So if you've been paying attention to either this blog or DtoidLosAngeles, then you'd know that I held a bit of a party here this past weekend. What you may not know is that before the party, I was freaking out a bit. See, between Destructoid and real life people, I was expecting anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five people to show up, which is probably too many for my apartment to handle.

Luckily (but unfortunately at the same time), several Destructoid people had to cancel on me, and all but one of my Caltech friends either a.) don't actually like me or b.) are afraid of Internet people. So in the end, the party was populated enough to have a good time but not so much that it was cramped. In attendance (in order of appearance) were: the always helpful and gracious Aerox, my fellow Caltech chemistry grad student Long, pizza and beer toting bleep, the young but extremely talented Kapkomi and his brother, party saviors naia-the-gamer and her fiancé Zero Atma, the famous CBlog recapper Ark, some random girl, and my good friend for almost twenty years now Josh.

I've mentioned it before, but the whole point of this party was to celebrate my imaginary roommate moving out. He was not a fan of video games, and he would complain about the noise, so my entire setup was in my bedroom before this past weekend. Aerox, being the awesome person that he is, offered to show up early to help set up the apartment for the expected deluge of people. After moving all of my stuff to the living room and setting up my last gen systems in my bedroom (which went sadly untouched throughout the night), there was still a fair amount of time before people were to show up. So Aerox played some Ikaruga while I baked brownies and squeezed some lemons for lemonade.

Long showed up promptly at seven, and proceeded to give excuses as to why he still hasn't finished playing through the Half-Life 2 episodes with my copy of the Orange Box. He would later leave to get his laptop, and sit around the party playing World of Warcraft. Still, I appreciate that he made it out when all of my other Caltech friends didn't show up at all.

While baking, I heard a knock on the door, opened it to find a very tall man carrying a very large pizza box. "I didn't order pizza," I thought to myself, but before I could say anything, he said "You must be Dexter! I'm Travis/bleep. I brought pizza." "And Dos Equis!" I noted. The pizza was a great addition, and despite being gigantic, we were able to finish it over the course of the night. Bleep also brought over the almost comically mediocre Wii game Fishing Master. I didn't personally play it, but I can say from watching it that I might have been better off.

By this point we had started up Rock Band, witnessed Long's awful singing (I'm pretty sure he failed "Say it Ain't So" on Easy), and I was busy on drums, so Aerox answered the door when Kapkomi and his brother showed up. Later, Kapkomi would invite me to play Contra 4 co-op with him on Hard. It's an invite I can't refuse, and while I can usually get to level five when I play solo, I don't think I made it past level two on this occasion, meanwhile Kapkomi went on to beat the entire game on Hard. Seriously, his skills were pretty godlike.

But wait, why was I doing so poorly at Contra 4? Well, the video below might explain it.



In case you can't tell, a combobreaker is three shots of something, and then a fourth shot of something else. In my infinite wisdom, I decided to take it up a notch by doing three shots of Jose Cuervo, followed by an Irish car bomb. I regret nothing.

In the background of that video, you'll notice some three player Rock Band going on, and it would have been for the rest of the night had it not been for naia and Zero. In addition to just being awesome people to begin with, they also brought over more booze (because that's exactly what we needed), and a wireless 360 guitar controller. With the fourth instrument, we could finally get a full band going.

Ark showed up almost by surprise (were it not for a phone call fifteen or so minutes before), because I had originally not expected him to be there. He also brought over a guitar controller, but when I asked him to I had apparently overlooked the fact that he's got the PS3 version of Rock Band, and so the guitar was worthless at la casa de Dexter. Ark spent most of the time at the party playing The World Ends With You and complaining about how much he hates it, and then suggesting that we play Settlers of Catan. We never got around to it.

Lastly, my friend Josh showed up. He happened to be up in Los Angeles from San Diego this past weekend, so it worked out that he'd be able to come hang out at my place. Since he was the last to show, he felt that he started late, and would have to drink double to catch up. He was eventually the first to pass out, somewhere around three in the morning, on my roommate's old bed.

Some things I learned from the party:
1. It is apparently reprehensible to own a copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl and not have all of the characters unlocked. Sorry guys, I've been too busy for Subspace Emissary.
2. Though it was originally purchased for the taquitos, the cheese dip went great on La Gigante, the pizza that bleep brought.
3. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures is actually a really great party game, if you have all of the hardware to play it. I have played it before, but back then it was a much more calm, cooperative experience. If you try it with a few rowdy Destructoid people, the outcome is a much more cutthroat, hostile, and overall entertaining experience.
4. Aerox and I make an excellent Rock Band singing duet. The game was telling us we were doing badly, but we never failed, and we found out later that we had accidentally chosen the Hard difficulty.

That's about all I have to say. Aerox didn't get many pictures, but they are all in the gallery below. You might want to keep an eye on bleep's or naia's blogs, as I know they got some pictures and possibly some more video. Lastly, if you've managed to read this far, I'm planning a mini-NARP for this Saturday, with a focus on board gaming. It is likely to be much lower key than this party was; I mostly just want to get some people together to play some board games, and I know no better company for that kind of thing than my fellow L.A. Destructoid people. Let me know if you'd like to come.