the other night i went over to gino’s place to hang around and play video games with him and spencer and josh z. but when i say ‘play video games’, that really means 3 hours of taking turns on their favorite game of all time, power stone for the dreamcast.

it’s a game they’ve been playing since college where you beat each other up, and i’m terrible at it. or at least, when compared to legacy players like these guys, who aren’t super into games, but for some reason latched onto this one thing and got really good over the course of many years. it’s so interesting to me that, for some reason, these three college roommates never collectively moved on to any other new thing. they just kept on with the same game.

so i lost, a lot, and cursed, a lot, while they played masterfully and held conversations at the same time. the game was just something to do while we chatted, really. spencer said he was surprised i didn’t give up, because i’m the kind of person who wants to be decent at something in order to enjoy it — which at first i took as meaning i was a quitter, but decided later that he was right, sort of. i think i see quickly when something requires skill or practice to fully enjoy and so i’d rather do something else that i can enjoy until then. but i think a lot of people are like that with semi-competitive things; there are people who hate playing taboo or pictionary because they just don’t ever succeed at it. but then, like i did, there are times where they cave because friends are around and at least it’s something to do.

that’s actually the whole premise the game ‘cranium’ was built on, actually. i saw the guy who runs that company speak at a conference for work, and his philosophy was to ‘give everyone their moment to shine,’ hence a board game that combines a bunch of different skills to give more people a chance. but then, that’s sort of why i hate cranium. i want to be the one who shines, dammit.