Tales of The Fencesitter

Had a rocking good time last weekend. As a treat for myself and for some of the boys in the office for having completed a grueling 1st semester, I sponsored a pre-Oktoberfest binge in my decrepit apartment. There was enough booze for everyone to jiggle their beer belly at. For good measure, some of the geeky boys brought their little toys with them. We had the latest consoles present in the house with the exception of the Xbox although the Wii fanatic deemed the Xbox’s bag fit to carry the hugely popular Nintendo console.

As a tribute to that elementary “make new friends but keep the old” shtick, I invited my older friends to join the fray thereby ensuring that all my preparations would not go to waste. The older bunch showed up early as planned. The ‘silik’ flown in early that day by the SO got enough attention from everyone. By the way a ‘silik’ is the back portion of a big fish where its dorsal fins are located. Most folks would be familiar with the belly (e.g. tuna belly) but this portion is usually unheard of by the common Manila denizen. It’s very tasty and, with all the fat surrounding it, makes for a very good meal or pulutan.

The office boys started trickling in around 9:30 having been advised that they should not arrive earlier than that. With beer frosting in the cooler, beer chow spread on the center table, and all the consoles hooked up to the big screen, everything was set.

We started with a little PS3 tournament. NFS Carbon was the unanimous choice as the starting game. There’s nothing like the sound of screeching wheels and crashing metal to get the adrenaline going. Looking at the whole bunch, you’d think that these are little schoolboys enjoying the night out away from their parents. Which in a way it is. Some left pregnant wives and sulking girlfriends at home to be in that group that night. After the sensory overload, everyone agreed that it’s time for the Wii to take centerstage.

Even on a big screen, the Wii game still looks like an overblown game-and-watch with slightly better graphics and sound effects. But what it lacked in those departments, it made up big time in interactivity. Unlike the PS3 where you practically sat the entire time with your fingers working in overtime, the Wii games insist that you simulate the basic strokes of whatever game you are playing. Wii Tennis for example involves forehands and backhands. And if you want to speed up the pace of your groundstrokes, you need to speed up your swings as well. The sensor also simulates the feel of hitting the ball via a vibration on your Wii controller. We were sweating in no time. But nothing prepared me for Wii Boxing. Man that game is a pain. If you want to beat your opponent, you have to punch non-stop, which I did and as a result, all the beer buzz that I was carefully cultivating went out of the window and flowed out of my pores as sweat (not to mention all the aches and pains I felt a day after). We were all sober after that game.

I had to admit that in terms of fun rating, the Wii kicked my PS3’s butt to kingdom come and I congratulated the owner for it. I was surprised by his remark though. He said that he’d been playing the Wii for a long time but never really had as much fun as he had that night. It turned out he’s been playing against the computer all this time. Despite the interactivity that the Wii offered it still cannot compete with the joy that human interaction brings. Actually this is not such a surprise. What got to me though was the fact that I’m not completely alone in this loner business (naks!). But thinking about this kid, it’s kinda sad in his case. I am alone here because well, I am alone. No family, no close relatives and all that. This kid however grew up here and he should have a lot of folks to share his Wii with. Oh well.

The party broke off at around 5 in the morning. We didn’t really set a time for the party to stop but with everyone flat-lining on the sofas, it was time to go. There were still a lot of unopened beer cans and the bottle I prepared was hardly touched. But it was time to call it a night. Everyone had a weary smile and looked dead tired from all the frolicking they did earlier as I escorted them out of my apartment. Tired but happy, I don’t think there’s anything better than that feeling.

As I clambered up my own bed and drifted off to sleep, I could still hear everyone’s laughter bouncing off the window blinds.