So, this past weekend I had the pleasure of being able to go to the NG office for Pico Day 2014. I was planning on writing a big write-up about the fun experience I had while there, but it's all kind of running together in my mind, so I'm just going to list, in no particular order, some cool things that happened:
- Driving to the event with Bill and Ryan. At one point, Bill and I listened to this really crazy story on a podcast about this baby that was born 20 weeks early and had to get operated with a 20% chance of survival and all of this crazy stuff. The baby lived, though. Also, there another story was a guy who started believing in God at an Arby's. It was all really funny and weird. Ryan slept through most of it.
- Drinking a ton of Mindchamber's beer. He brought really good Angry Orchard beer and I drank a lot of it. SORRY MINDCHAMBER. He also was one of the few people who recognized my face when they met me, which made me feel super special.
- Talking to Wade about his newest hobby: Metal Detecting. He got to tell me about all sorts of cool stuff he was finding over his town, from old pennies to toy cars. I'm hoping he finds a rare diamond that'll give NG a ton of money. If you're interested in following his metal adventures, check this out! Here's an unreal photo of him and I chilling with Zachary:
- Finally being able to meet with Digsbot. We've live fairly close to each other for a while now, so you would think that I'd have hung out with him before, but that wasn't the case and I was happy to finally be able to shake his hand at Pico Day. He was a super classy dude and enjoyed being able to talk him about his thoughts on my hometown and his hopes for the future of NG. I also got to spend some time conversing with Afro-Ninja, who is also from Ohio, which was nice. He has a mustache now, which I'm not sure how I feel about.
- Listening as Mike talked about how Worms Armageddon was a perfect game and how 3D gaming will have to reach 60 FPS to work properly, which means a lot of those games will have shitty graphics for a while. Mike has a reputation for being pretty smart and I have to say that he didn't disappoint. He also hinted at what the next Behemoth game would be and it sounds very interesting!
- Chatting with VicariousE about the Colecovision. I'm a huge nerd about history and old video games, so it was really awesome to be able to talk to someone who knew and appreciated these old systems. We also got to talk about old computers and various other things. It was nice to know that Vicarious is as cool IRL as he is online, which is pretty darn impressive.
- Being able to sit next to my Grub-Xer0 and watch funny spam flashes on the stream that was going on during Pico Day. Nothing better than forcing everyone at the party and on the chat to watch Moral Man on a big screen at the office. Plus, we got to talk about professional wrestling, which we both love. Here's a photo of him and I alongside GoryBlizzard:
- Spending two nights at CosmicDeath's house. Luis, Stamper, Oney, Spazkid, Shadman, and psychicpebble also live there and Mike and RicePirate were visiting as well, so it was a treat to be surrounded by such talented and awesome people. They shot Super Slumber Party there, so it was like being able to walk around on what was essentially the set of a popular internet video. CosmicDeath had to study for some exams, so I helped her with studying. She's probably going to get an A because of me and if she says otherwise, she's lying through her teeth.
- SqueakyToad pointing out that I was wearing a brown belt with black shoes. I don't know why, but this still makes me laugh. I'm a big dummy.
- Chilling on the roof of the NG office with Bob as he told cool stories about raising ducks and learning to drive. He also served super yummy burgers later that evening as Tim yelled about people being too close to the grill. Bob also asked me if I was afraid of getting roofie'd at the party, which should have thrown up a lot of red flags, but nothing happened, so that's good!
- Saying hi to Lloyd Kaufman. I didn't really spend any time talking to him, but I still count the experience as meeting a famout person! The Angry Video Game Nerd, who was listed as a potential "maybe" didn't show up, though. Oh well!
- Getting to see gameplay footage from the new game that Tom and JohnnyUtah are working on. Out of respect towards Tom, I'm not going to spoil anything about it, but trust me when I say that it falls right in line with the tradtion of badass games from the NG staff.
- Being a part of this video that ThePivotsXXD made. It's supposedly going to find it's way into one of his animations, which is super exciting!:
- Going to Wawa for the first time in my life. I had high expectations going into the place and I have to say that it lived up the hype. They mad a delicious sausage and egg meal along with a mega tasty fruit smoothie. I definitely understand why JohnnyUtah said he wanted to die there. Luis made fun of me for not knowing how it all worked, though. :(
- Forcing Tom to sign this certificate that said I've made outstanding contributions to the NG community. He wasn't down with the idea at first, but after I threatened to hit him with a Puddin' Punch, he did what I wanted:
- Seeing DeathInk show up even though he said he wasn't going to be there. He was just trolling everyone! I punched him in the head for making Asslevania so hard, so everything worked out. Just kidding...for now. He also showed off his newest project, Pico Radio 2. It's super sweet looking.
- Going out in a huge group that included Bill, Ryan, Zachary, Jonnyethco, Captain, Fungasm, Fungasm's GF, Ornery, two girls that Ornery knew, and myself. We all went out to eat to this Chinese place near the NG HQ and you could tell that the people there weren't too thrilled about having to put together a table for 11 internet nerds. We then got to eat some pretty yummy food while talking about such interesting topics as Sonic the Hedgehog foot fetish art in the Art Portal. Following our meal, Ornery took everyone's money and supposedly paid for the bill with his credit card, but I know that was just a big scam to fund his rock climbing trips. Finally, we got fortune cookies. Mine said something dumb about being nice to people. I saved a cookie for Tom and gave it to him later.
- Watching Timmy draw a picture of me getting raped by a bear on a dry erase board in the NG office. I should have knocked his teeth out for that one, but I was pretty tipsy from all of the beers I had been drinking by that point, so I didn't.
- Meeting Tyler for 45 seconds before he left the event. I got a hold of him right in the nick of time!
- Hanging out and talking with MysticSkillz, Emily-Youcis, Saminat, Funy-Mony, Jenjamik, UkinoJoe, TomaMoto, Jaxxy, Nogfish, and SnowBacon. These conversations were pretty basic and mostly filled with your average pleasantries, but I loved being able to put names to faces and hearing these talented people talk.
- And above all else spending quality time with Luis:
So, that's about it. I'll probably add more stuff if I remember it. If I forgot you, please don't be offended! Tell me about any experiences you had with me in the comments!
