Shooting and sudden death down with the kids

It is important to realise that, as you inevitably get older, there will come a point in your life when it is futile to try and get "down with the kids" and that any attempts to do this will just label you as desperate and sad. In my case this happened when I reached 12 years old. And today I was reminded of it again.

The students had organised a "FragFest", a computer based entertainment involving linking computers together via a network and then running programs that let the students pretend to kill each other. All good fun. I thought I would go along and run a post-ironic eye over the proceedings. I took along my bongo drums and the Gamecube because they were fun too.

A great time was had by all. I went and fetched my XBOX and TV so that I could take part in some of the carnage. Unfortunately I forgot the TV remote so that there was no way I could actually see the XBOX display, but the thought (or at least some of it) was there. It turned out that all the action was on the other computers so this turned out to be no great loss.

So then I cracked and went and fetched a laptop so that I could take part in the online shooting. There was no way I could be the worst person there? Except that I was. Time after time. Even the computer controlled players could beat me easily. And some of the things they said to me were quite insulting.

I not good at these games. My tendency to stand and ponder the finer intricacies of strategy before deciding what to do is not one of the best ways to play a fast moving shooting game. So I got shot a lot. So then I started running around aimlessly. And got shot a lot and fell off the edge a lot as well. Ho hum.

We finished around half-five. Everybody neatly and carefully packed up their stuff and left. I've put some pictures on my Spoke blog. I probably wasn't down with the kids as such. But I had a good time. And I will be back again. Well, somebody has to prop up the leadership board...