Go Tim, Go!
I don’t know if you knew this, but my brother is taking part in Ironman Coeur d’Alene. He’s doing pretty good. So, here’s how you can help him out: http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/cdairon13/thoff.
He has raised: $4,581.16. His goal is: $5,950.00. This means he’s raised 77% of his goal. The race is very shortly, so you don’t have much time to help him out. He’s raising money as part of Team In Training for Blood Cancers.
So, Tim, here’s sis doing her part to spread the word. Good Luck to you. Kick some Ironman Tail!!!
Rizing Up Against Violence, In Any Form!
Hey again all! This weekend, there is another Rize Up Gaming Marathon going on. This time, we are raising money for the Red Cross and for Boston Relief. Come by and donate, if you can. Emptyeye may have already played, but there are plenty of Streaming Shenanigans going on over the next few days. http://www.twitch.tv/rizeupgaming/
Shame On You, Chickadee!!!
So, it’s come to my attention that people out there aren’t as honest as they can be when putting together “Charity Marathons.” I never wanted to believe it, as I tend to want to believe the best in everyone. But, you know, it’s hard to ignore when you have the proof. Like this person. I don’t know her, but I wouldn’t want anyone doing anything illegal in any group I’m part of. This is why I wanted to make a mention. So, just be careful who you donate to. Make sure that whomever you donate to has a “Donate directly to . . .” on their website. Here’s the article I’m talking about:
http://rizeupgaming.com/streamer-endangers-credibility-by-poaching-panda-funds/
Cute Headline, but a topic that needs to be addressed. Be careful, ya’all. The RizeUP Gaming people know what’s up… 
AGDQ, The Return of The Goal Makers
Hey everyone! It’s been an interesting couple of weeks back in the real world. Especially after the high that this year’s AGDQ gave us! Why, do you ask? There was so much that went well and that happened while we were all there. There’s so much that happened, that it’s taken me some time to collect it all. I’m going to do my best to keep it all in chronological order. I’ll even put in as many pictures as I am able. I have to be honest. I was spending alot of time knitting and enjoying the marathon that I kept forgetting to take pictures… The pictures I may be including, I have taken from a few others that were lucky enough to be there at the right time. Don’t worry. They’ll get their mentions. I’m not into that whole “Un-credited” scene…
Either way, here I go!
You know, it seems like not so long ago that I was writing my Post-Marathon and Post-MagFest 10 post. It’s hard to believe that so much has happened this past year. So much, it’s bananas! We’ve moved into a better (and BIGGER) home. We’ve gotten a cat named Mario! Here’s a Picture of Mario The Cat! Isn’t he cute. He even has that whole Mario Mustache thing going! 
He’s a little hellion. Emptyeye and I find ourselves talking about him like he’s our baby. In a way, he definatly is. He looks right at us when he know he’s doing something wrong, and continues on what he was doing. He will jump right on our computers while we are in the middle of working on something. Especially if he wants our attention. He’s pretty much an attention whore, and we really don’t mind a bit. He makes us mad, then turns over and pretty much demands belly rubs. We’ll immediately forget why we were supposed to be mad at him. Yeah. He’s got us wrapped around his cute little paws… You know, I’m PERFECTLY okay with it! 
Also, since last year’s Marathon, I’ve also gotten my first Mostly-Permanant job since my first job back in the day (Ahh, sweet 16!!!)…. It’s CRAZY Bananas!!! WOW! I guess that’s going to be my phrase of choice. (At least, for this entry…) Anyway, it’s been a year of two jobs for me. I had some fun while working, so that’s all that really matters. Working every day over the past couple of months made me prime for a vacation by the time MagFest and the Marathon came around, let me tell you…
A working vacation, mostly, but a vacation none-the-less…
MagFest was pretty much a blur for me this year, as I was mostly Staffing. I have to be honest, I don’t think I enjoyed MagFest as much this year. It’s like I just wouldn’t let myself have fun this year. I just can’t explain it, even to myself… I was too busy getting nervious about my part in the Marathon. I was so nervious, that I was knitting more and more to hide my nerviousness whenever I wasn’t Staffing. See, my cool Staff Badge below. 
The 3rd, I staffed from 10PM until 2AM on the 4th in the Consoles Room. Then again from 12 to 8PM in Con Ops (Or Con Operations, a department that has a finger in every pie at MagFest).
It was more MTI’s year to have fun. He got signitures from a few of his favorite video game composers. I’m sorry if I mis-spelled their names here. I’m not even sure who they are. I guess I still have alot to learn when it comes to videogames, huh? Either way, MTI didn’t get arrested googling over his heroes, so that’s good, huh? He managed to get signitures from Yuzo Koshiro, Kimuyo Yamashita, and Chris Huelsbeck on some of his favorite games that they were apart of. The games he got signed were Streets of Rage 2, Power Blade. He got his MagFest badge signed by Chris. I have a picture of that, too. 
Here. Look for yourself… Doesn’t he look like he had a blast? I wouldn’t know, as this particular signing was happening while I was helping everyone get stuff ready for the Marathon at the 4H Center. I don’t be-grudge him for wanting to stay behind, though. If I ever got the opportunity to stay behind somewhere during a Con and talk to one or more of my own personal heroes. Maybe a few of my favorite actors or writers… I’d feel the same, actually. Hell, I couldn’t tell you what I would do to spend a few moments in their very presence… But then, I digress… You don’t really want to hear me ranting and raving like a lunatic about me possibly meeting my heroes, especially right now… I’ll have to come back to that subject at a later date.
I do have a few stories and memories from MagFest that you may find funny. The first story has to do with our first moments there. After we got there about 3PM on the 3rd, we decided to throw our shit into our room and head downstairs to get our badges. Since I was staffing, I was supposed to get a different type of badge. Instead of giving me my Staffing badge when the kid only saw the last name on my license, he ended up giving me Emptyeye’s badge (you know, because I took Emptyeye’s last name). See, that is what you get when you don’t really check somebody’s licence… I knew something was up the instant he gave me the normal badge, but I had no idea that it was really Emptyeye’s badge (at least, his original badge number). When he finally got to the front of the line to get his badge, he was told that he had already signed in. I hadn’t realized at the time what the check-in kid had done at this point, so while Emptyeye was off trying to figure out what happened with his badge, I went up to Con Ops to grab my schedule for staffing. When I finally got back downstairs, Emptyeye still hadn’t figured out what happened with his badge. I had the guys at the Main Desk look to see what badge number I was supposed to be. The guy there was the one that said I had somehow gotten Emptyeye’s badge. That’s when I figured out that I had gotten his instead. So, if you’re going to be Staffing the Registration Desk next year, be sure you check BOTH names on a license. Just a word of warning…
Funny, huh? Anyway, what MagFest wouldn’t be complete without a Late-Night / Early Morning fire alarm? It wouldn’t be MagFest, that’s what! This year’s alarm happened in the very early morning hours. Emptyeye seems to think that the alarm was around 7AM. I’m not sure… I just remember that it was shortly before the sun had completly come up, and that it was Blue Balls cold out. Each year, there seems to either be somebody that lights something on fire, or somebody finds it funny to pull the Fire Alarm at any Stupid O’Clock hour. I usually just laugh it off with everyone else. This time, however, it was just a BIT annoying, as I had practically JUST gotten to sleep. If you saw me that morning, I’m sure you would have laughed, though. All three of us in our room were VERY slow to realize that the alarm was going off. When we realized it, we got dressed. Skull Boy had time to grab his backpack (and to be fair, I wouldn’t blame him for grabbing it. It had all of his thesis notes in it. Work lost on a thesis would SUCK!!!). I grabbed socks and shoes. That’s it. No badge, nothing… Emptyeye got socks, shoes, and a coat. Emptyeye and Skull Boy were awake enough to realize that the socks and shoes go ON the feet before we leave the room. Me, not so much. I’m just glad that one of the boys realized it would be a good idea to grab a room key, as well. I tell ‘Ya… I’m definatly NOT a morning person. As evidenced by my lack of awakedness while the fire alarm was going off… I got a laugh from everyone else who was with us on the way out of the building, as I was hopping up and down putting my socks and shoes on as we were walking to a safe distance away from the building. I mean, I made it all the way outside before I even registered that my feet were touching cold ground. It all went downhill from there…. Sort of… I kept muttering something about why we were just walking around the building, and not AWAY from the damn building that apparently had a fire in it. No one listened to me, as they probably just figured that I was just REALLY drunk, or just not awake yet. I still don’t know which one would have been the better situation…
Alright. I'm done telling MagFest Tales. I'm sure you'd much rather hear about Emptyeye and my adventures while we were at the Marathon. I'll be sure to induldge you in just a moment. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of our pictures from MagFest. 
Here is their official website. Check it out. You can even see what else they had going on that weekend that yours truely missed out on.
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MagFest was from January 3rd Until January 6th. I only stayed at MagFest until 10AM on the 5th. I did the hours Staffing at MagFest to pay for my badge and T-Shirt (Yes, I finally DID get my shirt in the mail 2/5. Thanks, Ryan Nichols, for hooking me up!). I did what I needed to do before leaving MagFest for good. Packed up the car with Emptyeye’s stuff. I figured I had to get to the 4H Center as soon as I possibly could. Mostly because SOMEONE in the Emptyeye Household had to help load up the UHaul Truck that would take all of our heavier and bulkier equipment from Mikwuyma’s house to the National 4H Center. (You know, the place we was helping us host AGDQ this year and the last few years…) And yes. I said a UHaul Truck! We have that many TVs and that many prizes to bring over to the Center. I had somehow mis-remembered about where we were meeting everyone. I thought SOMEONE would be at the 4H Center to do the initial let-in. Just me mis-remembering. See, this is what happens when I don’t write shit down right away… It’s all good. I eventually figured it out. In fact, once I finally got in contact with Mikuyma and figured out what the game plan was, I headed over there to help with the truck-load.
We loaded up the UHaul pretty well. Almost completly full, actually… Once we were done stuffing the UHaul and our cars full of stuff (and most of us) people, we started our journey. Somebody had the idea to start a Caravan to the 4H Center, and another Caravan to Five Guys in Alexandria to stuff ourselves full of Burgers and Fries. It’s too bad that we couldn’t get enough people to come with us. We could have stuffed that tiny branch full of some SDA Marathoners. It would have been very EPIC!!!
Once we got to the 4H Center, we got our room assignments and name badges 
and brought our individual stuff up to our rooms. After that, it was time to get about the business of setting up for our Marathon. I tried to pitch in where I was able. It really was fun to help everyone set up. I’m not just saying that. The past few years, I’ve meant to come by earlier enough to help out. For one reason or another, it just never worked out. I didn’t want to miss the fun this year. So I didn’t. I did some grunt work bringing things into the Center, though. However, when UA and the rest of the Tech people started to get to work, I went up to the room to settle Emptyeye and myself into the room we were assigned to. When I finally got back downstairs, most of the set-up was done, and someone had found our comfy couch and moved it into the Streaming Room. Apparently, the people at the Center had decided to get rid a few of the couches. We got you’re number folks. We STILL managed to find our couch. HA!
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Besides the Comfy couch, we set up our Tech center and our prizes tables. Indeed. I DO mean tables. We had a few prizes, if you remember my mentioning this before… 
It bears repeating, as there were a SHIT TON Prizes!!! 
We also made sure we set up a new, improved, and larger Theater-like seating area behind the couch. If you couldn’t see it on camera, I’m sorry. We had alot of room to sit and hang out with one another, even if we were off camera. 
And that was just in the Streaming Room. What you wouldn’t have seen at all, was the 3 other rooms we had set up. I’ll try to include pictures of before and after shots of each before I’m done with my list of events, etc. Don’t you worry. If they weren’t origionally mine, I’ll credit them to their owners… If I can honestly remember…
Anyway, once set-up was done, we all just hang around and enjoyed each other’s company. After awhile, I went to take a nap until Emptyeye got there. Which wasn’t until REALLY early (2:30AM or so) in the morning. I also did some knitting on the hats I’m still in the process of making the rest of, even now… I promise. These are based off the PCF logo with individual Runner names on it. I have a whole list of 18 hats I still have yet to make. If you’re on the hat list, you’ll be getting a Personal Message from me on the SDA Forums for an address I can send your hat to. Sorry if it’s awhile for me to finish them all. I’m quick, but not THAT quick! I’ll be working on them in between all that is going on in the real world now (unfortunatly) Hopefully, everyone will have their hats by the next AGDQ… I may add more as I go. I’m not sure how complete this list is. I may do more….
Damn. I keep getting distracted. Now you know why it’s taken me so long to get an offical post together. I can’t seem to keep my thoughts on one thing… Anyway, in the morning of the 6th (at about 11AM-ish) it was time to get our Marching Orders from ourn Fearless “Dictator/Leader” (You know, Mikwuyma/ Mick Williams) before we started Streaming Live to all of our viewers. He suggested that we take each comment that comes in with a donation as serious as we would take our own. That each person’s story mattered. That Cancer touches almost everyone in the world. It may be a common illness, but each person we loose to this disease matters. Each person who Survives has their own stories that are equally as important as the ones that are lost to it. Smart man, that one. He reminded us that we had gotten together with a common goal in mind. To help the Prevent Cancer Foundation raise money that they would be putting toward Research Grants that would eventually eraticate this DAMN Disease. It wasn’t just about the speed in which we played our games. It was about finding some way of getting rid of a harmful threat that everyone, the world over, has been faced with. A sometimes-deadly killer of so many. It affects us all.
Even if we personally haven’t been fighting with it and won (like Emptyeye, who told his story like a champ, mind you. SOOOOO proud. He hardly talks about it, so when he does, ya’all better listen up!!!), or known somebody who lost their battle (Emptyeye’s grandfather a few years ago and my grandmother in October of 2011), we can still fight to find a cure so that an otherwise strong individual won’t have to battle for their very lives. It’s the reason I keep making hats, sometimes at my own expense for materials. I promised my Grandmother that other Cancer patients wouldn’t have to cold heads while they are going through their treatments. I also promised her that even if she lost her fight, that one day we would see the Termination of Cancer. That I wouldn’t stop fighting on her’s and other’s behalves. Not while I have breath in me. You can be DAMN sure that I won’t let go of that promise. I’m just glad that so many of the people that keep coming to AGDQ and other Marathons, either to watch or to play games they love, also have that same goal in mind. That’s actually what makes our Marathons more and more successful every year. It Affects Us All!!!
Thanks for listening to all of that. It’s important that we remember that while we go about our day-to-day lives. That others aren’t so fortunate in their health. Also, that we have lives to about from day to day. After Mikwuyma gave his inspiring speech I just told you about, we also took a family photo. I do have both picture of our Marching Orders and Our Family Photo here. 
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Well, we had an awesome start to the Marathon this year. Hell, even before we even started the Marathon Proper, we had SO many people coming by to donate! In fact, that was pretty much the way the entire Marathon went. Making our goals really quickly became par for the course. We crushed our initial goal of $100,000 within a few short hours of us being live. According to my FB, we hit that goal shortly after 1PM on the 8th. I could have sworn it was before that, but who knows the exact date and time. If any of my readers knows it exactly, please let me know. I woudn’t mind letting everyon else know. Our second goal was $250,000. We hit that sometime before 1PM on the 11th. Our third goal was amped up to $400,000. We hit this goal during the ending of Final Fantasy. Thanks, in part to Spikevegeta wearing that crown of sunglasses. The other part, I have to say, was because of the long time he was wearing it with one of our prizes in it, like it was a nest for the Moogle. It was pretty cool!
I’ll have to cut and paste my reactions to things as they happened. In the age of Social Media, I guess it is possible to do just that. I don’t tweet much, but I DO like to use FB games alot. I also use my FB page to promote good causes, such as AGDQ, etc. During the course of the Marathon, I was Tweeting and Posting on FB as much as I can, just so that people back home knew how well we were doing as it was happening. See below for everything I was writing, just in case you missed it the first time around:
1/6/13: 2:49PM: “OMG! It’s getting real! Can’t believe we’re almost to $16,000 already!!! @SDAspeedruns” – Twitter -
1/6/13: 5:47 PM: “Oh yeah. If you haven’t been by recently, we’re up to $15,839.69!!! HOLY COW!!! Thanks to all that have donated! Keep up the good work guys! We’ll be at our goal soon enough!” – FB -
1/8/13: 12:22PM: “So, we’re at $93,001.26 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation! If you haven’t stopped by, please do so! We’re pretty close to the goal, and we still have a TON more games to go. Especially Marc J. Dziezynski and I, who are currently scheduled to play Super Mario Brothers Wii at 5ish tomorrow. http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/ Another site you should visit, is our charity’s website: http://preventcancer.org/” – FB -
1/9/13: 7:40PM: “WOW!!! Can’t believe we’re up to $143,409.82 already. This week has been going by REALLY fast!!! We here at Speed Demos Archive always hope that we can raise that much money, but WOW!!! We still have a few days left! Come by and donate to the Prevent Cancer Foundation if you haven’t already: http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/” – FB -
1/10/13: 9:14AM: “HOLY SHITBALLS!!! We’re at $93,001 already @SDAspeedruns !!!! GET HYPE!!!” – Twitter -
1/10/13: 8:36PM: “$203,330.43 now! We just keep on getting donations, right and left. Our next goal is $250,000. Let’s keep the donations coming! I don’t know a more worthy charity to be giving the money to! 35,697 people watching Portal 2 right now!!! http://marathon.speeddemosarchive.com/” – FB -
1/11/13: 1:10PM: “Past our second goal now… On to the next: Total right now= $253,532.42″ – FB-
1/11/13: 3:03PM: “$259,763.62 now. $400,000 is our goal. Come by and donate to the Prevent Cancer Foundation, which is an AWESOME charity… They specialize in grants for Cancer Research. They feed us too http://www.speeddemosarchive.com”; – FB-
1/13/13: 3:32PM: “We’re currently sitting on $420,756.84 for our donation total. OMG!!! We still have Bonus Streaming, which should start sometime… Not sure when, though… I’ll have to get back to you on that. In the meantime, time for sleep. That IHOP is putting me in a food coma!!! Nite!” – FB -
1/23/13: 1:49PM: “$448,423.27 WOW!!! We beat another Goal!!! @SpeedRunsLive @SDAspeedruns @EmptyeyeDotCom @MercuryZelda”
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I think that explains a lot about the events during the Marathon. I think I’ll let the timeline go, in that respect…
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Links of Importance:
Prevent Cancer: http://preventcancer.org/
Here is the link for the first blog post that PCF put up: http://blog.preventcancer.org/2013/gamers-turn-passion-into-a-mission-to-stop-cancer-before-it-starts/
Here is the link for the second blog post that PCF put up: http://blog.preventcancer.org/2013/awesome-games-done-quick-marathon-raises-a-remarkable-425000-in-support-of-cancer-research-and-prevention/
The Videos will be here: http://archive.org/details/AwesomeGamesDoneQuick2013/
Speeddemosarchive: http://speeddemosarchive.com/
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Shout-outs:
I promised that I would have the rest of the text of Shout-outs in my Blog post as well. Well, here it is. I was surprised at how many people included me in their Shout-outs on the Speed Demos Archive Forums. My first shout-out, is to all of them. Thank you guys, for all the love. I almost see myself being the mother of this group, because I seem to be the one making sure everyone’s taken care of as human beings, not just the mini-celebrities you all are. You may not see it all the time, but people look up to you for your skills with games. You are all skilled and wonderful people. They see you for your artistry with your games, but I also see you as individuals. You are all wonderful, and you all bring the best (and sometimes the worst) of yourselves to the table. We are a family, you and I. I choose to accept you for who you are and what you are. Don’t ever change. Any of you! With that in mind, I’d like to say a few words to those, specifically, that I was able to hang out with this year.
My second shout-out must go to the Prevent Cancer Foundation. It is without their support, that this Marathon wouldn’t have been such a success. They always do what they can do to thank US for our work for them. But really, they deserve a lot of the credit. They put in so much time and PR to make sure we are as great a success as we are. You also fed us, which was key. Keeping us fed while we’re just sitting there playing video games is a key point, in my book…
I got a chance to meet a few of the Board Members this time out, and they’re all just down-to-earth people who are passionate about kicking Cancer’s ass. It’s something we found in common this year… Hats off to those wonderful people! You guys are awesome. We work as hard for you as we possibly can, but it doesn’t hold a candle to how much work for us. Thanks again for everything.
Thirdly, we must all thank our sponsors and vendors that helped us out this year. I specifically want to thank those that I had the personal pleasure of speaking with this year for in-kind donations. The Edible Arrangements shop at: 4611 N Sangamore Rd, Bethesda, MD 20816. The whole staff at that store were so nice the 3 times I was there and spoke with them all. No one on stream got to see, but that store donated a large arrangement for us Runners to eat out of. If you ever are in that area and find yourself in need of an arrangement for a special occasion (and maybe just for a snack), stop in to see them. They were absolutely AWESOME!!! Thank you ladies and gents again. We appreciated your donation! We especially liked the nice card you included with it.
Other vendors. Well Subway was big this year. As well as a few other pizza places that kept us going. Those that delivered to us in our hours of need, thank you!
As for my individual Shout-outs, here I go:
Qubit: I’m glad I could meet you this year. Wish I could say more than that. I actually blushed when I read what you had to say about me, as I don’t normally think of myself as particularly kind. But thank you. You actually made my day!
Mike 89: Dude. I’m glad you were able to come this year. You’re just a cool dude, all around. BTW, I never said I didn’t have a Devil inside of me. I’m just usually better behaved… Thanks for the Anniversary wishes, as well… Glad you liked the run, even though I haven’t touched the game much since AGDQ…
Cool Matty: Dude! Playing maid (and mother) to you guys was fine. It was actually the least I could do. I didn’t really have much in the way of a speedrun or other special job description, so it actually made me feel like I had something to do that was productive while we were all there. The New York Room mess was partly my fault, too. Remember, I was the Caffeine addict who couldn’t live without her Kuerig for the week or so that we would be there. There were a few people who pitched in to help, yes. Don’t feel bad at all. It was a pleasure, really.
To those that drove people around to places so I could continue working on hats. Specifically Valiuse. Thank you so much man! I’m only sorry you didn’t take enough time to yourself to enjoy the festivities more. It was a real pleasure to help you out toward the end. We all needed to get around to places this year. On a selfish note, thanks for those that did a majority of the driving. As I said to Valiuse, it made me not have to take too many trips. That way, I could use the time to make hats. I just wish I got to hang out with you all more…
Kari: Hey Girl! MagFest isn’t really my scene, but yeah. It would have been nice to hang out there. Really wish I had had more time to teach you how to knit without the loom, but I guess that’s something else to look forward to when we get together again. I’m glad that we got to hang out together in the NY Room as well. I’m just glad I got over my own shyness around everyone to come down and knit there. It meant so much to me to know that you were there to keep me company. I’m shy, but once you get me to open up, I don’t stop talking, like ever…
Dragondarch: It was a pleasure keeping you company. In fact, I probably should thank you for keeping me company as well. I was definatly trying to stay out in the open as much as I could, even though I still feel like an outsider when I come to these Marathons. Keeping to the NY room was as close to out in the open as I got, and I’m sorry to those who never came down to the NY room much… I never got to meet you.
TJP: DUDE! No you’re awesome! If you’re nerdy, then I am too. When we all get together, it’s like the freaking Nerd UN. You guys may have the Game side, but I’ve got the movies, books, and music side of nerd-dom. Like I said before, I’m actually just glad there was something I could do to help you guys. You were doing all the work with your games and stuff. I just felt a little out to see when we all get together. I have to say, thank you for letting me play mom a bit. It gave me something to do, besides mess up a perfectly good SMB Wii run…
Puwexil: I’m humbled that you count me on your list of great SDA friends, and that you looked forward to seeing me. I don’t pretend to know or understand everything going on in your games, but it was cool to be roomies this year. I’m just sorry if EE and My snoring kept either you or UA awake… I’m also sorry that I didn’t try to warn you… You’re a cool dude, and I’m glad we got to know each other better this year.
UA: Roomie #2! See my previous apology about the snoring thing. You did awesome with your runs, even if the games totally wanted to troll you. I’m glad we got to know each other better, and that you were able to get more sleep this time around. I had to say, I was kinda worried that you wouldn’t, given your track record for not sleeping during Marathons.
Josh: Glad to hang out with you again this year! Thanks again for the help in the NY room!
Withhelde: Glad that you felt more comfortable with yourself this year. Don’t think that if EE and I come next year, that I won’t still try to teach you how to speed-knit like me… Also, sorry about the Wiggler thing… EE has his playful side that leads to stuffed toys being held for ransom. What can I say, he’s EE!
PJ: Release your Shout-outs now!!!!!!!!!!!! You’re officially the last one to do so, man! Even I did some shout-outs this year.
Mecha Ricter: Dude. Awesome job! Also, Mecha Flex!!!!
EE, Mecha, and Puexil: 4 words about how we should live our lives? Here they are: “Get outta Bed? Flex!”
Tompa: 3 words: Why no peppers?
Hannah: Thank you for coming in to help me take care of the boys. We all appreciated the food and Company you brought with you. You actually saved a part of the Bonus Stream as well. I’m glad you are a fellow knitter too. Even more glad, that you were able to share your story with our viewers. Like I told you then, I knit as much as I do, because I made a Deathbed promise to my grandmother to use my skill to make hats for Cancer patients. So that they would never want for comfort while battling for their lives. I hope to see you next year!
Breakdown: Ever the king of the pile of chairs… Thanks for all your hard work to make AGDQ happen.
Mike: DUDE! It’s troll-ey Subterrania! And Garbology. On a more serious note, thank you for letting me help out when it comes to the Marathon. You put so much time and effort into making AGDQ happen, that I feel like I can never do enough to help you out. Don’t work so hard that you come up with some trendy heart problem, K? You’re an awesome dude, no matter how many times we call you our Fearless Dictator. We only tease you about that because we love you! You are who you are. You can’t help that you want things to go right for all of us. Again, sorry the Trip Coordinator thing didn’t happen this year. I’m bad, I know. I just, I dunno. Dropped the ball, I guess. I’m just glad that RANE was able to do it again this past year.
RANE: Thanks for being a boss and picking up my slack this year when it came to Coordinating rides this year. I would have done it, but you said you wanted it back. So, there you go… It was nice to hang out with you again, though. Yay for Google Docs! Thanks for being patient enough to explain how to share them, though…
A shout-out to Die Hard! Definatly the game that wouldn’t die. Imagine that! To more Die Hard for AGDQ2014… Hell, the game should be President! It got a lot of donations during AGDQ!!!
“Fucking Hacking Bitches!” – Thank you! I now know what Speed Running really is. Breaking the game into a million freaking pieces. Well done sir! You’ve put that feeling I have into words. To the rest of you, You’re all a bunch of Fucking Hacking Bitches, and I loved hanging out with every one of you! Don’t change who you are, as you are great. Just the way you are. Remember that.
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To the rest of the world, I suggest you don’t mess with my SDA Family. If you do, you’ll be messing with Mamma Eye. These individuals all have hearts of gold and can pack a mean punch to Cancer’s Gonads. We are, in fact, Goal Makers. Have been for years, and will be for a long time to come. Don’t forget that… We WILL be back!
We all need things to remember…
I was just sitting here thinking of all of the times I’ve ranted and raved here about my grandmother and her insensitiveness to my feelings, and how the rest of her family thought of her actions. As always, there will always be something that I’ll say or that I’ll read that will remind me of something she said to me. For example, there was a picture posted of FB today (and if you aren’t my friend on FB, then I’ve posted the pic here for you as well) that reminded me of the best of times with that woman. It’s times like these that made me realize she wasn’t all that bad. She definatly loved us all. I’m almost sure of it. I wouldn’t be so mad at her sometimes, if I didn’t think she REALLY did love us all. The reason I would always seem to get at mad at her for one thing or other, was I was disappointed in her apparent in-ability to love all of her Kids and Grandkids at once. She definatly played her current favorites against the rest when it served her purpose. It seemed like the older we all got, the more she played us against one another. Which saddens me to this day, is the part I played in all that. Even a year or so since she passed, I’m still dumb-founded out how mad you can get at someone who you love.
Don’t get me wrong. I still love her. I was disappointed in her issues, but I still love her. It’s all the good things I remember about her that keep me sane. I remember the times she sang to me until I stopped crying (and I WAS a stubborn person, even when I was younger) when I just wouldn’t stop. I remember our times we played together while my parents went out {to keep from killing me, I’m sure… JK }. All the times she told me to be strong and to hold my head up high. The times I felt more comfortable talking to her about stuff than my own parents. She could be so kind sometimes, and then so cruel in others. I’m not going to bore you with the details, actually. As they’re not important to why I’m actually bringing this all up.
I think I’ve decided recently to start forgiving her for all the shit she put me through in the years before her death. It’s time. It really is… I think I choose to carry on with the good things she taught me, and try to forget about the bad. All that hate and regret has been slowly making me nuts! I don’t want to hate her. In fact, I never STARTED out that way. I just couldn’t stop where my disappointment in her was leading me. It was clearly leading me down a path I don’t want to visit on a permanent basis…
What brought you down this line of thinking, you say? Well, besides the picture I mentioned on FB, I’ve been just doing some thinking recently about all the hate and ugliness I’ve been holding on to in my life. In the wake of the bombings in Boston, I’ve been thinking about what kind of person had to have held on to all the pain and hatred in their lives for those around them, and to take it out on SOOOO many people. People that were celebrating the good in life. The Joy of helping each other make it across a finish line to raise money for different charities.
I know I have anger issues. That’s been a “DUH!!!!” moment for those that knew me during my teenage (and before) years… I just don’t want to be controlled by my anger and disappointment anymore. I choose to try to let it go. I know I’ll be happier if I can… When people expressed their anger at the bombings in Boston, I can’t help wonder at human nature and what makes people turn all of their inner bullshit onto others. We all have our issues to deal with? Yes, yes we do. You all clearly know about mine, now…
In my effort to change who I am inside, I’ve decided to help MTI in his quest to help out the Rize Up Gaming community (http://rizeupgaming.com/) in every endeavor they undertake. Their mantra has always been “Hate Leads To Anger – Anger Leads To The Dark Side.” Believe me, I’m a testament to that statement… Rize Up Gaming has been the fore-front community when it comes to guarding against Cyber Bullying. They find it easier to not hate somebody for being different. Rather, they would prefer to celebrate it.
So, in that vein, I should tell you about their most recent “Project” if you will. They are currently hosting a Marathon for Team Ethan (http://teamethan.com/). Ethan was diagnosed with Acute lymphoblastic leukemia in February of 2010. Team Ethan centers around treatments and seemingly Random Acts of Kindness. Which is why the Rev (Rize Up Gaming’s fearless leader) felt the need to help them out. Please stop by to donate. They’ll be running the Marathon into the early parts of this week. Please go by and help out, if you can. The message is love. Forget your hate and love your family and neighbors this week. Hugs are good too.
Just remember, I’m not perfect. I just know that hating someone who needs your love instead is almost counter-productive. It’s hurtful to them, and to yourself as well. <3 you guys for listening! Now, back to your regularly-scheduled Monday! I know, I know. Groan!
Time For MagFest 2013
OMG!!! I can’t wait For MagFest 2013! Obviously since I created a ticker for it!
The Non-Blogger Blog
Apparently, I’m the non-blogger type. As you can see, my posts have become less and less frequent. I’ll try to catch you up on what’s been going on in the land of Mrs. Emptyeye….
Goddess. I’m so boring. Even I fell asleep with that last sentence… It’s no wonder like I feel like I’m talking to myself here sometimes…
Alot of my time off has been spent re-cooperating from the blow that was thrown my family’s way back in October. Sometimes, it’s hard to believe that my grandmother has been gone that long already… As much as she and I didn’t get along at some points in our lives, I still loved her. She drove me crazy (like most relatives do, admit it. You know EXACTLY what I’m talking about), but I loved the woman. Still do.
Mostly this time has been spent knitting hats like a crazy woman. I have no idea the exact number I’m up to right now, but you can see the list Here. I promised Gram right before she passed, that I would be knitting up a bunch of hats and donating them in her honor to local places. She smiled, so I knew she liked that idea. She wouldn’t have ever SAID that straight up, but she seemed to like the idea. My goal is to get at least 9 of every ribbon color made.
Back in the first weekend in June, I was involved with the Relay for Life in Southington. I don’t think I told everyone in my family, but I was doing a dual Relay this year for both Marc and for Gram. I texted a few people while I was there, but I don’t think I told everyone. My goal for next year is to get more people involved and maybe create a team in Gram’s honor, as well as all of those in MTI and my families that have been affected by cancer. I already have a team of 3, but to be able to get the team going where our team is represented on the track at all times, we still need a few team members. If you are willing to join the team, feel free to suggest names. I’m open to suggestions. Of if you have any money-raising event ideas, please let me know. Even the ideas or walking a lap or two during the Relay will make you part of the team. You’ll get to see what one person can do in the fight against Cancer. I want to join the Relay for Life in Plainville, but I’m also up for suggestions about that as well. I’ll be letting you know as soon as I know what weekend this year’s Relay will be and where as soon as I know.
In the meantime, let me start telling you a bit (or as much as I possibly can) about what I’ve been up to other than being the Queen of the Hats (as I’ve been called by one of friends). I’ve also been creating a scrapbook for MTI and my move back in May. Yes folks. Emptyeye apartment has been updated to Emptyeyecondo. Apparently, it was time the two of us try to grow up a bit. That’s also part of the reason I’ve been gone so long. You know, it’s hard to remember your own name while moving. However, if we were just moving, I probably wouldn’t have been gone that long. Nope. In the middle of the move, I’ve been working 2 jobs. Those two have been keeping me PRETTY busy.
I love being busy. Honest. I can never say anything bad about both of those places, as I do honestly have fun working for both places. Sunburns aside, it’s made the summer and previous months fly by. I don’t think I would have been able to cope with my crazy in-my-head-ness that I would have slumpted into (you know how I get when I process information. I debate and worry about it for a LONG time after it originally happens!) if it weren’t for being able to leave it all behind at home.
Alright. Enough depressing thoughs. Or at least, enough half-depressing thoughts. I’m going to cut and paste in a story I had finished shortly before the end of September last year and before the madness started. I was able to read it again, after so long. Hopefully this opens my writer’s block over the past few months. It reminds me that life CAN go back to normal after the very worst that life has to throw your way. Hopefully once my writer’s block is finally dissolved, you can look forward to more stimulating blog reading. In the meantime, Happy Reading! I’ll welcome any imput, critizisms, etc.
The Prince of the Lake
Once upon a time, there was this wonderful and magical land all chock full of fun. It is in this magical land that a Great Leader named Prince Jericho lived with his large family in a Leader-dom called Layonette. Now, all of his fellow Leaders in Hainville called him “Prince Jericho” because he was a Prince Among Men, and not because he was royalty.
Now Jericho could never truely be a Prince, because Hainville was a land of equals. It wasn’t a kingdom or a dictatorship. It was a place where everyone felt like their opinion mattered. It was a place where everyone’s voice was heard and listened to with open ears by those in charge.
This island had 5 Boroughs, also called Leader-doms, that had capitals that are at an equal distance to each it’s neighboring Capital. A body of equals ruled over each Leader-dom. These people were simply called Leaders of Hainville.
Hainville was a land of fun and exciting wonders, both natural and supernatural. The trees in Hainville had leaves that stay green all year long and that were shaped like stars. The stars themselves, you could always see, even on the cloudiest of nights.
Amongst these many wonders that one could find in Hainville, Jericho himself, was the grandest of them all. Jericho had a secret that he hid from the rest of Hainville’s Leaders. He had a very special magical power.
It wasn’t just ANY magical power, but the greatest of all the magical powers in all of the land. He had the power to improve your day (and more importantly, your life) just by smiling at you. He could wipe away even your deepest frown from your face and have you smiling along with him in a matter of seconds. All who came to Hainville from afar instantly loved him.
Now Prince Jericho, in the prime of his life, had reared and raised 4 sons and 5 daughters who each had their own special magical powers. His descendants all had their own magical powers to help them achieve any goal they ever set their minds to, as well as some variation of Prince Jericho’s power. He and his descendants hid their secrets from the rest of Hainville’s population for fear of being labeled Freaks of Naure, being hunted like dogs, or even burned at the stake like witches. One day, Prince Jericho got sick of living in fear and shame. He simply decided that he no longer cared what people thought of his ability.
It was on this day, after nearly a century of hiding from the world, Prince Jericho announced to the other Leaders that he would be hosting an annual Fair by the Lake. It was during this Fair that he told the masses about his and his family’s abilities to all of Hainville. Those that first attended the Fair were skeptical that magic even existed.
They were all soon proven wrong about the existance of magic, when the gates opened and they spotted what Prince Jericho’s family magic had created almost overnight. Unrest spread quickly through the crowd. Many in Prince Jericho’s family were nervious that this unrest meant that Hainville’s citizens would not accept them now they saw what they could do.
In fact, theses fears seemed to come true when several citizens came forward and spit on the ground in front of them. It is with those actions, it seemed to Jericho’s family, that many didn’t want those with magical powers living amongst those without powers. This made them all sad and want to do something to change those individuals’ minds about them.
It was amongst this period of unrest, that Prince Jericho and his family created an entire Amusement Park complete with rides for young kids. After seeing how much Prince Jericho and his family wanted to fit in with the rest of the population, the Anti-Supernatural Community (as they so fondly called themselves) started to realize that Prince Jericho’s family didn’t mean them any harm. That, in fact, Jericho’s family could help keep Hainville’s economy afloat for many decades with minimal work, time, or effort.
It was after Hainville’s Leaders started to stand behind Prince Jericho’s family, that the general population started coming in large crowds to see what the family would do next to make the Fair bigger and better than ever.
Prince Jericho and his family continued to use each of their individual powers to entertain the massive amount of visitors that came to the Fair year after year for MANY years to come. So, remember kids. Be who you want to be, not what others want you to be. Don’t be afraid of who you were born to be, and at the same time, don’t judge somebody who isn’t afraid to be themselves. This is the moral of our story Kiddies. Just be you. Don’t change who you are because you MIGHT get teased. Those that would tease you will lose out on knowing the gem you truely are.
What did you think? Leave a comment, please. I’m one of those writers who welcomes advice. Till next time, I shall quote The Truman Show “Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!”
SDA: Better Than A Family At Times!
I have to admit it. I wasn’t really going to write an official Post-Magfest/Marathon post. However, one can hardly blame me for being inspired to do so after reading what my wonderful SDA Family had to say to (and about) me on the Thread where people have been posting their shout-outs. These shout-outs include inside jokes we’ve got because of the Marathon, an messages to others that may have made our Marathon experience better than they even dreamed.
I was told by my gaming husband, that I should check out these shout-outs if I haven’t already. Since I hadn’t been to the SDA Message Boards in several months. I had no idea what to expect. You see, I’m not much of a gamer, and I certainly don’t know how to speed run a game. This year, I’ve been trying to fit my zigzag/videogame TOOL’d peg in their square peg of their community so that I might learn more about this gaming community that Emptyeye loves so much.
It surprised me how many of these sweet people had written about me in their shout-outs posts. I wasn’t the friendliest of people there at times. I never got the chance to talk to most of them, which definatly wasn’t right. I’m going to copy and paste the shout-outs here, so you can see for yourselves what they said. I’ll even include WHEN they said what they did.
“Bonus streamers at Mikefest 3.0 (Cyghfer, MTI & Silver, Mike 89, Old Bobby, Pootrain, Spineshark, Uyama, Withelde, ZackSK): Thanks for letting me monopolize the stream with my drunken shennanigans. I am glad I came even if it was only for a short time, because I did not get to hang out with many of you at the actual marathon, and you are all super cool.” – Sinister1; 1/11/12 -
“Mrs. Emptyeye: Thanks for driving me to Union Station, I’ll be getting on Paypal right after I finish typing up this post.” – Cyghfer; 1/12/12 -
“Silver: Thanks for being awesome and driving me to the Subway, and chatting about everything from music, to GPSes, to short people! You’re definitely awesome and I look forward to seeing you again!” – Mike89; 1/13/12 -
“Emptyeye and Mrs. Emptyeye – Keep being awesome! Sorry I got a little carried away watching you guys play Cookie and Cream, but it was still fun anyway!” – Carcinogen; 1/14/12 -
“Satoryu, duckfist, fisherrob86, Emptyeye, Silver/Mrs. Emptyeye, Tigger77, moooh, feasel, Josh the Funkdoc – Great to see you again and catch up!” – Puwexil; 1/14/12 -
“Emily and Paul: for being reallllllly nice
Mr and Mrs Emptyeye: See Above” – ZachSK; 1/16/12 -
“MTI and Silver: Glad you could make it! No, really.” – tjp7154; 1/16/12 -
“EDIT: HOLY CARP! FORGOT THE EMPTYEYES!!
The Emptyeyes: Met the man and wo-man in person, and its definitely a good experience. Take those worries you had and kick them to the curb. Then onto the street when a car’s coming. You are much better than you think you are, and we all agree! Thanks for the rum and cake vodka by the way, quite tasty!” – theseawolf1; 1/19/12 -
“Itsu, Samm, Mrs. Emptyeye, Kari Fry: For repping the majority of the rest of the girl crew.” – Kari; 1/19/12 -
“MRS. Emptyeye: I hope Cookie and Cream didn’t end up in “Divorce Done Quick”. BTW, thank you for providing the gift from edible arrangements. It was a very nice gesture, and I really do appreciate it. You and emptyeye are welcome here anytime.” – mikwuyma; 1/22/12 -
“Mr and Mrs Emptyeye: I was a little sad when I learned you wouldn’t be coming. Thought I had to rep CT by myself! It was really cool that you did your own marathon to benefit ours. Although the main purpose of our visit to Magfest was to buy a shit ton of games, we sure as hell weren’t leaving the center without your number. I’m glad you guys actually got to come out to the marathon at least for the end. It sucks that I don’t have my own place because the two of you would be welcome at any time. I’ll see what I can do about that though. You still have my number so let’s get some co-op going or something!” – dballin; 1/27/12 -
“Mrs. Emptyeye- Somehow after all these years, you’re still with me. Just at MAGFest, I had the easy job of getting to play a bunch of Mega Man games. You had the much less fun job of staying with me, timing me, manning the lockbox, and generally keeping me sane when stuff went wrong (And it sometimes did). And then you had more shifts to work besides. I owe you more than you could ever know. Meeting you all those years ago helped pull me out from the Roger Waters-like hating of absolutely everything I did as a teenager; if not for you, I probably wouldn’t even have the limited social skills I do have. I know you were never a hardcore gamer like I once was, but I’m ecstatic that you support me and come down to MAGFest/the marathons with me anyway. I love you, and I hope we can go to many more marathons together.” -Emptyeye; 1/28/12
I mean, how do you properly thank people for all of their kind words. With the exception of Emptyeye, they don’t really know me that well yet. Perhaps the rest of this post can start to help this fact fly into oblivion. Here’s hoping!!!
I have to admit that I spent a good portion of the Marathon this year (that Emptyeye and I weren’t at MagFest) hiding in a corner and knitting my hats. At the time, I saw it as a step up from the first Awesome Games Done Quick (or AGDQ, as it’s fondly known as now). At the first AGDQ, I spent the majority of that time hiding out upstairs and not coming down to the large streaming room where everyone was. Food runs being the only time I would leave the room….
I’ve actually felt bad about that most of this past year, as a good number of the SDA Community also going to MagFest 9 actually came to Emptyeye and my wedding. At the time, I used to last minute preparation for the wedding as an excuse not to go downstairs and hang out with these wonderful people. I’m sorry about that guys. If you’re reading this entry, I’m sorry about that! I’m still perplexed about why I was acting so shy around you guys! I’m really a very social person.
In the time since AGDQ 2012 has ended, I’ve actually been realizing how small a step up this year really was. I’m still that girl who tries to hide her insecurities and pain behind a mask. I’m not one who gets shy around new people or large crowds. I thrive on it, most of the time. But I have my moments where I internalize things that I probably shouldn’t, until I get to the point that I explode all over the person nearest me. Or I fall into a kind of deep depression-like mood where I get very anti-social.
I fear that I was slowly falling into one of those moods slowly during the week of the Marathon and Bonus streaming. It ended up with me essentially locking myself into Emptyeye and my room all the last day of the Bonus Streaming that we were at the 4-H Center (Thursday). This was the day that many people were leaving to back to their everyday lives. So, I happened to miss their departures. I’m sorry to those that I never got a chance to say goodbye to. It wasn’t fair to you that I couldn’t pull myself together long enough to say goodbye to you. It really was nice to meet you or see you all again!
I made excuses this year about wanting to finish “part of this hat” or “this part of that hat” to hide all of the pain and confusion that I still feel from my grandmother’s passing back in October from my SDA Family. She fought Ovarian Cancer for four and a half years before she finally succumbed to it. My grandmother’s passing royally fucked with a mind already on the brink of breaking from all the financial stress I’ve been putting on it over the past couple of years (I won’t even TOUCH this right now!!). I’ll be the first one to admit, I was hiding behind my knitting projects and sulking.
For those of you I haven’t told, I’m planning on making as many hats as I can and donating them to a local Oncology wing in my grandmother’s honor. While I was there, I managed to make 3 pink hats, and teal hats to donate. I hope to have TONS more finished by the time I get around to donating them. I’m still not sure WHERE I want to donate them to, or WHEN I want to donate them. I only know that I want to donate them as a whole, and I want to donate as MANY as I can possibly make.
To many of those that know me well, you know that woman (my grandmother) and I have had a love/hate type of relationship for many years now. We had both said some things that neither one thought we could ever forgive another for. My not getting to tell her that “I’m sorry I let my ego get in the way of us getting to know one another better” before she passed, has made it even harder for me to deal with than just sadness alone. The guilt that I was petty about things we had fought over, even 6 years before, up until the very day she died… In amongst all this guilt I feel, there’s this want to go back to the week before she died and just go to her and hash out our differences while she still remembered who I am.
And I’m angry all the time now… I’m angry at Cancer for taking away all of my memories of that wonderful person I’ve known all my life. I’m angry at Cancer for taking away her ability to do something as simple as using the bathroom or showering by herself. I hate Cancer, most of all, for picking on this strong woman and making her feel weak. Seeing her like that (and still having that image burned into my head) makes me want to scream and punch the wall or something…
So, to all of those wonderful individuals that participated in AGDQ 2012, in any capacity, you deserve the biggest shout-out of them all! For giving me the chance to see Cancer being punched in the gut and body slamming it through the Metaphorical Great Wall! We raised $149,044.99 for the Prevent Cancer Foundation (or PCF, as we lovingly call them for short) to do their research and outreach to the community. We raised this money so that hopefully, the guys and gals over at PCF can do their damnedest to help eradicate Cancer, in all it’s many forms.
I have a few shout-outs and people to mention. I thought I’d do it here, on my blog, instead of posting the whole above rant on the SDA Forums, just in case not everyone wants to read all of that at once. If, at all… Alright. Here goes…
To the 3,193 donators that made 5,869 individual donations on an average of $25 or more: Some of these donators were people who literally gave their last cent to help us raise money for a great Foundation. Without you all, we would have been just a bunch of video game nerds and their spouses/ girlfriends that got together to hang out and play videogames. We wouldn’t have been able to give PCF the large donation amount that will help them fund research for two years.
To all the wonderful people at PCF: You all do wonderful work year round. When it come to help us promote our Marathon over the past several years, you have been WONDERFUL! Not only did you help us promote everything, but you continued to be awesome while the Marathon was going on. Once all was over, there were still several individuals at PCF who sent Mike wonderful messages of thanks. Which, of coarse, he shared with us. Jan Bresch, Linda Chastain, Carolyn Schmidt, and Jim Wood were four such individuals’ messages he shared. Thank you all again for your help, the kind words and for letting us work hard to raise money for your wonderful Foundation. But who can forget the number of times you fed us so we wouldn’t have to pay too much out of pocket. Feeding us is pretty major. Especially those of us with a limited budget…
Speaking of Food… I’m going to make a Shout-out to all the food places around the 4H Center that we went to or had food delivered to us from. I’m sorry if I forget one… Thank you for filling our large orders without TOO many questions or harsh stares! Let’s see, there was: Subway, Popeyes, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, McDonalds, IHOP, Woomi, the Good Fortune Chinese Restaurant (the place we got food from during the Bonus Stream), and several other local pizza places.
To Kari Fry: Thank you for creating the T-shirt design. They’re awesome to look at and they’re nice and comfy. I don’t believe we could thank you enough for putting the coolest design on a T-shirt I’ve seen in quite some time. Letting us mass produce the shirts so we can donate the money to PCF was a stroke of genius! I don’t think we can thank you, The Yetee, or Fangamer enough for coming up with a way for us to make more money for PCF. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
To Lindsay King: The website banners you created for us looked awesome, and were entertaining to look at. Thank you, also, for giving us that banner. We gave that away as a prize item because so many people were wanting it. It was awesome that we were able to sign it for one of our lucky viewers. So, thank you again!
To Tom Folino: Wow! What a good set of prizes you gave to us to give away. The Meat Tenderizer looked cool, and the Zelda Sword made EVERYONE jealous of the individual who ended up winning it in the end. Thank you so much for donating them to us!
To Mecha Richter: For all of those perlers you put together for us to give away as prizes. They all looked awesome! I know how much problems those tiny little beads can give you while trying to put them together. You put so much work into your perlers, and I thank you for putting SO MANY together for us to use as donation incentives.
To Mercury: I thought after last year’s plushies that you would not be able to top yourself. You have proven me wrong, yet again. This year’s plushies are SOOO cute. Mike was right. You can’t look at those things and NOT go “dawwwwwwwww!”
This past year you’ve become a good friend to me and to Emptyeye. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that you’ve been like a sister to me. Not just a friend, but a sister. You may be living across the pond in England, but you’ll still be a sister. I’m glad that we got a chance to hang out before you had to to back overseas, and that you got home okay! We miss you, but we understand. You and Lag are lucky to have found each other.
To Bunny Smith, the awesome lady who REALLY runs the Consoles Room at MagFest: Thank you for making sure that Emptyeye’s mini-marathon would go on as he had planned it. Bunny, you may not have donated directly, but I thank you again for taking time to make sure Emptyeye and I were all set to go. For making sure that each shift of people working that day knew it was going on. For taking our “Adam told us we could do it” comment and rolling with it. But also because of your hard work, you helped us raise over $300 to donate to PCF. I can’t thank you enough!
To Andy Goth (or affectionately known to me as “That Journalist Guy”): I thank you for giving us the final $100 we needed to put into the donation box we were giving to PCF. You donated almost immediately after Emptyeye made his plea to the audience for help. I appreciate that once you heard about Emptyeye, SDA, and my goal to raise money for PCF, you jumped in and helped. It doesn’t matter that it was just after the Child’s Play Auction. Or that you were there to cover the Auction and the Closing Ceremonies of MagFest. We just know that you were THE MAN in that moment. Still are.
To the members of The Shizz who donated to try and mess Emptyeye while he was playing through all of his Mega Mans: We both thank you for helping us to have the ability to give as much as we did. We appreciate all that you gave or “found” for us to give to PCF. You are always fun to hang out with at MagFest. We must do that again, and SOON!
To everybody at MagFest who walked by Emptyeye and my Mega Man booth: Even if you couldn’t donate, we’re still glad you spread the word about what we were doing. Word of mouth goes a long way, believe me!
For those at MagFest that didn’t have any more cash on them by the end of the weekend, but went to the SDA website to donate out of their PayPal accounts what they could later on, we’re glad that you did!!!
For all those that spent some time Mod-ing the chat during the Marathon: It got absolutely crazy, but you guys just plugged on when the going got tough. I know Essentia wasn’t at the Marathon in person, but she did an AWESOME job kicking people out of chat on their asses and asking questions later. It turned into a common theme, which turned out to be good. I noticed that people in a big chat like that turn. . . funny sometimes. So, wonderful job Mods!!!!
The next shout-out has to go out to UltraJMan. Dude, you laying your heart on your sleeve for the whole world to see inspired not just me, but others of us out there who had once claimed we were well-adjusted individuals. I know now that I’ve been lying to myself for years. You inspired me, and many of us in your SDA Family, to lay aside all of our masks and to be real with one another. To lay aside our online personalities and just be ourselves.
Lastly, to tell our story, not the story of a ficticious character we created to hide behind. I hope I did you justice by finally telling part of my story to the world. I look forward to getting to know you better at AGDQ 2013! Let me know if you ever need a knitted cape made. I’ll be willing to make it for you. It can never replace all that you’ve done for me, but it’ll be a start!
To UA: You have become the guy we go to when we needed a way to record the Marathon. The guy that everyone wishes had taken some more time to step away to take care of things like sleeping and actually enjoying more of the Marathon. I personally wish I had been able to help you with the Technical side of the Marathon. Since I don’t know much about those kinds of things, would you settle for me getting to know you better?
To Rane: Wow! That’s a lot of Travel Coordination you did. Thank you for taking that on. I do pretty well with that for Emptyeye and I, but I don’t think I could have done what you did. You made sure that everyone got form their homes (wherever that they might have been) to the 4H Center and back to where they needed to be. Next year, let me be your back up. When you left, we weren’t as organized. See Emptyeye’s rant about getting everyone back to Mike’s house, and you’ll see what I mean… Let’s come up with an Exel/Open Office document to make all that easier . . . P.M. me when you finally see this. I’m on Skype, after all . . .
Tompa: Those peppers, man! I’m probably lucky that I wasn’t around to get peppers put in my shoes, but I am sorry I missed the hide-the-peppers shenanigans! Let’s double-team it next year! I’m as much a practical joker as you are. Let’s talk more, both before AGDQ 2013 and there. That’s not an order, merely a suggestion . . .
Lag.com: I’m really glad that we have been able to get to know each other more this past year. I’m also glad that you and Mercury have found each other. You are both wonderful individuals who we just happened to meet online. In many ways, you remind me of my brother a little. You’re a lot quieter than Mercury, but when you do say something, you have everybody’s attention. You’re a great guy who EVERYONE should get to know the real you.
Kari: I’m glad that you came, and that you decided to talk to me when Emptyeye and I finally arrived. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye when you left. But I am glad that I met you. I’m glad you decided to come in that first day you got here. You kept Mercury and Samm company until I got there. You are an AWESOME woman, and I wish I had gotten more of a chance to get to know you better. Anyone would count themselves lucky to know you. Let’s make a date to hang out more at AGDQ 2013!
Sinister1: Don’t worry about monopolizing the stream at all! We were thankful for anyone that still had any energy to play ANYTHING for bonus streaming. We were all entertained by ALL of the drunken shenanigans! We were all guilty of them, as well. I wish I got to hang out with you during the Marathon-proper. You’re one cool dude, yourself. There’s always next year, right?
Cyghfer: You’re VERY welcome for the ride. Thanks for the Paypal thing. Didn’t the Arrangement work like a charm? It wasn’t TOO bad a drive to Union Station for me. I heard that other people’s journeys to drop people off went a lot worse. I hope you had fun while you were here! Would have liked to had more time to get to know you. Hopefully next year, I can be around more to help pull you out of your shell…
Mike89: Dude! You’re VERY welcome! I hate to see people go hungry when I can do something about it. Hopefully on our journeys you learned more about me than you perhaps wanted to know… Also, wasn’t that short person AWESOME!!! And yes, my GPS can go to hell. What’s up with that “when possible, make a u-turn” thing? I mean, I TOTALLY have u-turns notifications turned off… Next year, something to look forward to… Silver’s learning more about as many games she can to try to fit in with you boys. So, be aware. I’ll have even MORE to talk about…
Carcinogen: Like Emptyeye said, don’t worry about getting crazy about Cookie and Cream. I was pretty much playing that game for the first time. Didn’t know a lot about the game, yet… Look forward to that being something that we will be streaming, though. It’s a pretty fun game! Stay classy, my friend!!!
Puwexil: See, isn’t it nice to not have another tree incident on the way down to an event where Mercury and Lag are present at??? It was awesome to see you again. Hope it doesn’t take another Marathon or wedding for us all to catch up again… Also, DUDE that was an awesome run of FF7! I finally got to watch you play through the entire game, and it was worth the wait for the ending!
ZachSK: Aww, Zach! You’re pretty nice yourself! Next year, let’s hang out more!
TJP7154: Yo TJ! Glad that we finally got there too! I always like to see all of the repeat Marathon offenders back in action! Till next year, dude!
Theseawolf1: Dude! How could you forget about us? We were the loudest ones there!!! Glad that you liked the booze. It made all of those Drunken Shenanigans possible! Just don’t ask us to try an Old Bobby, though. That’s where I draw the line! Also, WarioWare man! We’ve got to try to get that in the main marathon next year. It could get interesting in a hurry…
Yo Dballin!: You don’t have to worry about a thing. You’re a cool guy. People that don’t stop and get to know you first need to “back their shit down!” Especially before they judge you (or any of us, for that matter…)! We would probably invite some of the CT SDA peeps to our place more often, but we don’t always keep our place clean enough to have guests… I’ll get to that, so we have room to play. Then we can do some co-op stuff.
As a side note, I think that truck of yours is glad to finally have a rest. That was a shit ton of stuff that you brought down with you! Wow Man! 5 stars and 2 thumbs up for a job well done! Can’t wait to see you at the next marathon!
PJ: You’re a cool dude! Don’t ever change that fact! I still like you, even though you DID take Emptyeye’s thunder for Battletoads, though… Just kidding! Can’t wait to see you next year!
Kareshi: Nice job surprising the gang!!! It was too bad that we didn’t get to see you in person this year. Hopefully we won’t miss you next year…
Mickey Mage: You get a shout-out just because I’ve always loved your nickname… Just kidding. You also get a shout-out for that kick-ass Earthbound run! I’ll try to find a copy of the game just so I can give it a try for myself… Also, good job not letting our Grand Entrance get in the way of that kick ass run!
Arrow: We Love Katamari too! Next year, play both! I’ll be in the room for both if you do. I promise!
To Neskamikaze and LLCoolDave: In the immortal words of the man, Jon St. John, himself “DUDES!” Wish I got to hang out with you guys more! Hope you enjoyed the video of JSJ as much as I did when Emptyeye first came up with the idea to ask him to speak. I thought it would have been better if we could have gotten him to call in to wish you guys good luck, but with the timing of his panel at MagFest, this was the best we could do for you! You’ve still “got balls of steel!” Good job on the runs!
Cosmo: I bow down to the power of your OOT run!!! I was in the hotel room at MagFest and I couldn’t look away, even though I should have been sleeping… Amazing! I didn’t know you could do those things with that game. I’ll have to give some of them a try for myself, provided I could actually FINISH the game first. Good job dude! Can’t wait to see what you do for next year’s Marathon!
Rom: You must have wanted to sleep for a week after running four games at the Marathon, but no. You STILL kept our audience entertained while we were sleeping during Bonus Streaming that first night at Mike’s. I’ll give you props for that! I stayed awake the whole time and was watching you. I especially liked when you gave up playing games and just played “guess this song” with our viewers. Good job man! I wouldn’t have thought to do that… Still wish we had gotten a chance to hang out more, though.
Breakdown: Wow man! You took a lot of stuff on your shoulders this year and still stayed being the man! We should really hang out more next Marathon, though! I could make some ugly “break down” pun here, but yeah… I won’t.
Rakuen: I’m sorry to hear about your father’s illness. I’m praying for him and your entire family. I am glad that you came to AGDQ 2012 and helped us fight Cancer, in all it’s forms. It was good to meet you. I just wish I could have gotten to know you better. If you ever want to talk, just P.M. me. I’m on Skype.
Sir VG: I was sorry to hear about the passing of your co-worker from Pancreatic Cancer. I was hoping that we could have added one more Survivor to the SDA Family and Friends’ list. But it was good to see you there helping us fight against Cancer and helping us raise money for PCF. Stories like yours and mine this year make fighting for Cancer Research that much more important.
Samm: Sorry I didn’t get to know you better. Thanks for coming to hang out with all of us crazy people. Also, thanks for helping Mercury and I balance out the guys and their high levels of testosterone this year. More specifically, when I wasn’t there. Hopping into the chat to make sure that the chat didn’t get too . . . funny. That was pretty awesome! So, thank you for everything you did! Congratulations on the baby and good luck! Make sure you help mold him/her into part of SDA: Version 2.0. I look forward to seeing them play through some games in the future.
Itsu: I wish I had gotten to you better as well. But, Ladies of the SDA Family, represent!!!
A thank you to all of the Runners that worked their tails off to get their games up to snuff, and to come up with some good commentary to make the Marathon entertaining. There were SO many of you I didn’t have a chance to get to know as well as I would have liked. I don’t think I could do what you do time and time again. I usually don’t even finish the game ONCE, nevermind over and over until you can run it through in less time than others. You deserve to have a mention in my shout-outs, even though I never got to know you properly. If I miss someone, even here, I’m SOOO sorry! Alright, here goes!!!! SMK, ShadowWraith, Tri-Hex, Trekhaak, Caleb Hart, Theenglishman, Molotov, Peaches_, ZakkyDraggy, Naegleria, Yoshifan, Psyknux, Tiki, Duckfist, Satoryu, Pootrain, Tigger77, Fisherrob86, Josh the Funkdoc, Feasel, Heidman, Droogie, Cody Miller, andrewg, Dragondarch, Jprophet22, Twig, Runnerguy2489, Mr. K., Hurblat, Cfox7, Mooh, and Animeowzerz.
To all of the commentators, as well. Job well done, gents and ladies! I was watching a lot of the time for those tiny tidbits and gems about the games. You kept the commentary light and fluffy!
Mike: I don’t know what people mean by you being a dictator… You’re the sweetest guy that could possibly ALSO run a big website like SDA. You need to have a firm hand to keep everybody from mowing you over. Just because you like to be organized and keep everything just so, doesn’t make you a bad person. I’m a touch OCD, so I know how it goes… Keep on doing what you do, however you want to do it. It’s works out well for you!
I have to thank you for all of the hard work you put into planning the Marathons. It’s always good to see you. I thank you for letting us all crash at your place. I know I’ve said this SOOO many times before, but I don’t think I can say it enough.
Also, don’t worry about our Cookie and Cream adventures. We’ve been through much more arguments than that, and we STILL wanted to get/stay married! The game is actually really fun! If all else fails, we can be the SDA gaming couple that’s known for our banter while playing together. We can even take this on the road. LEGO games with the Emptyeye’s!
One last thing . . . “Oh No! Chicken! . . . Seriously, who’s chicken is this?”
Susan (AKA: UyamaMom): Even though I’ve said all this before in my e-mails back and forth with you, I don’t think I could thank you enough for opening up your home for all of us crazy gamers. Especially since you also left us to have the run of the house. I honestly felt really bad about about the chicken falling from the top of the stairs. That was, until you told me that it was a guilt gift from somebody else. If it had been a family heirloom, I might STILL be worried about it. I AM glad that somebody found that ring of yours, though. That’s pretty cool. Hopefully, we didn’t leave TOO much of a mess behind. I made sure of it before I left. I thought you might appreciate that. I’m glad that you liked the Edible Arrangements basket we got you. It was the very least we could do after you opened your house, to all 25 of us that first night, especially. Thank you again for everything! Maybe next year I can finally meet the nicest person I’ve never met…
And finally, last but not least, Emptyeye. Hunny, you paint me as some kind of Mother Teresa-like hero figure. I’m just a woman who was lucky enough to loose her heart to this shy band nerd in high school. You’ve brought out the best in me, as well. Don’t you forget about that. In fact, it was because of you in the first place, that I started to fight for Cancer Research and all of those charities that support it as well. Coming with you to my first MagFest and AGDQ 2011 was probably the best decision I ever made in my life. Well, one of them (The best decision being the day that I gave that same shy little band nerd a chance, and listening to what he had to say). At both of these events, I got to meet so many wonderful people who had that same goal in mind. To kick Cancer in the balls.
The only Anti shout-out I have is for Cancer. For all of those in my SDA Family that have somebody who is battling some form of Cancer this year, we feel for you. We worked our asses off for them so they can have some hope that Cancer will be eradicated forever. Even those, like me, who have lost somebody to Cancer this year can see that and have hope. It’s about time a bunch of people stood up to Cancer’s bullying and reign of terror! We can be proud of ourselves for that!
*shakes her fist* Dude! Cancer, you have once again been foiled by these meddling kids! We kicked your ass into next year! PCF has it’s new 2 year grant to do they’re wonderful research. With us on their side, I’m sure they’ll be the ones to make the next big break into a cure. So, tough noogies for you!
Gram’s Scrapbook
I’m going to be giving the scrapbook to my grandfather this Saturday, providing I can get my new job to let me work earlier… We’ll see. Well, for those that won’t be there Saturday, I’m posting pictures of each page. If you want to know what all of the different things say, just e-mail me, and I’ll send you a copy of the script that I wrote when I was putting the scrapbook together. Enjoy!
November Gone? December Already???
Wow. Time has pretty much flown over in my neck of the woods. Didn’t realize that I haven’t written anything since October… It’s been CRAZY over this way. To start, just a little while after I posted last, my grandmother started her slow descent in health. She passed away on the 26th of October. Before that, I was busy making a hat for her so she wouldn’t be cold. When I gave it to her, I told her that I would be donating as many hats as I possibly could over the next several months to a local Oncology wing in her name. She smiled at me when I said that, so I took that as a go-ahead for my project. Since that’s not the only project that I’ve been working on, I’ll get to it after I finish up those projects that I have going before Yule first. But yeah. I discovered this year, that I LOVE making hats!
You know, I DO miss her. Not that I didn’t get to say what I wanted to say, but I miss the woman she was. We may not have seen eye to eye on things, but she was my grandmother. I ran to her with anything I was having trouble with. When Empty got sick, I saw her QUITE a bit. I’ll never forget that she was the bigger woman that day and came to see Empty in the hospital. We had been fighting, per the usual, but she still came in. I’ll never forget that, no matter HOW much we fought since. I mean, with two VERY opinionated and stubborn women, could you blame us?
Aside from our fights, my grandmother and I just seemed to GET each other. When it mattered most, we were able to put aside our differences and jsut be there. That’s why I’m currently working on putting together a scrapbook about her life with pictures. The only thing is, is that I dont’ ahve any of the pictures with her siblings. Plenty with all of her grandkids around, but not much of them all. If you know anybody with any pictures, please send them my way before the 9th, so I can put this book together and give them to my grandfather as a Christmas present.
Thanks. <3 Silver
Wow, It’s October already!
Hi folks. Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written anything. I’ve been kinda busy this summer. So much so, that it would make an okay “What I did on my Summer Break” Essay… Maybe more than okay, I suppose.
A month back, I realized that maybe I should write an essay like we all used to back when we were in school. To be honest, it’s taken me this long to have time to sit down and write this blog entry. Seeing as the Soccer season has been keeping me kinda busy so far. I’ll talk about that later…
My main reason for wanting to write one of those school “What I did on my Summer Break” Essays, is because it was definatly the summer of a lifetime! I don’t think I’ve had this much fun during a Summer since I was in Middle School. Or at least, since I was 16. Back before I started working during every hour that I wasn’t in school or classes (like, in College). Back when we actually took time to go outside and play while it was light outside. Back when the Summer meant playing in the pool until we were raisins. Back when we thought that Summers were meant to kick back and relax, not to grab more hours at work.
Yes, I was working this entire Summer, but it didn’t really seem like I was. I had fun while I worked. I spent the entire Summer watching (and helping) tons of kids and adults have fun. For once, I have to admit, I spent my Summer having fun at work. I managed to enjoy the sunshine, and I got to be my usual social self without worrying about keeping my voice at it’s “inside voice” level. I didn’t have to pretend to be a professional-secretary-like employee drone. I finally had fun! Trust me, when I have fun at work, I remember it for a LONG time afterwards.
I spent my summer working for Lake Compounce in Bristol, CT. I’m going to miss the place, actually. I always liked going when I was younger. I still managed to come back to Compounce as much as I was able to, when I started working every Summer. When I saw that they were hiring back in the middle of Spring, I couldn’t resist at least trying to get a job there. Since I wasn’t working, I thought “Hey, this could be fun” and decided to try.
I met my Manager while he was conducting interviews for the department I work for now, and liked him instantly. We clicked *snaps* like that. That pretty much set the tone for the entire Summer for me, actually. He’s one of those people that inspires you to be who you are, and to not be afraid to reach your potential. Mistakes can be fixed without drama, etc. My coaches and fellow Team Members have become like my family. You know, we tease one another, have shared many private jokes, and the like.
The Park managers are all nice about things, even when things got crazy. Even when they were beyond stressed out during the 4th of July weekend. The GM is especially awesome!!! I’ve never seen him without a smile on his face, even when he’s tired at the end of the night. He’s fair with every one of us. He likes to hear our input, and sharing in our stories of how our Guests have been treated. He goes out of his way to make sure that we’re as happy with the Park as our Guests are.
He actually was the inspiration for one of my stories… I’ll let you guys read it when I’m done with it, I promise! I think, though, he should have a chance to read it first.
When I finish writing this blog, I should be just about done with the story because I’m doing both at the same time. At least, I HOPE so. I haven’t been writing much in the past year because I haven’t been inspired as much as I used to. But then I got some inspiration a few months ago to write a story. No matter the subject matter, it actually feels good to be writing again. But then, that’s a horse of another color, I suppose… Another blog for another time, I’m thinking… And so on and so forth…
Well, now that it’s October, it’s time to be thinking about Halloween plans, and the rest of the Soccer season in Naugatuck. I’ve been selected to be the Recreational Referee Assignor for the town, so I’ve been keeping busy with that so far this season. It’s an interesting job. I get to schedule our younger, and sometimes the Veteran, Referees for our younger soccer players’ games on Saturday mornings. It’s fun to watch each of our new players react to the older kids teaching them the game.
I mean, it’s not in my job description as the Assignor to be on the fields ever Saturday to watch them, but I enjoy it. The Assigning part of my job is kinda stressful at times, but I need a reminder that all the stress is worth seeing kids having fun while playing the game I love so much.
Which is why I go down to the fields where I’ve put my Refs. I’m watching how everyone reacts to one another. I say I’m watching how the Refs are doing, but I think I’m watching the joy on every kids face as they play the game. It’s priceless. Just like those card commercials say, you can’t put a price on this.
It’s also good to sit back after my 9 and 10 year-old boys team has played and watch other kids playing the game we all love. Oh? I didn’t tell you? I’m coaching the game too. The guys I have on my team are amazing. They all have such raw talent. I can see that they love the game. I mean, yeah I have doubts that I’ll be able to help them reach their full potential this season, but I’m going to enjoy teaching them what I know of the game that we all love!
Silver, signing off for now…
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
Just in case you wanted to know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. But not only do we have to worry about our boobs getting cancer, there are other places we should have checked out every year for cancer. Get knowledge. Stay fit. That’s the name of the game nowadays… Just saying. Hope you enjoyed the pics I found online. Thanks to Photobucket, you can see these and more for yourselves if you type in “Pink Ribbon Pictures.” There are alot that were equally pretty. Those above are my top 3.
Till next time, “Stay thirsty, my friends.”
I’m Now On Twitter!
Just what the title states. I’m now on Twitter (Mrs_Emptyeye). I’ll be twitting alot about the different things going on. You all know how it works. Just letting you know I’m on Twitter. Now that I have. See you all later!
And yes, I AM alive…
Women’s World Cup 2011: The Semi-Finals, 3rd Place Match and Finals
Semi-Finals:
(29) Japan VS Sweden (7/13 @12 PM EST)
- Results: Japan = 3, Sweden = 1.
(30) France VS USA (7/13 @2:45 PM EST)
- Results: France = 1, USA = 3.
3rd Place Match:
(31) Sweden VS France (7/16 @11:30 AM EST)
- Results: Sweden = 2, France = 1.
Finals:
(32) Japan VS USA (7/17 @2:45 PM EST)
- Results: Japan = 3, USA = 1. Tie (2:2) at Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.
So far, so good!!! Glad that the USA women whooped Brazil. Even if it DID go into a shoot-out!!! (this dated 7/13)
So, let’s re-cap the top 4 places in the 2011 Women’s World Cup…
1st Place: Japan
2nd Place: USA
3rd Place: Sweden
4th Place: France
Women’s World Cup 2011- The Quarter Finals
(25) Germany VS Japan (7/9 @2:45 PM EST)
- Results: Germany = 0, Japan = 1
(26) England VS France (7/9 @12 PM EST)
- Results: England = 3, France = 4. Tie (1:1) by Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.
(27) Sweden VS Australia (7/10 @7 AM EST)
- Results: Sweden = 3, Australia = 1
(28) Brazil VS USA (7/10 @11:30 AM EST)
- Results: Brazil = 3, USA = 5. Tie (2:2) by Full Time. Game ended in Shoot-Outs.
If you want to see the full statistics, feel free to go HERE or HERE.
Women’s World Cup 2011
Hi folks. You may not be aware, but the US Women tend to play better Soccer. That’s why I try to follow them as closely as I possibly can. I’m working during their match tomorrow, but you KNOW I’ll be following them when I can (seeing as I KNOW I’ll be working when most of their matches will be played)… Alright. I’ll add a break-down of each team and I’ll keep updating everybody on how the Cup is going… It’s funny, if you think about it… I update more when it comes to Soccer than my own personal life… Meh. It’s okay. Soccer is a passion of mine, so I guess it doesn’t matter much.
For the Women’s World Cup, I’m going to try something relatively different. I’m going to tell you who’s in each bracket, and when they’re playing their games. I’ll come back every day when I find out the end scores and update it here, so stay tuned!!!
Most of the games will be playing on ESPN, if you were wondering…. All Cup standings are updated after each game played here… Check it out, even if you can’t watch each game…
Group A
Germany
- Game 1 VS Canada (6/26 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 2 VS Nigeria (6/30 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 3 VS France (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 4:2
Canada
- Game 1 VS Germany (6/26 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 2 VS France (6/30 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:4
- Game 3 VS Nigeria (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
Nigeria
- Game 1 VS France (6/26 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Germany (6/30 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 3 VS Canada (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
France
- Game 1 VS Nigeria (6/26 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Canada (6/30 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 4:0
- Game 3 VS Germany (7/5 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Loss – 2:4
Group B
New Zealand
- Game 1 VS Japan (6/27 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 2 VS England (7/1 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
- Game 3 VS Mexico (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Tie – 2:2
Japan
- Game 1 VS New Zealand (6/27 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 2 VS Mexico (7/1 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 4:0
- Game 3 VS England (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:2
England
- Game 1 VS Mexico (6/27 @12 PM EST) Results: Tie – 1:1
- Game 2 VS New Zealand (7/1 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
- Game 3 VS Japan (7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:0
Mexico
- Game 1 VS England (6/27 @12 PM EST) Results: Tie – 1:1
- Game 2 VS Japan (7/1 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:4
- Game 3 VS New Zealand(7/5 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Tie – 2:2
Group C
USA
- Game 1 VS Korea DPR (6/28 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:0
- Game 2 VS Columbia (7/2 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Sweden (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Loss – 1:2
Korea DPR
- Game 1 VS USA (6/28 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 2:0
- Game 2 VS Sweden (7/2 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 3 VS Columbia (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Tie – 0:0
Columbia
- Game 1 VS Sweden (6/28 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS USA (7/2 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Korea DPR (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Tie – 0:0
Sweden
- Game 1 VS Columbia (6/28 @ 9 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Korea DPR (7/2 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 3 VS USA (7/6 @2:45 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
Group D
Brazil
- Game 1 VS Australia (6/29 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Norway (7/3 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
- Game 3 VS Equatorial Guinea (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 3:0
Australia
- Game 1 VS Brazil (6/29 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Equatorial Guinea (7/3 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Win – 3:2
- Game 3 VS Norway (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Win – 2:1
Norway
- Game 1 VS Equatorial Guinea (6/29 @9 AM EST) Results: Win – 1:0
- Game 2 VS Brazil (7/3 @12:15 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:3
- Game 3 VS Australia (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 1:2
Equatorial Guinea
- Game 1 VS Norway (6/29 @9 AM EST) Results: Loss – 0:1
- Game 2 VS Australia (7/3 @ 8 AM EST) Results: Loss – 2:3
- Game 3 VS Brazil (7/6 @12 PM EST) Results: Loss – 0:3
Hope you guys enjoyed the Group Games!!! Now on to the Quarter Finals!!!
Happy Birthday to Me! :)
Yes, dear readers. Tomorrow is my birthday! I’m turning 27, but sometimes my life’s experiences make me feel older… I’ll share them with you now…
If you don’t know me personally, I tried out college for several years, and decided that it wasn’t for me. But leaving school and entering the real world has been probably one of my worst decisions of my life, as most of companies that would be willing to hire somebody who’s as hard-working as I am are turned off by my lack of degree. So, stay in school people!!!
Having a sister that acts worse than I did at her age is another of my life experiences that have made me feel older. She’s only 9 years younger (and just about to graduate high school, I might add), but she keeps thinking she’s older than she is. She has been the cause of ALOT of drama over the past few months. I’m not sure she realizes that not EVERYTHING is about her and what she wants. It’s gotten so bad, that I don’t even want to talk to her anymore. Mostly because when we DO get the chance to talk/ get together, she either asks me for favors or she starts talking to me about how much our mom doesn’t get her. Or how she’s stunting her growth into college… That’s bad, right? My not wanting to talk to her sometimes, I mean… I’m sure everything’ll settle down as soon as my sister realizes that nobody is out to get her. Once she enters the real world, she’ll realize that the world doesn’t revolve around her. At least, I hope so…
I guess the last of the things that have recently started to make me feel old, is seeing all of my younger cousins (and siblings, as well) go off to college and leave with offers for AWESOME jobs while I’ve been fighting to get ANY job at all… Yes, I’ve had time to read and write as much as I want, but sometimes I wish I HAD gotten my degree. Today’s economy has made me think along these lines again. The eve of my 27th birthday has also been one of these things. I have an AWESOME job that makes me never want to leave at the end of the day. This fact alone, is VERY rare… Especially given the fact that I don’t have a degree… I’m such a kid at heart, that working for the Entertainment company I got hired for is perfect for my personality… But the only wrench in this whole line of thinking, is that I was one of the oldest people in my orientation group. I guess I still look like I’m in high school, because one of the ladies asked the group at large what date we all graduated. It’s funny, but it makes me feel old sometimes to be put in that category. Oh well!
On better tides, my birthday plans. I’m going over my parents’ house and we’ll be having pizza and cake. Seeing my family and Empty’s is going to be fun! We’ll be eating and talking about some details about Empty and my wedding Party. That’s ALWAYS good, in my book… I ALWAYS have fun hanging around with both my moms and my dads! YAY CAKE!!!
Something To Weigh-In On
As I found out the hard way while throwing together an AWESOME MagFest Wedding in just under six months (or ANY wedding, for that matter) is pure insanity… I managed to pull it off, but only by the skin of my teeth at times. That was a time of GREAT stress for me. At times, it was pretty stressful for Emptyeye as well . . .
With any wedding, all brides have lots of questions to answer… Who to invite… Who to have as Best Man, Maid of Honor, etc… Flowers? How big of a wedding do we want? How much will all this cost us? What’s our budget? Where will the ceremony be? How much do I want to plan what goes on during the ceremony? Any fees to the Officiant? How much will renting a hall for a reception cost us? . . .
Then once all of the above has been planned out, the bride will start to wonder about AFTER her wedding day. Wondering what happens afterward. She starts worrying about where they will love together. What it will take to change over all of her documents to reflect her new martial status. Do we combine our accounts? Which company do we go with for our Health and Car insurances? Etc…
However, probably the most important of all these questions for a bride-to-be, is the question of weither or not to keep her last name. Do you change it to take his last name? Or do you hyphenate? Or do you not change your name at all? How would I go about this process, if I DID choose to change my last name?
My decision in this regards was pretty easy. I’ll tell you the story of how I came to that decision in just a moment. Before I do, I would like to relate how I got started thinking about this as a possible blog entry topic. I came across an article on somebody else’s blog back just shortly after Emptyeye and I got back from Virginia (Don’t ask me who’s blog, because I never wrote down the name of the person, nor the site where I got it).
In this article, the woman admitted that her husband-to-be had an issue with her hyphenating her name. That he felt like she was SUPPOSED to change her last name to reflect his last name. Here is the exact quote she had in her blog.
“Seems he takes offense to the idea of me tacking his last name on to the one I already have. The move – according to him – says I’m wishy-washy about my commitment and (gasp) that I’m not ready to leave my family and be a wife.”
Personally, I think she got offended because he decided to be a dick that particular day and speak without thinking things through. Society sometimes dictates things that are wrong… This particular situation that the author talks about must have stemmed up from what the guy’s perception of what society is all about. Sometimes, what you’re taught when you’re younger dictates EVERYTHING that you think when you grow up. Say, for example, you were taught not any manners, you would grow up to pick your nose at dinner, or you would eat with your fingers . . .
Changing your name USED to be mandatory in past generations. Society demanded that this was the only way of doing things. However, this was before women went out into the workforce in full force… Now, keeping the name you were born with (and subsequently, opened their practices and businesses with) is a cause for major concern. Nowadays, Women might build up a buisness with their maiden names attached. Their customers trust them under that name. But when the woman gets married and changes her last name to reflect that status, many feel that their customers will no longer trust them to do buisness just because of the name change.
She quotes the editor of The Knot
“‘As years go by and couples wait longer to get married, more women are choosing to hyphenate because of their careers, especially when people are looking for them on Google.’”
The author of the post says
“Indeed, those of us who have worked hellishly to build up some steam in our respective careers also have professional grounds to hold on to our original surnames.”
The writer of the post made her point perfectly so that many people would see why her husband-to-be’s comment bothered her the way it did. Her original blog post was VERY personal to her. What made me pause to think and be concerned, was the comments she got in response… A lot of people were complaining that she was snarky and mean while still being two-faced about her opinion. I don’t agree with that assessment one bit. People are entitled to their opinions. Nowhere in her article does she say that she doesn’t buy into the feminist concept of keeping her own maiden name even after getting married… Each comment, while saying they knew that everyone was entitled to their own thoughts, slowly got meaner and meaner. People taking sides, etc. It was a pretty bad strain of comments until I managed to print everything off and I haven’t been back to the page since (especially since I didn’t even write down the site). Up until that point, I hadn’t realized that many women have been fighting each other and their husbands-to-be about this very topic for many years . . .
Empty has always been pretty understanding about any decision I have ever made. According to him, it’s just what makes me . . . me. I often thought of keeping my maiden name, if only to not have to confuse my relatives and his. To keep the persona I’ve had since I was younger. My standing in my hometown was pretty much set because my mom’s some “big shot, fancy-smancy, big time politician.” People knew me as her daughter, my brother and sister’s older sister. It was pretty cool, because I’m a social person by nature, and I LOVE meeting new people. However, this has been both a blessing and a curse.
This is one of the reasons I decided that a change was in order. The other, revolves around the fact that there was somebody else with my name (right down to the middle initial) living in the same state. In fact, this woman had been involved in something that needed a lawyer for. The only reason I know this, is that the lawyer had contacted me for payment. I never found out the EXACT details, and this issue has always been at the back of my mind since then… I started to feel like if I took Empty’s last name, I would have less issue with somebody else having a duplicate name. As big as Empty’s family is, I KNOW there wasn’t already somebody with my new (and at that time, proposed) name in his family…
I thought (VERY briefly), of hyphenating my name to represent both families, but it would have been too long. If you know Empty and I personally, you know that he has a nice long Polish last name. Hyphenating it with ANYTHING would have been entirely too long… So hyphenating was out…
But really, the thing that was actually the deciding factor for me on this subject, was one of pure chance. When we moved in together about 3 years ago, one of our first pieces of mail into our mailbox, was the weekly free town newspaper. On this piece of mail, was my first name and his last name. I actually got giddy at the thought that this would eventually be my new married name. I remember telling Empty that I was immediately IN LOVE with that name! Mostly, I think he could feel the excitement rolling off me.
So, there’s the story of what finally set me to liking a change. My opinion on this subject has always been that a name doesn’t make the individual. Your name means jack shit! It’s who you are as an individual that counts the most. Your name (and more specifically, your last name) is just what shows the rest of the world that you belong (maybe not BELONG, so much as choose to tie yourself) to your loved ones. It just tells the world (and more importantly, the US) that this person (or group of people) will morn your death, and should be treated with respect when it comes to insurance/ medical issues.
When talking to your prospective husband, let him know that if you want to keep your maiden name, it should be your choice in the end, not his. If you choose to keep your maiden name, that’s fine. It’ll probably just save you some time in the end getting it legally changed. That’s the only thing I regret about having to change my last name. The damn PAPERWORK that was involved. Other than that, it was the right decision on my part…
As Anja Winikka (from theknot.com) delicately puts it “We definatly see the conversation because everyone has an opinion on it. No one is really right because it’s such a personal decision.“
New Links
Hey out there in internet land.
It’s been a busy month for me… I’ve got a new job. Can’t really talk about where, but that’s okay. I look forward to opening day, either way. Just a few more training days and just over a week until opening day! So look forward to it, all those that live in CT.
But just today, I put a few new links up on the side of this page… I’m supporting local-based artists this week. I’ll find more as soon as I can… Please check them out and support them in their careers…
Till Next Time!!!
Marathon Happening Now! Go, Go, Go!!!
Here’s the newest news from the SDA front. . . Empty and his buddies have put together another Charity Marathon. This time, they’re working to benefit Doctors Without Borders. This is a charity that will be helping people out over in Japan. Since there wouldn’t really be video games without Japan, the Guys and Gals over at SDA have decided to try to help…
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) is a nonprofit effort dedicated to working in more than 60 countries to assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe.
100% of your donations go to Doctors Without Borders, who are currently helping with the relief efforts in northeastern Japan. So, tune in April 7–10, 2011 for 60 awesome games played quick. They need your support!
<a href="http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/b9001480086fbd91“>
MagFest’s Magic Peels: Ninth Time’s The Charm
The madness that is Alexandria, Virginia’s Music and Gaming Festival (AKA: MagFest ) continued on again this January, with four days of awesomeness. Four days of record-setting amounts of awesome bands, vendors, great repeat-offender Panelists, and alot of arcade games from yester-year, made for one hell of a wedding reception/ honeymoon weekend for Emptyeye and I. But our wedding was only one part of this glorious weekend.
As to MagFest Proper, there was alot going on. So much so, that I may miss something in my re-telling. However, I’ll try my best not to miss anything. In this spirit, let’s start our journey with our arrival at the Mark Center Hilton on Wednesday, January the Twelfth.
We got there between two and three in the afternoon, but didn’t get up to our room until closer to three. We took our usual 
“view from the room” pictures, took a potty break, and went downstairs to grab the first load of our stuff to bring up to our room. Before we could get to the second load, we heard a knocking on our door. When we opened the door, we saw a bellhop with a very large basket on a cart.
This is how the basket looked.
This basket was from both sets of our parents. My mom had called a place named “Thoughtful Gift Baskets By Mary” out of Alexandria to see if there was some sort of gift they could give us since neither set of our parents was able to make it to the wedding.
I have to be honest, I knew something was up when my mom kept asking where we were, and when we would get to our room. But that’s okay. We were still surprised to get it so soon after we got there. I mean, we hadn’t even lugged all of our stuff up to the room yet…
We left the basket (and our curiosity of what was in it) behind in our room while we headed out to the garage to get our remaining bags from my car. En Route, we bumped into Brenden “Mr. MagFest” Becker in the lobby starting to get things set up for the Festival. (As a side note, don’t EVER call MagFest a convention in front of Mr MagFest [as well as several die-hard MagFest go-ers]. Trust me on this!) We made plans to meet up with Mr. MagFest later that night (after we all had taken a nap; as Mr. MagFest was as tired as Emptyeye and myself) to look at the room we were assigned to for our wedding Thursday morning.
Once we had everything in our room, we called my mother and his to thank them for the basket and to let them know we had gotten to the hotel okay. Then Emptyeye passed out for a few ZZZ’s. I spent that time rummaging through the contents of the basket.
The following is a list of what was inside:
1) A Time Capsule (with Cards that people can write messages on for Empty and I to read when we open the capsule, a list of things for us to put into the capsule before we seal it, and a bunch of stickers and a bunch of other forms to register the capsule online with.
2) A “Hot For You” microwave-able cake (that we didn’t even get to make until we got home). 
3) 2 nice wine glasses- flute style. 
4) Sparkling Cider (instead of wine or champagne. It’s illegal to have alcohol in the open down in Virginia, so Mary {the lady that owns the company that put the basket together} included the cider for that reason. It didn’t matter, either way. Empty and I liked the cider. Quite a lot, actually!)
The Sparkling Cider Bottle
5) Fortune cookies with quotes about love and marriage.
Fortune Cookie Box
6) A year’s worth of Lover’s Choice His/Her weekly romance cards with little surprises that Empty and I can do for the other.
7) A box of heart-shaped caramel-filled milk chocolate and dark chocolate candies. (Those were gone faster than I remembered to take a photo of them)
8 ) Box of “Bed of Roses”
9) A nice silver frame for our wedding photo.
10) A silver serving tray
11) Lots of ribbons and peanut-like filler.
Once Emptyeye woke up, we had some dinner and went to find Mr. MagFest. Trust me, locating Mr. MagFest is harder than it sounds, especially on MagFest Eve int he midst for the Festival set-up . . .
We followed Mr. MagFest to check out the room that we were assigned to for our wedding, and then up to his room. We hung around with him for a bit until Jon St. John called Mr. MagFest and told him that he had finally arrived. All three of us trekked down the hall to Jon’s room, and had a couple of drinks with the voice of Duke Nukem, himself! He showed us his new portable recording toys, and then he and Mr. MagFest went out to eat with a bunch of their mutual friends.
Empty and I went to look at the room once more and to take some more notes for room set-up. I have to be honest, I flipped out when I saw that the room had been set up for a normal MagFest Panal Room. Considering how high-strung I usually am about getting my way, this is the only true Bride-zilla moment that I had throughout the months of wedding planning. I’m afraid that I went ape-shit on one of the maintenance men I found. I yelled at the poor guy. If you’re reading this, I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry I was such a bitch!
When I got back to where Emptyeye was waiting for me (he was quite buzzed from the liquor, so he was alot more calm about things than I was), we texted Mr. MagFest about the room changes, and he said he’d take care of it. Emptyeye managed to calm me down a bit as we wnt back to our room to hang out with each other for awhile before Emptyeye went to bed. Then I started to get myself ready for the wedding before I, too, laid down for a couple of ZZZ’s. This leads us to early morning on Thursday . . .
* * * It’s a New Day Folks * * *
Oh yeah. If you hadn’t heard this before now, Emptyeye and I got married the morning of the 13th of January. The details of the Ceremony I’ll discuss in an entry I’ll be posting in early June. The reason for this, is because our parents are throwing us a post-wedding party/ celebration. During this party, we’ll be playing our wedding video and I don’t want to give anything away beforehand. So, stay tuned for this, folks! But here are a few pictures to tide you over 
.
Those on the invite list will be sent official invitations as soon as we print them.
By this point, you must want to know how the rest of Thursday went. So… Let me tell you. After Emptyeye and I tied the knot, we had to rush back up to our room to change into civilian clothes and grab my purse (or more specifically, my ID) so that we could get our MagFest Badges.
Empty signed himself up for a Supporter Badge. This entitled him to all sorts of swag. 
The Official MagFest 9 Towel
MagFest 9 Bag
Peelz...
Stress Sprite
Official MagFest Notepad...
I had volunteered to staff for four shifts during the course of the weekend, so I got the ever-awesome Staff Badge and the MagFest 9 Mega-Man Style T-Shirt.
MagFest 9 Staff Badge. Note, I was Staff #69... The most AWESOME-EST number EVER!!!
I have to be honest, I pulled Empty into the Staff line because it was much shorter. Honestly, shorter isn’t always better. In the Staff line, there was only one person and one computer. For the other line, there were three of each. This picture is brought to you by this blog…
This was part of the longer line.
The length of the line was clearly from the number of people trying to Register, and not from technical problems. It’s awesome that there were that many people to witness all that MagFest has become since it’s inception!
In fact, there were one hundred and sixteen Super Supporters and one hundred and forty two Supporters that were named in the MagFest 9 booklet. This does not include the hundreds of people that signed up to Staff, all 28 Special Guests, the members of all thirteen bands, the thirteen DJ’s, anybody running Panals or Events, members of local press trying to get a story, photographers, nor any one of the rest of MagFest’s miscellaneous repeat-offenders.
After waiting in the Staff line for forty minutes or so for our passes, we hung around downstairs and looked around some. After awhile, I went back upstairs (around two PM) to do some Facebooking before taking a nap. I’m addicted to Facebook Applications, if you haven’t figured it out yet…
This time, however, I was spending some time posting photos from the Ceremony on Facebook so that our families could see them right away. Since neither of our families could be there in person, we wanted them to be able to witness some of the Ceremony… I also changed my last name and marital status while I was on Facebook. Then I created a new e-mail address to represent my new identity.
I mean, I’ll still be good old Wacky Silver until the day I die, but now I’m also known as Mrs. Emptyeye to most of the SDA community… Hey, I keep busy when I want to be, right?
Anyway, after doing all of this, Empty and I had dinner and hung around a bit before I took a nap before my first shift, which started at ten PM. I worked until six AM the next morning. While I was working in the Consoles room, there was soo many parties going around the hotel. None of them were as Epic as the numerous parties going on inside the elevators. In fact, they kept happening all weekend. So many Elevator Parties that hotel security ended up calling the cops to make them stop. This brings up to Friday the fourteenth.
* * * It’s a New Day Folks * * *
I have to admit, I slept alot during the days of MagFest. I kinda felt like a vampire all that weekend. But that’s okay, as alot of the good stuff happened between the hours of seven PM until four AM. It’s alot of when the true MagFest go-ers have their Panals. it’s also when alot of the better bands play, so I never felt out of place sleeping during the day…
I spent a majority of Friday (that I wasn’t sleeping or eating, of course) just walking about taking everything in. My next shift wasn’t until early the next morning, so I had time to see most (to all) of the Friday night concerts.
* * * It’s a New Day Folks * * *
Next came Saturday the fifteenth. My shift was from two to six AM. There was alot going on that morning. I was in the middle of most of one woman’s quest… Her boyfriend proposed to her with different clues that she got from doing different tasks… Go here to see the video that the woman made about the experience… It’s really CUTE!!! I was told by one of my fellow Staff Members that we would be the last stop in a bunch of tasks before the guy proposed, and I tried to stick around as long as I possibly could. Unfortunately, I didn’t QUITE make it… Fortunately for me, the lady posted the video on YouTube so that I could see it all for myself. Thanks for that!!!
I got tired just before 10 and I went upstairs to pass out for a bit. I slept a few hours (until long after noon, actually), and then Emptyeye came upstairs to tell me that a few of the vendors wanted to see me sometime that afternoon. Or, more specifically, both of us together… They wanted to give us some free swag.
From the lady at GBee Fabrics , we got a stuffed Bee Mushroom (or as I keep calling it, a Bee Toad). If you’ve never played Super Mario Galaxy before, perhaps you don’t know that in one of the Worlds, Mario eats a yellow and black mushroom and turns into a bee in order to complete part of the level.
Bee Toad
From Dave Lister (AKA: Paradox Lost), we got two posters. One with two sleepy Pikachus with “Congratulations” and his initials written on the bottom right hand corner. 
I chose this one, because I thought the two Pikachus looked cute together. The other poster has “Life Comes At You Hard” on it, and Ruby from Paradox’s own cartoon. For those that don’t know who Ruby is, she’s NOT the demon girl who was played by Jared’s new wifey! (Just a shout-out for all the Supernatural fans out there…) She’s actually the character in a shirt with a star / sprite on and an angry green shroom in her hands. Paradox signed this poster with “Married At MagFest!! Yay!” and his initials on the bottom left-hand side. Empty liked this one… Paradox decided he was going to give one to both of us.
The posters are both very awesome! They’re currently hanging around our apartment. My Pikachu Poster is hanging on the wall in back of my computer. In fact, it almost looks out of place with my True Blood Calendar and all of my Wiccan Artwork. The only thing that makes it fit in with the rest, is the MagFest 7 poster that I’ve had up there for awhile. Empty’s poster is hanging up in our kitchen.
After getting our swag from the vendors I mentioned above, Empty and I headed back upstairs to hang out for awhile and have some pizza. After he went back downstairs to hand out with some of his friends, I spent the time before my last shift packing our stuff up so we could have an easy start the next morning (that, and I wanted to make sure I could sleep longer after my last shift… sleep before driving long distances is an awesome thing!!!). Shortly after I was done packing, I took a quick nap. Empty came in to sleep shortly before my last shift.
* * * It’s a New Day Folks * * *
Now, here comes Sunday the sixteenth… I had my last shift from two until six AM. There was alot going on that night. There were alot of people dressed up in costumes all day Satuday. 
There was one costume in particular that stuck our at me… It was the guy dressed up like Waldo.
The reason he stuck out for me, was because I kept finding him… One of the ladies I was working with that night kept pointing him out every time he came by the desk. So, it became an inside joke with us, and I decided to take a picture of him every other time I saw him.
Can YOU spot him in the pictures???
After my shift, I got my t-shirt form Registration (with my signed shift schedule…) and went upstairs to take a quick nap before it was time for Empty and I to check out of our hotel room. When I woke up, we packed up our car, said a few goodbye’s to people we could find, and headed out on the road shortly before noon.
We were just about to get to the New York State line when Mr. MagFest texted me and asked if Empty and I were going to be able to come to Closing Ceremonies (which were at three that day). I told him that we were almost at the New York Border, and that we couldn’t find him before we left, so we had just taken off. some of us had to work the next morning, you know…
Not even a half hour later, he called me and told me to put the phone on speakerphone so that Emptyeye could hear the conversation as well. While we were both listening, Mr. MagFest explained to the crowd that had gathered that MagFest had yet again set another record this year. That in the past, they had had people honeymooning at MagFest, and they had had a couple get engaged at MagFest. But before this year, they had never had a couple get married at MagFest.
Mr. MagFest told everyone, further, that since I had to work the next morning, that we were already on our way home, but that we were on speakerphone listening to them right now. He asked the crowd to wish us well in our marriage by yelling “Congratulations!” all at once. It was really sweet . . . I have to admit that I was close to tearing up when I heard everyone in the room participate. So, thank you all for that!
Suffice to say, I think that Emptyeye and I figured out the secret to being treated like MagFest Royalty. All you have to do is be the first couple to get married at MagFest. This entitled us to marry things we wouldn’t have been entitled to. Vendors giving us free stuff was one of the perks. Hanging out with Jon St. John on Wednesday night was another. Empty getting free food from the Staff Room when he wasn’t supposed to, was another perk that Mr. MagFest made sure he had. If you’ve ever staffed at MagFest, you know that those that Staff get perks like free food throughout the weekend. So Mr. MagFest dragging Empty up to the Staff room was pretty huge!
We were also given anything we needed, particularly when it came to stuff we needed to make our Ceremony work. Also, Jon St. John REALLY must have liked hanging out with Empty and I Wednesday night, because he just about jumped at the chance to DJ our wedding. I mean, he only had to make sure our entrance and exit tunes played at the right times. But him agreeing to help us will probably be one of my favorite memories from that day. So thank you Sir! You truly do have BALLS OF STEEL !
Based on the level of fun that I had at MagFest 8, I didn’t believe that I could have had any more fun that I did last year. But once again, MagFest’s reputation for out-doing themselves every year has come true. I give MagFest 9 TEN Flags on my fun scale. That’s FOUR more than Six Flags Amusement Parks. So, ladies and gents, it’s a total WIN!!! This, my dear Charlie Sheen, is winning!!!
New SDA Marathon!!!
Hello Constant Readers…
While you’re waiting for my post on MagFest, here’s the newest news from the SDA front. . . Empty and his buddies have put together another Charity Marathon. This time, they’re working to benefit Doctors Without Borders. This is a charity that will be helping people out over in Japan. Since there wouldn’t really be video games without Japan, the Guys and Gals over at SDA have decided to try to help…
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) is a nonprofit effort dedicated to working in more than 60 countries to assist people whose survival is threatened by violence, neglect, or catastrophe.
100% of your donations go to Doctors Without Borders, who are currently helping with the relief efforts in northeastern Japan. So, tune in April 7–10, 2011 for 60 awesome games played quick. They need your support!
“Today’s Headline: Pokemon Trainer SDA Battles CANCR and Wins”
Actually, that would have been the best headline for Saturday the Eighth of January. That was the day that SMK did an awesome speedrun of “Pokemon Yellow” on the Game Boy Player for the GameCube System. The characters of the game were re-named according to what our stream viewers wanted. The highest amount that people donated became the determination factor for naming both the Pokemon Trainer and the Villain. Our viewers decided it would be EPIC if the villain was named Cancer (or CANCR; as we could only have five letters in the name), and the trainer was named SDA. We all had to agree!
This proved to be true, as SMK beat his own record in order to help us raise more money to defeat Cancer. So much was the goal of this year’s Speed Demos Archives (AKA: SDA) Charity Marathon. As I mentioned several times before (as the Marathon was happening), all of the guys and gals over at SDA played through 100 games in 100 hours. We started at four o’clock on Thursday the sixth, and ran until 5:35 PM on Tuesday the eleventh. It took us a total of 113 hours to go through the line-up. Trust me, it could have been alot worse . . .
Initially, our schedule for the Marathon had us ending at 2:43 AM on Monday the tenth. Since we’re all human, there were several things that we can never control or anticipate. We can’t control the fact that no matter how many times our guys tested the new donation program, stuff still happens to slow things down. We cannot anticipate when the streaming channel we use will go down because we have a lot of traffic. We also cannot control the fact that people would get bounced from one chatroom to the other when they would have to refresh the page after one of the many down times we had with the stream.
These things were several of the glitches we had to deal with. People freaked out when our stream went down, or when many of our games went over because of things we couldn’t control. We took donations for all kinds of things. Some of the things that our viewers wanted, our speedrunners hadn’t counted on in their practice runs. However, because of the fact that people had donated to see certain parts of the games that our runners would have skipped over in order to cut some time, the length of the games were longer than we had originally estimated. I’m sorry to say this of our loyal donators, but if you wanted to see something and it costs us some time, then don’t complain when we run a bit over because of that fact.
Alright . . . Now that I’ve said my piece about all of the negatives I’ve heard everybody talking about, let me get back to my take on the event. I may not have been running a game of my own, but I was able to witness alot of the Marathon. I may not have been in the same room with everybody alot, but I was able to put my mad skills of communication to work. I spent alot of time updating on Facebook about how everything was going. That, and every other website that I belong to. I spread the word like I like to spread peanut butter on bread. VERY thick!
Well, just in case you missed all of the PR I did the whole time, I’ll tell you what we were up to. We all gathered that weekend to raise money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This wonder Foundation set up a PayPal account to make it easier for us to get the money to them following the Marathon. They were so nice to all of us. Even those of us who didn’t have a Speedrun planned, were treated with the utmost respect. They put a notice up on their website about the Marathon. I happened to go to their website a few dozen times during the course of the Marathon just to look at the notice they put up for us. With all the stuff they normally have up on their front page, it looked VERY out of place.
However, I’m still amazed at how much they were willing to help us. I firmly believe that this fact alone was the main reason people were willing to dig deeper into their pockets than last year. With the economy as bad as it is, the fact that we found a Charity willing to show the world how deserving of this they really of the money we were raising for them. Mazel Tov for all the ladies and gentlemen over at the Foundation. May all of your tireless work come to Fruition very soon! I sing your praises because you deserve it!
We kicked our original goal’s ASS. When Mr. SDA set the goal at $25,000, many thought that the goal was far too high. I have to say , I think they were proved wrong when we hit that goal in under forty eight hours. We further proved that our new goal was too low six hours later, when we blew past $30,000. Our third goal became $40,000. That goal, too, got blown to smithereens with the help from our friends from overseas. Even our final goal of $50,000 was too low. We hit this goal with six hours of the Marathon left to go. In fact, we ended up raising over $52,000 all told. That’s not too shabby for 113 hours of work on our parts, huh?! We definatly think so!!!
Now that I’ve sufficiently bored you with all those facts and figures, I’m going to tell you all about my favorite moments from the Marathon. Hopefully, I can keep them all in the order they happened. As in any story, let me begin at the beginning. I promise, at the end of the story, I will have a list of my absolute top 10 favorite memories of this year’s Marathon. Maybe I’ll even have some links to the runs I’ve mentioned. You’ll just have to read on to know for sure . . .
The first of my favorite moments happens to be the first of the races that we had. You might say that I’m a little biased when it comes to this moment. Mostly, because I happen to be married to one of the guys that did the racing. But that’s not the sole reason I enjoyed watching Emptyeye and PJ run “Battletoads” on NES together. I’ve watched Emptyeye run the game at home, so I know all of the work that both of these guys had to put into it.
Also, the game becomes more entertaining with the addition of Kareshi on Piano. Kareshi and Empty have both run “Pianotoads” before, at MagFest a few years ago. The addition of PJ just brought a different element to an already awesome run . . .
My second favorite moment happens to revolve around another Kareshi-assisted race. The “Castlevania” race on NES between Josh The Funkdoc and Andrewg at 2:43 AM on the eighth was pretty awesome as well. I’ve never played the original “Castlevania,” myself, so it was a new experience for me. I may not have known the music that was supposed to go with the game, but since I knew the tunes that Kareshi threw into the mix, I was as amused as the rest of the room.
As with most of the races I’ll most definatly be mentioning (as they were equally as cool! Sorry to those I’ve missed. I don’t have enough chops to write about every single race. You all did well, however!), the races each had a separate TV and game console set-up. It was pretty cool. The only issue I have with the set-up the way it was, was the fact that it always took alot of time to put together and take down. That, and the fact that we kept having to re-start the stream after we were all set up and when we were done taking it down. But that’s okay. I still had fun watching the races.
My third part of the Marathon has to do with one of my room-mate’s run. Lag.com did a run of “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind” that was just under 15 minutes. Before the eighth, I had never even heard of this game! But Lag did an awesome job in his run. I’m sure his run would have been shorter if he had been able to practice the physics of the game on the computer he played on for the Marathon. That was his reasoning, not mine . . . I just thought he did an awesome job, no matter what his time was for the run!!!
My fourth favorite part of the Marathon was actually the one I mentioned earlier. SMK’s Speedrun of Pokemon Yellow.
My fifth favorite moment happens to revolve around the many food speedruns we, as a group, made over the course of the Marathon. This moment is the one run to Subway on the eighth where Emptyeye ordered lunch while in his “Cape Guy” persona. He took donations all that morning from the stream viewers for those that wanted him to go out in public with his Vampire Cape and “MagFest Gaming Expert” hat. To be honest, he would have done this at some point during the weekend. This way, the Charity would benefit from it. That, and we could all tape it, and put it up on YouTube for our stream viewers to see that we can be silly at the same time we were working.
My sixth favorite, has to do with the mystery game that Mr. SDA had promised us and our stream viewers. The name of this game was “Color A Dinosaur.” PJ did a quick speedrun of the game at under a minute. Then he showed us most of the game. I really liked his dialogue the whole time. He made everyone laugh, myself included!
My seventh favorite moment was the runs of “The Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening” that Tigger77 and Romscout did. Tigger did the full run. He did awesome in his run. Tigger’s run ended in about an hour and a half. On the flip-side of this dual-person run, Romscout played through the game while it was all glitched out. He’s pretty good at playing a part. When he made the game glitch, he did a pretend freak-out moment, and then he continued with his run. His run ended within 17 minutes.
My eighth favorite moment of the Marathon was the four person race of “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” between Runnerguy, Jiano, Aleckermit, and Cosmo. It was a pretty EPIC set-up. I honestly don’t know if anything like that has ever happened before. I believe we set a record in the early morning of the ninth. This makes this a pretty good reason that this game makes my favorites list. The other reason, is that I learned alot about one of my favorite N64 games that I never knew before.
My ninth favorite moment was Arrow’s run of “Katamari Damacy” for the Playstation 2. I’ve actually played this game before, so I know how the game works. What I happen to like most about that run, was that one of our viewers donated some money to request that everybody in the room sing along with the game music. I still have it recorded on my digital recorder, somewhere . . .
My tenth favorite memory from the Marathon was the four player co-op of “Castle Crashers” starring RaneOfSOTN, Mr. SDA, Romscout, and UltraJMan. The banter between them as they played through was pretty funny. If you’ve ever played the game, you know how fun it is beating people up with random weapons, meat cleavers and lollipops included. Suffice to say, these four guys can take their act on the road, if they so choose. I do believe everyone was amused with their run. Congrats guys! Your time of just under two hours was pretty epic! Considering there really hasn’t been a good run of “Castle Crashers” on the SDA website yet (as far as I know).
My eleventh favorite memory was Emptyeye and Mr. SDA’s two player co-op of “Final Fight.” I’ve seen them both practicing this run many times over the months leading up to the Marathon. All that practice paid off for the two of them, as they finished their run within 27 minutes. I’m still proud of the two of them for reaching their goal.
My twelfth favorite memory has to do with Axel Ryman’s run of “Kingdom Hearts 2″ for Playstation 2. While we were all sleeping the tenth (well, mostly Empty, Lag, Mercury and a few others, anyway), Axel played through a game that is a personal favorite of mine. I watched in awe (with all of his viewers) as he tied a blindfold on and defeated Xaldin (one of the main bad guys; from the “Beast Castle” world). What is even more amazing about his, is that one of the people watching posted the video of this accomplishment on YouTube within five minutes of it happening. Congratulations Nuage13! You were the man of the hour!
My thirteenth favorite was watching Romscout and his group of Super Friends run “Kirby Super Stars.” Romscout put together a group of Kirby experts who helped him run through this fun game. MercuryZelda, PJ, and UltraJMan were definatly the best choices Romscout could make for his group of Super Friends on the evening of the tenth. It made an already fun game even more so.
The last of my favorites that I want to talk about happened right after my thirteenth favorite. MercuryZelda and Sir VG did a race of “Kirby: Nightmare in Dream Land.” There were alot of difficulties that both of them had with the run, but that’s okay. It just showed our viewers that stuff happens that we cannot control (see, even us speedrunners are human too!) during the course of our runs.
I love Kirby as a Smash Brothers Melee character, so watching the two games that Kirby first appeared, just made my week all that much better. Go Kirby, Go!!!
The last thing I want to talk about, happens to be about the large number of prizes that our viewers were able to donate for. The list, you can find within the Marathon Schedule on the SDA website (of which the link is listed below inside of my Top 10 Favorite Memories).
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MY TOP 10 MOMENTS:
*Unless noted, you can find links to my favorites (and the rest of the games’ videos) here *
#10 = Castlevania Race 2011
#9 = Color A Dinosaur In Aurora Camouflage
#8 = Battletoads Race 2011
#7 = Castle Crashers Race 2011
#6 = Katamari Damacy Sing-A-Long
#5 = Tigger and Romscout Bounce In And Awaken Link
#4 = Emptyeye Speedruns For Food – Parts A and B.
#3 = Ocarina of Time Race 2011
#2 = Pokemon Trainer SDA Battles CANCR And Wins
#1 = Super Serious Blind Time
Piece-ing Together The Week And A Half We Were Gone
Just as the title suggests, I’m going to have separate entries of the SDA Marathon, Emptyeye and My wedding, and MagFest 9. Emptyeye‘s still working on the one post that will be his side of the story. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been back, so you can see how well THAT’S working out…
I firmly believe that if I were to do that, it would be twice as long (in length), especially when it comes to details, pictures, etc. If you know me through Facebook (like most of my friends do…), then you know I like to put pictures up after stuff goes down… I’ll put the best of the best up here, so you (my constant readers) can see for yourselves the story I’ll be telling.
After all, a picture IS worth a thousand words!!!
Post MagFest Withdrawal
Hello constant readers, I’m STILL feeling that Post-MagFest withdrawal/depression that comes after it’s all over and all of us have to return to the real world following all of MagFest’s awesomeness! If you’ve never gone, then you’ve never experienced it’s after-affects on the gamer’s psyche. It’s DEFINATLY a rush to be there and see how much time and effort that Mr. MagFest has put into this year’s festival (even if he IS going to leave, he’ll still be going. Don’t worry!). It’s amazing that the few individuals that work on MagFest put their entire souls into the festival for us that go every year. I’m definatly thankful! Thanks Brandan! Thank you for all your hard work. Sorry if I was such a bitch at times throughout the wedding planning stage of things! And sorry that you got stress hives on account of the festival. You have been an AWESOME leader! We will miss your control of the event, but be sure, the spirit of MagFest will continue on. Hopefully, with a freaking vengeance!!!
I’ll be back to give a full account of everything in a bit. A few of us work in the afternoons…
Picture Plea
Sorry I took so long after the Marathon/the wedding/MagFest to write up any post at all. I was actually working on a scrapbook with all of my favorite pictures from the Marathon, the wedding, and MagFest.
Actually, I should correct myself… I’m working on two. The first is dedicated solely to the pictures that were taken at the wedding. The Second is to both the SDA Marathon and MagFest. I’m hoping to have the latter done by the end of this next week.
I’m actually still waiting on other people’s pictures of the wedding. There might be some that I like…
If you were there and have any that you think I would want to put into my scrapbook, please feel free to message me. Please do it soon-ish, as my parents (and his) want to see them too. And since my parents weren’t there, I’m hoping to have some pictures and stuff to show them sooner rather than later. Was thinking of showing them off today, but since I’m JUST getting around to this plea, well you know…
PLEASE, if you have any pictures, send them to mrs.emptyeye2112@gmail.com ASAP…
SDA Marathon!!!
Hey All. Just a quick post from the SDA Marathon . We’re raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation until early Tuesday Morning (the 11th)! Emptyeye and I will be here at the National 4-H Center in Chevy Chase, MD until early Wednesday morning.
I’m going to include some pictures with this post so you can see pictures of the Center. It’s absolutely GORGEOUS!!! They had good internet service, so that’s why the SDA guys decided that this was the perfect place to do this. Well, that and the fact that Mike Uyama (nicknamed “SDA Dude” from here-on-out.) couldn’t host us all this year at his place like he did last year. We went from 20 people doing the runs up to 50 this year. This includes girlfriends, fiencee’s and wives/husbands of the runners. Yay us!!!
We’ve got games with all sorts of ranges. Shoot-em-ups, RPG’s, some races to Kareshi playing the game music on piano… It’s pretty cool. You can find the schedule here . Be sure to refresh it every once in awhile. Times for games’ end due to change. We are human, after all. The predictions we gave at the beginning were subject to be wrong by the end…
Hope you enjoy!!!
Crazy here in almost-wife-land…
Trying to get together an in-expensive wedding is keeping me pretty busy! I’ll NEED to use the SDA Marathon time to relax while Emptyeye and his buddies are doing their thing… The following is the updated ticker. If you want to know any more of my plans, I try to keep this updated…
Please sign the guest book on the way out!!!
WOOOOHOOOO!!!!
See…
I just came across an article about Politics I want you to see. It doesn’t help that my mother wrote it, but you know. I CAN admit when she’s right. I’m not talking the candidates that she endorses, but what she says in her Letter to the Editor of this .
A Month’s Hiatus
Hey constant readers.
I thought it about time for me to finally tell you WHAT I was doing for the month or so I haven’t been writing blog posts. First off, I’ve been working Part time. But also, I’ve been working on finalizing this website .
Yeah, Emptyeye and I finally have a wedding date!!! I’ll put up pictures after the event, though. Don’t you worry…
I think I’ve given up on the Harry Potter differences post. Sorry… It was just WAAAAAY too long. I might try it again for next Summer. We’ll see how well it all goes!
Later!
Florence Gone???
Really DWTS people??? You voted Florence Henderson off before freaking Bristol Palin??? DAMN!!!
