SGDQ Bound

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melancholy
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SGDQ Bound

Post by melancholy »

Paid my registration fee, booked the hotel, and organized babysitting for 5 days. It's official, I am going to Summer Games Done Quick in July! I'm so excited right now because this will be the first time in nearly 11 years that I have traveled somewhere that required a hotel stay, and the first time in my entire life that I've spent more than $150 on a vacation (not counting my honeymoon since that was all gift money). This will also only be the second time in my life that I've traveled to a state west of Indiana (oddly enough, the first time was also to Minneapolis as part of a school trip), so I have lots of reasons to be pumped for this trip.

I wish I could afford to fly so I could count that as a first too (I've have flown before, but only in a helicopter, never commercially). But no, we will be driving 11 hours to be there by 10am on Sunday July 2 for the kickoff. I'll take pictures! I'll write updates! I'll make a goofy face on the audience cam at 2am during the graveyard shift runs (which would be like 6pm for you Aussies so you might actually see me). Soooooo excited for this! July cannot come soon enough.

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

Nice. Let's hope you are in the crowd when the next big cringe video happens!

An 11 hour drive will be fun.

OrangeRibbon
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by OrangeRibbon »

As someone who drove to Boston a couple of times, all I can say is splurge on an extra days sleep before the event. Even if you have to stay in a crappy motel 2 hours out.

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pixel
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by pixel »

Downtown Minneapolis is a great place to visit, especially coming from a smaller town where we don't have things such as thai restaurants and fun bars.

Driving in July across the Midwest will be hot, but I always like all the sunshine and fresh air.

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melancholy
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by melancholy »

OrangeRibbon wrote:As someone who drove to Boston a couple of times, all I can say is splurge on an extra days sleep before the event. Even if you have to stay in a crappy motel 2 hours out.
Already a step ahead of you. I have a cheap Super 8 booked for Saturday night in a small town about two hours out of Minneapolis. Basically we will drive 8-9 hours, crash, and then head out at 8am the next day so we have plenty of time to get there and checked in before they start. It'll cost a little extra, but considering I booked the cheap place for $52 vs the $125 for the one in Minneapolis, this is actually much cheaper.

OrangeRibbon
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by OrangeRibbon »

Sweet, at the 52 dollar range you should be relatively safe. The place I was at in Florida had a marshal on staff to keep the peace.

Code-Red
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by Code-Red »

What runs are you hoping to catch?

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melancholy
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by melancholy »

That's a good question. I would love if StivityBobo was there to do a Banjo Kazooie run since BK was the first (and really only) game I ever practiced to speed run. I would also love to see Yoshi Island, Mario Kart 64, any Donkey Kong Country games...honestly it's hard to list everything I'd like to see. My biggest regret will be missing the TAS block since that's almost always a good show (it's always on Friday night and we will only be there until Wednesday night).

I also hope there's some good morning runs since I plan on most of my actual run watching to happen in the early mornings. I'm used to getting up around 5am, and I would rather be in the room when it's a dozen people rather than several hundred. There's a much better chance to get right up near the couch when it's only the runners and commentators in the room.

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melancholy
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by melancholy »

So, I'm back. It's been a very long week for me. We left out on Saturday morning from Indiana in a rental car my dad got for me (he didn't trust driving our own vehicle that far away in case something would happen to it). Drove 9 1/2 hours (would have been shorter, but Chicago traffic is shit), stayed at a hotel that was nicer than it had any right to be for $52, then drove another hour the next morning and arrived about a hour before the event. It was an amazing time, though I was super nervous with all the city driving. Luckily, though, Minneapolis is set up like one massive interconnected mall where you can walk from tower to tower through a series of skyways. Tuesday we walked 3 1/2 miles and never touched the ground. It was pretty cool.

As for the event, it was nice the beginning of the week, but got pretty damn crowded by Wednesday. I didn't catch as many runs as I would have liked because there's just so much you can do outside the conference room. 2 practice rooms, each with about 30 CRT TV's and 10 LCD panels apiece, plus a checkout desk with about 200 consoles from Atari up to a VR PS4 Pro and (by their estimates) 2000 games to choose from. A hallway with 8 pinball tables and 20 arcade games (including Jubeat and DDR). A tournament room with 20 TV's where you could organize gaming tournaments (which primarily ended up being Smash Bros Melee). And a PC/LAN room where they had about 30 computers and a ton of DRM free games provided by various sponsors (lots of indie stuff, but also Activision pitched in some games). And it was all completely free as long as you had your badge on. In short, a gamer's paradise.

Despite that, though, I ended up just watching more than playing. I would get up by 7am every day, go down and play some Jubeat and pinball, then watch the morning runners warm up in the practice rooms. I met some cool people, got to sit by the back couch during the Crash Bandicoot run, and ended up on Cheese05's stream when he was practicing Mario 64 70 star. Plus I got on the Crazy Taxi arcade leaderboards, so that was by big gaming accomplishment during the week.

On the last day we left at 10pm, stayed at another cheap hotel (which was a complete dump and not worth the money), then drove a more scenic route through Iowa to avoid Chicago. Then once we got back home, we picked up the kids, jumped back in the car and drove to Kentucky to take my mom back home. Over the course of one week we drove 2116 miles though 7 States. The biggest road trip I've ever taken.

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: SGDQ Bound

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

melancholy wrote:Over the course of one week we drove 2116 miles though 7 States. The biggest road trip I've ever taken.
Eat any interesting/different fast food on the trip?

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