Keeping with the theme of my monthly blogging, this month I'm covering MLG Providence. This year has been a big learning experience for me. As I've said many times, I don't play FPS games. I'm not sure if its the crazy movement giving me motion sickness, or maybe I'm getting old, but I can't keep up with the gameplay to find it enjoyable. Fighting games are more my style. Well that and certain PC games. I've had lots of friends tell me about DOTA and League of Legends, but I never really paid that much attention to them. Mainly because I was too busy to sit down and play those kind of games. The last time I even touched an MMORPG was Maplestory. After this MLG season, its pretty clear that they want to expand into the PC realm, and I think thats a good move. There are more competitively played games, more sponsors, and much more of a player base to get involved once you start talking about PC games. Look at Starcraft 2. It was kind of like a "Let's try this and see" game last season. This year it eclipsed MLG's favored Halo for most popular.

Next season MLG would really like to have another fighting game. Obviously, the number one game that everybody would love to see on the roster is Street Fighter. But just in case it doesn't make it, there are a number of alternatives that may provide an exciting viewer base that could pick up steam, ala SC2 last year and LoL this year. First up is Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, now if they can't get SF, maybe Capcom would be willing to work with their other big fighting game title. The Marvel fighting game scene is already a huge community in its own right, and could easily bring the hype that SF could. Next I would say is Soul Calibur 5. SC2 was one of the original games on the MLG circuit years ago, and this might be the perfect opportunity to bring it back. Besides, if that means we get to see more of Kayane, thats a win for everybody. In late March, Street Fighter X Tekken comes out, and just in time for next season. It could be a match made in heaven with Tekken and SF crowds. Finally for an off the wall pick is BlazBlue. It flies under the radar a bit under the big boys, but so did its predecessor Guilty Gear. With a market hungry company like Aksys begging for exposure, they just may be the most willing partner to really push a fighting game in MLG.

Getting out of work early today cause I'm bout to fly out to Columbus, OH for the 2nd Major League Gaming event of the season. MLG Dallas was interesting since they added CoD:Black Ops, but the turnout wasn't as good as they had expected. Hopefully, attendance perks up this time around. I still like fighting games more than FPS games, but its still fun to watch and spectate, except for that stupid map where they plant bombs and camp all day, then I just wanna shut off the PS3.

Next weekend is Project A-Kon in Dallas. Pretty excited for that too, course I had started making plans before I started a new job. As long as my plans hold, I should be there for most of the con. I'm supposed to be interviewing legendary oosplayer Yaya Han there as well. Should make for an awesome time, so come search me out in Columbus or Dallas if you're going to either event!

Music: Alice Cooper - "School's Out"

Finally back from MLG Dallas! Got to see some friends that I hadn't seen in a while, and check out the new season for Major League Gaming. Starcraft 2 looks hella fun, but man the no Lan thing really sucks. At least 3 matches I watched had to be replayed or otherwise because of disconnects. The game I refereed, Call of Duty: Black Ops was relatively smaller than MLG had hoped, but the competition was pretty interesting. There were 2 all girl teams, one I think made top 16 so they started getting hella press. The 4th place team were like all young kids, you could barely see the smallest one behind the monitor. His teammate was just as young, and if you follow my twitter, that's the one I gave a techincal foul to, lol!

Halo was obviously the crown jewel and had like 170 something teams entered. All in all it was fun and interesting, hopefully next event will be bigger. But man, the venue was crazy. They have these metal statues made up showing some Oregon Trail scene or something in the front with cowboys leading bulls over a river. Next to it was some old cemetery that's treated like a park?!

Saturday, I got to meet up with James, Raymond, Natalie and Thu. Ate at someplace called BJ's and had some kinda beer cider thing called a "Snakebite". It was pretty good food too, definitely better than the McDonald's I was forced to eat most of the time there.

Coming back was a stupid adventure. My friend James picked me up from the hotel to the airport, but it was already raining. Traffic wasn't too bad, so we get to DFW with plenty of time. Check in was normal, screw checking in bags, stupid airlines always seem to lose stuff. Security thought my boob mousepad was some kinda liquid bomb and kept checking it over and over again.

It was pretty funny cause it was the old guys insisting to check it, and the asian chick who was scanning it looked hella embarrassed, lol! So I finally get done with that crap and wait for boarding. That was supposed to be at 8:45am. I take a little nap cause I do that whole closing your eyes, but I can hear whats going on around me thing. But I don't hear anything announced at all, just the stupid airline tv prog that's been looping for an hour...

I finally open my eyes and see that it has been an hour! It's friggin 9:45am and nothing has happened! I look up and see a sign saying its been delayed for 35min, great. So finally we board, on the smallest airplane in the world... I chose the very back seat cause I like to get in first and goto sleep. Well that didn't happen, some off duty stewardess sat next to me. I know it use to be a fantasy to be with a stewardess or something, but that definitely isn't viable nowadays. I have yet to see a hot stewardess anytime I've flown. Well her and the active working stewardess kept yapping, THE ENTIRE FLIGHT! Ugh, remember how I said I close my eyes but can still hear? Yeah, that ability now sucks! I was too lazy to get my headphones out, so I just dealt with it. Then the turbulence hit, oh man did it ever. I seriously thought we were gonna crash, so did the redneck in front of me. "Oh hell, we all gonna die! This is ya'lls fault!" This went on during the entire 15 minutes of turbulence. Outside was nothing but fog and clouds and rain. Literally, the plane felt like a Tetris piece, we went up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, start. Then magically, the sun was out and the turbulence stopped. Redneck proceeded to rant the rest of the flight, wanting a refund and crap, good luck with that. So then we land, wrong terminal, I call up Zen to pick me up, who apparently waited at Jack in the Box for almost 2 hrs, sorry dude. I went to the bank so me and Tito don't get evicted, and then passed out for 6 hrs. And that's my weekend.

Music: ACDC - Highway to Hell

It's now 3:30am, this is pretty normal awake time for me sadly, but I really was trying to sleep somewhat normally. Oh well, tomorrow I'm flying out to Dallas for MLG Dallas. Should be fun, or at least I hope so, Call of Duty is not really my thing. I still haven't fully finalized a ride to the airport either, this is turning into some kinda Mission Impossible crap.

I finally got around to watching High School of the Dead. A bunch of my friends are crazy over it, and Vampy cosplaying at Saeko finally pushed me to take the plunge. Not surprisingly, it was just about what I expected, fun, but very cliche. Iunno, I think that's sort of the way the new anime series have been lately. A lot of T&A, rehashed plots, harem scenario, etc. Don't get me wrong, its still enjoyable, just nothing award winning. Saeko is pretty awesome, but also reminds me of Love Hina's Motoko Aoyama, and Kaori Kanzaki from To Aru Majutsu no Index. The series taught me that in order to survive a zombie apocalypse, you better be good with a gun or a bat, cause everybody else just plain got pwned. Oh and if you're a girl, apparently you have to have D cups or bigger, every other girl seemed to get pwned too. Just sayin'

Music: Metallica - I Disappear