(by Rice)

QUAKE III ARENA TOUR BUS: CONTINUED...

JOHN a.k.a. =T:

    Last Saturday, October 23rd, the quake 3 arena bus went to Santa Anita Race Track. The bus carried eight 550 Athlons powered by a four cylinder generator (at least that's what I think I heard). The rule was simple: Eight players go on the bus to play a twenty frag limit, and the top three players would come off with quake 3 prizes. The event was held at 12 noon and ended at 5. On that day, Edmond, Renny, and I were to meet Eric and the others (Wen-li, Leo, and Albert) at 11:00 in front of the quake 3 bus because of the supposed crowds of people who would be there due to the KROQ concert.

    However, that was not the case, none of us arrived on time, nor was there a hoard of people lining up to play quake 3. Everybody arrived late for various reasons that are not necessary to go into. The point is, even though we were all late, we eventually made it there. Ed, Renny, and I were the first to arrive. We had a helluva time trying to locate the darn thing, not knowing the exact location. Fortunately after sweeping the mall and a way down Huntington, we turned into the Santa Anita Race Tracks to ask if the quake 3 bus was in there. Boy did that pay off because the lady whom I think was in a parking uniform for some unknown reason, pointed us straight to the bus. We were happy and thought we would be on our way, but the "you don't get something for nothing" devil reared it's ugly head and she daringly charged us three dollars for telling us where the bus was, crying out something about "parking" when we promptly refused to pay for that ridiculous charge. Finally, coming to the conclusion that she obviously wouldn't let us go on with our journey until we paid, I unlocked my wallet and dished out three dollars.

    Anyhow, when the three of us arrived, there was nobody there. We hurriedly found a parking space and walked calmly to the tent in front of the bus. The man outside asked us if we wanted to play so we said yes and we were let on the bus. Man we shouldn't have taken the heat outside for granted because the inside temperature was a "freeze your ass off" chill of 64 degrees. Anyway, the three of us were seated, along with 5 other people as we were briefed about the game and the new maps and models. When the players further inside finished their game, the eight of us headed for the computers. We were given ten minutes to warm up and change our configuration on a new warm up map, with new things like a grenade launcher and a invisibility thing. When we were done, we entered into a smaller map where we duked it out to hit the twenty frag limit. This would be a map in which quad helps a lot because it's small and people are bunched together most of the time. There is hardly any one-on-one action going on because there was always somebody nearby to, as Eric would say, BF you. For those of you who don't know what that means, don't worry about it, for those of you who do, I'm sorry, heh.

    Well anyway, the outcome was inevitable. Of course I got first place and was surprisingly greeted by the "I don't believe it" faces of my friends when I came off the bus with the Quake 3 t-shirt. Sorry to say, but that was just plain sad. Instead of congratulating me, they insulted me by being surprised at the fact that I had won. But anyway, I don't want to turn this into my homepage so I'll just continue. The day went on and we all kept lining up to play because it wasn't that great of a turnout and we kept trying to win the prizes. There were even free cups, posters, key chains, quake 2 add-ons (I think) for winning the trivia, and gamespy mouse pads. I dunno, but I thought it was a pretty productive day. We all won something, from t-shirts, to caps, to mouse pads, and even Wen-li got a t-shirt (good for her, even though she smells).

    Anyway, I enjoyed playing quake 3 arena that day despite some of the people there who were quite weird. There was one Asian guy there with his Caucasian friends and I guess he was a decent quake player or whatever, but he yelled out "Quake 3 Arena owns you" which will be forever embedded into my brain because it's so lame that it's funny. There were a few decent players there that day, so it didn't make it too easy or pointless to win and in the long run made it entertaining. I can honestly say that I had a fun time for those 5 hours even though I hadn't eaten anything for the whole day.

    However, when the bus came to UCLA, it was a different story. Most of those people there were a bunch of newbies, so it made it kind not fun, well I thought. Plus it made me feel like I shouldn't try so hard to win because they would be much happier then I would if I won. But on the positive note, that day, we (Ed, Eric, I) saw that some girls actually play quake3, and some of them came out winners, and it was like "wow, cool". So in conclusion, it was fun the first time around because there weren't that many newbies, but when you're playing a bunch of newbies, it kind of dulls the entertainment. All in all, I wouldn't have exchanged that day for the world. Yeah, uh huh.

ALBERT a.k.a. GASMAN:

    The quake 3 bus was very interesting way of playing quake. Usually when we play everyone has different systems and everyone is operating at different speeds. The Quake 3 bus was tight. It allowed us to play with great excitement and joy. The computers used were excellent and most if not all the players were well trained and gave stiff competition. Even though I didn't win anything the experience was well worth it. There was only this one round where the station I was at had a defective mouse, but that was all. This was one of the best things to do with a couple of friends. Quiet frankly, the quake 3 bus was some dope shit!