What a night. I showed up at the store at 8, and it was a good thing I did. There was already about 15 people wandering around the store waiting for registration. By about 8:30 there were 30+, so they lined us up and did the signup early. At that point, I learned that the nearby Best Buy had put a demo out. So I jumped in the car and cruised over there.

But that's all side stuff. The real fun stared once they lined us up outside and started calling names for the tourney. It's a smaller store, so they only let in the two people who were fighting that round, with the employees serving as the audience. The TV faced away from the windows, so the crowd was left watching reactions to figure out what was going on.

A few rounds in, the crowd started getting into it. Chants of "RAN. DOM. GUY!" started up as people began picking favorites and showing support. Few of us actually got each other's names, which lent itself to finding other things to chant when somebody we had been talking to had their turn. But we didn't really get into it until one match pit two brothers against each other. There was a loud "Oooooh!" as they entered the store. And when the younger brother won, he was greeted by chants of "LITTLE KID! LITTLE KID!", which drew a wide smile.

I lost in the first round, as detailed eariler. At that point I had to run back to the apartment to grab my Wii Code. I got a few of those, and a few Gamertags. So hopefully I'll start building a good list of friends to play against. I could tell one guy was a Melee pro, so I look forward to going up against him. I had some friends that were incredible at Melee, and I only got better by playing against them.

By about 11:30, the crowd was really into it. The group in the front, just ahead of me, started up "100 Copies of Brawl on the Wall!" and showed the dedication to count all the way down to 1. There was one kid in line who kept interjecting "Brawl s--ks!" or "<#> copies of Halo on the wall!" I have no idea why he was in line...but it was interesting to actually witness a troll in real life. I was fully expecting him to start yelling "First", or start communicating in Leet. But in a show of equal dedication (or just outright stubborness) he kept up his yells jsut as long as the singers.

The game came out at midnight on the dot. And by 12:15 I was back home and playing. I was up until 4 (that's counting the hour lost to Spring Forward). I slept until about 11. It felt good.

I've added my Brawl friend code to the Vital Links section to the left. I probably won't take it online until I've unlocked a few of the characters I used in Brawl. And I may toy around with Stage Builder a bit too. But I look foward to seeing you on the Battlefield!