Friday, April 10, 2009

TwoCents and Five (MILLION) Questions With...

...Ciji (StarSlay3r) from WCG Ultimate Gamer!

I was faced with a difficult task today, readers. My mission, should I choose to accept it, was to interview Ciji- my uber crush- from WCG Ultimate Gamer, one of the many shows I cover for our site, TheTwoCents. Even though this would be my first interview ever I was never one to turn down a challenge. So I accepted this mission, grabbed some paper, a pencil, my cell phone, channeled my inner Stephen Colbert and embarked on a journey of the fates over the telephone. My epic tale begins here- but where will it end? Well, you’ll just have to keep reading to find out.

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7 comments:

  1. At 6 o’clock, Pacific Standard Time, my red BlackBerry began to chime and vibrate. I looked down at the number and clicked the little green telephone icon. Soon I was knee deep in an interview with Ciji- better known as StarSlay3r- the hard-hitting guitar hero master from WCG Ultimate Gamer. Thankfully, all those drama classes in high school paid off, my nerves eased and I cranked up the questions- of which I had many. So many more than Ciji could ever have imagined! I could tell from the show that Ciji is one tough cookie so there would be no softballs to start off with here- not on my watch.

    I jumped into the topic I knew people- myself included- were chomping at the bit to hear about: Dante! Without hesitation- not that I expected any- Ciji delves into her world and explains that Dante is in fact NOT an ex (phew!) but that the true story is that way back in the day they were friends- super duper close friends, you might say- but that one fine day, unfortunately, that friendship turned sour. I inquired if the friendship had been restored perhaps after the show. Her answer? A clear as ice “no”. And in fact, she said that not only is the friendship NOT intact, but that her fans and Dante’s fans are feisty- Athenians versus Persians circa the Battle of Marathon feisty. Well, listen up Dante fans, this here blog is Athenian country (aka Team Ciji). To her credit, she admitted that maybe she stirred the pot more than she had wished during the show, and if she could go back, she may have flown a bit more under the radar instead of instigating some of the Dante-Ciji drama, but that WCG Ultimate Gamer was still “the most amazing thing I’ve ever done in my entire life”.

    The next hot topic was the Geoff situation from two episodes ago. You may recall that Ciji had contemplated throwing the DDR challenge to help Geoff out. Ultimately, she decided not to throw the challenge, but Ciji explained that a lot of discussions took place behind the scenes and were edited out- they do only have an hour, after all. For the record, she and Geoff are still tight and though she felt bad about Geoff going home, it was far more mutual- and less of a surprise- than it may have appeared during the episode.

    The last question of mine on the WCG Ultimate Gamer front was about competition. I know Ciji is a hardcore competitor (because your writer is, too, and we can sniff out our own- like sharks) so I wanted to know who she thought was the big gun on the other side of the aisle. She acknowledged the talent of all the gamers, but she quickly arrived at Rob as the biggest competitive threat in the house. Turns out, in fact, Ciji and Rob had played together on the same clan- PMS- in their past so they both knew what kind of fabric the other was minted from.

    I wanted to switch gears a little bit from the show and talk about Ciji the person. I had spent a fair amount of time doing some sleuthing on the “internets” to try and formulate some solid questions for my girl, Ciji. After all, I don’t want to ask- and she probably doesn’t want to answer- arbitrary questions about stuff that she isn’t into.

    One of the common threads I saw on all her sites was that she was pretty big on doing charity work. I asked her if she could give me the scoop on that and I have to say she seemed to get super energized talking about doing good things for kids. If I had a tape recorder, I’d quote her directly, but I don’t so I have to try and paraphrase what she said: “people aren’t always lucky, and I’ve had my fair share of bad luck, and there have always been people that had my back, and I want to have other people’s backs when they’re down on their luck, too”. I thought that was really cool.

    I was also curious how she picked her gaming handle- StarSlay3r- and though she insisted it wasn’t that interesting of a story I have to admit it was pretty funny. Ciji, on her way to being the coolest girl ever, is a Transformers fan. Her favorite Transformer? StarScream. Now, could she have just used that? Yes. But she knew if she ever ended up at the top it could cause some weird copyright issues. So she merged her love of Halo and Transformers and settled on StarSlayer only to have it eventually hijacked by some German dude!! Thus, we arrive at a l33t-speak-laced handle of StarSlay3r.

    For the remainder of our interview I was happy to see that Ciji and I had some pretty clutch stuff in common- so much so that I am pretty sure she pseudo-accused me of pretending to like stuff she liked. So, Ciji, if you’re reading this, rest assured I’m a no-BS kind of guy. Thus, for the record, Raphael is my favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, the Red Wings are my favorite sports team, and I am a lover of all things German.

    By this point our gamer Ciji had lasted a record forty-five minutes on the phone with me and that is about thirty-eight minutes longer than most of my friends last when I’m asking them questions! I thanked Ciji for taking the time to speak with me and I can only hope she enjoyed herself half as much as I did while I hurled question after question her way. If she can handle an onslaught like that then there is no gamer who can possibly stand in her way of the WCG Ultimate Gamer title! I remain faithfully on Team-Ciji.

    Thanks again, Ciji! Oh, and of course, Call me (again)!

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  2. Good interview. Hope you get to speak to more people on the show.

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  3. haha Thanks Thomas. It was great talking to you! The interview turned out great. Also, for those interested in helping... go to Starlight.org to visit the Starlight Children's Foundation. :D Thanks so much Thomas!

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  4. That's pretty stellar, Tom... and yes, you ARE very competitive. One of the perks of being your friend is hearing how you're always dominating. I also like that she calls you Thomas. :D

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  5. 45 minutes and all ya had was two paragraphs? i thought you had ur pen and paper ready? lol

    she played with rob in a clan before and still thought mark was better? crazy

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  6. No no I knew Prodigy was good at Halo but he's best at the objectives. Overall Mark had more kills and I thought it was 2v2 slayer. I didn't know it was ASSAULT til after they came back to the house to practice. Once I saw Rob and Jamals strategy I knew they had it in the bag. Mark wasn't good at figuring out a strategy, they just kept trying to kill them.

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  7. I love her!!!! Great interview!!!

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