So I spent Saturday at the local gaming club’s LAN party. From noon Saturday until noon Sunday. OK, I didn’t make it until noon Sunday. I left at 6am. I guess I’m getting old.
I had another reason to think I’m getting old at the LAN party. Dell was there with some college gaming league thing and if you signed up they gave you a tshirt and some other swag. As part of the sign up they wanted my birthday. It was then that I knew I was old. Why? Because the years on the form didn’t go back far enough for me to enter my year of birth…
The lan party was pretty fun other than that. I played in a DotA tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Call of Duty 4 tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Counter-Strike: Source tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Team Fortress 2 tournament and …actually won. I got lucky enough to be on a team with someone who was really really good and we mopped the floor with everyone. I also won a videocard in a drawing. It is a pci-express card and my motherboard only has agp.
However, it turns out that when I got hom and set my computer up again it didn’t start for some reason. So I guess I’m going to be putting that videocard to use sooner than I anticipated if I can’t get my current system back up and running (I booted into vista using my second hard drive but even if the main drive is plugged in the system won’t boot. It is SATA though so once booted into Vista and I plug it in the drive shows up so I was able to get my documents off it so that is a sign that it might be fixable. However, the bios is acting weird so I don’t know if I trust it or not).
Anyway… it was some good videogame culture and a good time all around.
I didn’t do any interviews or anything but it was some good old fashioned ethnographic participant/observation.