Mod Meet 2007- the tradition continues in year 3! I got an extra day there this year, because last year I was still in school and had final exams. Airplane was my transportation choice, and once again I had less than favorable luck. This time it was my fault though- I arrived at the airport 15 minutes before my flight (would have been earlier if not for traffic) to find out that I had to be there 30 minutes early. Luckily I was able to catch another flight two hours later, and it was smooth from there. Until the return flight. But I'll get to that later...

I hit Philly around 5pm, and after finding my way through the airport and riding the train I got to the hotel around six. Most everyone was there, and it was happy hour, so I grabbed some drinks and said hi to everyone. After a bit we headed over to Friday's for our usual first-night dinner. This time we also got to hang out with Bob (CSS programmer) and Jeff (Johnny_Utah, NG artist). Bob decided he's not going to cut his hair until the NG redesign is done, so he had a 'do that was gaining on me. After dinner we took a walk down to the local pub to grab some beer, since Philly has Nazi beer laws in place.

The bed situation was a little messed up that night, with some people in the wrong rooms. I ended up on the floor with a big bed blanket but it was still pretty comfortable, so no biggie. I woke up early with some terrible heartburn though, so I decided to stay up and be early for the hotel breakfast. Our hotel is famous for having a pretty awesome free breakfast, with bacon, eggs, sausage, cereal, fruit, bagels, and more. No one else was up though so I sat out on the patio and played my DS for a while. By the time I was done everyone else started making their way downstairs so I just sat around for a bit.

Friday was the day we were all going to the office to check out the new site layout and test it. Jason slept in for 20 hours and missed the train though, which inspired the creation of this flash while we were at the office. I don't know who this 'Skinhead-Ninja' is, but he seems to have a keen eye for flash. They also changed the office layout a little, moving the big TV to a new location to allow for more people. They're always tearing down something in that place.

They also converted one of the rooms in the office to an actual store room, with bins full of t-shirts and rolls of stickers on the wall. Cool stuff. Mindchamber hooked up Newgrounds Rumble fullscreen on his monitor, allowing four people to play at once with actual gamepads. Also cool stuff.

Another improvement from last year is the finished conference room, which looks very sharp. Although I have to question how putting an xbox and an LCD screen in the middle helps get work done, haha. No complaints here. The men's bathroom however didn't fare so well this year, hard to say what it will look like next time I'm there.

Equally bad-ass was the addition of a picnic table to the top of the office. That place feels like a funhouse sometimes.

After the office it was time for another night of drinking, nothing too surprising there. We made sure to keep up with another tradition, walking down to the Philly Art Museum (AKA, the Rocky steps). After running up and down we stopped at a statue for a break, and walked back to the hotel down the middle of the street. Cars are supposed to park there, but whatever. We're from Newgrounds.

On Saturday we decided to head over to Atlantic City. Basically, it's a mini-Vegas. To be honest I wasn't too excited with the Casino stuff, I'm not really a gambler. I was much more stoked that they had a candy store there. SO MUCH CANDY, you would have to see it.

After getting lunch we found a small arcade on the boardwalk, which was actually half-full with slots type games. It still had some other cool stuff though, and we spent our ticket winnings on such fantastic prizes as 'barrel of slime' and 'bouncing putty.'

We grabbed some drinks at Donald Trump's ridiculously overpriced 'Beach Bar' and for dinner we walked down to the Showboat casino. Let me tell you, it was amazing. Seriously, this place had the best buffet in existence. You could get ANYTHING there. Their dessert bar was bigger than most regular buffets I know.

So after a day of Atlantic City, what better way to end it than more partying at the hotel? Video games, drinks, lighting hands on fire, all the usual.

And that concluded another Mod Meet. Everyone met up at the office on Sunday to say goodbye, and we parted ways.

At least, that's what was SUPPOSED to happen. My flight left at 8:15 Sunday night, but I read the ticket wrong and got there late, AGAIN. I had to book a flight for the next day. Luckily Adam and Jon still had a room for the night (they were staying later) so I got an extended meetup of sorts. My flight left at 5:30 on Monday, and keeping in line with my terrible airport luck, it was delayed for two hours. But hey, should I really have been surprised. No worries though, it's always worth it for the Mod Meet.

Posted to: Adventures