kashyyyk-in-virginia-beach-part-i
Title: kashyyyk-in-virginia-beach-part-i
Author: Jeremy "JerUNH" Oakes
Date: Nov 26, 2001
Well, maybe not quite the same, but close enough.
Wednesday - Me and my Kashyyyk boys all decide to
head down to FreedomCon for yet another GREAT Con. It all starts early Wednesday morning when I head over to the New Haven bus depot to pick up Justin "H2O" Desai and his
friend Ben Rodriugez. They took the Bus down from Boston. In the station I pick up a to wake me up for the LONG (11 hours) trip that we had ahaead of us. It’s 9:45 am and
we are off to the races! First thing I do when we get in the car . . . I spill my coffee all over myself. We are cruising along about 75 mph down I95 when we hit NYC.
Yahoo Maps decides to tell us to go over the George Washington bridge.
BIG MISTAKE!!
We sit in traffic for 2.5 hrs and ONLY go 3 miles. This REALLY pissed me off, but that’s life! Had we not been driving so slow I’m sure we would have not seen/heard several things that became the topic of many conversations. Several of these include a Gas Station called "Gaseteria", a motel called "MOTEL", and a stupid commercial about BUTTER
that was heard on CBS 880 AM while waiting for the traffic report. Well let me tell you about this Butter commercial. In this 30 sec spot they mustve said butter at least
40 times!
"Do you like butter? Are you restricted from eating Butter Because of its High Fat Contenet? Do you not like margerine because it doesnt taste like butter? Well Look no Further! Try our all new Buttery Butter! It tatstes like Butter, but it Aint Butter! ONLY real Butter could taste like a better butter!" etc etc etc...
Needless to say I couldn’t stop saying butter all weekend long. Anyway, we get through traffic in NYC and we headed down to Carlisle, PA to pick up Andy "Rexbanner7" Klema.
On our way down we talk tech about what we want to play and what we think we’ll see at the tourney. We arrive in Carlisle at 5:30 PM. 3 1/2 hours LATE. Oh-Well What are ya
gonna do? We pick up Andy and head out AGAIN! Now we have 4 People in the Aluminum Falcon, which is the call sign of my ’98 Acura Integra GS (Silver). This car comfortably
seats 2 people and we had 4 People (3 Large and 1 regular). Cramped and tired we drive and drive and drive a little more. A Couple hours go by and we are FINALLY in Virginia. Ben has his head leaned back staring out the Hatchback staring at the sky. Be Shouts out "WOE! I just saw a shooting star." The rest of us question what he sees. I slow the car down to 75 mph (Was doing 105 mph) and I beginlooking out the front windsheild up at the sky. I realize how different the sky is when there is no light polution. It is so much more vibrant. After a couple minutes of gazing and seeing nothing and ALMOST swirving off
the road, I decide tah I want to pull over and watch. And As soon as I say this to the crew we see a sign for a rest area. I think COOL, but Ironic! Anyway We pull into the
rest area nd realize that there are so many lights that we cant see the sky like we could before and decide not to stop. In the process of driving through teh ret area, a State Trooper follows us through the rest area. Not yet realizing its a state trooper i decide to pull off the next exit so we can just pull off teh side of teh road to see the sky. Well this car Decides it wants to follow us. We end up getting off teh next exit and drivng approx 5 miles down a deserted road with a State Trooper following us.We come across a herd of Deer standing in teh middle of the road. They are freaking me out cause they just Stare at you with ethe Light reflecting out of their eyes. Anyway, we get by and continue down the road. We Eventually realize a State Trooper is following us and we decide to pull a U-Turn in the middle of the road. As soon as we turn around my high beams are flashing him RIGHT in the eyes and I dont even realize it. I begin to ask him a question but I’m nervous (natural reaction) and I begin to stutte "Is there anywhere where we could pull over?" and He replies very snotishly "You JUST drove THROUGH the rest area."
So i quickly come back with "No, No, No, I mean someplace where its dark..." And I was gonna end it there but realized what I just said didnt sound good and I finsished with " ...So that we can watch the meteor shower!" He gives us a really woerd look and basically tells us that there is no where we could go where we wouldnt be tresspassing and taht it is ILLEGAL to pull off to the side of the Road *cough*bull@#$%*cough*! Anyway we head up back to the highway back through the herd of deer staring back at us AGIN, Freaking me out AGAIN! Cop tails me for about 3 miles (I assumed he was running my plate, good thing it is clean).
We continue on our trip to Virginia Beach. the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful except when Ben breaks out of his silence and says...."You know what REALLY pisses me off?! Those DAMN Neutron Stars!!!!" We are all like WTF?!?!?!? The trip continues...
We arrive in Virginia Beach approx 12:30 am. We meet up with Brian Cszyienski and Steve "Steebo" Baroni. Andy, Justin, and Ben allmove their stuff up to Brian’s room and come down for some late night playtesting. I grab the key From Hayes "hayes" Hunter so that I can go put my junk away. I also introduce myself to Bastian on my way up to the room since we will be rooming together this weekend.
I grab my cards and head downstairs for some playtesting. Steve takes my ards and begins building some decks since he didnthave his cards yet. He builds me a Darkside Lighsaber
Combat. I decide that I am too tired to stay up much longer, so I head to bed for the evening.
Thursday - The morning starts off with a trip to IHOP. IHOP truely is KING.After enjoying our scrumptious pancakes and our delicious omlettes Hayes, Bastian, Ben, and Myself decide to head out to the grocery store to buy this weekends supplies. We also pick up some "adult beverages". After heading back to the hotel I decide i need to tweak my decks out for the "Last Man Standing" tourney. Mike Gemem conivinces me to play his version of WYS which is HOT! And I decide to play with a tweaked out version of the Lightsaber combat (Dark) that Baroni built for me. Aftre playing a couple of playtest games with the new decks we head down for the "Last Man Standing" Tourney. I walk into this tourney with a rating of 1588.
Light - WYS Dark - Combat
Game 1 DS vs Steve Baroni’s (2020) QMC
OH GREAT! I drive some 600 miles Just so that I can play somebody that I ALWAYS play from my region. Anyway I end up sitting next to Justin and he jokingly says to me "I’ll
give you $5 if you beat him!" Meaning, that he thought I could never do it. So Our game starts and I get Maul & Saber in my opening Hand. I decide not to go down right away cause I didnt have much of anything else in my starting hand. I deploy a docking bay and the Bridge and I draw up first turn. I get Mara, EPP Vader, and Chimera. First Turn he deploys a ton of sites and draws up. Now I am generating MAD force turn 2. So I activate Deploy a
Docking bay (Look For Mara’s Saber) and I deploy Maul and Mara With saber. Mara heads down to Cloud City while Mauls is hanging out at Naboo. Draw up 2 cards (Xizor & Sense). A couple of turns go by and he sets up the whole QMC things and starst drainging and Im doing my little drain thing. I know that if I try to chase down the gusy on Cloud City he will just Path away. So I decide to pull Evader/Monnok and use it lost hoping to get his Paths and to see what else he had. I yanked Run Luke run (x2), and Path of least Resistance (x2). There were also 2 copies of Barrier but one was japanese and I was looking at titles and I didnt
catch it. (Since I poulled all the doubles out of his hand I credit it as my fault since I didnt pull it out. After that i play EPP Vader and Xizor to the same site as EPP Luke. He tries to Barrier bothe Vader & Xizor and I end up Sensing both of the Barriers. (Thank GOD).
I come down and Battle I swing & Hit Luke, Play I Have You Now whiel he swings and Hits Xizor (Hoping to make Vader lost to attrition). I draw 3 Destiny and I remind him that his Ability isnt >5 so he gets no destiny. My 3 Destiny are High and Thats Game. Damn I wish this game was sanctioned!
Full Win by 25
2(+25)
Game Highs
- Playing an absolutely perfectgame and not forgetting to do anything.
Game Lows
- Having to play and eliminate a good friend in the first Game.
Game 2 LS vs Some Dood (1900’s) Huntdown
WTF?! Huntdown? Out of all the Tech talk and playtesting Huntdown was never mentioned. I had NO idea how it was going to be played. This dood had a little bit of a mental edge on me since I was NOT expecting to see this and I was totally surprised. Anyway. THis game was all downhill from turn 1. He starts by getting vader to the Cantina and I have
absolutely NOTHING in my opening Hand. I am losing to visage every turn and he is draing me and he gets soem backup down to the cantina. I basically lkose teh cantina and sit in space and drain at Tatooine and Kessel while he builds up force for a huge Beatdown in space. He comes down to Fondor with Executor, Piett, Zuckuss, and Bossk move over to Tatooine. Mirax and Dash sheepishly run away to Kessel in there ships. nextTurn he gets Merajyk and pulsl systems and starts to pile up the ships. he moves over to Kessel where I Have Mirax/Ship Dash/Ship, Capn Han/Falcon, Wedge/Red Squad 1. I drew up red 10 the last turn and was able to deploy it and pilot down and I tried to beat down the executor. No Good. I ened up drawing only 2 destiny now Cause Kessel is teh ONLY location I have any characters and tehy Are BOTH 1’s.AND I also forget to reduce the power of the Executor. I end up losing Dash & Ship to attrition and end up sitting at Tatooine for drain for the rest of the game. While he drains and makes me lose to visage. I couldnt do ANYTHING.
Full Loss by 32
2(-7)
Game Highs
- None
Games Lows
- Everything!
After Being eliminated in round 2 of LastMan Standing I decide to head back up to the room and enjoy a Becks while trying to decide what to do for tomorrows tournamnet. I get up to the the room and Hayes is upstairs hanging out with Alex Tennet. I dont knwo what happened from here, But as tehnight progressed there were More and MORE people in the room. Which really surprised me since Hayes specifically told me before the trip that he wants all the rest he can get the whole weekend. Anyway I think at one point there about 25 people in our tiny hotel room. And peoepl just kept bring beer and more beer. And there was some Vodka and Rum being passed around. I drank 5 Becks that night and enjoyed a nice Buzz.
I have no idea how much Hayes drank... but it was too much! The room got very loud and crowded. i decide to head up to visit Geminem and Justin in their room. Only Brian and
Ben were up there. I ended up falling asleep in their Chair aout 2:30 am. I wake up about an hour later and decide to go back up to my room. Up there Hayes is passed out
in the Bathroom and Bastian is sleeping. I need not fill in the details of what happened teh rest of the night. All I need to say is that our cleaning lady msut REALLY hate her job now.
To Be Continued...