Note: This is posted here because I had all kinds of trouble posting the HTML laden "essay" into my 2old2play blog.  I'd love your comments, though, so after you read this, go post your comment on my "Chicago LAN - part II" blog at http://www.2old2play.com/blog-1935-1900.html

Chicago LAN 2006 - my quick thoughts

I arrived in Chicago with a bit of trepidation, not knowing what to expect. My first LAN of more than 5 people, the voices in my head would never match up to reality I figured. And, correctly so - but, never fear, the voices now have bodies and all is well on the Lake Michigan front.

It's true, I had no clue what to expect and typically, that can lead to a small amount of anxiety. The one thing I knew was that I'd play video games. The one thing I didn't know was that video games would not be the highlight of the weekend. When I arrived in Chi-town, I took the bus to the hotel and promptly met the organizer, then helped out a bit in setting up the room (lesson learned: find out exactly how much power you can run to the room BEFORE setting up 30+ TVs and XBoxes!). Then, the real fun began: meeting people and trying to place a voice to a face. In Halo, pretty much everyone looks the same. But then in real life, I'm all of a sudden trying to compare a Red Spartan to a 5'3" blonde girl, or to a 6'4" giant dude with a goatee - a bit disturbing for my ol' noggin, I must say. Yet, despite that, the personalities I grew to love online quickly showed through in real life. People may sometimes be freer in their talk online, but I've learned that it's still their true selves shining through. XBL is like drinking: it just lowers your inhibitions.

And so, in a 4 day period, I ended up playing all of 2 hours of games. Why? I was too busy hanging out with my virtual buddies! We laughed, we cried, we even sang a little. We played pool, we made fun of the water sprinklers, and we rode the train. And, to me, that's what it was all about: friendships.

I'd definitely go back, and I'd definitely recommend it to a friend. My name is tait and I'm a LAN-a-holic.

FRIDAY - downtown Chicago - http://2o2p.taitlifto.net/chicagoLAN.html:

My best friend came to Chicago with me, gamertag "scotib", and we decided on Friday to go downtown and see what Chicago had to offer.  On our way out, we ran into "BigOne" and his wife ("The Librarian") and invited them along.  Strangely, despite our appearance, they said yes.  We grabbed the shuttle from the hotel to Chicago O'Hare, then stumbled around through multiple turns, stairs and elevators until we found a healthy line to buy a one day traveler's pass for the strangely colored public transportation in Chicago (CTA, which stands for Chicago Transit Authority.  It turns out that if you throw on the word "Authority" people suddenly take you seriously.  My new name is Tait Authority, for those of you keeping score at home).  After finally securing seats on the Blue Line between "smelly chicago" and "stinky chicago" (what in the heck is that smell?  It's freaking everywhere!), we quickly discovered that Chi-town has it's own Harlem, maybe 3 or 4 stops south of O'Hare.  We didn't get out, but we did note it looked more like an Anti-Harlem than anything.  The CVS on the corner looked inviting.

During this train ride is when I learned and discovered out loud about reading shoulders.  We rode backwards on the trip to Chicago with BigOne and his wife in front of Scot and I, so my only feedback on my "observational humor" (or, "crazy mutterings and erratic behavior" - your call) was when their shoulders shook.  I determined that the shoulder-signal was either laughter or crying.  I chose laughter.  If they were crying, they hid the tears well.

Struggling with our stop options, we eventually got out near a giant Picasso sculpture and made our way East towards Lake Michigan where we encountered Millennium Park.  Now, I had never encountered this park before or even heard of it and for good reason - it's new.  Chicago apparantly at one time set aside approximately 26 acres of prime lake-front property to use as a public park.  At the northern end of this park, they've added some pretty cool stuff like this giant, jelly-bean shaped metal, reflective blob, a huge concert lawn (the Great Lawn, I think it's called), and these freaky video walls that spit water (!?!).  Here's a pic of the metal blob thingie:     

      

After taking a bunch of pics, we grabbed a free Trolley to "Tall Ships", which is a once-in-awhile (last one was 3 years ago) thing that happens one week in Chicago where they bring in a bunch of, well, tall ships - you know, the old-school ships with giant masts and sails and stuff.  They were pretty cool and led to a fruitless search for eye-patches to wear back to the LAN, although we did secure a temporary tattoo for BigOne's wife.

It was at some point during this excursion (I'm leaving out all the details because you had to be there to enjoy it, but basically we walked around looking at ships over a lot of waterfront for several hours) that I mentioned something I'd seen on TV that very morning while getting ready to go out:  Butt-Sketching.  There was a Butt Sketcher on local news showing off his craft.  What was funny, though, was that BigOne couldn't grasp the concept and after a moment of rapid brain activity, gave me a quizicle look and asked, "Do they really sketch with their butt?".  If I wasn't laughing hard enough at the question, his interpretation of what a butt-sketch artist would look like was hilarious (for the record, butt-sketch artists actually sketch full length charcoal drawings of people from behind - go to www.buttsketch.com for more info).

Here's some random words just for the 4 of us:  butt-sketch, pirate patch, that spray of water while eating, getting a picture with a pirate, posing on the dock by the no-no pictures, Coach/Koach bag shopping, pricing things with $.95 at the end ($12 is just too much, but $11.95... Oh yeah!), children's museum of bathrooms, "____ will be here in just a minute" (stupid Chili's waitress!  Where's my tequila?), being hopped up on Coke, the infamous Beer Garden, getting a margarita, fun-house mirrors, "Ship Faced", Bootie Light, White Harlem, CVS/Walgreens, "Ears Tower", elephant ears, condom-tagging (and releasing back into the wild), "I'm the Librarian, Bee-otch!", fun-house mirrors, asking me if it's "gay" to know that much about purses, playing XBox with Bob Newhart, and (of course) wishing BigOne was bigger (from the Librarian herself).  Yes, those are inside jokes - BigOne, the Librarian, and scotib will appreciate them.

So, after a fun day in the sun (and some of us were burned to a crisp), we hopped a water taxi over close to Union station and hiked another city block to Sears Tower.  We got to go down in an elevator to the basement, wait in line, buy a ticket, go in a room and watch the History channel documentary on the Sears Tower (what the--- did they just hook up a Tivo to their cable box?  No original material?), waited in line, trapped BigOne in the revolving door, got in a sardine can (ie, elevator) and shot up to the 103rd floor where we saw incredible vistas and a bird.  It was a perfect day without a cloud in the sky, so we could easily see in all directions.  The city of Chicago sure looks different from up there - you can almost imagine that it's clean and spring-fresh.  And short.  It's not any of those things, but it is big.

Then it's time for the trip back and it's 5 o'clock.  On a Friday.  That's some good planning on our parts, huh?  Rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon on the train to the airport - smart thinking.  Yup, we got to stand elbow to stomach on the train in 140 degree heat (well, maybe not that hot, but it sure was warm) counting down the stops.  But, we did eventually make it to the airport where we saw Torture77 and his crew who had just come back from Wrigley field and we hopped the shuttle back to the hotel.  Quick rest break, and we're back out - this time with a whole gang going out for pizza.

Pizza - we had 8 people (me, scotib, DanLecrinque, 140, The Librarian, BigOne (who ironically doesn't take up that much room), XSSmoke, and Eksessive) crammed into BigOne's vehicle - the only way we could all fit was that one of those people was Raste, who's new name is now "140".  His frame easily fit in-between insert-anyone-except-MikeJames-names-here.  Now, going into this, we had no idea that the trip to Gino's East would last for close to 3 hours, but that's what happened.  The service was lacking, but the food delicious.  Now, when in Chicago getting the 45 pound deep-dish (that's large, baby!), count how many people are actually participating before ordering.  While I'm thinking 2 large pizzas is good for 8 people, a few of our company wanted to go out on their own.  Eksessive and Scotib both got their own medium thin-crust pizzas that could both feed a small polar bear (or MikeJames) by themselves, and I'm pretty sure XSSmoke ordered the homo-platter (with salad and a small purse, if I remember) and then promptly tried to pay for it in (G)old (WoW loser!).  Needless to say, we had an entire pizza left-over and the thing weighed a freaking ton - crazy stuff.  We had a fridge in our room (turns out only 8 rooms at that hotel have fridges) but the pizza wouldn't fit unless it was verticle.  Yes, there was a puddle of grease at the bottom of the fridge in the morning - you know, that orangish, glistening pizza grease.  Yum!

Saturday

Laughter - that defines this day for the most part.  I laughed so freaking hard, mostly with BigOne - dude, that guy can toss back Coca-Cola like there's no tomorrow (and maybe there's not).  While I did game for a bit, I probably only played for 2 hours total all day.  The rest of the time was spent hanging with people at various places including the bar, the downstairs lobby, in hallways, at the pool table, at Chili's and wherever else time took me.  It was a blast, and I'm at a loss for words - there were too many people involved in my life on Saturday to count, except in the Shout-Outs below, but special thanks for the 2:30 am couch sit with the Librarian, BigOne and Grim Reaper laughing our ass off at stupid stuff (to be honest, I don't even remember where we came up with the "Librarian" as a nickname - can anyone remind me?).  I wish I could say more about Saturday, but ironically, it was such a great day I can't even talk about it.  My muscles actually physically hurt from laughing so hard, though.  Oh, and special thanks to the 10 people that came by and polished off the Chinese food and Rum  :-)

Sunday

11 of us went to IHOP and got to see Em order a MikeJames sized bowls of cream and sugar for her coffee.  I got to experience nap-time in the presence of Gaius Caesar and found out just how exciting O'Hare is when your flight gets delayed for 3 hours.  Oh, and how exciting DFW airport is at 1:30 in the morning with a flat tire on the car.  Really, Sunday is a blur - I laughed, I'm sure, but I also was like a zombie just barely moving around.

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Shout-Outs

Check out the pictures I posted (not all the ones I took, but probably the best of the bunch) at:

http://2o2p.taitlifto.net/chicagoLAN.html

Peace out,

tait 

PS: I'd love your comments, so after you read this, go post your comment on my "Chicago LAN - part II" blog at http://www.2old2play.com/blog-1935-1900.html

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