Did my annual E3 visit yesterday...my standard protocol from the past few years has been to meet up with friends, drive to LA Convention Center, spend the day at E3, go to EightyTwo for drinks and retro gaming, then drive home exhausted.

Honestly, E3 this year was a bit of a bummer. They finally reopened the show to the (willing to pay) public, which created a significant (read: vastly annoying) influx of fresh (and not so fresh) bodies to crowd the lanes create a show of excitement for the industry. This turned decently common swag (not as high quality as the disgusting opulence shown at E3 in its heyday 10+ years ago) into hard-to-find, generally-lower-quality swag. Not that I'm one to go searching everywhere for the stuff...some of it's cool, but I don't really need most of it, and I don't go selling everything I get on eBay. (Some people make a killing, selling to nerdy suckers...no offense meant, and apologies made if this an accurate descriptor of your habits and you don't like …
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This blog will be updated occasionally over the next couple of days as I travel for work.

12:50pm (Central), Dallas TX (DFW) Airport.

Minor layover, coworker has an American Airlines Admirals Club membership. Can't say the view is really any better, but I got a Crown & 7 out of it =)

On my way to Birmingham, Alabama, to visit one of my company's new customers. Really, I'm going for a very specific reason that... Technically... Is unrelated to the actual business, but I'll get into that later. And no, it's not anything bad.

Anyway, will update this post with further info as it develops.

Update 7:15pm, Birmingham (The Collins Bar)

Cool place. They don't have a mixed drink menu. Says:


Got some kind of bourbon bitters lemon thing. Tasty.

Also some old school historic churches for scenery...


I got maybe 2 hours of sleep last night. I'm not used to that and my body is really mad at me. When I know I need to get up early (3:30am) to catch a flight, my mind freaks out and I wake up …
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If you're going to spam VVT ("Thanks!") in a game, at least back it up with decent play and a legitimate reason for your indignation. Otherwise, I'm going to blog about how seriously rage-inducing your god-awful play is, and have no remorse in doing so.

Seriously...straight into the midst of the enemy team many, many times. Diving the tower to try to secure a kill (which you basically never got). Your VVT, which I have to assume was sarcastic, was apparently directed at us for not agreeing to drink the same punch you did. Sorry, my life goals don't include seeing how many deicides we can give the other team in a single match.

Then again, maybe your thanks was in appreciation for us 1) not completely losing it and reaching through the screen to strangle your scrawny neck, and 2) eventually carrying you to a victory you absolutely did not deserve.

Anyway...the rest of the night was fairly productive. Warm up Joust with AMC.Flawless victory as Poseidon. 2 enemy team surrenders as He Bo…
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Haven't been playing as much SMITE as much lately, due to various factors (still on Zelda, yes, but I've beaten all 4 divine beasts, so it's just a matter of time).

That said, got a nice night of SMITE-ing last night with newbiemj/bad_juju and timetomedicate/GOTZ. However, I just have to talk about 1 game in particular...

This was after GOTZ left for the night...newb and I figured this would be our last one (unless we lost horribly, at which point we'd HAVE to play another because you can't leave on a loss, amirite?).

Our Cupid chose first and locked in, so newb countered with Athena. Figured I should probably go Mage, and after just a bit of deliberation, chose Ra.

Our enemy team was a full party, and I had the lowest Smite.Guru Elo of the match. They looked like they had a decently balanced team.

As the match started, Cupid made it as far as our tower before:

1. Mommy told him to get in bed
2. He'd forgotten to pay his electrical bill and they shut it off at a very inopportune t

…
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A man who isn't ruled by his wife and doesn't cringe at the thought of her anger isn't a man at all.

XD

It was Sunday, man. I almost never play games in the middle of the day when my kids are up. Usually, it means I'm being dragged around by my kids, intervening in their fights, cleaning up their messes, or doing random chores for the wife.

We'd just gotten back from the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival at our local museum, and I wanted to relax. Told the wife (indirectly asked for semi-permission) I was going to play one game...ended up playing two (which she definitely noticed, lol).

It was an opportunity to play with newbiemj/bad_juju40, and a nice surprise of getting to play with xZeroStrike, whom I've never played with previously. Took me a month to accept his friend request, since I didn't see it. My bad. Also played with a kid (Monkey) that saw my Bacchus guide and friended me because of it. (BTW, holy ****, that kid talks more than Pappsi does! Hi Pappsi. Oh, and he also sq…
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