I have quite a generous mashed potato style serving of Dreamhack impressions, to try and sum up my entire experience over this weekend (and then some). So here goes:

The "Hallo" fad. I never heard this at QuakeCon, so it must be some kind of Swedish thing. Maybe the kids are keeping tabs on who can kick-start the loudest and longest "hallo" wave, (and there were some really prolonged ones that even impressed me) but after 3 or 4 times it got really annoying (in a fun way...) Basically one kid screams "hallo" and then another, and then another, and then more and more. And then literally after only 10 minutes someone starts it again and the lemmings follow. Reppie put it succinctly: "I guess this is what 10,000 kids sounds like".

The emo scene. Maybe I don't go to megalans that often (or other large teenage gatherings) but I've never seen this many pastel-colored tops of heads, overuse of hair gel, mascara, and whatever else. In a way it is refreshing, because you realise you aren't so fucked up after all

The sticky floors. The clean up crews were scavenging around all the time, but they could barely keep up with the mess being generated. Some times I almost felt like T-1000 in Terminator 2, just before he gets totally frozen to the floor and it is "Hasta la Vista, Baby".

The DH Admin/Crew. Best bunch of chaps/gals I've met. Other players noticed this also, the crew was always upbeat, never pessimistic, and always on top of things. Sobrius did excellent work organizing the scheduling and scores of the event, which I have an idea how hard it is to do for a couple of days because I did a smaller version of this kind of work for GGL (a Halo tournament at a past Digitallife NYC expo). Dronar was there in full force doing his thing, Lornelin was showing off his kick-bike skills, and really there was enough man/woman-power to run the event very well.

The QWers. This was my first time meeting the scandinavians face to face, and I got nothing but positive vibe from them. Every single one exceeded my expectations, and I am really looking forward to QHLan and meeting even more kottbullar-eaters.

There was so much other stuff, like a live JAS Fighter Jet show, a light show, some kind of female body painting, lasertag.

Of course there is the letdown of Reppie that everybody talks about, but even Michael Jordan has gotten dunked on. I am really happy for ParadokS, I can't remember the last time he won a duel tournament. This only creates more drama for the QHLan! Also, I am still waiting on Sobrius for his bracket layout and demo archive so I can create a demo pack. I know its just a matter of time, so hang tight