Laser Tag

2010-07-01T08:39:00.002-04:00

Leaving tonight at midnight from Skyway. This is a test post to see how my phone works with the service. http://www.jesterscourt.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=42

2010-05-03T12:38:00.001-04:00

Here is the grid layout with correct proportions. Click on the image to embiggen, and actually see the whole thing. The two black bars at the top are the doors into the arena, the black bars on the sides toward the bottom are the emergency exit doors.

The arena weighs in at 2,632.5 sq feet.

The observation deck is just above the red energizers, it is 40 feet long.

2010-04-30T08:23:00.000-04:00

View from the observation deck:

This is the back of the wall we built, I added 4x4 support beams.

  We are nearing the end. The wall is now fully supported, the j-hooks for the grid are almost all in place, would have been last night but I ran out of washers. The grid takes some time to string and tighten, but after that, we can design and build our first arena!
  Sure I've got some more work before we can actually play in the arena, but the tough stuff is almost done. Brian said he would work on the black lights and wiring next week, Gumby said he would work on the sound system. I do still have to work on the pod housings, but wiring the system isn't hard.
  Nationals at our place looks like it might actually happen!

2010-04-12T08:40:00.000-04:00

  I don't have any pictures right now, but we have the painting done. My sister finished the entire ceiling. I have about half of the grid up, the other half which is attached to the wall I built is going to take some more work. The wall is buckling under the pressure. It's mostly at the joint where I knew I would have problems. It looks like I will have to re-enforce the main supports to a truss in the ceiling. I think I will also have to build the observation deck first to give the wall extra strength.
  The worst part about all that? More money.

  We had a tournament at Skate Zone over the weekend, here are the results: http://www.jesterscourt.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11

2010-03-18T10:12:00.000-04:00

Last Thursday 2 car loads of Pittsburgh players came down to help! They managed to get the rest of the walls painted and cleared out the entire room of all the things that were in the way. We got some more uni-strut up, and I have the proper size of bolts to anchor them.

We are getting close...

2010-02-28T22:12:00.000-05:00

A huge thanks to all the people that came out to help with the arena! Samantha came nice and early to get a good start, Mark helped her paint the walls. Jess helped with the painting when she arrived, Jay helped Kel and I with the grid while Justin worked on the equipment. Brian was there all day as well helping with the paint.

In this picture you can see the Uni-Strut that the grid will be attached to. We placed two 2x4 backing on it to prevent any bowing. All the support is coming from the poles. The wood looks pretty bad, but that's what you get for using old pieces saved from a little room we took down. They don't look good, but the grid will be straight.

You can see here where the thick strut meets the thin strut which was used on the wall we built because we didn't have to worry about long spans with no support. All of the strut is hung with relatively small bolts, we have to get the proper size and go back through, but that won'e be nearly as hard.

Here you can see the paint job done. Parts of the ceiling were done with the sprayer before it broke. The rest was all done by hand.

Here we have Justin setting up his area to work on the equipment.

We accomplished a lot, still so much more to go. We have about half the painting done, and half the uni-strut.

2010-01-27T08:11:00.002-05:00

Plywood face complete!

Plywood face complete! With Kel's help last night we finished the last of the plywood face, used some thin panels to cover the viewing deck to keep the heat in, and fired up the furnace. We just happened to have the right size door laying around so we installed that as well.
Since Brian nailed the wall to the concrete the other day, we are mostly finished with this part of the project. Tonight will involve finishing the details, like putting up corner boards, a trimmed 2x4 where the grid will hang on the new wall, maybe a 2x6 ledge for the viewing deck, cleaning the small stuff out of the way and cleaning the walls so we can paint. If people show up tonight we might actually make it to the painting.
Once the paint is done, the grid is next.

2010-01-20T08:08:00.003-05:00

I made some progress with the arena last night.

I got up all the plywood I could do myself. I didn't have anything to notch out the space for the electrical boxes so I had to stop. I also couldn't find my big bucket of drywall screws, which I wasted over an hour looking for. I just found them this morning at the coffee shop...

With another set of hands and a jigsaw we can get the plywood done in an hour or two. Then I have to level the wall and drive it into the concrete, the leveling is going to take some time. I have a hammer drill but I've been told to use the nail gun, the one with rounds of ammo that drive the nail right through the concrete. Never used one before so I'm a bit intimidated.

There is one piece of the wall that worries me: I had to skip a 14' stud that should have went to the truss in order to avoid the heater. Unfortunately that darker section of frame (covering the heater in the picture) was the final frame section and only has two studs. It's a little flimsy and will be the weakest part of the wall since it has the longest span without a stud.
We can fix this of course, it's just finding the best method. I'm thinking of adding a 2 x 6 ledge for the viewing area, this would give people more room to lean on, and add a hell of a lot of strength to the wall. There is also that section that is missing plywood just on top of the plywood that is already there. I could cut small strips of plywood to cover it with, or I could use more 2 x 4s which we would attach the uni-strut to for the grid. This would also add lots of strength.
This is a lot of work, but man it's fun!

2010-01-08T08:31:00.003-05:00

Main frame complete!

It took until 12:30 last night, but with the help of Brian and Kel we completed the wood frame for the new wall. Next up is placing the junction boxes for the wiring, which if I'm lucky Brian will get to today. After that we start hanging the ply-wood face, this step is very important not because of the extra strength it provides, but rather because we can keep heat in the area to work in.

Oh and did I mention that we have enough dark blue commercial carpet to cover the whole arena? Yeah, that's right.

Though we have come across a new problem: The other three walls are a typical pole building, with the main support posts being 8 feet apart. We had not considered how to mount the grid to these walls. The area in between the posts cannot be used for support.
I'm hoping that light unistrut with a 2x4 backing will be enough to handle the weight, but I'll have to see if the engineer agrees...

2009-11-13T15:14:00.003-05:00

I have a bunch of wood like this in the picture. Its from the section of wall we took down before in hopes of re-using it. When we started to put the frame together, we found the size wasn't right. Yeah, instead of 8', all these pieces are 7.5'... Useless to me for the wall, which means I have to go buy more now. The one upside is that I can use these wood for the cat walk behind the wall so people can watch the game. Bad news is this is more money I have to spend that I don't have.
Here is the wall after working on it yesterday. We managed to get 2 more section up. Its turning out really nice and straight.

The wall from another angle.

This is the first time in three weeks we have actually worked on the wall. And I got to say, it's really cold in there. Anyone want to install a chimney for the wood burner we have sitting there taunting us?

2009-10-16T09:16:00.002-04:00

Last night we got the first two sections of the wall up. After arguing about how to make 16 inches on center for about 45 minutes, we figured it out and Kel went up in the attic to cut the holes in the drywall. After much hassle and dust, we put up the first section of wall, that's the part you see with the studs going all the way to the celing. The second section was much easier as it only had 1 stud going up, the rest was just an 8 foot wall.This picture is what will be the view from outside of the arena. The grid that the barriers hang on will be attached to the ledge you see in the lower right corner of the picture.

2009-10-09T08:06:00.007-04:00

Actual construction of the wall began last night. The wall will be 60 feet long, making the long wall of the arena. The first 8 feet and last 8 feet of the wall will be solid all the way to the ceiling, this is where the doors into the arena will go.
The other 44 feet in the middle will be built 8 feet high with one support beam going up to a truss.

As you can see in this picture, we are building every 8 x 8 section with a 14 ft beam connected. This will allow a large viewing area with use of a 4 foot catwalk behind the wall, while still having enough strength to support the weight of the grid and all the barriers.
We were very worried about how to connect the studs to the truss in the ceiling, which we could not figure out how to do until someone ventured up there. This was a job for Kel.

We were worried about what he was going to find up there. Brian has never gone up there since buying the place in 2002. And you have to understand this is a pole building standing in the limbo between farmland and the city. It is getting cold out, but we expected a mess of cob webs and bat droppings. But there were none to be found, the attic was pristine!
So we found the truss we are attaching our wall to. It will require a cut in the drywall ceiling, but we can patch that up when we are done. I was happy to see the attic fully insulated. There is even empty electrical conduit with boxes for us to run new wire for any circuits we may need.
Besides the attic exploration and wall construction, most of the time was spent demolishing a small room in the corner. This was important because I am using that wood as part of my new wall.
Now that we have our plan, and our sections coming together, it won't be long before this wall is up. Now we just need to get Brian's old T-Bird out of the way. If only he could find the keys...

2009-10-02T08:29:00.002-04:00

Construction material arrives!

Last night I purchased the wood for the frame, and brought it to our future location with a rented truck. Now construction can begin in full!

I have a very lofty goal of getting a tournament in our arena by the end of November. Working by myself, this will not happen, but with enough help...

There are going to be some more expenses than I thought going into this, but there always are in this type of project.
The uni-strut used to hold the grid up is gone, used for other things, so we have to buy new.
The grid lines themselves were made for the Jester's arena, with more from another arena we purchased years ago. I'm pretty sure I should have enough, but I may need to tie pieces together to make it work.
The current lighting fixtures are T-12 8 ft. They don't make black lights in that size. So we will leave the current fixtures in place and add T-12 4 ft fixtures. We have some old ones laying around, but may have to buy more.
We decided we are going to run conduit to inlayed boxes on the walls. This way we can add circuits if we ever need to, though it won't be as easy and cheap as running the lines without the conduit, and have you ever tried to put inlayed boxes in plywood? Surface mount is easier, but that means metal boxes sticking out of the wall.
One of the heating units is in the way, and so we are going to build the wall a bit inside of the 2800 sq ft mark. I don't mind the size, but the wall won't be directly under a truss, so we will need to support it on the next truss. If someone wants to mess with moving the heater, be my guest.
The equipment is scattered around everywhere. We are going to need to collect everything and get it all together before we can even start messing with it.

2009-09-14T09:21:00.003-04:00

Here are some pics of the area we are working in. The first picture is the rest of the space we are moving everything too. Can you believe we are having a hard time finding space for all the junk in a 12,000 sq foot building?

We still have to move the car, and tare down the little room you see in the background, but now we are focusing on the design of the walls.

The old JC arena was 50 x 40, which is 2,000 sq feet. If we just build one wall, we will end up with 52 x 59, which is 3,068 sq feet, and very close to the same proportions JC was. However, this only leaves the single long wall as an option for the entrance to the arena. This means that with most arena designs, one team is going to have to get to their side by crossing the force shield. It's not like that is a huge problem, but it would irritate me to the end of days.

Missing from this setup would be a back door to the arena. While there are two exits in the arena leading to the outside, it could not be used for war games (at least not in the winter).

If you have any ideas, the width of the space available is 59 feet. While the length of the building is 200 feet, I don't have all of it I can use. The original plan was to stay within 52 feet in length, that gives the dimensions I mentioned earlier. All other options involve building more walls, and cutting into that 3,000 sq feet.

I also plan on building a cat-walk on this new wall to give a view of the arena like XP Laser Sport does in Maryland. With a cat-walk already in place, it would be possible to expand that later into a party room(s). The cat-walk, and possible party room would be raised, but not enough to allow people in the first level. The total ceiling is only 12 feet, so having an 8 foot clearance for the cat-walk would only give us 4 feet below it. This means any future party room would take up a large chunk of space, and enable war games to be played around it.

That's all I have for now, bust out your graphing paper. Any good thoughts, leave them in the comments.

2009-09-09T15:04:00.002-04:00

Wow, a lot of people came to help out last Thursday. We managed to clear out most of the area. Now we have a little left to clear, and Brian old car to move, then we can tare down that wall in the back corner.

If this gets all done today and tomorrow, we can start the wall next week.

2009-08-26T08:19:00.002-04:00

Thursday August 27th brings the first day of construction for the new Laser Storm arena. I plan on starting around 6pm. This first day is going to involve clearing things out of the way (rather large task), and planning the location of the walls.

For all those wanting to lend a hand, send me a message on Facebook, or give me a call.

If I'm by myself on this, it will take a few months, with enough help we can get it done in weeks. I plan on working on this Thursdays and Fridays.

Checklist:
-Clear out the area that will be the arena
-Plan the final position of the walls
-Purchase the building materials
-Construct the frame
-Run wiring in frame
-Drywall, mud, sand, mud, sand...
-Paint
-Order batteries for Equipment
-Hang the Grid
-Install Energizers
-Install Computer and test energizers
-Re-build Jester's pods, install, test
-Create the first arena
-Install racks to hold the player units, so they can be stored and charged.
-Play

Decisions have to be made about the final size of the arena, location and size of vesting and briefing rooms if any, and where the computer is going to be.
These decisions will be made Thursday night, so if you want a say, you need to be there.

Dump Shuttle Wins

2009-08-09T12:44:00.001-04:00

Dump Shuttle are the new National Champions, beating Justice 155 to 126.

3rd Place

2009-08-09T12:26:00.001-04:00

We lost our last game to Justice, we did much better and even came back from 30 points behind with a very nice pod rush. Right now Justice is playing Dump Shuttle for 1st.

vs Park Rangers

2009-08-09T10:49:00.001-04:00

We won, if we win our next game we take 3rd place.

vs Dump Shuttle

2009-08-09T10:19:00.001-04:00

We lost and it wasn't pretty, 215 to 93. I think we also got DQed with more than 5 penalties.

Finals

2009-08-09T09:43:00.001-04:00

Our first game vs Psudo Champs, we won 57 to 45.

vs Psydo

2009-08-08T12:29:00.001-04:00

we lost by a few points. Now we drive home and come back for finals tomorrow

vs Impact

2009-08-08T11:44:00.001-04:00

we lost by a few points at the very end.

vs Dump Shuttle

2009-08-08T11:11:00.001-04:00

Lost, bad.

vs Justice

2009-08-08T10:31:00.001-04:00

We got owned. Our 5 man defense was of no use.

Vs Park Rangers

2009-08-08T10:11:00.001-04:00

We won. Its a very interesting arena, you can see it at laserstorm.org in the nationals section its the first arena.

Laser Storm Nationals

2009-08-08T10:04:00.001-04:00

In Pittsburgh. We are team "Magic Murder Bag".
Icarus
Cool Cat
Ice
EZ
Tyrant

Lasertron World Championships

2009-08-02T13:12:00.001-04:00

I'm at the LTWC in NY playing on a team with Cool Cat, The Baron, a few locals and some new players from the new XP Laser Sport in MD.
I haven't been posting because most games have 4 teams so you end up playing 3 games in a row.
We took 3rd place in sheilds recharge, and 3rd again in chips mode both times with Overpower in first and the Proffecionals in 2nd.

Right now we are in the middle of Quads, we have played twice coming in 2nd and first. After this is the managers cup where we make random teams.

2009-07-08T13:13:00.002-04:00

We made it home. It was a long drive with a flat tire, and too many people seeing double to help drive. We really need to start getting a hotel for that final night.

Don't worry, we know our limits, the person driving was the one who was NOT seeing double.

It was a terrific tournament. I must say, this was the hardest Armageddon to date. Not only were the Vikings and Zombies really tough to beat, but they actually tied, Zombies won based on the head to head record. We even lost a game in Laser Storm.

DK from the Vikings really stood out this year. He is now good on every system, and is just an impressive player!

To see what everyone else is saying about the event, visit the Armageddon website, and check out the forums!

Final

2009-07-07T00:19:00.001-04:00

With a head to head tie breaker, Zombies win with 30 points.
Vikings in second.
Violent Climax takes 3rd.
We took 4th.
Facepalm in 5th.
Justice took 6th.

Q-Zar

2009-07-06T23:10:00.001-04:00

We have beaten Justice and Facepalm. We lost to Zombies and Climax and we are up against Vikings. It looks like a 4th place overall for us.

Updated standings

2009-07-06T19:13:00.001-04:00

Vikings 26
Zombies 26
Violent Climax 19
Lil ones Closet 17
Facepalm 9
Justice 7

Laser Storm

2009-07-06T18:22:00.001-04:00

So after 10 years we finaly took our first loss in Storm. We went 4 - 1 losing to Justice who swept the system.

The lack of updates was due to me running the games.

Next up Q-Zar

Violent Climax

2009-07-05T21:20:00.001-04:00

For our final game of the night, we pulled out a win vs Rickys team.

Vs Justice

2009-07-05T19:05:00.001-04:00

Another close game, we won

Zombies

2009-07-05T18:49:00.001-04:00

Close game but we lost by 2k in the end. Just as well since we also lost 2k in running penalties

Vikings

2009-07-05T17:41:00.001-04:00

We lost, really good game

Lasertron

2009-07-05T16:58:00.001-04:00

Vs Facepalm we lost 115k to 114k

Blast problems

2009-07-05T14:36:00.001-04:00

There have been some issues with the scores. When you hit a base you get 501 points, so at the end of your game if you get both bases your score will end in 2.
Since friendly fire is on you can hit your own base, so you lose 501 points making your score end in 9. But the scores seem to be messed up and some people are ending in 9 and we have to see the scorecards to figure it out. Unfortunatly the center didn't provide a second copy so we have to wait until later.
The center also didn't provide much help with turnover so we had no time for a replay. We will check later if Autos pack registered a base hit on our own team, as of now we went 3 - 2 on this system.

Vikings

2009-07-05T14:24:00.001-04:00

We lost this game by 8k.

Facepalm and Justice

2009-07-05T13:00:00.001-04:00

We beat both teams.

vs Zombies

2009-07-05T11:44:00.001-04:00

We lost by 400, somehow one of our players got a hit on our base loosing us 500 pts. We will replay the game if we have time.

Laser Blast

2009-07-05T10:22:00.001-04:00

First game we won vs Rickys team.

Updated totals

2009-07-05T08:55:00.001-04:00

Official record:
Vikings 16
Zombies 16
Climax 13
lil ones closet 8
Facepalm 6
Justice 1

Last of Quest

2009-07-04T21:05:00.001-04:00

We are so very not good on Quest. We lost to Facepalm and Vikings. We are 1 - 4.

Quest, Rickys team

2009-07-04T19:48:00.001-04:00

Of coarse its hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure we lost this game with at least 4 of our players ranked at the bottom.

Zombies and Justice

We lost to Zombies by about 500 and we won agaist Justice

Updated totals

2009-07-04T16:49:00.001-04:00

Zombies took first with 5 wins for a total of 13 wins.
Vikings had 4 wins for a total of 12 wins.
Rickys team had 3 wins for a total of 8.
Facepalm had 2 wins giving them a total of 3.
We only had 1 win giving us a total of 7.
Justice didn't win any so they have 1 total point.

Again these results are not official, and come from my memory.

vs Rickys team

2009-07-04T13:33:00.001-04:00

Another loss to put us at 1 - 4 in Darklight.

Ouch

2009-07-04T12:30:00.001-04:00

See that blue box in the screen? That was the Vikings score, we were the red team, that's the little line to the left of it.

vs Zombies

2009-07-04T11:23:00.001-04:00

We lost, pretty much just got out played.

vs Justice

2009-07-04T09:53:00.001-04:00

We won 6k to 4k

Darklight

2009-07-04T09:19:00.001-04:00

We lost our first game vs facepalm very close with Gumby taking 1st with a lot of points.

4 - 1

2009-07-03T20:36:00.001-04:00

In our final game we lost to The Vikings. They had 1 out, we had three, including Auto who went out of bounds and DQed.

After outdoor

Psyhco Family tied with Zombies with 8 wins each.
We have 6 wins.
Violent Climax (Rickys team) with 5.
Facepalm in 5th and Justice in 6th.

These are not official totals.

4 - 0

2009-07-03T19:47:00.001-04:00

We won against Zombies. Both teams had 3 out, scores were counted final 130 - 85.

3 - 0

2009-07-03T19:04:00.001-04:00

Our third game vs Facepalm, we won 1 dead to 3.

2 - 0

2009-07-03T18:42:00.001-04:00

First game against Rickys team we won with 2 lives left, they had 1. Cheetah got the flag half way back.

Against Justice we won with 1 player out, they had 2.

Outdoor change

2009-07-03T17:28:00.001-04:00

After three games, the last two lasted around 20 seconds. Whoever runs faster wins.

The was a captains vote and we are playing all the games over with a standard capture the flag format.

Outdoor begins

2009-07-03T16:04:00.001-04:00

We have arrived, going over the rules now. Its not supposed to rain until we are done, let's hope we run our games on time.

Ultrazone

2009-07-03T14:51:00.001-04:00

So... we went 2 and 3 in this system, it was the Infusion version with 1 shot per second. We played on the red and yellow teams with the blue base not on.
The Swedes swept the system giving an upset to the Zombies who had the crazy good Assassin on the team.

The Zombies held second place with only 1 loss, Rickys team came in third.

With our team taking 4th, we had Facepalm in 5th beating out Justice, the other full Laser Storm team from Pittsburgh

lost to rickys team

2009-07-03T14:04:00.001-04:00

and I thought we were doing really good

Uz swedes

2009-07-03T13:22:00.001-04:00

They killed us, 54k to 28k. Ouch.

assassins team

2009-07-03T12:21:00.001-04:00

took our first loss, Assasin owned our base and fed his team hits

first game

2009-07-03T10:48:00.001-04:00

vs facepalm, we won 23159 to 21173

Made it

2009-07-03T00:56:00.001-04:00

all 9 players, 1 room. That's how we roll.

ready

2009-07-02T18:14:00.001-04:00

it pittsburgh waiting for the rest of the team

Team name

2009-06-26T13:37:00.001-04:00

In Lil One's Closet

2008-11-22T21:22:00.000-05:00

This is just a test

2008-07-09T12:51:00.002-04:00

I noticed my hits went way up with anticipation of live info from Armageddon. Alas I failed you... Due to some technical difficulties, like my phone carrier being less than quality, and failing to get an iPhone to work with Blogger, I was unable to keep the updates coming.

I will post what happened at each event and all the fun stories that come with putting us all in the same hotel room.

we have arrived

2008-07-05T11:16:00.001-04:00

arrived safe and sound

On our way

2008-07-05T11:11:00.001-04:00

We started our journy and are now about 2.5 hours away from Darklight. Driving all night to go play two systems on Friday probably isnt the smartest thing we have ever done, but it is the cheapest.

2008-07-03T09:36:00.003-04:00

Armageddon 2008 team roster:

Rob "Gumby Jones" McGee
George "Icarus" Raptis
Justin "Cheetah" Kopelos
Ryan "Cool Cat" McFate
Steven "Lil One" Campbell
Jason "Phase" Penezich
Joe "Zalgax" Danielewicz
Rob "Auto"

I still play tag!

2008-07-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

I thought I would dust off this old Blogger account what with leaving for Armageddon tonight.
I post to this blog with my phone, so dont expect a great deal of detail. We leave tonight at about 11pm.

Yeah

2007-07-22T00:16:00.001-04:00

sweet

2007-06-27T13:04:00.000-04:00

News for Nationals: Thursday July 26th we will be starting at noon as opposed to 9am. This is the only day that needs adjusted, and depending on how many teams, we might make it the short day.

The ending time is to be announced. Friday, Saturday and Sunday have 9am start times and we should end between 2 and 4pm.

my first mobile post.

2007-06-25T21:51:00.001-04:00

This is my first attempt at a mobile blog with my t-mobile Dash. As I dont have a reason for this post, I will end it here.

2007-06-25T20:14:00.000-04:00

Has it really been a year since my last post? Yeah, it's been a while, but that's what happens when your home center closes down.

So what's happened in all this time? I suppose the big news is that we won Armageddon for the second year in a row. We took third in the tenth annual Laser Storm Nationals in Pittsburgh. We've had a rough year for regionals, we can't seem to beat Dump Truck, but we have been closing the gap, Nationals should be interesting this year.

The big news right now is that we finally have a team for Armageddon this year! Unfortunately we took our good old time and it is too much for us to fly down to Texas. So we are driving!

I'll have my laptop and cell phone on me so I can report our trip in real time, but I don't know if I will or not, I'm finding I'm not too much of a blogger (it has been more than a year).

We will see how it goes.

2006-04-30T18:08:00.000-04:00

Well that's it ladies and gentlemen, tonight is the last night of Jester's Court. This has been a special month for all of us, we all knew it was coming, we've all come to terms that we no longer have a home arena, but more than that, we've lost a place to get together...

Whenever we would take a road trip, laser tag related or not, going to a movie, going out to eat, it was always "meet you at Jester's". Most of the people in my friend list on myspace are there because of Jester's, in one way or another. Even my wife... We never would have meet.

Last night the funeral pyers blazed as we put JAK to rest for the final time at a bon fire at Brian's house. Yesterday I started taking down some of the trophies I have left there on display over the years. Today I have to check all the cabinets for any of my old crap laying around. Sad times...

But the friendships made in this place won't end with the closing of the doors. There will be more laser tag. There will be more bon fires, more parties at someone's house, and more road trips.

Tonight the doors close for the very last time... Thank you for 10 years of memroies.

Skate Zone tournament

2006-02-04T15:17:00.000-05:00

     Over last weekend we had a Laser Storm regional tournament at the Skate Zone in Austintown, Ohio.  Will “Ebay-Freak” decided to take it upon himself to schedule this tournament, this was due to me telling people that we can have another tournament in Austintown, as long as someone else sets it up.  While I think the Skate Zone is great, their arena is only slightly larger than Jester’s, they don’t have as many barriers, and fewer options in making a good arena design because of a single entry way, and fixed base units above the grid.  So it generally doesn’t seem worth it for me to take extra time to setup their arena and run their tournament when it could be done much easier at Jester’s.  There is also the fact that they don’t have any regular players to make a home team.
     With E-Bay setting it up, all I had to do was show up and help run the tournament, that’s great!  But then E-Bay found himself without many people to change the arena (welcome to my world), so I decided to go up and help him out the night of.  But due to a lack of communication (make more phone calls), I showed up at 7pm with E-Bay to find out we had to wait until 10pm (about the time everyone will show up for the tournament).  To be fair, I knew this in advance, as Ray, the manager of Skate Zone stopped by the coffee shop and told me this, but as I was very busy and had other things on my mind, I forgot… ooops.
     So at 10 pm I went back up to Skate Zone with Doc Mike to start the arena.  Since the layout was pretty much the same as the previous tournament, we decided to at least make some slight modifications to make the pod run a little shorter.  After we were done with the force shield, Darkside came in and I pawned the rest of the work off on him.  After we got the arena setup, we tested the pods to find that one of the sirens didn’t work.  Oh fooey.  I can’t believe the number of things that worked out after that, the really old game computer had a sound card, that was working, we had an extra cable to attach to the sound system, and I was able to find some wav files to play.  This never happens to me.  Whenever I try to get the sound to work on a game computer, usually the sound drivers need updated (no internet connection at Skate Zone), we NEVER have the right kind of cable, and 1-3 other things usually go wrong.  The one problem we did have was a lack of sounds.  By scowering the computer I was able to make a pod hit give you “You’ve Got Mail!”.  It was a very fun 15 minutes of finding other sounds and making other people laugh at the prospect of hearing “TADA” for a pod sound.  We were also able to find some start and end game sounds in the voice of none other than Barry Franks (KIX) from back in the day.
     As the games were about to start, I was able to pawn yet more work off, this time on Gumby as I asked him to enter all the players into the database, to my surprise, he said yes!  And to my great delight, after the first few games, Gohan and E-Bay from Pittsburgh started dragging all the players in, getting people suited up, entering the game scores, and pretty much everything else that I normally do.  That was awesome!  I was able to talk with my team, play my games, ref a few, and lounge around a bit.  This was one of the BEST TOURNAMENTS EVER… for me (.
     Onto the games!  The three top teams ended up being my team Pimp something or another (I’ll just say Pimp from now on), Centipede and Phoenix’s team Fizz City Ganstas (Fizz), and Dump Truck less Zalgax, plus The Phantom.  Yes, that is right, the mighty tall one himself, from way back in the day, Fred “The Phantom” Astey!  It’s been so long!  Ahh the memories…  Anyway, for the first time in just as many years I found myself worried about the 6 foot barrier positions, and wouldn’t you know it, he found a nice spot to go all god-like on.  Good times.
     My team had to face Fizz in the second round.  We were beaten by 1 point (96-97), but we were not too happy, because Centipede got a good 7 (Yes SEVEN) hits on us by firing over the e-pod.  “Seven?” you say?  My team swears by it, but even if you only give us 1, that made the game tie.  I asked my team if they wanted me to ask Fizz for a replay, but they said no, they would rather fight their way back up to them and beat them twice (I love when they get mad!).
     Well we would get the chance to face them again, but not twice, because they would go on to lose to Dump Truck.  This was a little bit of an upset as Dump Truck usually has a better chance with a short pod run (Miza), and they were lacking the Zalgax, and The Phantom should have had about 3+ years of rust built up.  But Dump Truck pulled out a 37 point victory (135-98).  During the game I was a ref, and Fizz was getting quite upset about Dancer, as they could not hit her.  So I went over to see, Gumby was already watching her.  I watched her the rest of the game and must say, there was nothing wrong with that pack.  Anyway, The Phantom kicked ass from his spot which really made me worry for out next game.
     My worries were ultimately put to rest, I had forgotten how much we practice the Wilson-breaker.  The first game we pulled out a victory of 7 points (103-96).  We switched sides and won by 42 points (127-85) thus giving us a victory at Skate Zone (it’s been a while).
     On the 18th we are back in Pittsburgh where I’m sure Fizz will be itching to re-prove themselves, and Dump Truck will be there to say what’s up.  Unfortunately there will not be an arena change, so the home teams will have more than a slight advantage, which is fine by me because it makes a loss less painful and a victory more sweet!

2005-12-13T09:29:00.000-05:00

My team "Boondocks" took second place this past
weekend at the December Laser Storm regional at Jester's Court. First
place went to "Oblivious" from Pittsburgh.

It was a decent tournament, with 6 teams we were able to take
our time and still get done before 4am. We did make the mistake of setting
up the arena the night before the tournament, this is always a bad idea, and it
would come around to bite us in the ass. When the players came in to look
at the arena after the captain's meeting, they found 3 barriers we had one one
side but not the other. This was fixable, but it is amazing that we missed
so many in a 2,000 sq foot arena.

The real issue didn't show itself until later when Justin
(Pittsburgh) pointed out a barrier that was one grid length off from the other
side. This one barrier space created a "god" spot that was
really able to effect the game play. We knew better than to change the
arena so late, but we really didn't have any other choice as most of us are very
busy most of the time.

Oddly enough, the green side had the advantage, and we
only got to play on that side once. That is the time we beat
"Oblivious" by 45 points, (30 player hits, 3 pod hits). All of
our other games were played on the red team. The games we lost to
"Oblivious" were by 8 points and by 11 points.

All the teams played really well, and "I Love
Lamp" was able to celebrate a victory. Our second team "FauxOblivion"
was able to not only stay in the game, but almost beat
"Oblivious". Hopefully they will stick together to make a good
showing at Skate Zone in January.

2005-12-05T12:38:00.000-05:00

Our fledgling brother region to the east has a successful
weekend with their first tournament gathering. It was a 3 on 3 held a
little late in the hopes of generating some interest for a full 5 on 5 on
January 7th. People who never traveled before, traveled, and I hear there
were some really good games played. The event seemed to have really paid
off as teams are now coming together for the tournament. The big question
remains, are they ready for a traveling team from the Great Lakes region?

I am not sure what the format will be, 5.x, 3.1, divided,
open... But they will probably use their own set of rules as they refuse
to use the National standard. This is fine as we shouldn't have any
problem adapting, but it may bite them in the ass if some of the new players
decide they want to come to Nationals.

Nationals being in Pittsburgh this year is not that bad of a
trek for these guys, and with a successful region, they have a very good chance
of being able to host Nationals the following year, that is, if they show up.

January 7th is just a month away, and I will be just getting
back from Texas the weekend before, so I am not 100% sure I can make it.
But there is a good chance. Will we take a full team, will
Pittsburgh? Or will we take one combined team? Perhaps our
Armageddon friends from Baltimore will show up?

And why did I blog with with an old ass picture of Nathan? Well it was the only picture I had of him and I don't have anything else to represent their new region. And for the people just playing with him for the first time, they can see him fron years ago when they first came to our region.

2005-11-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend I was able to visit the Lazer Runner in Circus Circus in Las Vegas. This is only my second time playing this system, and I have never played it competitively. I was rather dismayed to start by paying $6 for a 5 minute game. But all their attractions are this price and if you get an all day pass for $23 you can play as many games as you want.
I enjoy the system. The vests fit nicely and this is coming from a guy that weighs 275 lbs. The unit I had seemed to be in good working order, and during the game I had no issues with tagging other players. I did not particularly like the arena. There were not too many obstacles and so to move from one section to the next usually means you get tagged. It was a little too dark, and my eye sight is a little too bad to fully appreciate the theme they had going on.
Lazer Runner has the option of running a continuous game and setting each player with their own time limit. So we joined a game already in progress. This is a very good setup for a place like Circus Circus where there is a continuous flow of people coming to play. Though I really wish it was more than 5 minutes on the game time...
Now for the bad. The customer service was HORRIBLE! The only brief on how to play was a video loop in the waiting area, which could be fine except there were only 2 people in front of us at the moment and so we only saw about 30 seconds of it. I suppose we could have stopped and just watched, but the employee never asked if we knew how to play, just told us to come with her. (My friend had never played laser tag before).
We were under a constant rush to get in the game. I was trying to help adjust my friends vest and the girl just kept saying "Come on, lets go". And after the game, the girl was annoyed that I didn't immediately find the exit.
I was very disappointed that there were no scorecards. I know that the system can print half-sheets, and you can print the scorecards by choosing a player unit, I would have even paid up to $1 for a printout, just to have a souvenir.
I enjoyed the game, and got to introduce my friend to the game of Laser Tag. Which was inevitable I suppose because he married a girl that used to play competitively, and we were in Vegas for a wedding of two people that used to play on my team...

2005-11-04T11:05:00.000-05:00

In Armageddon 2005, Team Laser Storm finally took the title of Armageddon Champions! Next year it goes back to Baltimore, and while I am not thrilled about going back to a place we were just at a short time ago, I'm looking foward to testing my team back at some of these centers.
I have been thinking about a lot of parallels about what could happen and what has happened. A major factor is the team Overpowered having two home systems. But in reality that only means they will most likley get all their wins on those systems, something they did on 3 systems this past year. While Laser Storm won 6 doubling points comparted to LOL's 2, LOL earned a few more pity points (22 to 17). So the biggest factor turned out to be LOL complete loss on Laser Storm. This had a lot to do with every other team being seeded with Storm players. This was due to every other team coming short and finding fills from the local storm players. This is something that can happen to us in 06. While our team will most likley be full, the ones that aren't have a good chance of being seeded by local Photon/Tron players. This is compounded by the fact that we already suck at Photon, but not so much on Tron.
Of course that is a lot of talk without the consideration of the other great teams. Unfortunatly I don't know what those teams are going to be yet. Rave is pulling another full storm team from Pittsburgh. The Baron and Ricky will have a great (hopefully full) team, and the AR guys are just getting better and better sweeping both AR and Laser Quest this year.

2005-11-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

A blog about laser tag? Well I suppose blogging is "in" these days, and I have found that the majority of my daily websites are blogs themselves. So I guess I will throw my hat in and write my novels here rather than the usual e-mail ring.
For those of you who are on the e-mail ring, you will have noticed that there is little conversation, it might lead you to believe there is little going on, when in fact the opposite it true. To start, regionals are still going on and they are strong, just a few weeks ago the Jester's regional pulled 7 teams, that's about average for the past 3-4 years. There is renewed interest at Jester's and a lot of new tallent here and at Pittsburgh. A new region is in the works to the East. While getting off to a rocky start, the NY-NJ region is slated to have their regional starter the first weekend of December.
Jeff has come across a new Laser Storm in Peru, and with his traveling job and relocation every 35 seconds, he has got the word out about Nationals to many new people.
We are in the process of re-vamping the National Rules. Now the rules we make need to be voted in at Nationals, but I think everyone will like them. While they will be much longer, the end results won't effect the actual game play too much. I plan to test them out during regionals this year.
I suppose this is enough blathering for this post. I'll be back later with news about Armageddon and all things laser tag.