At 3AM I arrived from  WCG Estonia to  Latvia, and had about 1.5 left till trip to the airport, where the plane to Amsterdam was waiting for me. Everything went smooth, I’ve had the time to buy Riga Balsam, the famous Latvian drink which will be given out as presents in France. The flight lasted for 2 hours and some minutes, once I arrived to Amsterdam I was not happy to find out that I have 40 minutes in order to catch the flight to Paris. Fortunately – I made it in time, though I forgot to buy whiskey which I promised to some people. Hopefully – they will forgive me, otherwise – this will be the last update. I really wanted to sleep, so I fell asleep as soon as I came into the aircraft. The flight lasted for 65 minutes, after that I found myself in the Airport, which turned out being the biggest I’ve seen so far, I mean the building is really huge. The first cybersportsmen whom I’ve managed to encounter were guys from  NGASports, two of them are sitting behind me at the moment. After receiving advice to take the bus and go to  Paris I have stuck in the traffic jam – as a result I’ve missed my train and had to wait for another. Fortunately the money were refunded and I did not lost a single cent. I still had 1 hour to wait for, so I decided to have a quick snack in the local café and buy some WiFi time.  Cyberfight.org became the first web-site to write anything about  ESWC 2004 while actually being in France I guess, although we all know that elephants in Japan (which happens to be big in August) will provide the best coverage overall, I was just fooling around!

The Switzerland team was encountered at the platform, and turned out being rather nice guys to chat to. Finally the train came and I found my sit, which was near a pretty French lady which will hopefully be kind enough in order to allow me taking a picture of her. Like I said earlier, the two players from NGA Sports are sitting behind me, the first question they’ve asked was: Are the Russians really traveling by bus? Unfortunately it is truth, say hello to CyberUnion who were the organizers this year. Once I get the chance – I will shoot down the chief of this organization – Mr. Taigun. That’s about it for now, nothing to write about except for the fact that French ladies are very cute ;) Stay tuned for more updates, as they will come after I get to Futureoscope.  

Once I got to Futurescope I’v encountered a lot of famous progamers from various countries, basically all of the players arrived, everyone is here. The Russian squad lost to Germany in speed beer drinking competition, it was 0:3. But well, we still have the second day to win the Vodka speed drinking competition. All gamers got drunk to death, that’s the fault of organizers who actually decided to sell beer to players. The pracc games will begin tomorrow morning, the gallery is uploaded right away. Stay tuned for updates!

Okay, so it is 14:06 right now, me raccoon and carmac went out from our temporary hotel at 1000AM I guess, and the night at the hotel turned out being pretty interesting after all, I mean after I’ve seen the photos. Well, I am going to get my revenge  Carmac, one day ;)

Anyway, back to business. The first gamers whom we had encountered were Byelorussians, followed by aNouc and some random guys, as well as prodx and redemz. It was there we had heard the news about the car accident in which  if22 as well as  sizah,  zr0,  MmtC got into. It seems that he will be here tommorow after all, though it is not yet known how his condition will be. By the way, there is another gamer with injury, he's WC3 player from Korea, he was taking part in the qualifier while being in the hospital! After taking our bags to ESR room we went to see the Futurescope complex,which was awesome, I mean the architecture, the tidiness and stuff like that are really impressive, I wish you were here actually. But since you aren’t – go on reading. Besides just walking around we have attended the Quake 3 Hall, WarCraft III hall and UT2004/Painkiller halls. Everything looks impressive but isn’t completely ready yet. The opening ceremony will be held today, just like I wrote earlier, I believe it is going to be one impressive thing. The players are hardly remembering anything, but everyone is smiling once you started talking about yesterday’s party. Oh, you want a samples of what had happened?  Infinite had a mini-fight with  Lauke, who beat him to the ground,  carmac was showing his leet judo skills on Socrates, the beer competition, discussion about CS scene by  djWHEAT and Midway from GotFrag.com and much much more, which will not be described though.

21:24 - 07.07.2004

The weather is really hot, unlike the day before, and it is quite hard to stay outside. Most of the players are sleeping, because of the lack of sleep last night. I would sleep as well, since I wasn’t for 3 days, and this night lasted for like 4 hours. Anyway, the practice games will begin shortly, hopefully I will be able to get some demos as well. Over and out!

The opening ceremony went pretty normal. I mean it was not as impressing as any opening ceremony of World Cyber Games Grand Final. The hall was full, but nothing apart from speeches made by the organizers, drawing ceremony and the first CS match played at stage was around. The Adrenaline were playing Americans from TSG, and have managed to beat them, but not without extreme efforts I must say. The scene remained pretty much the same comparing to last year, 10 pcs separated with two side bars, huge screen behind them, plasma screens in front of every player etc. After the first part of the opening ceremony was finished the announcer asked everyone to go out for group photo. Can you imagine about 700 people sitting next to each other for one photo? If you can – then you do not need to see the pic which was made. The free food together with free drinks were served right after the photo was made. I missed both events due to my will of wiring the drawing’s results first.

Everything was going on in the usual style, beer and a lot of drunk players. The Russians once again became the only ones who could party, although there was this French guy from GoodGame, who was doing one hell of a dance. Meanwhile I was looking for a place to stay, after making agreement with djWHEAT – my problem was solved and I had to catch up the drunken players, I had to use some cheats like Whiskey and Persovka, finally I was in the perfect condition for asking everyone around if they have weed to smoke. I was shocked to say the least when French player aAa-Lordfuck answered that he indeed has something he wants to share with. Oh well, so we sat next to poker players (USA Quake 3 Team, Brescia, guys from NL and others) and prodx together with Lordfuck started rolling up the joints, uNiind was their commander, since he has quite large experience. The German team was sitting next to us, but they preferred green grass instead of weed, and were sitting on it. They had more beer than we did, though. Actually the Hotel 3 is becoming the official party place, it’s the 2nd night in a row when the cute-looking hotel and its inhabitants are forced to listen to gamers partying next to it. The weed was fine, moments after Byelorussians came and offered some of that Pertsovka vodka, which was pretty nice as well. At one point players from French Something came, they brought huge bottle of Jack Daniel’s with them. Anyway, the vodka competition was rescheduled, and I am not sure if it is going to be held after all. Swedish cs-girl gamers from team Seules honored us with their presence, we had some conversations including verdict for my jeans: they are gay. Ffs, they can’t be gay, it’s Roberto Cavalli! It was about 4AM when I have finally went to sleep, and woke up at 2PM. This is the reason why our web-site has lacked some coverage, I assure you that it will not happen again. One of the players were practicing, meanwhile the others were playing their first official matches.

There was nothing special though, so I can’t find anything to write about, stay tuned for the next update.

22:22 - 08.07.2004

A lot of people are saying that my diary looks “omgwehadagoodnight” way, but that’s what Press can write. I mean I am not a player, and I am forced to spend time in the Press-Center writing the coverage for you. That’s why the only way for me to have fun is to wait for the night and get drunk/high etc. That’s what other players who are not playing at the moment are doing as well. Last night was similar to the night before, we got drunk and stoned, stuff like that. There were few funny things present as well. It all started with the 2nd representative of American WarCraft III scene (not Wizard). The thing happened in the middle of the night, when he tried exiting the building, though he was unable to do that without help. He went to the middle of the street and decided to show everyone what he had for breakfast, dinner and supper. It was disgusting to be honest, but the people around were enjoying the show and decided to support the guy with loud applause. There was a towel on his face, neck and other body parts. Later on Socrates told me the whole story. It went like this. This guy entered Socrates room and said something like: I need to take a piss and entered the toilet immediately. Due to his condition he was unable to prevent toilet from getting pissed all over, which lead Socrates and the gang into frustration. Socrates decided to take the towel and clean the things around, later on he started pushing this towel into the guy’s face, apparently he did not care about that. But the mocking was not over. When the poor WC3 player was lying on the ground and saying some bullsh#t about WarCraft III the Americans as well as redemz and prodx decided to piss on that towel, which was later on placed on the guy’s head. Ouch! Another funny moment occurred when Russians decided to attend swimming pool which was located in a hotel near by. Someone from ESWC Staff asked questions like: Anyone of you living in that hotel? There was no answer though, everyone was having fun in the pool. Cooller asked uNkind if he wants to see a trick, instantly Anton turned away from the pool, jumped in the air, made a rotation in the sky and landed in the pool. Impressive! uNkind went like, I bet I can jump into water with my clothes on, and added the following line right after: I just need to take my boots off, and my jeans.. and my shirt and finally he jumped.

There were significantly more people partying around the hotel and disco, even larger number of female CS players were there. I just hope that some day the amount of male and female gamers at the dance floor will be equal, otherwise it is not fun to party if you know what I mean. Big thanks goes to girls from seules who were having good time among us, gamers and Press. The games were played during the day, no sensations were made as far as I know. I was impressed that if22 was around and even played his matches, as a matter of fact he did that pretty well, and that deserves everyone’s respect. After two days my colleague Russia|Russia will arrive in Poitiers, he will help me with the coverage, expect pics of female CS players and WC3 players as well. That’s all for now, I am really tired and exhausted, just look at the size of the coverage which I had done today – fooken impressive! 

Small Update: Almost forgot. We also had arm-wrestling competition which was dominated by redemz, he beat such players as uNkind and Socrates, as well as some others. This went on until Jay from UK team came, he beat redemz easily and claimed himself the chmapion of today's evening. There was another competition which was called: Try to put carmac down to floor, unfortunately the participants were unable to complete the task, both Socrates and uNkind went victims of evil Polish dictator. Photos are in the gallery :)