I went to the Child's Play Charity Auction!
Quaunaut
The longest seven days in history... Join Date: 2003-03-21 Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
The longest seven days in history... Join Date: 2003-03-21 Member: 14759Members, Constellation, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">...and I was let known how poor I really am.</div><a href="http://www.childsplaycharity.org/" target="_blank">Child's Play</a>
Wow. What a night. Its hard to comprehend exactly how it all went by- and I'd kill to have pictures(damn you lack of digital camera). Regardless, it was an incredible night of underage drinking, good looking 10/20-years-younger-than-husband wives, and great fun.
I'm 18. I got to try three different kinds of liquor! I usually am not a big fan of alcohol, but this was some pretty fine stuff, and I've wanted to get a taste for wine anyway. There was no mention of carding- but then again, the 'kids' seemed to be the only ones not drinking copious amounts of booze.
So I sat at a table with two people who were born making more money than me and my roomie combined. Sigh. Regardless, they both got really involved in some good bid wars- but only one of them, "That Guy in the Kilt" won a huge poster of the Cardboard Tube Samurai. It was incredibly big- 8 feet high, or bigger perhaps. It was...large.
The night's highlights were the Laser Cells(they expected them to go for maybe 1000, it went above 3k), the Mystery Box(8kish?)*, the "Midnight Launch Halo 3 Package"(they got to run around with the Bungie crew going to all the Seattle launch events, and play Halo 3 all day before it- this went to 7 or 8k I think), a NPC spot in Penny Arcade's upcoming adventure game(8k again, I think), and then the two big auctions- the Halo 3 voiceover spot(went to the RvB guys for 12k), and a spot in a Penny Arcade comic(11k). There were another dozen or so live auctions, and thats not even touching on the silent auctions. I didn't get prices down for them, but heres a rundown of "I last saw it at this" prices for a few:
Assassin's Creed T-Shirt and Poster, Signed by the entire Ubisoft Montreal Dev Team: $240+
Huge FFXII Prize Package(2 T-Shirts, 6 Posters, 2 Special Game Boxes, Special Edition Game): $400+
Vanguard Beta Spots: $480, $360, $340
WoW: BC and 2 Year Sub(Not a beta spot, just a special edition copy): $890
And the one that blew everyone's socks off: The ORIGINAL PILOT SCRIPT FOR HEROES: $3k was the last seen price at my table. Jeebus.
After everything, they decided to continue last year's tradition(I guess, I wasn't there last year) of "Hold up your hand til you can't pay that much" auction(aka you get nothing), which ended at $52 grand!
The food was amazing, too- I personally had a fine Grilled Iron Steak with fixins that cost more than the entirety of whats in my fridge, a fudge cake desert that was delectably awesome, and a ton of water. They had a nice vegan ravioli option too, and a chicken option that looked good.
What a night. I'm tired. And a tad buzzed. If I had to guess how much the night raised, I'd say at minimum it was $80,000, maybe more.
* The Mystery box was about to go unopened, but the crowd screamed(we screamed a lot that night) to open it. They invited the guy to come up and open it, so he ran up there, whispered to them- and held a ransom for him to open the box, which netted an additional $450- just so we could know what was in the box.
PS: If you got '2nd' on an auction, you got a neato USB-powered evil snowman with robot arms and devilishly glowing eyes/mouth. It was awesome.
Wow. What a night. Its hard to comprehend exactly how it all went by- and I'd kill to have pictures(damn you lack of digital camera). Regardless, it was an incredible night of underage drinking, good looking 10/20-years-younger-than-husband wives, and great fun.
I'm 18. I got to try three different kinds of liquor! I usually am not a big fan of alcohol, but this was some pretty fine stuff, and I've wanted to get a taste for wine anyway. There was no mention of carding- but then again, the 'kids' seemed to be the only ones not drinking copious amounts of booze.
So I sat at a table with two people who were born making more money than me and my roomie combined. Sigh. Regardless, they both got really involved in some good bid wars- but only one of them, "That Guy in the Kilt" won a huge poster of the Cardboard Tube Samurai. It was incredibly big- 8 feet high, or bigger perhaps. It was...large.
The night's highlights were the Laser Cells(they expected them to go for maybe 1000, it went above 3k), the Mystery Box(8kish?)*, the "Midnight Launch Halo 3 Package"(they got to run around with the Bungie crew going to all the Seattle launch events, and play Halo 3 all day before it- this went to 7 or 8k I think), a NPC spot in Penny Arcade's upcoming adventure game(8k again, I think), and then the two big auctions- the Halo 3 voiceover spot(went to the RvB guys for 12k), and a spot in a Penny Arcade comic(11k). There were another dozen or so live auctions, and thats not even touching on the silent auctions. I didn't get prices down for them, but heres a rundown of "I last saw it at this" prices for a few:
Assassin's Creed T-Shirt and Poster, Signed by the entire Ubisoft Montreal Dev Team: $240+
Huge FFXII Prize Package(2 T-Shirts, 6 Posters, 2 Special Game Boxes, Special Edition Game): $400+
Vanguard Beta Spots: $480, $360, $340
WoW: BC and 2 Year Sub(Not a beta spot, just a special edition copy): $890
And the one that blew everyone's socks off: The ORIGINAL PILOT SCRIPT FOR HEROES: $3k was the last seen price at my table. Jeebus.
After everything, they decided to continue last year's tradition(I guess, I wasn't there last year) of "Hold up your hand til you can't pay that much" auction(aka you get nothing), which ended at $52 grand!
The food was amazing, too- I personally had a fine Grilled Iron Steak with fixins that cost more than the entirety of whats in my fridge, a fudge cake desert that was delectably awesome, and a ton of water. They had a nice vegan ravioli option too, and a chicken option that looked good.
What a night. I'm tired. And a tad buzzed. If I had to guess how much the night raised, I'd say at minimum it was $80,000, maybe more.
* The Mystery box was about to go unopened, but the crowd screamed(we screamed a lot that night) to open it. They invited the guy to come up and open it, so he ran up there, whispered to them- and held a ransom for him to open the box, which netted an additional $450- just so we could know what was in the box.
PS: If you got '2nd' on an auction, you got a neato USB-powered evil snowman with robot arms and devilishly glowing eyes/mouth. It was awesome.
Comments
Glad you enjoyed the charity dinner, Quaunaut. Thanks for writing up a little something for us who couldn't get there.
* The Mystery box was about to go unopened, but the crowd screamed(we screamed a lot that night) to open it. They invited the guy to come up and open it, so he ran up there, whispered to them- and held a ransom for him to open the box, which netted an additional $450- just so we could know what was in the box.
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<i>Well?</i> What was in the box? You do not introduce a mystery box, say they opened the mystery box, and then ignore the contents of the mystery box. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":(" border="0" alt="sad-fix.gif" />
From what we could tell, the mystery box contained:
A XBox 360 Premium
A ton of Halo Swag(Limited edition White Spartan action figure, art book...)
...a ton of Microsoft Swag in general...
Some Pokemon stuff...
Few other things, but you didn't catch a lot of it.
Still, since it's a great cause that's all fantastic news! I especially like the hold up your hand & ransoming the mystery box ideas. Fantastic!
Oh, and thanks for making this post! I had forgotten to donate, something that I promised I would finally do this year, until reading it!
Plus, I hear donating can reap rewards as high as <b>+50 Karma</b>! <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin-fix.gif" />
A few pictures from the night that they've put up. Show us where you are!
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thekiko/sets/72157594420975939/" target="_blank">http://www.flickr.com/photos/thekiko/sets/72157594420975939/</a>
A few pictures from the night that they've put up. Show us where you are!
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Gar, none of those shots show me, and only one kinda gets where I'm at...le sigh. I'm not just all the way in the back of the shot, but he took it just as the RvB guys were leaving, and the 3rd one is right in front of where I was sitting.