Raffles are exciting., originally uploaded by Kluv32.

So, the story goes like this:

Go to Brooklyn. Go to Barcade. Enjoy the great Fünde Razor II charity event. Play Guitar Hero II. Drink some beer. Buy a few raffle tickets, with proceeds going to the amazing Child's Play charity. It's for the kids.

The Result:
- Brantley wins the big, final armload of schwag (8 PSP Games and more).
- Brantley wins the first grand prize: EIGHT cases of beer.
- Kevin wins the bonus grand prize: A custom-made Guitar Hero controller -- "Now With Real Guitar!"

The Moral? Charity is great. And, we just had one of the luckiest nights of our lives.

A huge thanks to Joel Johnson for putting together a kick-ass evening (and for being the bestower of gifts). Check out J.Miller's master-crafting of the controller HERE. Then, feel free to check out my quick pics of the Charmel in action.

Now take out your wallets and give some cash to the kids of Child's Play.

Oy. The morning after, when I'm not loopy from actually winning something (and from quite a few Anchor Xmas Ales... very good), I see that maybe the rest of the Mafia won't really care (except for Matty, who knows the glory of Guitar Hero). But whatevs.... Kev and I had, between us, 7 raffle tickets among aprox 300 total, and we won the top three prizes.

Kev and I were at the far end of the bar, just happy to find somewhere to sit, and with a good view of the big screen on which the rockin' was going on. They start the raffle, and we can't hear the numbers. Kev says, "Give me your tickets, and I'll go up there and listen." And off he goes into the masses.

I hear a number here and there. Nowhere close to mine. See T-Shirts being thrown, then some light applause. And then I see Kev struggling back to the bar with his hands full of STUFF. He meets my eye, screams, "Frants, this is yours, you won this."

What did I win?
- 8 PSP games, including Capcom Arcade Classics (Commando! 1943! Ghosts and Goblins!), Sega Genesis classics (Sonic! Golden Axe!), and EA classics.
- An Xbox360 external memory card (gave that to a guy who has a 360)
- A PC game called School Tycoon.
- A fairly cool die-cast metal model of the black car from the game DRIVER.
- A Dance Dance Revolution dance pad for the PS2 (I left it there, too big to carry home)

I'm shocked, but Kev runs back. They're giving away the grand prizes now. The grand prizes, we know, everyone's eligible again. Even if you won something, they put your ticket back in.

I hear cheering, applause. Don't hear numbers or anything. Drink drink. Where's Kev?

Then, for a second, thru the crowd, I swear I see a glimpse of Kev with a nylon guitar case on his back. Then I lose him: no way, no way, I think. He appears again, meeting my eye, filled with pride. I can only imagine what my eyes did.

He walks up to me. He won the fucking guitar. I say this: "You won the fucking guitar?!?!"

He says, "And you won 8 cases of beer."

And we couldn't stop smiling. We never win anything. Ever. And we just swept. It was as though all these other films won Best Art Direction and Best Costumes, but we walked home with Picture, Director, and Screenplay.


So, I've got to get back out to Wburg tonight to somehow get 8 cases of beer back to SpaHa. And then Kev needs to get Guitar Hero, so I can go over there and compete with him: I on the wired, plastic, included guitar controller, and he with a lovely wireless REAL guitar mod.

Good times.

So much beer.

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