Bail Out!

Basya hosted another round of Bacio races this evening. Nowhere near as many people showed up to this event as did in the last one she held. As a result, she had to award points based solely on the fastest lap time. She did, however, run several races just for fun even though they didn't really count for anything. Out of eight races, I won eight of them :) Yeehah!Eight was the magic number today, as I met up with qgon, a fellow Big Eights member who actually is still active in There! Shouts to qgon, Big '8!! About halfway through the races, RabidBeast finally caught onto my bacio racing technique that had previously given me a huge edge and he started to give me a run for my money. I think the lag monster got him in the end, though. Green won the event!

I hung around the zone until Tbone4 arrived to host his goaling Tbone event. Unfortunately, he had issues getting the goal posts set up and starting the event so it started about twenty minutes late. On top of that, only four people showed up. He got enough goal posts set up so that we could manage, but I left after about ten more minutes to head to the next event. Squirrelett tried her hardest but green team didn't get any points in that round. Gray won first place. 'boo

By far the most exciting event yet in these games was Ubber_Geek's relay races at Avie Sacrifices. We all stood on a deck (Fig. 1) which was pulled out from beneath us (Fig. 2) after which we tumbled down the side of the mountain (Figs. 3-4). Once we came to a stop at the bottom, we were to take out a buggy and haul ourselves back up to the Avie Sacrifices platform! If you aimed right you could actually smash your buggy right through the deck (Fig. 5), put the peddle to the metal and gun it right back off the deck. Of course, you then proceed to bail out (Fig. 6) and tumble back down the mountain. Upon coming to a stop a second time at the base of the mountain, we were to take out a bike and flyyyyy back up to the platform where the winner was declared.

Fig.1

Fig.2

Fig.3

Fig.4

Fig.5

Fig.6

I made it back up to the top first in the opening relay race (goooo green!!) but when we held the relay race a second time, I totally lost it on the way up in my buggy. I flipped over when I was nearly at the top and slid back down about a quarter of the way. I bailed out and somehow managed to stay standing. I pulled out my buggy again and hopped in before it slid too far away, then proceeded to finish the race. After both relay races were complete, Ubber held a final race down and back up in a buggy just for fun. Oh, and for 1,000 therebucks. On my way up, I thought that Stymie made it up first just ahead of me, but Ubber said I was the first to the top. I let him keep his 1,000 therebucks anyways. It was a fun race and no prize was necessary.

I departed Comet Island to take a few laps in francis_7's Lap Pool hoverpack race, but he was mysteriously absent!! It was the same underwater course as before and I took the lead time without too much difficulty. RabidBeast was in second, and Squirrelett was in third place. Rabid hates hoverpacks, he much more prefers flutterbugs. Hoverpacks aren't fast enough for him! I hung out with the penguins while I waited for francis_7 to show up.Then, about ten minutes 'till the end of the event, Virtual_Vikki shows up! 'wink 'wink 'nudge 'nudge. She reset all the scores and Squirrelett and I took the top two spots followed by NurseJay, the only other person still in the event at this point. francis_7 finally managed to log in, just in time for the event to end. Then he realized that the event had actually been going on for an hour before he got there and he had erased the previous scores! :O :O I sent him the screenies I had taken to set the records straight. Myself in first, RabidBeast in second, Squirrelett in third. Go green team!!!

The final event of the night was hosted by Elaur up at Avie Sacrifices. The object was to "ski" on a bike down the side of the mountain and be first through the finish line. Everyone crowds in front of a small kick ramp awaiting the countdown. Tensions run high. A puddle of sweat begins to soak into the wooden deck beneath us. Noxious fumes from the two dozen bikes encircle the pack of bikes causing hallucinations of borg cubes attacking from bearing one eight zero mark two. There are so many people gathered that most of them are either blockheads or ghosts resulting in all manner of unworldly havoc at the starting gate! Fingers tremble upon the turbo button. A few even run off prematurely in anticipation! Elaur yells "GO!" and like a flash of lightning bikes roar off the ramp, leaving poor Elaur coughing in all the exhaust!! Thanks, Elaur for the screeny:Green team did VERY well in this event. By the end of the five races, we had amassed a total of 17 points! We had two team members in the top three spots for almost all of the races we did! qgon was racing for the Olive team, and was exceptionally fast. He came in first place in three out of the five races! Kudos! I trailed immediately behind him through the finish line more than once. The final race down the mountain was the most fun, though. I followed qgon right through the finish gate and as we both turned around we saw that nobody was behind us! They were all a good five seconds away!! It was incredible! This screeny was taken in those final moments when qgon and I turned around and saw all those avie nametags still on the other side of the finish line. The look on our faces was a classic. Click to englarge:

Total scores as of this posting:
Green: 52!!!!
Yellow: 30
Gray: 30
Mauve: 18
Pink: 16
Blue: 16
Olive: 10
Brown: 9
Peach: 8
Light Green: 5
Light Blue: 5
Red: 3
Tan: 3
Teal: 2
Purple: 0
Orange: 0

Jon Quixote was There.

A Roll of Film, a Football, a Tooth, and a Seed Packet

Basya's contribution to the There Winter Games this afternoon was a series of bacio races. It began with a few quick warmup laps, but many were anxious to get the races underway and so they began to start their own races. Basya put the funzone into operator mode, promptly putting an end to that nonsense. A few short minutes later, she began starting the first series of races! I came in first place in two of the races, second place in one race, and third place in one final race. Yay for me! It was about this time that somebody had suggested to Basya that she do elimination rounds instead of what she had planned and for whatever reason she agreed. All the races we had done before that were for naught! The elimination races began with each color team racing all of its team members to see who could get the fastest score, then that person would race the other team winners in a final round. I came in first place among my teammates and so was chosen to compete against the other teams. When it came time for the big race, I was in the lead until the last quarter of the final lap when I expertly drove my bacio headlong into the side of a gate!! I was barely able to recover in time to make third place. It was a disappointment to say the least.At the end of the races, some of the others managed to convince Basya that, because her scoring strategy was all over the map for most of the event, she should also award points for the fastest lap times. We didn't have a chance to do any more laps, however, as the event was over. I received third place for the third fastest lap time. Parker, however, was the fastest so she won three points for green team. Go Parker! Had I known Basya would give points for the fastest lap, I would have tried harder :( I was racing to win races, not to get the fastest lap. I took one more lap just for the heck of it to see what would have happened and managed the fastest time. Oh well. At the end of the event, when all was said and done, green team won five points total. All in all, not too shabby.

While Squirrelett joined other teammates at a Tbone throw where they tried to hit Tbone the furthest with a buggy, I joined Parker at a scavenger hunt hosted by Devonette. Ten clues were hidden around There and inside were "items" which we had to uncover as proof of our 1337 questing skillz. Our travels took us to places like the boneyard in Tyr, a pineapple hut on Cangrejo, the hoverboard park at Nada, the towers at Monkey Crater, a crater on Motu Motu, a photo hut, and a bridge in Caldera. The five clues I hunted down contained the following items: A roll of film, a football, pumice, a tooth, and a seed packet. Between the two of us, we found all ten items and returned back to Devonette only to find we arrived mere moments after another team had found all their items. We took came out of the event with second place, and two more points for green team! Green team rules!!

Afterwards, I joined up with Squirrelett for hoverpack racing hosted by Mackie. I found out that green team won first place at the Tbone throw event! That's right! GREEN TEAM!! The laps began with myself in the lead and Squirrelett close behind. Near the end of the event, however, B_2 shot himself up into second and then first place! What was he thinking?! No matter how hard I tried to catch him, I couldn't come any closer than .8 seconds away from his time :( I came in second place and Squirrelett got third.

Next up was an event called goaling Tbone, hosted by Tbone4. The object was to keep Tbone4 near our team's goal for as long as possible by any means necessary. Buggying for green team was myself, shipo, Squirrelett, and Lisa2. Every 10 minuets, Tbone took a look at which goal he was closest to and kept score that way. We had him closest to our goal on two separate occasions while Tbone was checking where he was! Two other teams received one point each. At the end, Tbone decided the three teams who scored needed to have a buggy bashing contest to determine the winner. Not sure why he did this, but whatever. He was the boss so we didn't argue. We knocked the other two teams out and were proclaimed victorious! Muahahaha. >:D

After that event ended I tried my hand at another round of Mackieball. Only difference this time was that I was completely alone! I couldn't get any other green team members to join me and help out :( Losers!! You know who you are!! Light blue had scored a goal and I wasn't fairing so well when the zone suddenly decided to have a hissy fit. All of our buggies suddenly began spontaneously retrieving themselves into our inventories! It was on the fritz for the rest of the event. Nothing we tried would stop this and it was getting annoying trying to hit Mackie into my goal while my buggy auto-retrieved itself every thirty seconds. I gave up and moved on to the next event, skydiving, where I didn't have much more luck.

This time, Sammy1000 had really skewed the target to the right. I was walking along the edge to line myself up and... %@#!! I slipped! Zero points for my first jump :( I scored 25 points on my second jump and proceeded to help my teammates who faired just as poorly as I, that is until Elaur showed up. She somehow managed to get 25 on both jumps! She promptly began summoning other team members and a couple more showed up, but it didn't make much of a difference. Gray team had so many avies in-world that we didn't stand a chance. Last I counted they had at least eight avies jumping for them. Gray won the event by no small margin. No surprise there. But I was shocked to learn that green came in second!! Go green!!

The final event of the night was hosted by Elaur. It was a language guessing game where Elaur wrote a word and we had to guess what language it was. She provided us with a huge list of many world languages to help us out, but green team wasn't doing so well at the beginning of the event. Mr_Vercetti and Dihtri were getting most of the points. Thanks to my other teammates, however, green team had a couple points to our names. Towards the end of the event, I decided to try a new strategy. It was time to get down to business. If I didn't know the word right away, I began randomly typing languages as fast as my fingers could spit them out, which is pretty fast if I do say so myself. Well, it worked and I began winning round after round! We were accused of cheating because Elaur is also on the green team >:D We won the event with a total of 13 correct words! Yeehah!

Total scores as of this posting:
Green: 44 !!! GOOOO GREEN!!!
Blue: 16
Brown: 8
Gray: 25
Light Blue: 5
Light Green: 3
Mauve: 16
Olive: 7
Orange: 0
Peach: 6
Pink: 10
Purple: 0
Red: 4
Tan: 3
Teal: 1
Yellow: 29

Jon Quixote was There.

Go for the Gold!

Tonight was just packed with fun. First up was another skydiving contest! Same rules as last time: Jump off a sky deck and land on the bullseye. Now, I figured I had an advantage; I had done this twice in the previous event. My first jump, however, got me just ten points! They moved the target to the left!! So I tried again and landed in the bullseye! Then I bounced out of it! And scored 25 points. Yay. But those two jumps gave me a good idea of where we needed to jump from to get a bullseye. Squirrelett tried her hand next and got 25 and 38 points. Her second jump landed her partially in the bullseye so the points were split. After our combined jumps we knew exactly where to jump from. We passed that info along to the other green team members beginning with Ubber_Geek, who scored a bullseye on his first jump! Others quickly followed suit and green took home first place in the event!!

The next event was a flutterbug race hosted by none other than Mackie, our resident fun expert. I was in first place most of the race until RabidBeast beat my time by about a second and a half :( No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't catch his time. I made second place and Squirrelett came in third, giving green team a total of three points for the event anyways!

Immediately following that event was another hoverpack race, this time hosted by Francis_7 and with a slightly different twist. It took place under water beneath inches of solid ice! It certainly was an experience! Seaweed and other aquatic life made it very difficult to see where we were going. I was frozen stiff by the end of the event, but I managed to beat Rabid's time by three seconds and secured three points for my team!! Eye candy follows, click to enlarge:Blast! Giggles crashed on me several times during the event and almost prevented me from getting all these screenshots! I'm pretty sure that Giggles wasn't designed to operate at subarctic temperatures. That most likely explains these abnormal malfunctions. But I made quick work of that problem in time to get a shot of the final course times.

The final event of the night was a foot race hosted by Elaur! Multiple foot races, as a matter of fact. A start gate, a finish line, and a pair of sneakers. I wore holes through both shoes but it was well worth it! This was definitely a fun event. The lag was pretty bad because there were just so many of us running in a pack. Anybody who was near the front of the pack saw themselves in first place on their client side, but Elaur was prepared for that. To be sure she got an accurate picture of who crossed the finish line and when, Elaur had cameras set up at the finish line. Every race was a photo finish!I came in second place in the second of the regular foot races. Then we switched over to races with super bunny slippers. In the third super bunnies race I crossed the finish line first, according to Elaur, with an obvious lead over the rest of the pack.A couple races later, somebody thought it would be funny to park a hoverboat in front of the finish line just as we were crossing it. Everybody who bumped into it and didn't win as a result fell to the floor in hysterical fits of laughter. It was really funny. Really. Somebody else thought it might be humorous to fire his paintball gun at whoever didn't have a forcefield on as we crossed the finish line. Again, those who didn't win as a result immediately broke out in insane laughter. The final race was, consequently, held a second time and the results from the previous race, tainted by a fool's attempts to amuse himself, were ignored. The gate was lifted, Elaur said "GO!" and we took off!! It was neck and neck for a moment, then my super bunnies kicked in and off I went! I ran as fast as my little avie legs could hurl me across the terrain but they were so tired from the previous races! I heard the pack of runners behind me, stampeding closer with a thunderous roar! In a rush of adrenaline I caught my second wind and swept passed the finish line leaving a trail of dust in my wake! I had won!! Thanks to the combined victories of myself and Ubber_Geek, green team took the lead overall in this event and earned ourselves three points!

Total scores as of this posting:
Green: 23
Yellow: 17
Gray: 12
Mauve: 10
Blue: 8
Pink: 8
Brown: 3
Olive: 3
Peach: 3
Light Blue: 2
Red: 1
Light Green: 0
Orange: 0
Purple: 0
Tan: 0
Teal: 0

Jon Quixote was There.

There Winter Games Begin!

Today marked the beginning of a two week long series of events, the There Winter Games 2006! We compete on teams based on the color of our nametag and points are awarded for first, second, and third place in an event (Three points, two points, and one point, respectively). I'm on the green nametag team. I arrived too late to see the opening ceremonies (lighting of the torch) this afternoon, but I did get to participate in a couple of the day's first games. The first event was an avie roundup. The rules were simple: gather the most team members in one place to win! Green came in 3rd place and got 1 point towards our team score.

The next event was a skydiving competition! One at a time we hurled ourselves off a sky deck onto a bullseye below for 5, 10, 25, or 50 points. We each got two attempts. I was sooo close to the bullseye on both my jumps but, alas, I only got 25 points each time.

Unfortunately, green team didn't win any points at the end of the skydiving competition. But we came in first place in the next event! Mackieball!! The object was to bump Mackie into your team's goal using your buggy. I've never been to a more chaotic event. The funzone was filled to its limit with people trying to smash Mackie into their goal! About halfway through the event somebody from the gray nametag team accidentally knocked Mackie into our goal!! It was the only point scored during the entire event, but it was for green!! Gooo green!! By the end of the event people were dropping balls and dogs in the funzone to bump around with their buggies and the lag had gotten so horrible that I couldn't even tell where Mackie was. Her position seemed to update only every 30 seconds or so. One minute I was hitting her towards the green goal and the next I heard others saying she was near another goal and then poof! She warped elsewhere. But we won! :D

End of the day totals:
Green: 9
Blue: 4
Gray: 8
Mauve: 1
Yellow: 8

Jon Quixote was There.