Wi-Philes

Hey guys. Well, it's the day after the trip and I am beat. I mean truly I feel like I've been doing marathons, except instead of running all day I've been drinking furiously and smoking cigars. Los Angeles can take its toll on you – the pollution, the panhandlers and the coven of prostitutes living next to your hotel (in a cardboard box no less) can sometimes get you down. Nightsb and I both agreed that Los Angeles is 10 times dirtier than New York City, and that's really not an exaggeration, but who can complain when you meet up with the kinds of awesome individuals I did this past week?

I figure that since I had some time (and I'm sober), I would post some of the photos I didn't have time to post during the week - a time to reminisce and remember all the stuff I forgot while my brain was swimming in a vat of open-bar alcohol. Walk with me won't you?



Here's Echo Park, the park where dreams go to die. Actually it looks like a very sweet park which is unfortunately surrounded by despair and car fumes, but inside there are all sort of wonders. Look at the beautiful fountains as well as the tall, swaying palm trees – the main problem being that you can't witness the RAMPAGING RABIES INFECTED GEESE that line the pond's shores. One of them had the gall to come up to me and almost bite my privates and I knew it was trying terror tactics because he thought I was in his "territory". I'm not sure if he was Blood or Crip but I won't be going back to Echo Park until they do something about the gang goose problem.



After being chased out of Echo Park by gang members, I and my lily-white posse made our way through the mean streets of LA. We had to make our way quickly back to our hotel because the sun was out and we were afraid Rogue might start to get a little color and we knew that if we weren't quick, his frail British body would burst into flames.



Here's Danny aka DanyToca on the forums, who is much quieter in person than in the reality of N-Philes forums. Danny apparently left on his own to a beach – or so he said since he came back and I didn't see any beach towel, beach memorabilia or see sand in his shoes. If I didn't know better I'd say he ain't doing any fishing up on Brokeback Beach. But everyone loved Danny and his buddy Mohammed who may or may not be conjoined twins of different races.



Here's Jared (N-Philes King) and I sharing a moment after getting drop-down drunk at the E-Focus party (which was impossibly fun). What once was a rivalry turned into chumliness after sharing a moment at the giant Optimus Prime statue at E3 – and I even gave him the coolest Marvel playing cards in existence.



Jordan (aka King of Hyrule) turned out to be the coolest roommate ever as it turns out he's not a prepubescent, blonde cel-shaded weiner-kid I was expecting. In fact, he's nothing like Wind Waker Link at all, but in fact is a cool guy all his own. At times we thought he might smile himself into a coma, but it was the kid's first E3 and he obviously was enjoying himself. Only two years until he can drink something that isn't carbonated and lacking alcohol!



Then, of course, you can't forget Rogue aka Gareth who spent most of the trip asking where other people were and worrying that he wasn't going to impress other slobs at the many parties and functions were were going to. A mix between South Park's Tweak and Pip, our beloved webmaster/worrier charmed the group with his ability to complain about even the coolest of things while having the greatest time. Cheers to Gareth who better come next year. In this picture Rogue was feelin' blue that it was the last day at E3 and we soon would be going our separate ways. Scroll your cursor over the picture to see how N-philes goes out of its way to cheer our friends up.



At the event, these two amazing young people cosplay like they've never cosplayed before for a crowd that immediately surrounded them. Knowing they would never get this kind of attention in real life at their jobs at AOL customer service and Applebee's, they hammed it up for all the nerds to see. I think I saw Link in the bathroom later that day but it's hard to ask if someone is Link while they're taking a whiz.



It's hard not to stop every person wearing a costume to take a picture with them but I just had to do this with Blossom, my favorite Powerpuff Girl. Since I'm of the pink persuasion, most of my E3 teammates usually ask me to take pictures of them with the extremely sexy E3 babes walking around in skimpy outfits, so it aggravates me when I ask them to take pictures of me with the non-sexual game mascots such as Dexter and Pikachu and they get an atittude. Ain't no shame in posing with underpaid ex-cons dressed up like videogame characters – that's my motto.



So ends another year with more stories to tell, and this time I've written them down instead of totally forgetting them, like I did last year. No, this time I can look back on this blog in 20 years and see exactly where it all went right. But instead of goodbye, let's all say hello – hello to this awesome video of Chat Team's own Gogita eating things nobody else will with hilarity ensuing. Nightsb is also on the footage as is GreenNight and Rogue from the N-P forums, all people I would trust my children with, assuming I will ever be allowed to have them!

Enjoy: