Out and About

The weekend which has just passed was an awesome one, in several different ways.

Let's start off with where I went and what I did there: I drove down to Moama with Manny to play a 3 man paintball tournament in the Open Division (which means and sort of skill can be playing in it).

The drive took us first 8 hours, but it's actually a 10 hour drive...I'm sure you can figure out how we did that one. It wasn't me driving though.

The drive there was a very boring one, ie. not a whole lot of scenery. But upon arrival I was thrown into the cabin we were staying in, because it was booked out for 3 people, and not 4. Free accomodation is always best :D Eat some crappy pizza and then go back and just hang out in the cabin getting to know the two unknown players who I was going to be playing with during the weekend. Both of them are from Adelaide, South Australia, and both really cool dudes. The younger of the two has only been playing for 6 months and reminded me of myself a bit when you got into the sport. It was all about looking hot and having matching everything. The only thing I want now is a gun that works and clothes that will handle my thrashing and help me with bounce balls. Simple. Anyway, we go to bed since we didn't really know what time zone we were in and we had to wake up early no matter which time zone your in. That's paintball for you.

Wake up early as hell and make our way over to the field having only munch down a museli bar and a cup of tea. Get to the field and start harrassing people there to borrow some tools to do some maintance on one of our guns that was royally f-ed up. We get settled in and wait for the game schedule to be released with much anticipation. The tournament was very interesting, because there was no real pre-organization as to how many teams were going to show up and in which division. The waiting game began - shortly afterwards, the games did too.

We thought we played adequetly, but in actuality, we were number in the preliminaries. Which came as a big shock to all of us. When the semi-finals came around, that's when the real games began. We played the team that came 4th in the prelims which was Melbourne Mayhem. It was a best out of three format, and we lost the first point. 2nd point around we beat them and then it was the game point which made things interesting. Very interesting. All of us only had our hoppers filled with balls, and not even completely filled at that too. So our tactic was just to dig ourselves in and let them come to us, because we thought they had heaps more paint than what we did so they would play a bit more aggressively. After getting G1 (first kill), it was a 3 on 2 in our favour, but they locked themselves up pretty tight. Manny asks what we should do and no body had any ideas. Our front center player moves up the field and gets G2, Manny then screams "G2! LET'S HURT THEM!!!" Which means we would shoot the shit out of the last guy. We win the semi-finals and are now fighting for 1st or 2nd.

First point in the finals we won, and then lost the 2nd one. Game point. It's all going pretty good, we get G1 and lose one of our players, so it's now a 2 on 2. It's only Manny and I on the field. Manny then gets shot out, so now it's a 2 on 1. It's pretty stressfull now. I whip out all of my skill and game and successfully shoot them both out. I ruled - or so I thought. I went and grabbed the flag and hung on the base. I'm on the top of the world, I'm being checked by the refs and feeling f-ing awesome. All of a sudden some body removes the world from under my feet and I fall into oblivion. I had an "obvious hit" underneath my tank which then made it a 2-4-1 and a reverse point. We came 2nd.

I've never had such a big let down in my entire life. I just wanted to pack up my gear and go home. It was a real drag. Sure you can say better than not being in the finals at all. But when a player of any skill level pulls off a 2 on 1, you fell like a real bad ass. And it was all taken away from me. It was a fair call, can't deny them that. Bah...

Anyway, we got 150 AUD in prize money, and a trophey. Nothing too special.

On our way home Manny was telling me how great a player I was during the whole tournament, and that I was probably the best of the 4 of us on that day. Also, an even better compliment was that if he's sees me in a 2 on 1, he doesn't usually worry too much about it. That one really touched me.

On our way back, we had a massive D'n M (deep and meaninful) chat about heaps of stuff ranging from X-Fighters to his business to our futures and what not. We left Moama around 17.00 and got back around 02.15, a long drive back home, but a good one nontheless.

In conclusion, the weekend was really awesome. Made some more paintball friends in South Australia, who actually want to kick one of theirs players to make room for me! Freaking awesome! But need to get some cash flow going before I can commit, and they can't kick the guy until next season. We'll see what happens.

See'ya later.