Str8 Rippin all of 09

So Columbus is finally here and we will be able to see if all our hard work has paid off. We have had 2 different LAN's with 4 different teams and we feel prepared for anything. Along with all our LAN's. we have basically played every day on XBL together practicing for this tournament. No excuses heading into this tournament, and there will be none after. Basically my life for the past month has been, go to school, come home, sleep till 7, go out with friends till 10, then play till 1 or 2 every night. I wouldnt say its the most healthy sleep schedule but it gets the job done and I feel that its the most effective for our team. Now that my high school career is over, and im missing my graduation for Columbus, I can basically say its summer time, and time to move out. I will be living in the house in Florida for the whole summer till my freshman year at Ball State, where I will still be gaming. As many of you already know, Tom's account got hacked recently by a kid named Elliott, AK47. Now we all have different opinions on people, but im sure we have all come to a consensus on this kid being a nerd. He hacked the account and felt all high and mighty telling everyone that he was the one who hacked it, and how he got away with it. Well, its funny how people show their true colors when they are scared. StuK is god. This AK47 character basically called us crying telling us not to file charges against him, along with that he was begging for us to take the account back. For his sake, he better hope we win Columbus. ;) Columbus is a week away people and we are looking to have more fans than ever. I know my parents and a bunch of my friends back home are coming to support me and my team, and hopefully you will be there too. Come say hi to us at the Dr. Pepper booth sometime, and maybe you will even be able to get some games in. Wish us Luck, and GL to everyone competing.

First thing is First, May 3rd 2009, Snip3down has become a Adult. I’m 18 baby. So Meadowlands comes around and for the first time since my 1st event in 2008 Meadowlands...I was nervous on how we would do. We didn’t have the practice we needed, and things just didn’t seem to come our way leading up to this tournament. We didn’t have internet at the house, Kyle had school, and I'm at the tail end of my senior year of High School. We didn't play like we could have, and we knew it, but this is what will be fueling us for the next few events. So now that i'm done spitting out all my excuses about what happened, I’m going to talk about my first time at the Str8 house. I flew out a week before the tournament thinking that we were going to get a ton of practicing in and be ready for the tournament. Little did I know that Team Classic couldn’t LAN us anymore so it was just down to us and The Florida Jackalopes (Slim, Synox, Eleven, Lightking). I was still excited and pumped that we could actually play and get everything we needed down; then I get the phone call from Kyle saying that he can’t come down for another day since he had an ear infection and they told him not to fly. That's ok though, we still have six more days to play. Kyle arrives the next day and even more complications occur. We had to set up the whole house so that we wouldn’t blow a fuse, and along with that the router we were using couldn’t seem to get all of us in the same game. Along with all of this there were a few Xbox’s that didn’t have all the maps so we would have to get on XBL to download them. O WAIT…we don’t have internet at the house, all we had was a severely slow satellite internet that cost almost as much as the T1 does. As we are all skirmishing to try and get the internet cord to download all the maps, the internet shut off every 15 minutes, about how long it took to get on XBL, sign in, and get to the marketplace. After a whole night of download maps and game types, we decided to call it a night and start in the morning. I woke up the next day feeling terrible. My throat was about as dry as it gets, and the pain I felt every time I tried to swallow was unreal. I knew this feeling and all I could ask was why. I took the nearest flashlight and shined it right into the back of my mouth, yup, blisters all over my tonsils. Strep Throat FTW. After about two days of trying to play with strep I decided it was too much for me and that we needed to see a doctor. After a whole day of getting me my meds we were able to play again. For the whole week I was in Florida I think we got one good day of practice in. We were going into this tournament more unprepared than we were before. Soooooooooo, that’s my story leading up to Meadowlands and now I’m going to start on what has been happening since. I get back to my house, open up my suitcase, take out all my Xbox gear and get ready to game. I look at the power cord to my Xbox and realize that the two separate parts don’t fit together. GREAT, we still can’t play. I ask about 200 people I don’t even know if they have an extra one but no one did. It’s gotten to the point where I’m about to pull the switcheroo at the nearest Best Buy since I can only borrow one from my friends for about a day at a time. About three weeks pass and our team is finally starting to practice again, we all have internet that we love, I still feel like I have the best internet in the game, and we are all ready to play. There is no complaining about Florida Internet (Florida Internet is the worst internet in the world BTW, if you haven’t tried it, I would stay far far away from it unless you want to break a pair of Astros every time you see your shots not register). Our team is finally starting to feel like the way we left off at Vegas, and I can only wait to see how much we improve over the season. We have the best sponsor in the world in Dr. Pepper who hooks us up every tournament with four or more TV’s in our room, and a better and better Dr. Pepper booth every event. I cant say thank you enough to them or the fans that support us, but we are trying to repay that with the new Ultimate Gaming house. If you haven’t submitted a video, I suggest you do so. Who knows, I might be the player to come to your house. One last thing before I end this blog. All the fans that are still supporting us even after we placed 4th, I just want to say that we wont let you down at this next event in Columbus, we will be prepared. Anyone that turned their back on us because of one bad placing, I just want to let you know that I would rather have 25 True fans, than 1000 people who will turn their back on you anytime you let them down once. Str8 For Cbus 09’ -Snip3down

This year is most likely going to go down as the most memorable year of my life.....so far. I have gone from complete obscurity to winning the Las Vegas Championships, being picked up by the #1 Halo 3 team in the world, and making some of the best friends I could have asked for. I think its time for a little break, and i know exactly what im going to do over it. SO, as most of you know i just received a nice little check of 25k for winning Vegas, and i plan to spend it. So far over this glorious break i have bought a brand new Pontiac g8, of course in black. Its got some of the most power in a standard car i have ever driven, and it looks slick as hell. Also, i have gone to Disney World with my team, it was fun even though we only got to ride 1 ride since all the other ones either seemed to be broken down or a 3 1//2 hour wait, and i dont enjoy waiting to much. Other than these 2 things, i havent really done anything big, just hanging back with friends almost every day, and just recently im starting to play halo again. We had our first team scrim about a week ago, it didnt go as well as we planned, but what can you expect after taking a 2 month break. In the next month or so im going to be writing a very big blog about my whole season, the ups and downs, and everything that happened. Its most likely going to be a small story since there is so much to write about. Well, i have to give thanks to everyone who helped me out during the season, and for all the people who gave me the motivation to play better than i did at the last tourney. I also have to thank Dr. Pepper for hooking us us every tourney and treating us the best.