Friday was about the worst day possible. I awoke at 3:50 in the morning to make it to my 6:00AM flight to Detroit. Upon arrival, I was informed my flight to Boston was cancelled and that I had been rerouted to DC, then to Boston. My flight to DC was delayed once, finally got to DC and my flight to Boston was delayed twice on top of maintenance issues with the plane. I finally landed in Boston around 7:30, close to about 8 hours behind schedule. I essentially missed the whole first day of PAX East. Bummer.

Because I was late, Nate couldn't get in to PAX either. That's what I was most upset about. Lesson learned.

Friday night/Saturday morning was awesome though! Aaand that's about all I will say.

Once PAX started on Saturday, things really started to pick up. We played Fallen Frontier (Metroid-vania style side-scrolling shooter a la Shadow Complex), then waiting to see Battlefield 3, which is going to be HOT. Seriously, that game looks amazing. Usually, I'm not one to say "OMG those graphics were awesome" but honestly, the Frostbite 2 engine is coming along very nicely. Most impressing to me were the lighting, smoke and fire effects. Oh, and the 'SPLOSIONS. B) I'm pretty much sold on this game already. All I want to hear about now is multiplayer, which if it's anything similar to BC2, I will love it. I think DICE released the footage today that they were showing at PAX. Everyone should watch that.

After BF3, Nate and I went to wait in line to see a public demo of RAGE. Due to our streak of bad luck, we got right up to the theater doors (literally) and were told the room was full. Bummer.

We then waited around and played a little Halo: Reach in the console freeplay area until the Rooster Teeth panel. Of course, RT did not disappoint and brought with them some serious lawls. Now excuse me while I go get some purple-flavored drink.

Saturday night was the continuation of the Omegathon. The game of choice was Jenga. This was not your typical game of Jenga. The blocks were much larger, and the spire of blocks stood about...four and a half feet tall? I don't know, I'm horrible at estimations. However, this was the most intense thing I have ever watched with my two eyeballs. It would be futile to try and describe this event because any description I could conjure would not accurately describe the atmosphere in that room.

Next were the concerts. Video Game Orchestra, Paul and Storm, and Jonathon Coulton. Yes, be jealous, because it was hours and hours of unabridged AWESOME. Halo theme, Zelda theme, ________ is the name of my __________ cover band, DELICIOUS WATER, Still Alive, All we wanna do is eat your brains!

Naturally, the three of us being huge Halo fans, we entered the Halo: Reach tourney as there wasn't much we wanted to do on Sunday. We waited around in line (do you see my face?) until we were able to enter the room. We (or Andrew, rather) noticed a few 'pro' players were in the room. Eventually we sat down at a table for our practice round and absolutely demolished our opponents 29-9 or so. The tournament featured the two new matchmaking maps from the Defiant map pack. Our practice and first bracket match were held on Condemned. We waited for our team to be assigned a station. Our time came, and to finish our streak of unfortunate luck, we were of course matched against the team with one of the pro players. The match started, and the other team managed to secure the lead while Nate, Andrew, T and I tried to get our act together and start working on teamwork. About halfway through the match we were down by at least 7 or 8 points. Did we give up? NO! We pushed and continued playing to the best of our ability and managed to get the lead at 43 to 41 with only one minute left on the clock. All we needed was to hold our position and pick off anyone daring to enter our territory. Well, somewhere in the last minute of gameplay we gave up 9 points and only gained 2 because we lost. That last minute went by so fast I hardly realized what happened. Anyways, it was still one of the most intense and exhilarating games of Halo I have ever played. After the match, we got respect hugs from the other team. They obviously weren't expecting as difficult a fight as we put up, as evident by the many screams I heard from across the table during the match. It was fun, that's all that matters. Well, we all got free Defiant Map Pack codes. That counts for something too.

And then late Sunday afternoon rolled around and everyone went home and I was very content yet sad at the same time. I never expected to have as nearly a fun time as I did. Nate and Andrew (and Andrews friends), you guys rock. Last weekend was literally one of the most exciting moments of my life. I finally got to hang out with Nate, who has been a very good friend of mine for psshtt....close to 6 or 7 or 8 years now? Andrew, you're just as awesome. I am already very much anticipating whenever we can hang out again, be that PAX East 2012 or sooner.

Just one more thing...those pilots, you know how it goes...