TwitchCon 2017 prep, day 1

October 17, 2017, 11:35 PM PDT by Parkzer • Conventions, Tempo

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.

The marathon begins.

I was the first one around the convention center today from Tempo Storm to scout out the area. I explored the convention center and snapped some photos as I went. I’m not exactly sure how much of the Long Beach Convention Center is going to be used for TwitchCon, but it was actually pretty big.

I thought I was early, but apparently, the construction crew has been at it already for a while now, because everything was set up inside and ready for us to get started. We’re booth #437 towards the back-center of the exhibitor area. Our Merchandising Director Ryan Wagner stopped by a bit later to help out; we spent today erecting our custom walls (because we didn’t even realize that Twitch would be providing us with these walls that you see in the top-right photo.

They also set up a lot of the Twitch Partner Lounge as well. Apparently, the mobile game Arena of Valor is sponsoring the Partner Lounge, and it’s basically a restaurant that is normally inside the convention center, but is being taken over to be a partners-only area. The rest of the convention center wasn’t air conditioned because most of the garage panels were open to the outside for moving in equipment, but the Partner Lounge was nice and cool, so I snuck in here to relax after I discovered it was open.

And of course, it wouldn’t be a real blog post nowadays without some food photos. I went out with our merchandising director and executive assistant for lunch, and got myself a burger. Our executive assistant got herself a massive salad that probably had more calories than my burger.

I’m lodging in Huntington Beach (which is nearby Long Beach), and I went to a place called Sushi on Fire for dinner. I got a refreshing roll upon recommendation by our executive assistant (which was a good choice, but it had too many lemon peels which I personally thought sort of conflicted with the rich sushi flavor), as well as a magic mountain (which was a lot more food than I thought it would be).

scarra is a speed eater

October 14, 2017, 11:25 PM PDT by Parkzer • Food

The convention preparation scramble is still going on, but with the few off days between strings of events, I’m getting in some extra catch-up work and other activities. Today, I went to the Offline TV gaming house with a friend to meet up with scarra and get some dinner.

… Yes, that means more food photos.

Fun fact that I discovered today: scarra is a speed eater. He finished his entire dinner in about 4 minutes. lol

Salmon poke, albacore poke, and some fries

October 10, 2017, 11:34 PM PDT by Parkzer • General

My short break to catch up on work and relax is over. I did a whole lot of catching up on work and not so much relaxing. I also worked a bit more ahead of time to try and get things wrapped up for my upcoming absence, which begins now – I made it to our staff gathering.

I’m not quite able to say exactly why we’re having a staff gathering, because the reason for it hasn’t been publicly announced yet, but I can say that we’re at Venice Beach to do some activities together. I like getting to places early, and I wanted some time to explore the area and get some vlog footage in, so I arrived at the hotel in time for a late lunch. I walked over to a poke place and got myself some salmon.

Yes, I am using coffee stirrers as chopsticks because I forgot to get utensils from the restaurant, and no, this is not the first time that has happened. Luckily, I’ve been using chopsticks my entire life, so I’m able to pick up any two long pieces of anything and effectively use them to eat my meal.

Later that night, we went to a rooftop bar (but it was next to impossible to take any photos because it was pitch black dark outside and my phone doesn’t really have the best low light compensation. After freezing for about an hour or so, we went to a restaurant … where I proceeded to eat more sushi. I ordered an albacore poke dish with some fries on the side – fries that literally came with three different kinds of dipping sauces.

We have some meetings to attend tomorrow, but after that, we have some pretty exciting activities lined up; the vlog will be coming out whenever I manage to find a slot of free time to actually get some editing done.

Ramen

September 30, 2017, 11:47 PM PDT by Parkzer • Food

What happens when I don’t like hot liquids, but we end up going as a group to a ramen house with no alternatives?

… I guess I just have ramen anyway.

Today was the first day of our playoffs, and our Heroes of the Storm team swept the series 3-0 to advance into the final round. This is essentially a gauntlet, where the winner has to play through all higher-placed teams and defeat them all in series in order to qualify for the prize. This particular gauntlet is for BlizzCon qualification, and Tempo Storm is now one series away from going to the global championship.

Because our team won 3-0, the games ended a lot quicker than anticipated, so we got a chance to go out and grab some food during the day. The team really wanted ramen, so I went in assuming I would do my normal strategy of just ordering a dry dish, but the ramen house literally had zero dry items, so I decided today was the day I actually eat a hot-liquid dish.

It actually wasn’t really that terrible (and it’s not even like I actually dislike it in the first place, it’s just that I don’t prefer it), although I wish the portion size was a bit larger. I feel like liquid dishes put way too much actual liquid in the dish and not enough solid food, so I feel like I’m wasting money by paying for a ton of seasoned water instead of actual real food.

“Here’s a calculator”

September 28, 2017, 11:56 PM PDT by Parkzer • General

We went to a place called Tofu Ya for dinner. It’s a place for 순두부찌개, but because I don’t like hot liquids, I got my rice-and-meat plate like usual.

Our waitress was an older woman who I think was the owner of the restaurant (or someone related) simply because of the way she acted and spoke. She was a very traditional Korean-style older lady, and she opened up a bit and was more comical when interacting with us because we went with three Korean-ethnic people in our group.

When it was time to pay for our food, the waitress said that we could only use one credit card, and the rest had to be paid in cash (this is also a very traditional Korean thing to do – I’ve historically seen older Korean business owners favor a bit more extra income by saving on credit card transaction fees rather than make it convenient for the customer). After psalm, one of our players, started struggling with the bill, she came up to him…

… and handed him a literal calculator. lol

The busiest month ever is about to begin

September 27, 2017, 8:31 PM PDT by Parkzer • General

It’s tournament and convention season.

Our Heroes of the Storm team’s boot camp for the playoffs to qualify for BlizzCon started yesterday, and this year, it seems like I’m going to be the one tending to all the tournaments and conventions. We’re at the Red Bull studio in Santa Monica, CA, and I’ll be around this area for a while.

I get a short break after this boot camp for about a week, then we’re right back at it with a staff meet-up, likely another boot camp before BlizzCon, TwitchCon preparation for our exhibitor booth and our panel, the actual TwitchCon convention, BlizzCon Opening Week, and finally, BlizzCon.

My latest blog post was a failed attempt at making some homemade nigiri. As you can probably imagine, the reason I did that is because I love sushi, but I didn’t want to pay the relatively high price of buying sushi in California.

I have to eat out anyway while I’m out here, so I decided to take the opportunity to eat some real sushi. For lunch, I had a poke bowl, and for dinner, I had some triple salmon combo thing that came with cooked salmon, raw salmon, and salmon eggs.

A lot of what is happening at the boot camp is confidential, so I can’t really share many details of what’s going on, but I’ll definitely be posting more food photos while I’m here (because I’m pretty sure I don’t need to keep the type of food I’m eating secret).