Respect Sakura

After being threate^H^H^H^H^H^H^H asked nicely by Jaymz to finally get around to making a post on Respect Sakura, it seemed I had the ideal material. The StreetGeek LAN. Those who have no idea about it, it’s a monthly event held in Adelaide that seems to get around 20 people at any one time. This was my first time attending, but I’m told that all the good impressions I had were consistent with all the other LANs they’ve had thus far.

To start with, it was going to be really difficult to get both Chinook AND my 20″ monitor there and back (seeing as I’d have to take a Taxi). So, when a friend told me that one of their friends on the staff could hook me up with a monitor when I got there, that put me in a pretty good mindset. It was $15 to get in, and an extra $5 for meals. I was only going to be there for the Saturday (even though it’s a 2 day LAN), but it seemed like a pretty good deal to me.

$20 spent and a 15″ CRT borrowed and I was shown to my seat on a Gigabit table next to the Admin section. Saying that the switch I was on was congested would be putting it nicely. It was difficult to find a spare port, and even harder to plug it in considering some of the cables in the switch no longer had the clips on the connectors. So, after some maneuvering trying to plug mine in, I still managed to knock out the network for 30 seconds. Oops.

The above paragraph might make me seem somewhat competent at doing this whole “LAN” thing… I’m not. I know my way around home networks, but not the big ones like at a LAN. The reason I was actually able to do all this stuff, was because people told me all the little details I needed to know. Proxy server details and how to use the Windows built-in Network explorer, little things like that helped me feel a lot more welcome. And it wasn’t just staff who were willing to help out, the guy I was sitting next to took the time to explain things to me as well. I was prepared to use an FTP or DC Hub though, so having to use the Windows file-sharing thing was a bit of a downer… fortunately it didn’t fail too often.

Shortly after setting up I sat down… and did nothing. In fact, the only game I remember playing while there was Battlefield 1942 for about 2 hours. So, for 7 of 9 hours I wasn’t playing games. This isn’t to say I was bored, rather, I was talking to people and generally enjoying myself. The first 10 minutes I was there was mainly me getting a bearing on my surroundings. To be honest, I was expecting to be bathed in the technicolour world of LEDs and deafened by the warcries of “NOOB!” and “HAX!” Instead, we were in a large naturally lit church where the sound of conversation drowned out the persistent whirrs of over 60 cooling fans. (I’m told that on Friday nights the former scenario actually happens.) There were people playing games, and if I were so inclined I might’ve joined in… but, I chose to watch people throw harddrives into a cardboard box.

FrisbeMark is an event held on the Saturdays around noon. The aim is to throw a burnt-out old harddrive into an average-sized packing box from about 6 metres away. I witnessed many different techniques and saw firsthand the robust nature of a drive’s metal framework. DrFrag won… his trophy was the harddrive he used to win, spray-painted gold and mounted. It’s interesting to note here that because StreetGeek registration and general communication is done with a forums and the people who attend are all a part of said forums, everyone’s referred to by handle over precedence of their real name. Now, my handle’s quite a mouthful, being 6 syllables longer than my given name. So… you didn’t hear “cruelangeleo7″ much except when I was getting my name marked off of lists. Just one of those surreal things that I only ever thought happened in secret agent movies when they use callsigns.

After the harddrive throwing tournament, I noticed that hardly anyone was playing games. In fact, most people were pretty laid back and just going around casually. I was a told that this was the norm for Saturdays, everyone’s winding down. (Except maybe those guys who were playing Warcraft 3, I swear they didn’t move from their PCs.) Once every couple of hours, an announcement would be made about a dedicated server for a certain game. Most of the titles didn’t interest me: Halo: CE, UT2004, Counter-Strike. But, they certainly interested some others who really got into it. So, I took the opportunity to talk to people. Most everyone was approachable and would talk about anything from anime, to video games, and even coffee blends (if you are so inclined towards such a discussion).

Eventually I managed to start playing a game and was impressed with the way things ran. Despite never playing most games online or going to LANs, there were only a couple of brief issues with lag or network disconnections in 2 hours of play. Not perfect, but a lot better than some of the stories I’ve heard about similar sized LANs. I’d never played Battlefield 1942 with other people, so I wasn’t really aware of any of the idioms associated with it… but it was pleasantly free from them. Tactics were hovering somewhere in the background with different classes teaming up to become more effective, but it was mostly just about having fun.

And that was really the emphasis of the entire event. Sure, trophies were awarded to people who got the most points in tournaments, but it wasn’t such a huge thing. The main thing was to have fun. Such as with the quiz (which I got 11/24 on), harddrive tossing tournament and having Monkey Magic running on the projector. But, the games themselves weren’t screw arounds, the people playing were playing seriously.

Sometime after dinner (which was spaghetti bolognese) I started talking with a guy who turned out to be a freelance computer technician. We talked about rigs and his really was a point of interest. I bring it up because he has 6 harddrives, a full-sized ATX board and a 6600GT in there… oh, and that’s his PSU on top. …yeah… it makes me feel like Chinook’s sheer size (the big black one) is going to waste. Need to buy some more harddrives.

Speaking to some of the Admins throughout the day, it is a really well-planned event. They’re extremely careful with circuit loads and how they’ve configured the networks. And despite the ever-present issues (read: server crashes) with trying to control that many 1s and 0s hurtling around copper cabling the staff were always willing to talk to me about the event and how I can get more involved, who’s who, etc.

Overall, it was a great experience. If you’re interested, direct your internets towards their website and grab all the vital details.