Bcak from CPC2 -- Home Sweet Home

CPC2 is over! I feel sad and relieved at the same time. I haven't slept well in 6 days, my stomach is one big mess and I'm out of money, but, on the other hand, CPC2 was one-of-a-kind experience: I didn't want it to end.

When I wrote my previous journal, the third day of CPC2 was just starting. The group stage had ended, and the playoffs were starting. I didn't have any games left as ALIS lost in the group stage, so I brought some refreshments with me to raise my spirit: two pocket flasks of pure vodka and a bottle of salmiac flavored vodka. Cheaper than buying beer all the time from the counter.

Anyway, Polar had already been dropped out by Vicious and Evil last night. TLR was looking really strong in the LAN, playing relaxed: they pushed both Impact and Dignitas to losers bracket. Probably the biggest upset of the whole lan followed, when Impact faced Dignitas in the losers bracket's final: after winning convincingly in Bremen and setting a time of 3:21 Dignitas crumbled, and Impact advanced to the final. I'm still pissed my camera ran out of battery right when Impact won the decider map, I didn't get their reaction on tape. Needless to say it was quite enthusiastic, everyone jumping up from their seats.

TLR faced Impact in the final. The setup for the final was simply awesome: everyone got tickets, and we watched the game upstairs in one of the cinemas. Even though my main camera had died, I managed to get a few pics with my cellphone. We had a nice welcome screen in the cinema, although Herbal enhanced it a bit, when Tosspot briefly went downstairs to check on something:


Audience:


Ronner, glued to the canvas:


The final game itself was a bit of a letdown, being so clearly TLR's. Impact made a nice hold around the truck in goldrush, but the final wasn't overly exciting. Some individual performances got people cheering, though. Even so, Raveneye didn't look too unhappy about the situation, as can be seen from this sneaky picture:


There was a prize ceremony later on the night. Ron got some award from being a good loser (and even stole Mav's award!). I took this goofy picture of him wearing the prize-beanie:


Can't remember what Mav's award was, but it must've been the "Best T-Shirt Award":



Even though the LAN was about gaming, it was only a part of the whole experience. Meeting the people behind the nicks was enlightening. I, for example, learned, that Mystic somehow has the ability to make everything sound ridiculously funny, when he says things in his matter-of-fact kind of voice. I'll try to recap some of the situations.

On the first day we were leaving from CineStar center. It was really hot outside, like 27 degrees. After about one hundred meters of driving, Mystic says from the back seat: "It's a good thing that all the windows are open, so it's not hot inside." After a brief moment everyone starts yelling: "Stop! Stop! STOP THE CAR!" and Evo is like: "Wtf is going on?" Then we look backwards and notice, that the trunk of our van is wide open, with all our luggage a few inches away from being scattered all over the driveway...

Another moment of pure comedy was, when we were discussing our strategy for the night on the evening of the second day. Impact guys had ET Masters final coming up on the following morning, so they couldn't get totally wasted. They agreed on drinking three beers. Then Mystic bluntly states: "Yes. Three at most." and adds with a thirsty look on his face: "Or a maximum of four." We just cracked. I can't even remember how many times I've heard the sentence since. Like Ronner said, give Mystic a beer and he'll do anything.


Oh well, all kinds of things happened. We totally screwed up this morning, people just refusing to wake up. Yesterday night we visited the remaining guys at their cabins in the university, drank some beers, smoked some weed and just hung around. Got back to our apartment at around 3 am, most of us being in a pretty good tumu. Four people set their alarm clocks, but no-one managed to get up on the morning! At around 6:30 I woke up and realized, that we're totally fucked: it's about 200 kilometers to Bremen and the check in closes 40 minutes before the flight leaves. O noz. So we had less than 3 hours to pack our bags, check out from the hotel and drive to the airport. Evo was really pushing the MB Vito he had rented, going about 180 km/h on the highways.

Then the funniest thing happened: at around 8:50 I called to Decem to see if he could talk to the airport personel and say that we might be late. He just answered, that they were packing their bags right now and might not make it either! All of the Finnish travellers being late from the same flight, gg. Anyway, we got to the airport at around 9:10, ran inside and checked in at 9:18, two minutes before the deadline. Not even close, we could've slept two minutes longer... After 10 minutes I get a call from Decem, who says they didn't make it. I look back, and there they are, behind the check in counter looking misrable. I just lol'd and took a picture of them.


I'm feeling tired of writing now, gotta get some sleep. I've got around 10 GB of videos and pictures from the LAN on one of eVo's laptops... I have to dig in to see if there is anything worth sharing with the scene. Let's hope I actually got some footage of teKoa dancing: I've been teasing him for the whole LAN about the clip going to YouTube, would be a shame to eat my words now...

Cheers guys, it was a good event. See you on CPC3 -- I'm coming, as long as the bar is open!

-Gaso