Where Is Videoball?
Video Games, specifcally people that play Video Games, picked me up out of my seat and on to a plane. On the plane I would be unable to sleep. The plane ride would last for more than a day. The plane’s descent back to Earth would cause an ice-pick and several cans of professional caulk to be jammed into my ears.
I told the first of these video game players, “I can’t hear anything, sorry.” We’d have some conversations about our general travel. I’d have the same conversation an hour later with a second video game player, though this one will almost certainly take offense to me calling them that. I can remind that person I am not using their name, though I use names elsewhere.
After a shower and half a papusa I would lay in bed feeling progressively worse. The worse would come out of my body. I’d exist as a ghost for the next day until I was back in a bed in the rural Northeast United States located within minutes of multiple states. It frightened me to be that transient in state location.
Someone, also a video game player, would open the door and say “this is Rudie’s Special Water”. I thanked them for the water and went back to being unable to sleep, too sick to socialize, and out of mind on sleep, sick, and jetlag. At least I could hear them talk about the water, at least.
Then, without opening the door, came screaming. It seems the video game players had reached a momentous moment in Dragon Quest IV. I didn’t blame them, if I had been in a momentous moment, I too would scream.
The door slammed open again. It was Chris Pinner, of this very website! “Dude! You’re here!” He declared. “Barely,” I mumbled back. He sat a vampire’s length away, across the door’s threshhold, as we talked about traveling and being fathers who have children. Yet another video game player would pop their head in and go “I am here because I read your blog, years ago.”
I was too humanity-fried at that point to process it. Somewhere I swear I heard Max Payne 3’s title screen. I started to talk about the movies I had watched on the plane. I stopped. I instead told Chris to enjoy themselves. I asked them to throw someone else at me. That someone else was Vastlecania. Former host of Super Nintendo Exploration Squad and an incredible human being who loves Game Boy games.
We bonded over a different game podcast neither of us had even liked. it had featured 15 minutes of just reading the manual. They has 200 reviews on Spotify. Cania laughed, “The whole system is…hahaha…that’s funny though.” They were glad I was there. I was glad I was there, even as Drill Dozer was playing directly in my right ear.
I told Cania to enjoy themselves. I took two nyquil and proceeded to not sleep. At 4AM I did sleep. At 830AM I woke up, jumped out of bed, and grabbed my denim jacket. I slapped the Hello Kitty Sticker on my left shoulder, my child had put it on there before I left Japan. I needed Big American Breakfast. At a country club restaurant we would be informed “We don’t serve breakfast,” in a tone that said “get out while you still can.” The waitress would then inform us we, “looked cool”.
A state away, we would be getting bisquits and gravy from a LGBTQ coffee shop that was 30 seconds away from a mosquito pit identified as George Washington’s Bathtub. My company were discussing the merits of Ketsui. I would go on to mention the fictional name Whinny Cooper for reasons I won’t explain online and two of my friends would slam their fist into the table at identity. Everyone but me could see how sick I was.
Getting back to the cabin I popped myself into a chair on the porch and stayed there. I almost didn’t even mind the cigarette smoke. a revolving door of excellent company and excellent conversation happened. My sickness meant I remember nothing of it. Someone declared how much they loved Ace Combat Zero. A second person declared how much they loved the first for that. A third person declared their vegan curry was ready and for everyone.
I spotted my friend Bachelor and he declared we were all “Pretty Pro Sex” before dissappearing to watch Gator. I would somehow focus enough to make Jambalya. The whole time my friend Kali and I would say increasingly unhinged things. ”I’d ask for a lotobomy from Home Depot and let them take my brain as store credit.” Within eye-sight a man was playing Secret of Mana and no one was even watching. I took a shot of yuzu shochuu. Being 39 and straight-edge means you can try things and no one bothers you about it.
“Buddy you’re late to not liking me, because I haven’t liked me, possibly ever.”
During the jambalya cooking, I cornered a furry. I was convincing them with full joy in my heart to play Sonic Frontiers. Which let’s say it: Sonic Frontiers is GAME OF THE YEAR 2023. There was a reason I was trying to convince that furry, because I knew they would have a good time. You are just Sonic The Hedgehog running around doing stuff while Mystic Ruins from Sonic Adventure plays. That’s what I wanted out of videos games in 1999, and it was in my hands for 18 hours of 2023.
I found myself dancing, which meant myself was returning. A cornerstone of these events just for me, is making the video game VIDEOBALL happen. Not that I ever have hardware at these events. I just yell, “Where’s VIDEOBALL?” ”Where Is VIDEOBALL?” ”Everyone’s asking Where’s VIDEOBALL?” ”That’s not VIDEOBALL!” until magically it is VIDEOBALL.
The night before VIDEOBALL and the day after I had danced I had returned enough that I hosted a private game show. The scoring is incoherent and abitrary. I think of the questions all year long. The questions universally inspire the listener to say, “That’s a good question.” Here’s one of them fine reader:
What is the most Grand Theft Auto for the Wii?
This year a surprise appearance by someone who wasn’t even there, my dear friend Tigress, made several of us present burst into tears. Earlier in that day I had held a memorial. A video game community, an internet community, rarely gives us the chance to laugh in person. One that has endured as long as this has, should take the chance to cry in person. I’m putting a note here to take a moment to think about a person called Naomi, who passed away, who their friend said, “I don’t think anyone remembers them.” I have at least thought about that every day.
The game show ended with Japanese Ball and Cup, which was our most successful final category ever. And if you’d seen the previous ones, you’d have found a way to stop society from ever encouraging me. I’d see Ball and Cup continue, even as karaoke shook the cabin to its roots. I heard a song so beautiful that I ran down two floors of stairs to find out who was singing. Give them a listen.
Two hours before I had to leave the cabin and a day before everyone else would leave the cabin, I still hadn’t played VIDEOBALL. My calls for VIDEOBALL grew more frantic. Shrug pulled out his PS4. We discovered that if you haven’t logged in to your PS4 in 12 months it locks you out of your games. The whole house screamed. I screamed louder. Another fiend tried to launch VIDEOBALL on their glowing beast of a computer only for it to be version 1.0 and not having proper Xinput. This time only I screamed.
An actual VIDEOBALL player said, “We could uh, use my steam deck?” Which let me tell you, I have a chronic wrist connection. The Switch is too heavy. The 3DSLL is too heavy. So the Steam Deck which I’ve now held 5 times, is too heavy. Maybe one day I’ll go to the doctor and tell her to fix me.
That said, you can plug a Steam Deck into a TV and them yell at it to sync a variety of nonsense controllers for 10 minutes and then right there is VIDEOBALL. I started screaming in a different way. Surely this wasn’t good for my body, but it was for my soul. We convinced one person who had never played VIDEOBALL to join us. Everyone was screaming, as is happens with VIDEOBALL. Chris jumped into the room with a, “Dude you gotta go now!” We did go now.
What happened on the ride to the airport is just for the people there just as what happened on the ride to the cabin just as the dozens of experiences both my own and others that happened. Gathering with my internet friends is one of the great joys in my life. A multi-day live version of what I do for at least 2 hours a day every day staring at a screen. Leaving that cabin causes a unique malaise that not everyone that walks by won’t be the best conversation you’ve had in literal minutes. It creates a passive positive energy that power me for months. Being depressed and 18 and liking video games led me to that cabin. It turned out okay, liking video games.
FINAL: If only for the memories.
Hinge Problems 
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