Azteca on the Seattle LAN Party
"I can’t say enough positive things about the Seattle LanParty which I recently attended. The entire time was a blast and everyone who came was a pleasure to be around. I’m just going to somewhat write a day to day diary of what happened over the next few posts. In doing so, I’m just going to throw down whatever I can remember so don’t get too upset if I ramble on for too long. Similarly, for those who came, if I leave anything out, please feel free to correct me.
Chapter 1: “Hey Mateo, Its Nick, we’ll be there in 7 hours!”
The original plans had it that KHB (Nick Hill), McWaldo (McBen), and Ash (Antonio Flamer) would crash at my fraternity for the duration of the trip. KHB was going to drive up with Summoner and McWaldo and arrive around 10am Friday morning. I had just finished my last final on Thursday morning and taken a nap when I got the call from KHB. “Hey, we’re in Missoula, we’re gonna be there in 7 hours!” A quick glimpse of my watch showed that it was 7pm, making KHB’s arrival about 2am. This was a problem: It’s the last day of finals, I’m going out and I’m getting hammered. I figured that if I just left the bars early and didn’t get too fucked up, I would be fine to meet KHB. Things didn’t go as planned. My friends did the normal bar hopping with my girlfriend and me. However, some guy started hitting on April, my girlfriend, and after watching her blow this drunk off for a while, I valiantly charged to the rescue. This guy was really hammered and offered to buy me two shots to refrain from kicking his ass. Well, the two shots of Yaeger and redbull put me over the limit and I promptly headed home to meet Nick. Arriving home around 2, I surveyed the house and parking lot for him with no luck. I stayed up for awhile waiting for him but I guess they ran into a Blizzard in Spokane, a city east of the mountains. So, April and I went to bed and did our things, only to later find out that KHB made in about 3:30 and couldn’t get into the house. I had already been long passed out at this time and there was no reaching me through the phone. I woke up around 10am the next day to find KHB had called me all morning from a pay phone. I barely had enough time to fart and scratch myself when suddenly a knock came from the door and KHB barged in. “Hey I’m Nick, Hey I’m Mateo” and the rest of the usual greeting rang out. We went out to grab their stuff and found McWaldo passed out in the backseat.
Now, I never really had seen anyone like McWaldo. Hes about 6’2”, maybe 6’5” if you count the afro. He had glasses, yellow hair, and a patch of fuzzy shit on his chin. On top of this he was wearing a Diablo 2 tee shirt. We went back inside and I welcomed them to my humble shit hole frat house bachelor pad and introduced them to my GF April. The time was around 11 and we had planned to go down to the airport about 3:00 to catch the Flamer coming in at 3:30. We weren’t originally supposed to go get him, but we figured we would have nothing better to do all day while we wait for the first meeting of everyone at 6:30. So everyone showered up and KHB grasped hold of my computer like no one’s business. He promptly started talking shit to BiZaTcH and thus the first game of the netparty was yielded. KHB started 6, and moved s8 to face Bizatch’s 12. Bizatch countered with the slowest cat rush known to man, and proceeded to get lust about as fast as I do when I play with humans. Nevertheless, it was enough to scrub KHB and give Bizatch a screenshot with my name on it (KHB played under my bnet handle, I wonder how many times Bizatch has whacked it to that shot). After shooting the shit with all the bnet lackeys, we were off to find some lunch.
We strolled into Azteca about 1:30 after taking quite a long cruise in KHB’s brand new Wolfsburg Edition 1.8t 4-banger Jetta—a very nice car with a nice sound system. Azteca is a Mexican Restaurant chain in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho in which my family owns, hence my namesake. KHB scarfed down a macho burrito like it was going out of style…because, well… KHB is a big man. He used to play inside linebacker before he blew out his knees. He is not really fat, but damn he’s big. He has the stocky football legs that professionals have, with the cut out knees and quads. Ash had warned me about KHB’s tendency to wear butthugger pants, and well, Ash was right. So, after we enjoyed a nice 70% discount at Azteca, we hit the road to go get Ash.
Chapter 2: “Attention in the terminal, Southwest Airlines is paging…Tony (laugh) Flamer….. Tony Flamer…. Will you please meet your party at the southwest airlines ticket booth, Tony…. (giggle) Flamer… please meet your party at the Southwest airlines ticket booth.”
We arrived at Seattle/Tacoma international airport at about quarter to 3, about 45 minutes early to pick up Ash. None of knew he flight number or carrier, and we decided we would just cruise around the 5th biggest airport in the US in hopes of running into him. The plan was to stake out each circa 3:30 arrival from the bay area. Well, we waited patiently at a United arrival from SFO at 3:21 only to find no Ash. The only other incoming flight was on Southwest in the B terminal, which is a 10-minute subway ride and walk. We had to hurry. We stopped at an Alaska ticket booth to check if there were any other arrivals coming in from the bay area other than these two flights. There weren’t, but we learned that the Southwest flight is a little late. I decided it was best for KHB to go page Tony Flamer, since we were a little late to his terminal, over the Aiport’s intercom. My GF april went and took a pee break while McWaldo and I hussled to the flight’s gate. As we were just getting to Ash’s gate, we heard it over the intercom: “Tony Flamer, please meet your party at the Southwest ticket booth.” The lady said it about 3 times and was giggling every time. McWaldo and I heard it and immeadiatly started laughing. I even heard some guy next to us go “I would hate to have that last name.”
McWaldo and I stood and watched as everyone disembarked from the plane. We almost walked away when some little skinny kid came striding off the plain last. That’s the only way to explain his walk: he kinda strides on his toes. McWaldo exclaimed “there he is” as I examined this little 16 year old boy prancing at me wearing a shirt that said “l33t haxor” and on the back read “Level 6.” He had light brown hair and looked decent. After being introduced, I learned that it was actually Ash, and that he was 19, not 16, coulda fooled me—the kid looks like he just hit puberty. He was really nice and personable, and changed back into a button up shirt to hide his Warcraft-T. He said he only wore the shirt so people could recognize him who were supposed to pick him up. He then told us that the Dutchies were actually supposed to arrive after him, rather than before. We thought the Dutchies would be here earlier and that they would be here to get Ash. Since KHB knew the Dutchies, we thought that’s how we would find Ash, since they are twin 6’4” mammoths.
So we began to strut off to the international terminal when I heard “Az….. Azteca….. MATEO!?!?!” from behind me. I turned arround and low and behold 3 strangers walked up to us. “Hey Az right?” “yea.” It was Jay, Ywfn (Jeff), and @Shaman (Jeff). Shaman and Fin were both wearing slacks and leather coats. They looked older and a bit nervous/intimidated. Shaman is about 6”1’ with dark hair and normal build. Fin is a little heavier and shorter, with a bit of a Go-T I think and dirty blonde hair. I was kinda surprised at first, he didn’t look like I thought he would. They were silent and looked around at each other a lot. Jay was wearing stone wash jeans from the 80s and a red, old, Eddie Bauer shirt that also looked from the 80s. His haircut, was, well… from the 80s and was blonde. He looked like a kid who was out with his grandma. He was nice to meet and very personable.
After the introductions, I lead us to the baggage claim where Ash was to get his stuff. Fin, Shaman, and Jay still appeared nervous and followed behind the group and remained silent. I began talking to Ash about KHB paging for Tony Flamer and that KHB was indeed wearing the butthuggers. Ash told me that from now on, KHB is now known as KBH: KingButtHugger.
We got to the baggage claim to find that Southwest had lost Ash’s suitcase. Don’t ever fly southwest unless you absolutely have to. Sure, they’re about half the price of normal airlines, but fuck man, you get packed in like sardines. There is no first class or assigned seating, its just first come first serve. Instead of meals they usually give you some peanuts and a cracker, along with some McDonalds orange drink for beverage service. On top of that, they lost Ash’s suitcase. What a crock. I’ll give them one thing though, they have the nicest staff that can surely be counted on to make hilarious jokes about how shitty the airline actually is.
Jay, Fin, and Shaman parted with us for a bit to go put their luggage in their rental car. We went to out where the dutchies were coming in and headed for their gate. We met back up with Shaman, fin, and Jay outside of the subway train to the international gate. They still seemed somewhat distant. We got to Customs and while we were standing there, we noticed all these signs with weird names on them that people were holding up so the people coming out of customs could meet their rides. Ash came up with the idea to make a sign that says “[24-7]Scrubs” to hold up for the Dutchies. We stole some lady’s eyeliner pen or some shit to write the sign. When they came off the plane they were kinda pissed to see it. Pimster was the first one to circle around and shake hands with everyone. Hes 6’4” and scrawny with curled hair. Hes kinda uptight and I could tell he didn’t like me. He looked like your typical european stereotype.
Guan-Yu came around next and was a lot looser than Pim. He didn’t have his hair curled, but other than that they are identical twins. He said to me “it is an honor to meet you.” I was flattered; I shook his hand heartily and knew from battle.net that he was a cool guy. I looked forward to hanging out with him the most of the Dutch crew at first.
Watje is about 6’0” and really scrawny too. He’s not related to Pim and Guan but he was a lot of fun. He had a lot of energy and always smiled. Later, we agreed he was the most fun of the Dutchies to be around.
We got a photo of us all at Customs, taken by April, which I’m sure Pim will post when he gets back.
I lead everyone back across a subway ride to the baggage claim and started talking Guan-Yu. We talked about the tournament he won and he said that he beat ****OFF THE RECORD***************.
The Dutchies still had to rent a car so we left Fin, Shaman, and Jay to make sure they got everything squared away while Ash, KHB, McWaldo, myself and April hit the road back to my frat house. In the car it was always a battle over what music we were going to listen to. I have another job as a DJ in which I play a lot of club play, hip hop, and dance. So I liked the popular stations which played the “young kids” music. I also like old rock, CCR, Van Halen, etc. KHB and McWaldo are butt rockers. Ash… well, Ash likes CCR too and a bunch of crazy ass shit. In the end, the buttrockers united and took control of the stereo. This prompted Ash to stop riding with KHB. Haha.
We kicked it at my fraternity for a while and Ash beat some scrubs down. We soon hit the road and headed up to Mt. Vernon for some war2. I had underestimated the drive and it ended up being almost an hour to IGL’s headquarters.
Will Az and Ash be forced to listen to Butt-rock all the way to Mt. Vernon? Stayed tuned for more…."