MsQcon Morning Meeting
A couple of the ladies mentioned that they wouldn't be able to stay long. Four of them had a story about the night before. If it wasn't a brother, boyfriend, or friend, it was the storyteller that had too much to drink. The end result was a hangover for somebody getting hurt. I requested for them to keep an eye on the Geekwearz booth for notices, and to meet up at the Tournament booth at 1pm nonetheless.

Nellie w/her Madskillz
A guy from Via who asked me about some female gamers on Thursday as he was playing back the goofy video he recorded of me. I couldn't believe how much I curl my lip. I have a goofy way of doing that. I can't stand watching myself make such expressions. :/  As I watched the video I noticed that I had mentioned Kornelia in it, and told the Via guy she was in the Doom Frag Tournament at the Activision booth. He desired to meet her so I walked him over to introduce him. I wasn't able to talk to Nellie long since she had the next match coming up but it was so awesome to see her again. I hadn't seen her since we both worked Gamespy back in 2001. I have such fond memories of hanging out with her; she's always been such a gal!

id Mom Arrives!
The tournament began a bit after 1pm. After a few hours I left the tournament area to grab some things in the hotel room. As I was walking back to the convention, I notice Ms. Donna (id mom) walking with a few people near the Quakecon entrance. She was hyped up and ready for the Ms. Quakecon awards. I let her know I absolutely needed to get back to the tournament area and took off. She requested me to come back for her, but by the time I got back to the tournament area p2 was by himself and things had turned into chaos with too many things going on at once for him. There was no way I could get Ms. Donna so milez came to the rescue to go find her.

Meeting Kevin from id Software
Ms. Donna introduced me to Kevin from id Software and mentioned that he be one of the presenters of the Ms Quakecon awards. I was honored to meet him. After about 45 minutes Marty asked for the Ms Quakecon logo. I told him my floppy drive died on Thursday. I think it could have been from the drive to Dallas. Kevin Dobler was so kind to let me borrow a USB drive. He walked with me back to my computer in the BYOC area to get the logo. I was so surprised Kevin was such a sweetie, not to mention he has the cutest DIMPLES! I don't know what I would have done without his help.

MsQuakecon Finals
Once we were down to Ms. X vs. suga, I had no idea who would win. Ms.X won 2nd place last year. She normally doesn't play RA3, but I know she is also very good playing the OSP mod. The finals were a more intense when Ms.X kept winning her rounds against suga in the loser's bracket. The tourney was double elimination so there were more matches than I had desired. Ms.X's boyfriend, ic-GOPHER, was adorable - he would encourage her with words of wisdom, and give her a kiss for luck. The sweetest thing about the finals was how idmom was on Ms.X's side with her son and his girlfriend, as Kenneth Scott and Eric Webb with his girlfriend were betting that suga would win the tournament. Finally Ms.X finished things off, even though it was neck and neck the last few matches.

We had a few of our sponsors begin dropping off their prizes around this time, [PQ3]Roger happened to be one of them. I didn't have a chance to meet him in person last year so I emailed him during this year's event to tell him to get his booty down to meet me! He also dropped off the t-shirts for another prize for the tourney.

I hate to say this but I was sooo done with this tournament. I wanted it to be done. The delays and so forth were very tiring, but in the long run it was all worth it. I put all of my energy into it but I’m glad I did! Great job all of you girls who participated in the tournament!

Mr. Superactionfunboy
Ms Donna (idmom) had a few of the id guys with her when she came to the Ms Quakecon tournament area to watch the finals. I recognized one guy from visiting the id offices last June. For some reason I thought he was a new intern because I saw him in the art room for the first time this year. During the finals I talked to him a little about how he wasn't working at id Software back in 2000 when I ran Quake3world so I had never met him before. I did ask him why guys have such awesome shiny long hair compared to girls! That makes me so jealous.

About 30 minutes later Ms. Donna asked if Kenneth Scott could hand out awards with Kevin as she pointed at the guy I thought was an intern. hehe.  I stood there and blinked a minute in a state of shock. I walked up to Kenneth and apologized for the nonsense I said earlier. He didn't understand what I was talking about at first but I explained more in detail, he told me not to worry about it. I told him I created a bio at Quake3world.com of him along with many of the id guys back in 2000. The picture he sent me for that bio was of the back of his head so I had no idea what he looked like. We had emailed a few times concerning Quake3world.com. For the next few days at Quakecon, poor Kenneth had me saying sorry every time I bumped into him. He didn't care but I sure felt awful.  hehe. :)   He's a very talented guy with a great sense of humor.  I don't know if it’s just me but there are so many good looking id Software guys; it’s no wonder why more and more girls are playing id Software games. They keep hiring such cutie pies!

Ms Quakecon Awards
Finally the awards start around 12:30am. Moments after finals everyone walked over to the platform. Spicey is on the stage throwing t-shirts and asked Missy and I to join in the rain of swag. I was given the microphone and had no idea of what I was going to say. After talking about Ms Quakecon a little Nash asked me to speak louder. I do this and still no one can hear me. Nash grabbed the mic and asked if some people in the back of the audience still couldn't hear him. Maybe it was because he has a deeper voice - whatever the case - I know I was screaming my lungs out. After handing out prizes to both -beta and suga, we announce the champion of Ms Quakecon 2004… only to find out she is nowhere to be found. We kept calling her on the microphone, and even the crowd began to chant “X, X, X, X, X…” Then out of the blue someone has ZainGray walk up, she was sort of pushed so they have her come up on the platform. I asked her what it was about and she said they told her to come up. I felt so bad, it wasn't her fault she was pushed up to the stage to get on there.  Sorry Zain! :(

As I looked around I still didn't see her so I began to panic big time. I thought to myself, "out of all of the times, please not now Alana!"  We began throwing Qcon t-shirts once again to calm the crowd down. I kept nudging Missy every other throw of a t-shirt, asking her where the heck Ms.X was. She had no idea. Finally a few of the girls told me that Ms.X was in the bathroom changing into her MsQcon shirt. Then I see Ms.X in the distance walking through the crowd with a big smile. We call her up and handed her so many goodies she looked a little overwhelmed. After Tommy from Geekwearz presented the grand prize, everyone began to chant “X!” again. It was an amazing experience to see the smiles on the three Queens of Rocket Arena 3.

MSQcon Was Successful Because...
I would like to thank the following people who made MSQcon more successful than I ever imagined:

• p24t not only worked his butt off, but he practically bled sweat and tears to make sure every match was going well. He stuck in that tournament longer than Missy and myself, giving Missy time to play in her CTF and other tournaments, and allowing me to take bathroom breaks and talk to the press. If it wasn't for p2, the tourney could have flopped. p2 and I both learned a lot from our first tournament - like having two people isn't enough to run a tourney.
   
• Missy helped to make sure the brackets were correct, the seedings were fare, made the t-shirt symbol w/gun, and much more. She made sure every girl's game settings were correct, and I don't know what we would have done without her knowledge of the Rocket Arena community.
   
• Nate was the lifesaver at sea for me. Without him I know we wouldn't have any computers for the girls to play on. I am so grateful he gave us the time to use them, and if we needed to be moved elsewhere, he made sure we had another place. I can't say anything more than I love that guy! He rocks...
   
• LekDevil was the man who made sure our servers were working. An hour before MsQuakecon tournament began he set them up. He also allowed me to pester him from time to time with my clueless comments about problems going on during the tournament!
   
• Clay not only was a cutiepie swooning my MSQgirls, he was a saint. He was responsible for making sure every girl had their config set up. When he wasn't around I wanted to pull my hair out since the girls are extreme when it comes to their configs. Without their config they acted like they left their make-up purse at home. So you know what type of panic I went through...
   
• Taisin was our messenger in time of need. He bugged Nate, Clay and every guy in between early on to get our computers set up. I was honored to get to know him during the tournament matches. He also is a big teddy bear! I couldn't get enough hugs from him. :D
   
• Spicey helped a lot during the matches by consulting on RA3. Even though she wasn't around much, without her I don't know how the tournament would have gone off from the start. I have to admit, I am a retail Q3er. I strategize my games by PICKING up my weapons and armor before I fight. Then of course after he's killed the first round I make my rounds to get to that red armor or rocket launcher to weaken em. With RA3 you start off with weapons so I had no clue on settings or how RA3 matches should be played in a tournament. I can’t help that I am a retail girl at heart. Spicey was the lady who I went to when it came to issues on what to do with the tournament.
   
• Tommy at Geekwearz helped so much in the prize department. I know many of the girls would have played just for fun, but with Tommy we were able to give them more of an incentive to play. Thx again Tommy!
   
• Krazyannee was a jewel by hunting down more sponsors for Ms Quakecon, she used her wisely Quakecon mad skillz to get some of the sponsors! It was great getting to know her this year.
   
• Bedman & EvilJohn for the encouragement and intercom announcements to have the girls to meet up at the Tourney area! Oh and for the hugs.
   
• Solar was the guy who always hung around, making us girls laugh. There were some problems with disrespecting the MsQcon girls, and I agreed. He took care of them before I could even ask! He firmly believed that female gamers should have more respect than how some people give them. Thanks a lot Solar!
   
• Jason from Punkbuster was kind enough to keep bothering me on Friday evening to make sure everything with the servers and tournament computers were working okay! We had a few errors caused from Punkbuster, but he fixed them right away.
   
• RadioITG did an awesome job at covering the finals for MsQcon. They also interviewed many of the ladies before the event started. Thanks again Trillian, SyN, NiceGuyEd and Deeay for putting up with the long delays!
   
• More Sponsors including Via, Bawls, A-Bit, Linksys, Alienware, Nvidia, PlanetQuake3.net and AMD really allowed these girls to have some wonderful prizes. Thanks again Stirge, Chappy, Vivoli, Walden and the rest of you who made this event so treasured!