Emerald Tournament Seattle (skarm): Part 2

A few things I forgot:

• I didn't, but Travis got interviewed by some Radio Station sometime during our time at the Space Needle and got asked if he had more success with Pokémon or Girls.
• Shakka Khan's actual name is Charles, though he told us his nickname was Chalkey.

Aftermath, Continued

So Chris Darling becomes Frontier Battle Brain Champion and gets a trophy of a Brain. However, no one else seems to believe it. Seth told Travis that he "couldn't believe that guy won". The first of the slash campaign against the new champion was about to begin, starting with when all the competitors had to go up on stage.

This was basically a big "Look at all the competitors" photoshoot opportunity, since we had only been pictured in smaller groups with Pichu and Pikachu earlier. Anyways, the other competitors came up on stage (as Chris and I were still on there) and Stephen came up and stood in between us. Anyways, this chat log happened:

Stephen: Don't worry, Mike; we all know it doesn't take any skill to use legendaries with luck.
Chris: I have skill!
Stephen: No you don't, you suck.
Chris: I don't suck at the game!

At this point he was on the verge of tears, and luckily for him the photographer made Stephen leave so the two finalists could stand beside each other.

After this, we were allowed to mingle a bit more and go up to the top of the Space Needle and such. At this point when Chris was getting his Champion's interview and stuff. Chris's dad came up to talk to me and told me that I had done well, and he thought it was all over once I had killed Chris's Groudon and he was very surprised that Rayquaza had pulled off the recovery.

I thought this was rather kind and couldn't really find anything sarcastic about his tone, and I knew he didn't honestly know too much about the game so I didn't think he was being an ass. Then he followed this up saying that Chris has been playing Pokémon for a long time and that he was good at the game. Luckily I kept a professional attitude and chose not to reply to this with screaming and what I was actually thinking.

Travis, Stephen, Caleb, and I headed up to the top of the Space Needle because we had nothing else to do and the shuttles weren't back yet. We tried taking pictures and video taping through the telescopes there, and it worked pretty well. We spied on some guy walking down a road very far away or something.

This is also the time in which we had the "spot the bad car" contest, which Stephen won after a few minutes when he spotted an older Volkswagon Beetle with a heart painted on the roof that was in some random parking lot across from a McDonalds. Basically we plotted how to lure Chris up to the top of the Space Needle and throw him off, but since there were bars and wire around the entire deck that wouldn't bend wide enough for him, we put the plan on hold. This was code named Operation Sparrowhawk (the operation to get back at him for being lucky :().

Somewhere around this time we were also talking with Randy and Professor Oak and we all agreed to cut into Chris as much as possible at the dinner, although indirectly.

It was then time to depart from the Space Needle and despite there being three vans and Chris openly knowing that Travis and Stephen hated him, we ended up in the same shuttle. On this trip however, Chris's amazing intelligence was shown to its full extent.

Chris and the Boat-Car Idea

The short backstory to this is that right beside the Space Needle was a couple of old WWII vehicles that people could take a tour on. These vehicles were called "Ducks" and could travel on both land and water while serving as troop carriers.

Anyways, we had just passed these "Ducks" on the way back to the hotel while we were riding in silence, and then this conversation happened:

Chris: Hey those things look cool.
Chris's Dad: They're called Ducks and they can drive on the land or water. They were used in WWII to transport infantry.
Chris: I think all cars should be able to change into boats. Then no one would drown if they drove into a lake.
Chris's Dad: Yeah, but I'd rather have a flying car instead.

Yes, because people drive into lakes and drown all the time. I mean, really, if I ever drive into a lake and my car changes into a boat and keeps me from drowning, I'll know who to thank.

Surprisingly no one said anything about despite what we were all thinking. I suppose this was because no one wanted to blatantly insult him in front of his father who, I might finally add, had some sort of ponytail-mullet.

We didn't discuss this until we got back up to the hotel rooms, though we had to endure Chris being on the same elevator as us with his dad. This meant we had to hold it in longer. Literally that was one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard.

This topic returns later on in the day, though mainly at the dinner, so it's definitely not the last you'll hear of it.

About 10 minutes later Travis, Stephen, Kevin, and Travis's mother, who was pretty cool and didn't really care what anyone did, came by and suggested we take the Monorail to the Westpoint (I think that was the name) Mall and then maybe head down to the Fish Market. Since we had a few hours to kill before the arranged dinner and we didn't want to hang around and listen to everyone talking about Chris's huge win, Caleb and I decided to go along.

The Journey to the Fish Market

On the way to the fish market in the Port of Seattle we made a few amazing discoveries. First, that 9 out of 10 women in Seattle are extremely hot, and second, that every street corner has to have its own street group. Obviously the first discovery is more important.

As we headed down to the Monorail station, which was just beside the Space Needle, we jay walked constantly. Actually, the lights and crossing lights in Seattle are so fucked up, as well as the directions of the intersections, it's impossible to tell what's going on.

We paid $3 each for Round Tickets and then boarded the Monorail. Interestingly enough no one was there at all to check tickets and we could have just not bought them at all.

The Monorail ride was bumpy as fuck and it really wasn't an enjoyable experience. We discussed the boat-car idea more and how the hell Chris Darling could win. We then reached the first, and only, stop, but we didn't know it. We debated for a while whether or not to get off, but we realized we should when everyone else did and we were the only ones left sitting there. It was obvious that we didn't do this often.

Inside the Westpoint mall really proved our theory. Seattle only has hot girls. I am entirely serious. Perhaps we just caught the place at a peak time, but nearly every female was damn hot.

After heading down a mountain of escalators and passing numerous fun stores such as "Seattle Socks" and some Maternity store, we happened by a place called "Lovesack" which sold giant beanbag chairs. We couldn't resist diving into them and trying them out. We observed a sign which blatantly stated that "LoveSac.com isn't a dirty site". I've still yet to check that out.

One of the employees, a pretty hot girl, came over and asked if we liked the chairs and such. When it was mentioned that 3 of us had won $400 USD, she asked why. We readily admitted that it was from a Pokémon tournament that Nintendo had run. Instead of getting a blank look or laughed at, she thought it was really damn cool and said that she used to like Pokémon because they were cute. We talked with her for a while, but then it was decided that we continue onto the fish market to see fish or something.

We walked down a gradual slope for quite a few blocks towards the Fish Market. When we arrived, the place was packed with all kinds of street vendors and horrible street performers trying to make a meager living.

Upon entering the nearest building where the actual fish was sold, we realized that fresh fish smells really damn bad and made a hasty retreat. We decided that we should still walk down the street a bit and see what else there was. You know, besides fish.

After a while of walking down the exact center of the walkway that turned out to be a road, Travis informed us that we had been blocking traffic for the last few minutes. This pretty much happened during all of the trip and outings with had because I'll re-enforce it: Seattle has a damn confusing roadway system.

We passed and met such memorable street muscians such as the falsetto "la la la" guy, which I swear sounded like a girl until I looked over at the source, the gospel foot stomping black group and the bearded guitar playing drunk.

After about 5 minutes of walking down the exact center of what turned out to be a road, Travis noted that had been blocking traffic for quite some time. We thought it would be a good idea to get off the road before they decided to kill us.

Eventually we ducked into another larger... tent area that sold more souvenir type merchandise rather than really damn bad smelling fish and other seafood. We stopped almost instantly at a stall that sold mini ocarina from Zelda. At first we thought they just looked like them, but no, the guy there said they were sold complete with a history of Zelda. He picked one and started to play the Zelda tune, but then it veered off into something else. When he was done we were all too stunned to say anything, so he angrily asked "Did you all die or what?".

We decided to head down further because the Orcarina guy was pretty insane. Then we passed a stall owner with bright pink hair. Only problem is he was like 55. We backtracked and left the area completely and decided to start back since the whole Fish Market seemed to be filled with insane people.

When we had walked just a few blocks back, someone suggested that we have a race up hill all the way to the mall and Monorail station. Stephen was the only competitor in this race and thus we didn't see him until a bit later. As we neared the mall we nearly go run over by a city bus and caused another accident from our j-walking. It's ok, we're tourists.

They actually checked our tickets this time when we boarded the Monorail and met back up with Stephen. The ride back was bumpy and boring too. So much for the famous Seattle Monorail. Anyways, we only had about half an hour to kill until the shuttles were to arrive and take us to the much praised "Buca de Beppo" restaurant.

Dinner at the Italian Pedophile House

Now I'm sure you're dying to ask why I included the word "pedophile" in this topic heading. Well, you'll have to wait just a bit more to find out.

To go to our tables we had pass through the kitchen area which I found to be quite odd. When we reached the decently large wing which would serve as seating in various booths and at various tables we were shocked (well not really) that Chris, our beloved champion, was given a seat at the head of the largest table. Luckily our group took the booth the farthest away from Chris and the champion's table.

The meal was absolute crap. Seriously. The only actually appetizing thing was the garlic bread and then some small portion of ravioli they decided to serve at the same time as some sort of cheese wrap... thing.

It was topped off with the infamous "rum cake" that they served at dessert. Honestly, hats off to anyone who could eat more than one bite of that crap. However, the main attractions and noteworthy situations didn't involve the food at all, though we did repeatedly stab the rum cakes with pencils and steal them from every table.

Before the main course we were given cards and pencils so we could sign up for their repeated business club or something. Hell, no. Either way the pencils allowed us to draw all over the table's paper placemats.

Hyper Beaming Rayquaza, Vaginalax, and many drawings of Chris Darling eating random stuff. However, once Shakkan Khan and some of the Asian brigade (they came over after dinner) drew Chris in a boat-car, we knew we had missed an entire angle.

Almost immediately Stephen flipped over his placemat and began to draw a complete story of how Chris would use his boat-car and flying car to escape any danger, such as driving into a lake. This story was then filmed as Stephen explained every portion of the drawing. Randy then suggested that it be torn off the placemat and saved for later. Perhaps it can be sold on eBay.

We figured it would be a good idea to go to the bathroom before too long, since we had no idea how long we'd be forced to wait at this place. However, upon entering, we noticed that the walls were covered with bordline child pornography. There was a lot of pictures showing little kids bare rears as they took pisses, and right beside the door there was an abstractish drawing which had two older men engaged in a 69. Now, if it wouldn't seem really wrong for 6 of us to run into the bathroom with a video camera, we would have filmed these pictures, but seriously, Buca de Beppo apparently supports child pornography.

Soon we went outside to wait for the shuttles, and this is where we gave Jaime some basic feedback about the whole tournament. She also mentioned something about each competitor getting a package later on with all the video footage that Nintendo themselves shot in the Space Needle during the competition. Nintendo would also be submitting stories to our local news agencies about our competing in Seattle. Luckily Saskatoon chose not to play said story.

The Final Evening

When we got back to the hotel, Chris happened to be walking up to his room behind me, so I asked for a rematch. He said yes, but then the rest of the evening he appeared not to care about any battle he had since he read while randomly selecting moves. I decided not to waste my time playing him as we headed down with the Asian Brigade and Matt to have a SSBM tournament. Chris came too, but luckily Caleb defeated him in the first round of the tournament in a Pikachu mirror match. I lost $10 to Stephen in a bet that we made at the top of the Space Needle directly following the tournament. I bet that Chris would play Mewtwo, but instead it was Pikachu. Goddamn. Actually I got the last laugh because I never ended up paying him. So yeah, when you read this, Stephen, I.O.U. $10.

After the tournament it appeared that Kevin had to catch an early flight back to Missouri due to a band something or other, and that he had to leave really quite quickly. Travis had already gone back to his room for a second to get something before we headed to McDonalds, so Kevin went up to get something that he needed. He had to catch Travis up there because he didn't have one of the two keycards for the room. As he went up the elevator, Stephen phoned Travis and warned him about the situation.

For the next 15 minutes we all avoided Kevin like the plague, evening running down to the basement parking garage in order to prank him. It is here that Team Magma was formed. Travis, Stephen, Charles (aka Shakka Khan) and Matt became members (that played Pokémon anyways). After a lot of phone tag with Kevin, Stephen, and Travis, Kevin finally left after almost being late catching his cab. Overall, it was pretty fun, but as I'm writing this it seems pretty lame. I guess you had to be there.

After Kevin had finally departed, Team Magma went down the street towards the McDonalds to get something edible to eat after the horrid experience at Buca de Beppo. If I am calling McDonalds edible in comparison to the food we got served at the restaurant, you know something must be wrong with BdB.

As we sat down to eat our food and not starve, we kept a close eye on the cashiers and the people going up to them. Jesus Christ. Every single girl that went up there to order something or that even walked through the doors was smoking hot. I don't mean just "good", I mean absolutely fucking hot. We decided to exchange email addresses and links to NetBattle at this point too, since it was imperative that Team Magma should stick together and win the next tournament.

Alas it was time to head back to the hotel since Matt had an early flight out (4 am) and Shakka Khan had to go to bed soon too. Also, I forgot to mention earlier that Shakka Khan's dad looks EXACTLY like Doctor House from the show "House" (Google it if you don't know). I mean gruff beard, limp and cane. Seperated at birth.

Shakka Khan left us, so Travis, Stephen, Matt, Caleb, and I went back to Team Magma headquarters and watched most of the video that Travis and Stephen had compiled. Hopefully said video will be sent to me in the mail soon *cough I know you two are reading this cough* and I'll find a way to get it online from there.

It was around midnight when Matt called Jaime one final time and left this message on her answering machine:

"Hey Jaime, it's Team Magma. We're just playing some SSBM in the Queen Anne room and you're welcome to join. Clothes are optional."

Once again I guess you had to be there. In case I forgot to mention earlier, Jaime is really fucking hot too. Anyways, shortly after Matt left to go get a few hours of sleep before his flight home, an old wrestling match came on TV.

I don't know what was going on, but it was a stupid tag time involving some guy named Dirtbike Davis(?) and his partner Storm against some guys dubbed AMW. In the end it was dedicated to some psycho guy that managed Dirtbike's team. Wow. Caleb and I said our goodbyes and then headed to bed ourselves.

And Going Home...

When we woke up in the morning we decided that we had to leave Travis and Stephen something before we left. Originally we had thought of taking the matresses off of our beds and running them down the hall to stack in front of their room's door, but this required too much effort for 6:30 am. Since I didn't mention this before, Travis and Stephen did the same thing to Kevin earlier when he was in the shower.

In the end I decided on opening up the Rayquaza action figure I got, but didn't want, and writing a note that said "From Canada with Love" and shoving it into Rayquaza's mouth and making it grab onto the door handle of their room. They also hated the action figure as they both got one as well.

We went down for breakfast and then waited around for half an hour for our shuttle to arrive. When it was 7:30 and the guy still wasn't there, we walked outside and found him asleep in the drivers seat of his car with loud country music playing. Little did we know that this would be the best end to the Seattle trip possible.

It started off with the driver telling us that he had just shuttled off Mudkip guy and Christa earlier, and that while the Mudkip guy was really smart, he was the biggest nerd ever. This is the exact quote:

"You could look in the dictionary under nerd and see a picture of that guy. I got into an argument with him about how the French knew nothing about engineering."

This conversation branched off as he continued to say many hilarious things. We agreed with him just to keep him talking. The best quotes are here:

"I hope hockey is cancelled again so Canada can shit itself again."

"Basketball is crap. It's just full of kids from the ghetto that know nothing about being professional."

"They're lucky to get out of the ghetto alive. They shouldn't be given shit for playing basketball since that's all they did all day when they weren't selling drugs and killing people."

"You guys are smart; that's why you don't give a shit about sports like hockey that have a bunch of whiny assholes demanding money."

And so on.

Well, nothing exciting happened at the airport or the flights back. Nothing at all. That's the trip to Seattle, people. You should have all entered, because it was a great time, except for losing to Chris Darling. Bleh.

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