So that was that. Gilbert won decisively with a 5:30 AM finish on 06/08 followed by an 11:30 PM finish by me on the same day. I feel like I won a secondary victory by being hyper social during the race (this is not always the case, believe me) and still faring alright.

Playing with a stream up was very fun and actually afforded an opportunity to catch up with lots of people I hadn’t talked to in a while. My brother is working on a cut of my recorded final run which should be a whole lot of fun.

SMG2 is incredible. Green stars, an additional huge layer of challenging gameplay after you perfect the main game, definitely heightened the rush into gold status. The right amount of nostalgia was invoked and the gameplay span between the first and the second was perfect – i.e., good suits were reused, bad ones were dumped, and plenty of new creative ones went in. It has put me into a gaming mood – uh oh – but I’m probably going to quell it by throwing together a new top 25 or top 50 for 2003-2010 before really delving into anything new.

Time to finish cleaning the apartment, answering emails, and planning out REAL LIFE for the next few weeks.