Felicia Day

I can’t believe I’m getting around to blogging about my Nintendo “Girlfriend’s Guild To Gaming” party just now!   If I look back on the last three overwhelming weeks, I think those 4 hours of playing DS, drinking champagne and hanging out with my girlfriends was the last time I didn’t have my stomach wound into a knot of stress, so thank you Bre and all your crew for that!  

Basically, part of my being chosen a “Nintendo Ambassador” was a party to be thrown for me and my girlfriends. (Again, I am not getting paid for anything, just the opportunity to try out DS games in advance and other DS goodies) Who could say no to that?!   I just had to invite people and show up.  Easy.  Well, for most humans.   I don’t actually THROW a lot of parties because at any party I’ve hosted I’m always totally neurotic and uptight, in people’s faces asking them “Are you having a good time?  How about now?  What can I do for you?!?!?!”   Then the next day, I send out apology emails for not having paid attention to individuals I didn’t chat with enough.   Yes, I’m insane.   And that’s another blog entry.

Anyway, this one had everything taken care of for me.  I just had to arrive.  Ahhh, sigh of relief!  When I got to the party I didn’t know what to expect at all, I just knew that my friends, most of whom NEVER game, would show up and be introduced to how the DS works through several game stations.   I know for a fact that at least 5 woosy girls had “other excuses” because the idea of gaming was so weird and foreign to them.  Too bad for them, I say! 

The party was BEAUTIFUL!  In a lofty old Spanish building, 4 adorable couches laid out, and a DS game for each “station” with a trained DS instructor, alert and ready to walk any gaming neophytes through the steps of kicking butt in Mario Cart, or, say, scoring age 79 on Brain Age like…some people.  (Defense:  I had some champagne.)  I can’t tell you the vicarious thrill I got when I got blown off by a friend because she was too into Planet Puzzle League to talk about her new puppy, or how cool it was that we were able to network 8 people together on DS lites and compete in Mario Cart! (FYI, Robin (Clara from the Guild) had obviously trained hard for that one, total ringer. She smashed everyone as Yoshi and just giggled. Beeyach. )  I know that there were a LOT of reluctant gamers at that party, and to see them be totally sucked into the DS was just cool.  I corrupted them!   The coup de tete was at the end of the night, when a DS was presented to each and every guest.   There was some “Price Is Right” screaming.  Actually, a lot of it (Yes, Brooke, I’m talking about you!)

 The cool thing about the whole experience is that I KNOW that everyone had their perceptions about video gaming and how they would use it in their lives changed.  Girls aren’t really encouraged to see gaming as a viable hobby as a kid, and the older you get, the less likely you would pick up something like that.  So now, there are some very happy girls/women/mommies from the Felicia Day database!   A quote from my friend Natasha in an email: “Okay, first of all, I am OBSESSED with my DS. Seriously, I love it. I have yet to buy another game, but the fact that I’m consider it, is huge cause for alarm. I buy a DS game and the next, I’m part of the Guild! “  Great, destroying lives anew, yay!

At the end of the night, two Wii stations were revealed, and there were some fierce tennis slapped down.  It’s just a wonder how many girls had WANTED to try a Wii, but never been in a situation that they could get their hands on it.   Clearly, my next party. DDR pad, Guitar Hero, Mario Party (If I ever get to Best Buy and purchase it, shame on them for closing today for a HOLIDAY!  The good thing is I think NOW they would actually show.  Before, they would have “other plans”.   Since I’ve run into a few of my friends who went, ALL of them had their DS lites on them in their purses.  A few even said that their boyfriends were whining that they got light pink ones because they wanted to steal them.  Haha.  Own’d.  Find your own Nintendo Ambassador!  Anyway, good time had by all.  Can’t wait to have more games to review!

Still making my way back from the whirl-windiest trip I’ve ever had! Took a 2 hour flight from NYC to North Carolina for some reason. You’d think for that much time I’d be out of this time zone already, but no, haha. I had a lot of fun, but I would definitely think twice next time I volunteer for a red-eye flight and come back 24 hours later. Living dead can’t really describe how my brain is working right now.

Why was I in New York for 1 day, you ask? Well, YouTube wanted me to fly out to New York hush-hush Thursday morning for Friday press stuff because we won the Series award. Did I post about that?! If I didn’t…we won! Yahoo Series too! We swept the online voting awards! Thank you every person who voted, we were one of the overall TOP VOTE-GETTERS in the competition! I can’t wait to show you a picture of the trophy once I get it, it’s amazing!)

Anyway, because of the Dr. Horrible shoot (which wrapped on Thursday, late) I couldn’t fly out during the day Thursday, and the only option I had to make it out was to take the red-eye at 9:55 pm. So, I did. And realized that a human neck is not meant to bend at the angles needed for in-flight sleep.

I had brought a big full-sized pillow with me on the theory that sleep would come easily after a 13 hour work day, so it was practically the only thing in my carry on, but I foolishly didn’t factor in the crushing narrowness of the seats. Upshot, the pillow CROWDED me the whole time and marshmallowed me against the plane wall, squeezing me against the window like I was cocooned into a strait jacket. Dumb move. Frustratingly, I couldn’t stick the pillow back up in the bin, because my bag was in a whole different section of the plane, all the way in the back. The Chapparelle Middle School Orchestra, all 75 or so of them, were on board with their musical instruments shoved in the bins to go play at Carnegie Hall (Good luck little dudes!) Option I ended up with-sleeping on my tray table. I still can’t move my right shoulder.

I got to New Jersey alright, and then the fun, however foggy with sleep, began. My fellow winners and I (Tay Zonday, Potter Puppet Pals, and several others) basically hung out at Google HQ NYC all day in between on-camera and print interviews. Life could definitely be worse!

So….my next job will be at Google. I don’t think there’s a cooler place to work, serious! Despite the ban on visitors riding scooters, in the wee morning hours we definitely zipped around the HUGE FRIKKING office complex a la Razer. This place went on FOREVER, in the middle of New York City, floors and floors worth! There are little buffet/snack stations between offices to get lattes and cereal and other snacky items, there’s Rock Band setup and a game room with ping pong and pool for leisure time, then there’s a commissary with free food, like a sushi bar and a raw “Spa Food” bar, all free to the employees! I could give birth to a Google food baby, based on all the crap ate in 12 hours. Took me back to dorm days! How is everyone who works there not obese!??!

To pass the time I slept on Google’s floor, rocked out on Guitar Hero (First time I ever played, pretty much kicked ass. 20 years of violin training totally set me up to own people’s faces on “What a Feeling”), and sat in a Japanese massage chair that literally got me through the day with strangely human-like kneading of my neck muscles.

And oh, yeah, the press stuff. It was great! A few interviews should be posted soon and I’ll link to them. We were all interviewed as a group mostly, and, despite the fact that Good Morning America wanted to talk to the pogo-stick riding rubix-cube solving guy instead of me(He is hella impressive, I’l admit it, and cool), I would say that going to NYC and hanging out with the YouTube folks and my fellow winners was a great, once-in-a-lifetime thing!
There’s a picture of me and Tay Zonday I’m waiting for someone to email so I can post. Back on planes now, trying to make it home. Thank god for my DS with Zelda. Can someone say totally addicted!?? Good thing I had it with me. A total lack of frontal cortex ability for doing “important” stuff was a great excuse to delve in. Yum.

I have 238 emails in my inbox, and it’s making me shudder, but things must be done! Oh ya, and that DDR video! First…must..connect…flight…

Flog frequenter Darth Angelus and the crew at Bathtub Productions made a video in support of The Guild in this week’s competition ( And in response to the video that shall not be named, LOL)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVhbYEKQAVo

Thank you Darth! I so appreciate this! It totally made my day

I just got home to some bad news…I was killed.

Yuri from “Break A Leg”, an online sitcom and one of our competition for the Yahoo Awards, uploaded a video where he basically killed me. You can watch it here. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but they’ve added 3000 votes to their total in like, 5 hours. I guess killing me motivated people

If you can vote for us from different places in the Yahoo Awards PLEASE PLEASE do it! (NOT advocating cheating, just home and work, organic places please) Twitter, link everywhere, make your grandma in the nursing home vote, everything you can do! I call shenanigans! I’m a slayer goddamnit, I could snap that punk like a twig! We have 3 long days to fight it out. Please help us!

EDIT:  I want to make clear, I had no idea you could manually change your IP address from one location, guess I’m not as net savvy as I thought.  I was implying that people should vote from home and from work.   No one wants to win anything by cheating