It has been about two weeks since the RP1 easter egg contest was announced and so far there are about 225 people up on the leaderboard. Here are some photos that my BFF Chris shot of the grand prize DeLorean at E.C.’s book signing in Boulder last week.
Here she is in the DeLorean:
Here is the car itself…
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Isn’t she a lovely machine?
Speaking of the book signing, I found this fun blog called Nina Reads, she was there and beautifully recaps everything with great detail.
Also, found this great looking forum on all things RP1 called Planet Ludus, there’s some chat about the contest, the gates, and more. Check ‘em out!
AND – look at this fantabulous photo of the hover board taken by another attendee of the event.
So, this week I put on my Gunter hat and tried my hand at cracking the first gate. Which went a little something like this:
Night 1: Spent about 3 hours getting killed by various 8 bit enemies, and finding no game mojo at all. Switched tactics to 1 hour of mapping key components and consuming 2.5 glasses of red wine. Went to bed feeling pretty sure I should have honed more joystick skills in my youth (and you can stop with the joystick jokes, I see where that went).
Night 2: I endured recurring Wade-death repeatedly in one specific area, yelled obscenities at the computer, cursed my fingers for wanting to game WASD left handed instead of up/down arrowing with my right. Gave up after roughly 20 minutes, and drank the remaining glasses of Spanish red from the previous night as a consolation. Ouch. Headache next morning.
Night 3: I hunkered down for a long night. I figured I was either going to get it, or I wasn’t. Do or die time, right? I spent several hours playing seek & be destroyed (not even going to tell you how many it took, for reference see my lack of game skills confessional here). My son yelling, “Look away from the pedophile, Mom!!!” will remain a memory I carry with me for the rest of my days.
See what I mean?
But in the end, I finally did it. Pure perseverance (plus a little absinthe cocktail for inspiration) and glory was all mine. The hardest part? Trying to figure out how to take a photo of myself with my laptop on the winning screen. Have you ever tried to do that one handed, while trying to to keep focus, stay centered, and get an angle that does not go straight up your nose or clips the important screen images? Trust me, I took like 75 shots. Only three were usable, and by “usable” I mean they didn’t totally suck.
All in all it was fun! I totally felt like I was 10 again playing Donkey Kong in my living room. Minus the cocktails, of course. But I admit, I’m a little nervous about the fact that the games get harder as we go along. I may need to look into taking some vacation time for the next couple of gates. For now, I’ll just enjoy this victory while it lasts!
At the book signing, we all got to ogle the car and take “fantasy shots” of ourselves sitting in the drivers seat. Sadly, the photo of me in the car was completely dark and utterly un-salvageable, which really bummed me out. So, to make up for that here are some Photoshopped visuals of what I think it might look like if I won Ernie’s prize car. I like to call this Dreaming in the Key of D(elorean) –
This is me, probably on my way to a sci-fi con, or a costume party, or some important NASA event. I’m really excited because I have this lovely new car. And I’ve apparently become pretty adept at driving with my kneecaps.
This is me explaining the finer details of time travel to Marty, who still doesn’t quite get it.
Marty McFly: Wait a minute, Doc. Ah… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?
Dr. Tammy Brown: The way I see it, if you’re gonna build a time machine into a car, why not do it with some style? Now quit touching my car!!!
