SILENT
CROWD)
Lowlight: does anyone remember back-hair boy, pwned by the PMS
clan? Walked around shirtless with corsair stickers on his nipples, an
Antec sticker on his forehead, and makeup on for an hour or so.. never
found out what he did that to get. Background on that, the PMS clan girls at the Patriot booth were doing a "GET PWNED BY PMS CLAN AND GET A PRIZE" contest. I
think he tried to beat one of them at a few rounds of whatever they
were demoing... and he got the snot beat out of him. He still got his
prize but the price was... HUMILIATION. :D
The End Ceremony was cool, the LANFest tournament winners were all awarded their prizes to much acclaim, and more free stuff was handed out to the crowd!
Saying goodbye to LANFest was hard, but I made a lot of cool new friends and I'm already looking forward to the next one! :D
Key quotes:
"HOLY C**P! HOW DID YOU GET THAT 3DMARK SCORE? Oh. Ultras."
-Show Judge during Performance Mod Contest Scoring.
"HOW much was this build?"
"About $3k"
"ONLY?!"
"Newegg <3."
-Show staff, assisting with Judging, and me.
"They're giving out QX CPU's like candy!"
-JayJay, my buddy who I got to enter my design entry, commenting about giveaways
"What are you gonna name the neon case?"
"Rainbow Warrior."
"That's gay dude."
"YOU'RE entering it for me :D"
"JERK."
-JayJay and Myself (He left so I had to get judged by myself, so he got the last laugh.)
"Did that AMD Rep Mario just throw a 150GB 10K Raptor like 30 feet into the air?"
"Yup."
"What's he trying to do, cripple someone?"
"Dunno, but it hit the 3D-Vid Booth Frame before someone caught it, thank gawd."
"That's CRAZY."
"Yeah man I dunno if he can RMA that... what a waste of a drive..."
-Random dude and myself watching Mario the Crazy AMD Rep do his Crazy Dance a-la Steve Ballmer (DEVELOPERS!)
"That's the 3rd knockdown I've seen... what are they giving away now?"
"Microsoft explorer mice..."
"Hell of a reason to get crippled for..."
-Same random dude and I about the giveaway stampede
"I
built this PC for my g/f... then she broke up with me, but I kept it
cuz it's still a good PC!" -My sob story behind my design entry, on
stage during the design judging.
"HOLD ON TO YOUR BALLS. PLEASE STOP THROWING YOUR BALLS AROUND!"
-Announcer
in response to the wild spree of ball-throwing once Aegia and ABit have
out blow-up plastic beach balls and red foam squishies, causing the
crowd to erupt in a frenzy of ball-throwing.
"ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT WINNING ALL THESE PRIZES? HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PUT THEM IN YOUR COMPUTER?!"
"I'm not. The one I won with is already faster than these parts..."
(AWKWARD SILENCE)
-Me and the announcer, during Performance Award ceremony on stage.
Finally: There was too much to do, and so many people it got WARM on the show floor, but I don't recall getting sweaty. Must've been the lack of food and
constant Gatorade-pounding. And peeing. I made like 15 trips to the
bathroom :p >.<
Liquids consumed while at or going to/from LANFest 2K7:
12 1.5L assorted flavor Gatorade
1 16 fl oz bottled water
3 20 fl oz Mugs home-brewed coffee
2 16 fl oz Monster Energy Drink
2 red bulls
1 10 fl oz (Stolichnaya) vodka tonic (Friday consolation dinner over design entry dying)
(1/2) 8 fl oz bottle hot sake (dinner w/ Swaydude Sunday night celebrating my victorious conquests)
1 12 oz glass of boiled tap water Sunday night because alcohol dehydrates me :I
"Boy are my kidneys tired!"
Wow, what an event. I'll try to link to Pics later, and maybe edit this to be a little more coherent... but for now I'm sad it's all over and just memories.. see everyone Next Year!
Update: Pics are up! On my Photobucket! Pages 2 and 3 mainly...