LAN PARTY 4

LAN Party 4 was held on 4/19 - 4/20/2002 at John's house in Jupiter, just down the street from Matt's house where LAN 2 and LAN 3 were held. This one came up pretty suddenly, like only a day's notice for me, but I managed to show up, although I was the last one there. John's house was set up differently than the other ones were, it was more of a small room of its own, so its tough to judge the location versus how the other ones were. For a "funness" factor I'd say this rates right up along LAN 1 and LAN 2, the two best ones we've had yet.

New feature: This issue of the Lan Party writeups, we have screenshots and webcam pics! We're improving!

In attendence at this lan party were:
John (host, slick Sony Vaio PC)
JW (Big thing with lots of fans and hard drives)
Matt (Dell with cool speakers...mine are better though :)
Mike D (Something or other w/ lots of anime on it.)
Kyle (Two comps...a good one and a 400 that he liked better.)
Josh Cox was the newest member of the LAN crew.
( He brought a computer he didn't know how to use.)

Starting off, the LAN looked different than the other ones...partly because we were a little tight on space.

Front View

Side View, looking over from my corner.

I wish we had a recorder at the beginning of the LAN during setup, there was some funny stuff said.

"Who's Localhost and why is he connecting to me!!!"
What's really scary is that I said that.

We got the music going pretty quick, and Matt went crazy (sort of) to it. The pic didn't quite capture it. He's below:

We had lots of fun in Cstrike. In the fy_iceworld map, there is every gun in the game lying around...Matt made it his mission one round to collect every single one of them in a corner and shoot anyone who tried to get one.

John had his computer on the TV-Out behind his screen, so we looked on that while were playing and saw where to go kill him at. Here's Mike messing around checking for hacks:

And Cox is all like, "WTF?!", as seen on his t-shirt.

You can see it better here. We're all going to invate school with our Thinkgeek.com t-shirts, Matt with "RTFM" Cox with "WTF" and me with "i read your email." and people will have no idea.


(I'm not quite sure what happened w/ the camera there. Overexposed I think...cept it's a digital. Same effect just no film...too much light for the CCD so it went white. This shot was really taken at night, I think.)

It had a tendancy to get hot in the room (course with me in there...) and our switch started to overheat. I need a 3.3v fan for it...but anyways, we ghettorigged cooling for it.


The switch isn't the Linksys box. It's the circuit board the fan is pointint at, which is a Linksys just w/o the blue casing on it. No ventilation in there.

The Cstriking must have been a burden on the switch, but it was cool.


Kyle, Cox, and John intently playing. Kyle's confidant in his skill so he's more chilling than playing.

From my vantage point in the corner (I came late, but it wasn't a bad spot really, unlike Kyle in the corner at LAN 1), I could see Kyle's screen so I actually had a chance on him once in a while. Glancing my head to the left, I could sort of see Matt's. He thinks I could see more of it, but in reality, it was only enough to detect colors and motion, no distinct shapes-so not much cheating help there, heh.


I think I just owned Kyle here, maybe.

While preparing to play Crimson Skies full version (pimp fighter plane game) Kyle chilled across the room.

Little did he know that only hours later, we'd tie him to the chair... (1)

...with packing tape, in his sleep, after writing on his face... (2)

...while Matt prepared to crucify him with a huge marine corps. knife... (3) ***

However, Kyle escaped at the last possible second and everything was fine. Somewhere in here was the 3AM skateboarding with the Moon Pie things, and the gate jumps, and the other fun stuff. I think before, this was at like 4:30AM. John stayed behind on all of our outings...playing CStrike I think. Bah! But he doesn't really skate I think so it was okay, he might not have been able to keep up. I wasn't the first time I went skating long distances.

After Kyle's ordeal, he was fine within minutes:


That's his background. No, she's not naked, or even topless.

While John is like, "Hmm..."

And while we're hear, check out my ghettorigged 4th hard drive! During the LAN it got jostled, and its normally Idling-Jet-Engine sound switched to Idling-Diesel-Engine sound. Not good, at all! Fortunately, it didn't suicide itself, and when I got it home, when being allowed to make noise for about 10 minutes, it found its "acceptable" orientation and stopped making the noise, without stopping working.


Yes, it's hanging by the rounded IDE cable.

Unfortunately, I had to leave at around 11 to get to work an hour and a half late (I called in though...) so no more pics after 10:50. However, most other people started leaving at this point too, so it wasn't bad. In parting:


The crowd-John, Matt, and Me, left to right. I didn't know my pic was being taken so I look freaked out in this one, cuz he's like "Stand up" while I was doing something.


Left to right: Matt's legs, me, Cox, and Mike. Kyle took these pics.

Funness Rating: Pretty good. I'm doing a ratings system. LAN 2 was the best, LAN 1 a close second, with LAN 4 as a tie, and LAN 3 wasn't quite up there. (That doesn't mean it's bad, it just means the others were better. It takes a LOT for a LAN to suck)

Next lan, LAN 5, will HOPEFULLY be at my house. Maybe. Even if it isn't, I can travel. I've got the car :)

Visit LAN Party Headquarters Bios of all the members of the Jupiter LAN club, and computer stats and pics, are available there. I do the party reviews.

--Article by J.W.