loonyboi's Quake III Bus Tour
Report
Day 3: AMD in Austin
Day 0 - The Arrival || Day 1: Houston CompUSA || Day 2: Houston to Austin
Day One Photos ||
Day Three
Photos
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Jason "loonyboi" Bergman
August 25, 1999
August 24 - Day Three: AMD in Austin
12:00 PM
So here we are at AMD's headquarters in Austin. We arrived about 30 minutes ago and took a stroll around the campus. They've got a really nice setup here…a massive four (main) building layout that comprises "FAB 25" where their new Athlon chips are being constructed.
We were able to score some bunny suits, those outfits they have to wear to work on the processors (and were popularized by Intel's commercials). We're probably going to make total asses out of ourselves with those. Look for some pictures of David and Myself in them grooving to pop up along side this report (maybe…I make no promises).
There's definitely a nice turnout here. We'll be here for two hours (at least with the bus, anyway…hopefully we'll get a chance to wander around a bit and check things out a little).
More later…here comes the first batch of victims.
12:40 PM
These AMD guys are fun. Apparently they're all big Quake 2 fans, and one guy even told me that it's not at all uncommon to start Quake 2 during lunch hour and find a game in progress. Cooool.
The level of experience varies from group to group. In the last batch of guys, there were six newbies and one advanced guy. The punchline is that the guy with experience lost. Muhahahahahah.
There's a really BIG turnout here. I'm totally impressed with that. The line is long, and we've had to drop the frag limit to 10 instead of 20 to keep it moving (we can't keep them away from their work too long…we do want those Athlons to ship on time, doncha know).
1:10 PM
Technical difficulties have arisen. Because the computers are tightly housed in the bus, they've been overheating and crashing. Doh! We don't know if it's because of the chip (the Athlons), or the video card (3dfx Voodoo 3s) or even a motherboard issue. It's happened twice now, which ain't good. Hopefully it'll be resolved by tomorrow, which will be much busier than today (which has been pretty damn busy).
Because we have to leave at 2:00, and the turnout was so good, there's actually two lines at the moment. One for those people actually playing, and then a whole separate line for people who just want to look around the bus.
Okay, weird AMD story of the moment: somebody actually walked off with a stack of t-shirts. Now that's just strange. I hope nobody pulls that tomorrow - it'll really disappoint people if we can't give a shirt to the winner. :(
Dig - I've been challenged. After this is over, I'll be doing a one-on-one with one of the guys here.
Bring it on, baby, bring it on.
4:45 PM
Whee! The AMD trip was a hoot. It was a total bummer that someone ran off with the shirts, as we ran out shortly afterwards. Oh well. What can you do. Fortunately we've got a big stash back at the hotel for tomorrow, so the UT folks won't have to worry. But it still was a definite bummer.
David here has come up with the most annoying Q3 handle - LOW AMMO WARNING. The first time I saw that I got really confused. :)
Methinks it's time for some actual playing. I lost in my challenged match. But, I'm not counting it, since it turned out to be a free for all, and not a one-on-one match. I came in second out of six, which wasn't bad, that's for sure. Those guys do know their stuff though…a good time was had indeed.
12:20 AM
Well, so ends another day here on the Q3 tour. After the AMD trip, we did the lunch thing, and then headed back to the bus, where we had to fix up the computers a bit, since there were technical problems earlier. The 3dfx drivers needed updating, and once we updated them there didn't seem to be any problems. Hopefully none will arise tomorrow, since it will be so busy (and man…all that I've seen and heard seems to point towards a truly MASSIVE stop tomorrow).
We did a whole lot of "playtesting" on the new maps, and I even took some more pictures for all of you out there. We did a teamplay on the new maps, with myself and Disco from AMD on one team, and David and Anna from id on the other. It was a blast. We lost, but we lost admirably (boy, I think I've already said that a few times - I should probably come up with a better excuse next time).
I fly back tomorrow night, and while I can't wait to get home (I miss New York), I will certainly miss Austin. This is a fun town…a bunch of us did a swanky dinner in downtown Austin, complete with wines picked out by Anna. Anna picks one heck of a wine, even though she doesn't drink herself (she's a connoisseur who doesn't drink - how strange is that?). I've got a few glasses of red, a glass of white, and a glass of port in me at the moment. Suffice to say, I'm in a good mood. ;)
Anyway, tomorrow should be the pinnacle of my trip, as it's the first day of classes at UT, and this is one seriously wired school. Whole classes are going to be stopping by. We'll be there from 11:00 to 5:00 (although I have to leave around 4:30 to catch my flight). I am definitely looking forward to this one.
Off to get some much needed sleep…look for more tomorrow night when I return to New York. Whee!
-Jason
Tomorrow's stop
UT: Austin
Day 0 - The Arrival || Day 1: Houston CompUSA || Day 2: Houston to Austin
Day One Photos || Day Three Photos
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