ShoX — It seems that 60minutes before the consolation final = practically zero TF2 players at the event, which scuppers our plans for some early morning interviews so I thought instead I’d give a rather unceremonious roundup of events instead.

Infused

It’s safe to say that after Darn’s antics of crashing his PC not once, but twice during their game vs Mixup deflated the team completely and instantly. Anyone who sat with the team would have noticed the atmosphere almost instantly. From what started as a motivated and optimistic force to be reckoned with turned quickly into an embittered row of gamers all wishing to be put out of their misery moments after Darn smashed his keyboard into the desk.

My understanding is that Infused were to continue TF2 should i46 be a success, getting beat by Byte no matter how good his team is was always going to be a slap to the face to players like dunc and numlocked. Chance of folding [93%]

Extine

Nicest guy (in) EU. I had some preconceptions about our camera hogging cousin from across the pond. A lot of us had it in our heads that he was unbelievably business focused, willing to step on others to further his own venture but the truth of the matter is he’s a tremendous human being who is here purely because he adores TF2. I feel slightly ashamed of the views I’d held previously.

The award for the strangest TF2 player

Crashsite! A warm, limp handshake followed by 9 hours of sitting directly in the middle of the VanillaTV casting area while reading a well thumbed book at LAN sees him easily secure the award. Props, brother!

TCM Gaming

If there was an award for what looks like the shortest return to TF2 it could well be given to TCM. With talisman Byte apparently stepping down and others already making noises about finding other places to play it looks like the writing is already on the wall for the fledgling team.

The award for the drunkest girlfriend

… goes to. <drumroll> Mrs. Pledge. God love her. Jaeger shots were interspersed with some serious heavy petting of our premier TF2 caster just outside of shot of our webcam. It wasn’t a pretty sight. On the plus side, she drinks pints of lager like a sailor. It’s obvious what Pledge sees in her.

VanillaTVs technical issues

There’s no shying away from it. This weekend has been nothing short of a living nightmare, we got ideas above our station and brought along probably the most over engineered, over complicated and over the top audio/visual setup ever conceived by man, and when it came to the troubleshooting and resolution of issues we simply didn’t have the experience to sort it out.

We made a decision on Friday to go back to (relative) basics which has seen reliability improve but there’s still a way to go before we could happily put forward this kind of setup for the next event and for that, we’re deeply sorry.

Sadly the technical issues have had a knock on effect with our motivation in some regards. I’m extraordinarily proud of the work ethic of those involved in the resolution of these issues, it’s no exaggeration to say we’ve been working flat out all weekend and other things have suffered because of it but we’ve kept our heads down and with the help of Multiplay and Airon we go there in the end.

After 3 days of chasing technical gremlins your legs get pretty tired and when it’s finally fixed the exhaustion and apathy washes over you pretty quickly. However, today is a new day and we’re going to be doing everything we can to make up for lost time.

Team America

The fact of the matter is, no matter what happens in the final NA produce some incredible teams with an impressive game ethic that we simply can’t match. While Darn was slamming his fists into the desk and screaming they were quietly going on about the business of decimating the hopes and dreams of EU.

We’ve given them a few minor slaps in the face game play wise, but you always get the feeling that should they need to they’d be capable of removing our heads from our shoulders. Our final hope lies with  F2, go get em’ tiger.

The missing chromosome award

Lager with Chili sauce chasers? Really? Congratulations go to Anderson, Coleman, Foster.

Nitrose

Most surprising team of the LAN so far. Steadily consistent performances have seen them take teams like TCM Gaming right down to the wire and they’ve made a positive step towards developing a decent reputation for themselves as a top team at LAN. They’re one of the few top teams that seem to play for each other, rather than against each other and look as though they’re pretty good buddies, too. Oh and on an unrelated note I’d quite like to have sexual intercourse with  Hys’ sister.

I think that about covers it for now, got anything interesting? Post it in the comments.