While my original first post on September 25, 2011 has been deleted, it’s still the day I first ventured into the blogging world with HaloFanForLife.com.
To celebrate this day, I’ll be having a contest and some prizes. Stay tuned for the “when/what/how” and so on.
I will give one hint to the contest…TRIVIA (of HaloFanForLife.com).
I look forward to your participation!
-Sal (HFFL)
I finished the pics for three more reviews. Look for them later today.
The reviews will be on:
Spartan Soldier (Red) Single card (Alternate packaging)
ODST Drop Pod w/the Rookie
Cryo Tube w/ Halo 4 Master Chief
Of course detailed pics and discussion to be included. See you in about 8 hours or so (I need my sleep…)
-HFFL
I’ve been ill the past few days. This is the reason for no new articles during this time. Apologies folks. But I’m raring to get back into writing…well…at least until my Vicadin kicks in, LOL.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me, I’ll have some new articles posted shortly.
I’m working on opening up a e-store for HFFL swag. Simple stuff. Mugs, t-shirts, cards, etc. Prices will be as absolutely low as I can go. I’m using CafePress, so they have a starting charge. At most mine will be only 25 cents to a dollar more than their base price. This covers costs. I’m not in this to make money.
It should be opened in a couple of days as soon as I fix a few graphics.
Sorry folks, the planned reviews are coming, I promise. I was ill over the past roughly 24 hours and didn’t get much done for the blog.
I’m still trying to catch up on the RTX stuff, and now it’s Comicon weekend to boot.
In the last 24 hours there were 435 tweets in my tweet list to catch up on.
Yikes, so much Halo news.
So over the weekend I’ll endeavor to post news on:
Mega Bloks Toy Reviews (4 of them)
RTX articles (several)
Comicon articles (again several)
Forward Unto Dawn trailers, interviews and more (several here too)
Lots of stuff to report on. Now where to start? LOL.
I got a request to be a subscriber to the blog at 3:26 am from new member Devin Jones. He is the 100th unique members between the blog/twitter/facebook.
Welcome him and thanks to all of you who came before for continuing to make this blog a success. Here’s looking toward the next 100 and beyond!
-Sal
I’ve added a sections for “Article Categories” that you can use to check specific articles in a section, for instance anything related to Halo 4, in the Halo 4 section.
Also, I’ve added an Archive by the month so you can easily switch to a different month’s worth of post to catch up on older articles.
Lastly, a search field has been added as well if you don’t want to use either of the two above mentioned features.
All three of these should make finding anything I’ve posted on HFFL easier to find. I hope you’ll use them often.
Thanks folks for making HFFL a growing and continuing success.
-Sal
Between subscribers here on the blog, Twitter followers and Facebook subscribers for HFFL, I’m just one shy of 100 UNIQUE members. I’d love to get over this mark and am calling for your help. If you know anyone else who loves Halo and may like my blog/twitter/facebook pages, please let them know.
The site has been growing well of late. Though I’d really love to see it take off and have a lot more folks, I’m happy with how it’s progressing.
Also, just a reminder to all the new folks, please keep comments to a PG-13 rating or less. I want the blog to remain teen friendly, even though the game is rated mature.
If there is anything you good folks want me to write about, Halo related, please comment or shoot me an e-mail at sal@halofanforlife.com. I’m always looking to write about new/more Halo stuff.
Before I continue with Day 3, let me back up to day 2 for a moment to note that I made lunch and dinner for the folks. Lunch consisted of Caprese sandwiches. If you don’t know what they are, allow me to explain. It is a snadwich with tomato, a thick slice of mozzarella cheese and basil sprinkled with olive oil between two slices of thick cut Italian Bread. I had to slightly modify the sandwich as the local grocery store only had French bread.
Dinner was my “famous” Italian Pepper Steak. Strips of round steak with an herb and garlic salt rub browned in a pan of olive oil. From there I add crushed tomatoes, then slivers of green peppers and onions. Checking frequently to make sure the sauce doesn’t boil down. While this is going, I have rice boiling. When it finished, I served it up to 10 people (the most I’ve ever made this dinner for). Everyone liked it, some even saying they “loved” it. With full bellies we continued gaming until the wee hours of the night.
We did stop briefly so the Midget Herder coudl present us with Halo Mega Bloks series 5 figures, which I evenly distributed among those of us who collect them.
Saturday morning (the third day of the LAN) saw MidgetHerder having to leave early for a business party back in San Antonio, while RM Dexter (one of the founding members of RM) arrives.
We get started with gaming after Dex got there. Midday, Sam grilled up some delicious hamburgers and hot dogs. Not that cheap stuff either. More gaming ensued and we again played until wee hours of the night.
Sam and Dees during an epic double match:
Sunday morning saw Dees leaving
then midday saw Snowblood having to leave. With the remaining crew, we continued on gaming having pizza for dinner. Oh, I should note that Sam bought a HUGE amount of snacks and drinks for the LAN. I think he overbought though, LOL. Instead of eating a ton of snacks, I killed most of a bag of Elk jerky that his dad made. (Wow the best jerky I’ve ever had!!!)
Monday, Day 5, the last day. Sad as it was to end, I was missing my wife, dog, house and bed. Before Dex and I went to the airport, Sam gave me a ride in his SWEET AS HELL Shelby Mustang!!!
I say my goodbyes, getting in a shot with GQ:
This last photo of Sam, me and Dex is just before leaving to go to the airport:
Dex and I were waiting together at the airport for our separate planes to arrive and chatted a bit.
From there I was off again to Pittsburgh with a lay-over in Dallas again. This part was uneventful. From Dallas it Pittsburgh day changed to night and it was very cool to see from the sky as cities came alive with lights.
I landed safely in Pittsburgh…only to come off the plane and slip slightly on the metal ramp, twisting my ankle. Ah well, I had a great time and at least the accident happened at the end.
I want to give my sincerest thanks to Sam and his family for hosting the LAN. It was a HUGE success in my book and something I and those of us who went will likely remember forever. Folks, this is the kind of thing that brings gamers and groups even closer. I’ve known Dex for more than 4 years now and this was the first time I met him in person. The rest I’ve known for various lengths of time. All of them I know quite a bit about their families through talk in game lobbies while waiting to be matched up.
If you’ve never been a part of a LAN, I HIGHLY suggest doing it. It was awesome to meet the folks I’ve been gaming with for years and gaining memories that will last my lifetime.
-HFFL
Day two opens up with Sam and Dees going to pick up RM Snowblood (coming from Philadelphia) at the airport. In the meantime, RM MidgetHerder shows up (coming from San Antonio).
Oh and I forgot to mention, Dees hails from New Orleans.
Snowblood arrives and we get starting gaming for the day:
He’s gaming splitscreen with our newest member RM GQJones007 (Sam’s son and an exception to our rule of under 18 members):
“Dude, no pics!!!” (GQ):
Sam looks tired in this shot…
Just look at this MASSIVE 82″ HDTV Sam games on. Impressive, MOST impressive:
Here’s where I gamed during the LAN:
Speaking of, this is Sam’s collection room as well and here are some more pics of it (click to super-size):
As you can see Sam has an impressive and various collection of Star Wars, Halo, Marvel and DC toys.
Here are Sam and Dees after winning a game:
The motley crew on the second day of the LAN:
L to R: RM Midgetherder, HaloFanForLife1 (me), RM Samurai, RM Snowblood, RM GQJones007, RM Dees
Next LAN post, days 3, 4, and 5 (last day).