Point and Click, Type and Stare

My how times of changed. Was reading the latest edition of PCGamer today, I always get a kick out of the "top 5 games 5 years ago" section. Duke Nukem 3D. Damn, that game owned. My friends and I must have spent hundreds of hours over time playing that over the network here at my house. Tripbombs. Possibly the most hysterical weapon ever in a computer game. For those who don't know, they're little computer things you place on the wall that shoot a beam across to the opposing wall. Cross the beam and *BOOM*. Placing those in all sorts of tricky places, and then having the total silence of the house be broken by an "OOOOOH CRAAAAAAAP" from the other room as an unsuspecting foe goes barreling into one around a corner or such. Great times, those.

I always enjoyed the multiplayer aspect of computer games. Games that involved some version of skill, that you could use to splatter/defeat your opponent. Was really popular in the dorms last year, as pretty regularly eight player games of Starcraft or fifteen player games of Quake 3 would break out during the midnight hours. Tended to really annoy the R/A, not because of the actual playing, but due to the aftermath. Typical evening would start with someone wandering up and down the hall sayin "yo who wants to get that there arse whooped in a game o starcraft booyah man." Teams would then be organized, which would consist of mass arguing about "who sucks more" in order to try to seed the teams evenly. We'd then retire to our rooms and the game, and besides the trash talk via the console it would be basically silent. The most fun part was afterwards, when we'd all congregate in the hall again to talk about how "I almost had you that one time with the twelve carriers against ur mutalisks" or "if I wasn't low on resources I would have raped your pansy ass." You know, the usual college male jargon. That tended to bring the R/A out of his room to slam everyone's doors for them, which kind of gave us the hint. Would I play these games if I didn't normally win? Probably not. That's true with the majority of things I do regarding competition, though.

Looking back, I actually didn't have that terrible a group of guys as my floormates last year. Sure on Friday and Saturday nights our paths diverged in a yellow wood, and I took the one less travelled by, but for the most part we shared some of the same interests. Besides the computer games, Poker was a popular phenomenon that started late in the year. That's probably a good thing, because some of the guys lost some major dough at that table. It was a real mood swinger, some night's you sit down depressed or annoyed and get up an hour or two later with money to go take a girl out to dinner and a movie, other nights you'd sit down having had a great day and finally leave the room kicking over chairs as you go. We weren't big spenders, a buck was the maximum bet, with the usual chip denominations a nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar. Nothing compared to the Chumash casnio nearby that people ventually got sucked into going to, where the minimum bet is five bucks. Ouch. I witnessed many a man walk in with a few hundred and be done in an hour, quite a sad sight. In my experience the point is not to win money, its to stay even for few hours, to lengthen the experience. If you decide how much money you're going to pay to have this experience before you go, worst comes to worst you'll lose it all, and hopefully gotten several hours of "I'm a big man look at me toss these high value chips around" out of it. Course there are the big winners, every time we go someone manages to take home a few hundred bucks on a single hand, but they generally end up losing it back the next time they go. I tend to wait for my tax refund, that tends to be enough for a couple trips late in the year when I'm not worried about having enough money to lead a spoiled life.

Ordered my case today, should get here sometime tomorrow. Got on the line with some guy who usually handles corporate accounts for the company, so he gave me a lot of "anything else you'd like today sir" and "I'll just waive the shipping charge for you sir." You didn't hear me complaining. Rented Casino (I figure I'll italicize movie titles from here on out) tonight, never seen it before, I hear its good stuff. Goes along with the whole gambling concept above I suppose. Saw Jakob the Liar last night, had Robin Williams, figured it must be good. There was a little girl who played a small part that was really good, and Robin was alright, I guess the plot matter just didn't interest me. I did a lot of chatting and stuff while the window was open, it just wasn't really holding my attention too well. Most of the movies I mention in this thingy I'll be ripping/keeping, I had a couple crash over the last week or so though and have fallen behind, so gonna skip that one to catch up. Hopefully with the new comp things will go much faster, maybe six hours a rip instead of fourteen...

Working tomorrow, how lame. Least its close, Redondo Beach. Maybe I'll have a computer. Doubt it though, reorganizing their filing system or something. Was wanting to get to Raging Waters with a friend sometime this week, looks like its going to have to be next week though, we're both busy on alternating days until then, funny how that works out sometimes...