One of the unfortunate things about the passing of time (besides hair loss) is that my college friends get together less and less often. Oh, there are still parties here and there, but it’s just a reality of life, I guess, that people go their own way.
My good friend Greg, who is the WBA/WBC heavyweight Quake II champion of the world, or something like that, celebrated his birthday yesterday. The whole Quake culture on the ‘net is a mystery to me. There are so many mods, weapons, and other add-ons for the game that it’s more like a battle of the nerds than a battle of the game junkies. Greg’s Quake “clan” is called DUH–Death Under Homer. I don’t know if he’s the one that named it, but it’s definitely the kind of thing he would come up with. When he plays on the internet, his character appears to be Homer Simpson. Greg’s fiancée threw a fun shindig at his and Rob’s place in Lake Forest yesterday. She made wet burritos, which are not as scary as they sound. Very tasty, actually, and without the El Conejo-like after-effects.
A surprisingly large number of the gang made it to the party, which was followed by a few hours at the bowling alley. It’s always cool to see everyone again, but sad that we don’t do it more often. We all got caught up on who’s doing what. Everyone in Burbank seems to be moving to Studio City, or thereabouts.
After the bowling was over, a few of us went back to Greg and Rob’s place and sang some very pathetic karioke run by a shareware program Greg got off the net. It’s a freakish little program, complete with the bouncing ball that tells you when to sing the lyrics. It was fun, but cheesy MIDI sounds can only go so far, and something about singing Metallica on top of a MIDI background is just wrong. But once you add a little alcohol, everything starts to sound much better. Even the singing.
I could never really get into the Doom/Quake scene. I’m painfully aware that I spend too many hours a day at the computer already. As the years have passed, aside from maintaining The House of Rapp, I’ve been moving toward getting as far away from the computer as possible. The more connected I am, the less I want to be connected.
Oh, and lest I forget another big piece of news, Kevin proposed to Marla today! They even have a date already: November 6, 1999 (or, as Kevin put it, 6 months 2 days and 17 hours from now). They’re probably rushing to get married before the whole Y2K bug throws a wrench in the plans. I love Y2K, you can blame it for anything. So Greg, Dan, and Kevin are all engaged right now. Must be something in the air.