Oh, and I think that it turned out to be a pretty lame party, for whatever that's worth.
Magic Cards
I never used to collect or play with these, so pardon my ignorance here. My impression was that this was some kind of game where you play cards against your opponent (I Lightning Strike you negative 3 points, but then you Illusionista-ed me positive 12) and at the end someone wins. But you collect your own cards, right?
Like, kids I knew definitely paid money for better cards. So then, doesn't the richer kid always win? To me this seemed like if you played Connect Four, and if the other kid was poor, you would only have to Connect Three but he still had to get four. You have to come into a game on equal footing. Showing off money isn't what games are for. That's what expensive sneakers and overly elaborate birthday parties with pony rides are for.Someone told me most people actually don't play the game - they just put the cards in plastic slips and look at them. That seems even stupider to me. Granted, I used to collect basketball cards, but at least that relates to real life and not wizard powers. Maybe I am just discriminating against people who are really into wizard fantasy. I've been known to do that in the past.
Calculator Watch
While I again need the disclaimer that I never had one of these - I was totally sold on this. I wanted one so bad - dude it was SICK - you could do math on your wrist! You could totally, like, cheat on some kind of addition test, which would definitely make you the coolest kid in school. I guess I'm being slightly facetious, but I really did want one of these. People who had them later conceded they sucked, since they looked dumb, were kind of big, you didn't really ever need to do math on your wrist (weird, huh?) and the buttons were so small they were hard to push without messing up. I wonder if those were only marketed to little children. If little kids with their proportionately little fingers couldn't use a calculator watch comfortably, there's no way adults could.Macarena
You know how it's easy to forget how big a deal some fad was as time goes by? Well, my memories of everyone doing the Macarena have not faded at all - it's like some horrible past I can't escape. I tried this exactly one time, and totally didn't get why it was so fun. Is it because everyone wanted to feel Latin? Sometimes people say it's like the hokey pokey, and I guess I agree, because they are both equally idiotic. If you've forgotten how big a deal this was, I'll point this out. During the 1996 Summer Olympics, I distinctly remember that NBC declined to show actual Olympic events in favor of an exhibition where the women from the U.S. female gymnastics team danced the Macarena for about 15 minutes. Oh, and people also BOUGHT the record. Like, millions of people bought the record. Was this so they could practice at home? I mean, imagine if you bought a hokey pokey CD and played that at home while you studied or cooked or something.
American Idol
When this first became a sensation, I was totally hooked. Season 1 had this girl I loved too (or loved to look at, Christina Christian). Don't get me wrong - I didn't vote or anything, but I eagerly looked forward to each show. I watched Season 2 for a while, but I quickly started to hate it.
There was all this filler time and weird in-show-ads selling Coke or a Ford Focus, and I didn't really like all those terrible auditions, because it felt phony and staged. Then they actually start the finals, and this guy who looked like a teenage Conan O'Brian just wouldn't lose even though he was horrible and really everyone in general just seemed like a giant loser. I stopped watching before the season ended, and didn't watch for years after that. But this season, I'm back to watching it, thanks to Tivo. I always like the singing, and that thrill of "are they going to suck?". With Tivo, I can get all that without all the crap. I record it, and then fast forward through everything but the songs (and I'll skip these if they suck) and Simon's commentary. Whole episode takes about 15 minutes to watch and then I don't watch the results show, I just ask someone who got booted off. So I once again get the hoopla over American Idol. (But I'd still never vote. Excluding the 539 text messages I sent for Sanjaya last week. Kidding. Hopefully.)The Wave
What exactly was so cool about this? In a giant stadium with 70,000 people, if you do the wave, it looks like there is a ripple effect? And that's cool...why? What if we all jumped up and stomped at the same time?
That would be really loud. Or what if we all curled into the fetal position simultaneously? That might look cool from a blimp. The whole thing just made no sense to me, but for some reason people would look at you angrily if you didn't do it - I guess my refusal might ruin the whole visual effect. I thought the wave was mostly a thing of the past, but I've been seeing these commercials lately for this place called Buffalo Wild Wings, where they ADVERTISE the place by showing that the customers do the wave in the restaurant. Has anyone else seen this commercial? This is like a legit commercial too, not some low budget production like Cal Worthington's Ford Dealership.Atkins Diet
Out of curiosity, I tested this out to see what all the fuss was about. Wow, does this shit work or what? I did it for two weeks - didn't eat any bread or rice or cookies
(I may have been still eating too much fruit) - and lost like 10 pounds. I felt like complete ass, had no energy, and my only two thoughts were "should I go to bed?" and "I wonder how many loaves of bread I could eat". But I did lose a lot of weight, pretty quickly. I didn't need to lose 10 pounds, so I stopped doing it, but I totally get why this is a big deal - this worked ridiculously "well". Oh I was also extremely thirsty all the time. That wasn't a big bag of fun.
15 comments:
In addition, I vote for pet rocks and gigapets...c'mon it's a ROCK.
sorry, eric, this post was kinda long, and after the magic cards section, i decided to skim the whole thing and summarize what you were talking about...
this is what i got: "SICK... Summer Olympics...sucked pretty hard... might look cool from a blimp... and lost like 10 pounds."
that's a very interesting post.... but i dont understand, what do you have against the Summer olympics??
I don't think there was really a hoopla over pet rocks though. I know some people did own them, but I'd say most people thought this was ridiculous right out of the gate.
how about pogs? those little round cardboard/metal circles that you tried to flip into the air as high as you could. i defintely paid money for those.
People definitely paid a lot for slammers, but in my experience, it didn't make too much difference how expensive your slammer was - you just had to know how to throw it right.
Pogs are not a subject of hoopla they are an addiction. Pogs are the reason I have a gambling problem to this day and am in constant fear for the health of my kneecaps.
i have seen this commercial... there is a buffalo wild wings near rich's apt at uva.. i think he should go in and try to start the wave in the restaurant.
I guess I'm going to be the loser that defends most of these.
First off, don't slam it until you've tried it. I love games in general, and Magic is one of the most fun and thought-provoking games I've ever played. It's just a strategy game with a candy-coated fantasy shell for marketing purposes. Would you rather move your knight to F6 for a checkmate or bust your opponent over the head with a dragon you just summoned. I would want the latter, but that's because I'm an uberdork.
Calculator watches were alright. I know some people that use their cell phone for tip calculations still. I had one at when I was 6 that doubled as a crappy Transformer. That thing was cool.
I think the Macarena is just a more annoying version of the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey. It's totally scripted and easy to learn so people like me can pretend to dance for a while. It also has a unifying, "we are the world" effect. I just did this on my cruise last weekend and the intoxicated seemed to really enjoy it.
They have added a ton of fluff to American Idol, but it's still basically Star Search with Simon, and that spells a-w-e-s-o-m-e in my book. I really wish people couldn't vote 8000 times for Sanjaya though. Seriously, that guy is painful to watch.
Magic could easily be a very fun, strategic game. But shouldn't there be a standard deck that gets divided, not people buying their own cards? It feels like playing poker, only we bring our own cards, and I can bring a lot of aces.
I agree on the Magic front. I used to play a game called Wyvern, similar to Magic (I think) where each side could play 6 dragons in battle using the terrain and action cards. You bought a deck and got whatever cards happened to be in there.
Interestingly enough, I always ended up with dragons with power 8 or 9 while my brother only got a bunch of 4-5s. Plus I ended up with action cards like "kill any dragon of any power." We ended up having to swap a bunch of cards at the outset just to play a meaningful game.
I don't know if I can really explain the game in writing, but I'll try. First of all, there are several "formats" that you can play. The three main ones are sealed deck, draft, and constructed.
For sealed deck, people get a few packs, open them, and build a deck out of them.
For draft, people sit in a circle, open a pack and take one card out of it and pass the rest of the pack to the person on the left. This continues until the pack has no cards. This is repeated with 2 more packs. Players build a deck out of the 45 cards they drafted.
In both these formats, it doesn't matter how much money you have or what cards you own.
The final format is constructed. Players come bring their own cards and play against each other. 60 card decks, maximum of 4 of a particular type of card. There are two common misconceptions about constructed Magic.
1. Why doesn't everyone just play the best cards? It's because there aren't any "best" cards. It's about deck synergy and how certain cards work well together. It's also about personal preferences on deck strategies. For example, do you like being very aggressive (making a bunch of little dudes, attacking a lot, and finishing with some spells that directly damage the opponent), controlling (slowing your opponent down, controling the game, and winning in the long game), or combination (ignoring your opponent and setting up parts for a massive game swinging effect or an outright win).
In basketball, if you could make your own dream team, you wouldn't want 5 Kobe's on the floor. You would want Steve Nash running the point, Garnett grabbing boards, etc.
2. It costs a lot of money. I'm not going to lie, the cost of entry for a competitive deck at the highest level, costs a decent amount ($50-100)? If it's your kid's main hobby (and it better be if they're competing on those levels) than I don't think that price is really that expensive. But really, most kids are out there just having fun. You can build very competitive decks that are only a couple bucks (the Detroit Pistons).
Ultimately, Magic is still very skill-testing. The better player can often overcome most deck disadvantages.
wow, look at all this hoopla!
Speaking of which, the game Hoopla by the folks at Cranium is pretty fun.
um hello? furbies? tamagachis? let's not forget the whole i have a virtual pet thing. you know you all wanted one. if you didn't already have 3 tamagachis in different bright pastel colors.
Post a Comment