Brandon's Hobo Juice
Hi, I'm Brandon and I used to write Heart Containers. Yesterday I was killing hookers and I was suddenly stricken with a revelation! That revelation being: some of you might be interested in reading what I have to say about my trip to the Electronic Entertainment Exposition!
Would you like to hear it? Okay!
The other day while I was telemarketing, I started writing down what I remembered doing each day of E3. Eventually I got a big list of things that I did, a list that was wholly good for making me remember things but relatively inadequate for the lay-man to use in the understanding of Brandon's life and Trips to E3 in General. As such, I have decided to forego the point by point recap diary entry of every event and instead present you all with large generalizations and gross inaccuracies regarding the staff!
To the non-initiated, I speak this thusly: E3 is only three days long, and the staff is there for at least six days. So what did we do in the meantime? My girlfriend's name is Jessica and we arrived in Los Angeles the first morning and I was expecting to see some sort of cordial welcome party; Dean in a bow with a noisemaker + Glen in sparkly shoes and a cake would have surprised me but only a little. Instead there was nothing but migrant people screaming in foreign tongues not inferior to mine but merely different to the extent I could not understand them. After a while we saw a boy walking around and I pegged him as out of place enough to be an N-Sider staff machine. It ended up being CHRIS CARSON but we didn't know that until Glen showed up and did the unthinkable: actually asked the mystery boy if he was One Of Us. So he was and we sat down on the floor by the baggage claim area. Some words were spoken, though I cannot remember precisely what they were.
CHAPTER 2: A THICKENING CORN STARCHY GROUP
As we sat, additional staffers arrived, including but not limited to resident Nintendog ADRIAN DEHERRERA and resident person who went to the Sony preshow with me, MARK MEDINA. As it turns out, we left promptly with ANGEL RUEDAFLORES, resident drive-me-everywhere guy who has a car and can weave in and out of Los Angeles traffic without being destroyed.
We went to the Sony preshow and couldn't trick them into letting Angel in, so just Mark and I entered. Behind the gates there was an assortment of free food and drink. I drank two Red Bulls and a Rockstar energy drink. Also I ate some food. They had wraps, little donuts, some Chinese themed salad thing, and some other crap. In addition I dropped an entire taco on the floor and then left it there. Eventually we all rushed into the little room where the press conference was going to take place and they showed us their trickery. But not before putting everyone to sleep by making Kaz cast the sleep spell on everyone in the audience. We ran out of tape cause we taped his boring shit so we had to erase some of it to tape the pretty graphics at the end. Highlights of these pretty graphics included the Final Fantasy VII tech demo and, for me, Killing Day. I'm sorry if you buy our DVD every year so you can effectively destroy an hour of your life watching boring Japanese men talk about flops. No I'm not.
After this we went to our hotel, which was conveniently located in a predominantly Spanish section of downtown. We were only a fifteen minute walk or so from the LACC, which was nice. But tonight was the night that Jessy and I were to go to the Final Fantasy: More Friends concert in Universal City. Angel drove us there and we made it a half-hour late but were right on time cause they started late. It was freaking sweet. Nobuo and the Black Mages played music, Rikki and Emiko Shiratori sung songs, and there was a sort of performance of the music and vocals from the Final Fantasy VI opera scene. Later, Jessica and I spent money on stupid crap at the souvenir booth and then Angel brought us home.
This was the busiest day.
CHAPTER 3: THE FIRST HINT OF SWAG TASTE
The next morning was a fantastic experience. We all went to a Hollywood location, which I believe was the Kodak theatre. We were to get in line for registration so we could go upstairs to the Nintendo pre-show. In line, we all busted out our DS stuff and started to pictochat. Nintendo's foresight couldn't have possibly imagined the atrocities committed this day. Among the pictorial highlights:
- Stick-figures launching groin-liquid at other things and phrases
- Swear words
- Penis
During this time we also saw "TYP" from Planet GameCube. Lots of people called him names and he vanished. Perhaps he was an apparition. Also there was Adam Sessler. No, the television doesn't make him look any stranger than you'd expect he looks in person. After this we went upstairs and enjoyed free objects and drinks. We got into the Nintendo conference and I was overwhelmed by people. We kicked their asses and took their pictures. Highlights of the pre-show included the Reggie remix (a loud music clip proclaiming very slowly "My.. name is... Reh-reh-reggieeeeeee"), Shiggy's Nintendog screwing the brains out of that G4 lady's dog, and Reggie not pulling a Glock out of his pocket but instead pulling a Game Boy Micro. Then he pulled a Glock and shot people with it. Only in the Glock it was just acid. The joke's on them!
After the press conference we ate a large pizza downtown. It was big! Bigger than other pizzas. Jessica shook Adam Sandler's hand in a crazy mob situation and he told her he was on his way to make another shitty movie so he had to go. He went.
Then we went to pick up tickets for the Star Wars movie we were going to see later that week. We got them and then ended up waiting outside of the film school building for Adrian. We did and then had our first encounter with hobo-springs. This was a non-functional moat-like place surrounding the stairs to said building. In it were assorted coins, a mysteriously viscous fluid floating on the surface, and several cigarette butts. Next to it there was an air conditioning unit which had resting upon it a soiled towel and very disgusting jar of Vaseline. Glances were exchanged.
CHAPTER 4: ABRAHAM'S SHEEP HERDING ADVENTURE
The next day was the first day of the actual E3 show. I will start off by saying that no matter what videos you see, what pictures you look at, and what sort of hellish chaos you can imagine, they are wrong. The E3 involves a larger group of people than any you've ever seen in your life. They are invariably less attractive than you and many contain a pungent scent which wafts from them in vapor-trails. During many instances, the entire world slowed to a halt as someone passed by me with motion blur and their distinctive emission emulsified the surrounding air into a thick, arguably creamy goo. The heat is immense. Sweat flows like champagne off tits in the Playboy mansion (a faction whose video-game alter-ego publisher made an appearance, replete with voluptuous vixens being ogled by throes of show-goers).
These people don't play games at E3. I feel like I should tell you up front. We're friends and all, so I figured it would fit for me to let you in on that particular secret. People don't play games at E3. People watch other people play games at E3. If you want to play a game, that's sad. You should stay home. The only games you will get to play at E3 are bad games that nobody else plays. I got to play such gems as Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith for the Nintendo DS! I also played some bad GBA game, and the Sonic Gems Collection for the GameCube. I played Madden '06, which was basically like Madden '05 only this time there's a bright wedge of light emitting from Manning's head. Maybe there's lasers this time.
But I'm not being entirely truthful. I did get to play The New Zelda, as well as Mario Kart DS about ten times (2 RC kart winner REP-RA-ZENT) and I even got to tell Charles Martinet that if he did not say "it's a me" in Animal Crossing DS that I would kill him for being an infidel. He didn't say it and I beat him with a shovel in real life. I also played Dragon Quest VIII for a little bit. It was neat. I tried to play Killer 7 but I think I must have been playing something that wasn't actually Killer 7 because I pushed lots of buttons and nothing discernable happened. I played Mario Baseball, and it was fun. I also played Kingdom Hearts II, which will undoubtedly set the standard for three-dimensional representations of Mickey Mouse fighting alongside Johnny Depp. You can't believe it, but there's more! I played the new "Super Mario Bros. DS" game and it was fun. I couldn't figure out Meteos for a good ten minutes and quit. I tried doing some play with "Trace Memory" and couldn't get past the first puzzle. I also played Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for about six hours so I could write about it in my N-Depth for you ravenous beasts. Here's some games I wanted to play and couldn't cause people don't play games at E3:
Snowboard Kids DS
Magna Carta
Starcraft: Ghost
Castlevania DS
Soul Calibur III
We Love Katamari
Phantasy Star Universe
King of Fighters: Rebout '94
Samurai Showdown V
Every other game on the show floor
Since it was too hard to play games, I got lots of swag, which sometimes required more effort than playing games but ended up being far more rewarding. I got like ten Mario Kart DS styli... styli?, as well as four plushy Pokeemans and some Nintendogs. I also got a bunch of PSP lanyards, two Mario Kart RC cars, a few pins, lots of crappy shirts, and the hobo-virus, which was making me violently ill at this point. These items kicked so much ass that they're all lying in a pile on my floor.
The day ended and I was destroyed in a sea of rampaging people desperately fighting each other in a deathpit over tiny little pieces of shit that ladies in push-up bras were throwing out like bread in starving countries.
This continued, in various fashions and time-cycles, for the three days of the E3. It was the bomb dizzy.
CHAPTER 5: OTHER STUFF THAT HAPPENED
But that can't be it, can it? Can my E3 experience be summed up into a series of disjointed chapters and hyperbole? Of course! But I'd be leaving out all sorts of extra goodies. There are other things that happened too.
We all played lots of Daigasso Band Brothers. We played it networked at the E3 speech before the show. Our music was louder than the radio music so they turned up the radio music. We kept playing. It was neat. Another thing that happened was that we took the subway a lot. On various occasions the homeless guys hassled us. One of them sold me an old ticket. By sold I mean violently placed in my hand while removing a dollar from it. One time we ran about seven city blocks in downtown Hollywood to get to the Arclight theater for Episode III. We made it but only because I teleported in front of Adrian. He wonders how I did it but the answer really is I had a jetpack. Sorry Adrian, but jetpacks know no limits.
Once there was a visit to one of our hotel rooms from Santa Beer. He left a bag full of alcohol. I didn't know Santa had come so I was sleeping. Next time Santa Beer comes I will expect to be well informed. Another thing that happened was that Dean stole a controller from a box of stuff in front of the LACC. Mark and Ben thought it was a good idea and so they stole one too. But then some dude came and called them the f-word and took them back. That was funny. Glen, Angel, Jessy, Josh, and I all went to a Japanese ramen restaurant on one evening. I enjoyed it greatly. Other things we did? Ben got propositioned by some Spanish lady. We ate at El Pollo Loco, a fast food chain fusing the greatest of KFC and Taco Bell. Jessy took lots of compromising pictures of Nate Bihldorff. I hope his translation work does not suffer. Josh spied on Nintendo employees with his video camera.
CHAPTER 6: ALL GOOD THINGS
We finally had to leave. It was pretty sad but I knew I'd be back next year. As a present to Los Angeles I peed on the street and then put a newspaper on it. I felt like I had done my job.
To Los Angeles, Thanks for Everything!
XXOO
Brandon