More than once, actually.  I counted it as a badge of honor when I went to bed sometime after the sun came up (the only way I ever saw sunrise anyway) and rose around evening.  That was my routine as a gamer. I preferred staying up at night, when no one would bother me and I didn’t have to put black posterboard on my windows to keep evil glare from my screen.  I was a Gamer with a G and I was proud of my lifestyle.

I can’t stay up anymore.  I have a full time job I need to report to when, years ago, I’d be laying down to sleep.  I go to bed at a horribly well-adjusted 11PM or midnight.  I get up at 8AM.  My prime gaming hours are from 7PM to the time I go to bed.

Last weekend I broke my heavily ingrained sleep schedule… it’s now lying in shattered pieces in a forgotten corner of my life.  Mountain Dew invited the Frag Dolls back to Canada for a party celebrating their energy drink, Dew Fuel.  We were, of course, thrilled to go.  We’d been to Montreal once for the Arcadia festival, and wanted to explore more of those mysterious exotic reaches of the north.  Places like...Toronto. And Vancouver.  Four of us went to the party in Toronto, and 3 went to the party in Vancouver.  I packed my bags and headed east.

It started going wrong with the first flight.  My flight was direct (yay!) at 7AM (boo!).  Since I was traveling internationally, I wanted to make sure I got to the airport at least 2 hours before my flight to take care of any international things that needed taking care of.  The first rapid transit train wouldn’t get me to the airport until about 5:30AM.  Unacceptable!  I booked a spot on a shuttle.  Unfortunately, the shuttle picked me up at 3:45AM (super boo!).  I got to the airport at about 4:15AM and stared at the wall for the next 3 hours because my flight was delayed and there was no international stuff to take care of.

figure 1A: left to right, back to front (Magiz, McMax3000, Seppuku, Captain Jeb, Psyche) (Loganissocool, Jinx, Kid Kryptic)

Fast forward.  3PM, Land. 5PM, get to hotel. 7PM, go to venue for passes. 8PM, go to dinner with rockstar community members (see figure 1A). 11PM, show up at party.  Did I mention the party ran to 3AM? Well, it did.  It was a great party too. I had a lot of fun.  We played GRAW against random people and interviewed with Ed the Sock.  We’d heard he was a mean sucker and had prepared all kinds of clever comebacks about seeing his girlfriend in the dryer with another sock, but he must have known we were prepared because the interview was pretty innocuous.  We spent the rest of the night taking shots of the Dew Fuel until our eyes vibrated in their sockets.

figure 1B: The Frag Dolls can look street. Well, kind of.

3AM, go back to hotel.  4AM, manage to maybe sleep.  11AM, get up. pack. shop.  3PM, get to airport. 4PM, fly to Montreal.

You may remember a certain blog from Rhoulette about our adventures at a respectable chocolate-serving establishment in Montreal.  As soon as we landed I grabbed Psyche, who came with me to Montreal, and towed her to just that establishment.  We didn’t fingerpaint on each other’s faces in chocolate this time, but we did eat crepes and have hot chocolate (thick style) in July.

figure 1C: Psyche samples a milk chocolate vintage at Juliette et Chocolat

11PM, get back to hotel. 12AM, decide the sauna sounds fun.  3AM, done with sauna, time for bed. 10AM, mmm breakfast.  11AM, sleep more.  2PM, wake up! time for shopping! 3PM, run into a festival that includes a band of guys wearing fake noses.  8PM, dinner with super awesome Ubisoft developer named Christine Blondeau who we would see again the next day.  10PM, wow, it didn’t seem like that long.  1AM, sleep.

Monday was a terrifying, but fantastic, day.  Psyche and I had the opportunity to go to the Ubisoft Montreal studios and interview some of the developers there.  The tapes from this are now sitting on my desk and I have to figure out what to do with them so you can’t see them yet, but trust me when I say they’re awesome.  Because they are.  I was there once before for about 2 hours, on a whirlwind tour of “this is where Splinter Cell is developed, this is where Rainbow Six is developed.”

This time Psyche and I got to really sit down with the developers, talk to them about their games, about being a developer, about the industry… it’s hard to put a finger on just why it meant so much to me. Maybe because I was inside a development studio, talking to the people behind the games, and this is something I’ve been in awe of since I first started gaming.  Or that these people were so passionate about their vision of the industry’s future and where they want to see it go.

figure 1D: We even went on the roof.  I put my feet on the Ubisoft sign!

6PM, it’s a wrap.  8PM, eat the canadian version of mexican food. 10PM, get some drinks and go to a random punk bar.  12AM, hmm, I fly tomorrow so I should pack and sleep.  2AM, sleep.  5AM, time to get up.  6AM, leave for airport.  8AM, now boarding all rows. 12PM, land and celebrate timezones. 2PM, arrive at work.  6PM, go home.  6:15PM, sleep.

It’s good to be home.

- jinx

so it stopped it dead for a beat or two