ADGQ etc

Serious Sam 3
I knew this was my weakest submission and was a bit disappointed when it was accepted. It's not a bad run, but I expected that only a small minority would like it a lot, another small minority would bitch about it being done on Tourist, and most people would enjoy it at least a bit and then forget it ever happened. Seems to have been an accurate prediction.

Arabian Nights
Well, that was a thing that happened. AN is one of the funniest speedruns I've ever seen so I expected it to be a success, but the reception was still much better than I could've hoped for. I was really happy this was right after Superman 64 as I don't think many games could follow SM64 and not get instantly forgotten, but AN definitely could. It's been amazing seeing Arabian Nights trending on Twitter, get 600 votes on gog.com and see people praising it as one of the best runs of the marathon. Even if the success was all about the game itself and I could've been replaced with a sack of potatoes, I'm happy as I got to do what I wanted, expose the world to this work of art.

Stream overall
Of what I saw, the runs seemed to generally be better than in previous years, heard a lot of good commentary and some interesting runs, and the stream video/audio quality was very good. While the generic donation messages are still painful to listen to, it seemed like people were more prepared to talk about their games and not rely on donation reader to do the commentary. Also can we please permanently ban Super Metroid? Not having to hear about the animals all the time made everything infinitely better.

Hotel
The hotel situation was by far the worst part of the marathon, with some people (myself included) staying at the main hotel, some at an overflow hotel and some who knows where. As if people having to stay at another hotel wasn't inconvenient enough, shuttle only going between main and overflow three times a day was really fucking stupid. GDQ could've at least done something to make sure that runners can get rooms at the main hotel, the whole thing seemed really bad for people who had runs after the last shuttle.
It's not just about the runs either, the number one reason I and many others come to these events is so we can spend time with friends we rarely see otherwise, and the hotel situation was really shitty in that sense. And if people not being at the venue wasn't bad enough, the crappy wifi made it needlessly difficult to get in touch with people at all.

Random thoughts
- Shoutouts to anyone I spent even a minute hanging out with, doesn't matter if we had never heard of each other before or have known for years. Not naming anyone in specific because I'll surely forget someone I shouldn't forget and there were cool people whose names I don't think I ever even heard.
- PS1 Mystery Tournament was a lot of fun.
- Price + tax + tip is still a massively stupid system to calculate the final price, what are you doing America.
- I was able to get food at 4am. It wasn't good, but it was food. That was nice.
- Made the Arabian Nights credits face a sub emote, at this point it really deserves to be one and I had the slots for it.
- Probably not going to go to another GDQ at least in a good while.
- Bit worried about ESA being at a hotel next time, I much prefer a venue where people can't spend the entire event hiding in their rooms.
- As a runner/attendee, ESA >>> AGDQ, still no doubt about that.
- Flights being delayed sucks.

Up next
I missed the first week of the semester so I have no idea how busy I'll be with school for the next while but depending on that and other stuff I'll probably continue digging into Dead Space speedrunning, stream some blind playthroughs (Sniper Elite 3, Dead Space 2, Vanquish) and do at least a bit of Hitman Blood Money as I'm running that at Speed Games United in February. Sticking with my usual "whatever I feel like whenever I feel like" -schedule.

TL;DR
Literally nothing important.