The Mountain Dew table

I wish I had something more poignant to share today, but perhaps there's something to be extracted from a simple nostalgiac reminiscence that isn't quite as trivial as it may seem.  Add to this the fact that sometimes, upon reflection, I'm very glad that my wife elected to marry me in spite of me.

I loved getting together with some of the good friends drawn together through university and playing a Spellfire tournament for an evening.  Next to a weekend of Dungeons & Dragons, this was my favourite escape into the hallowed halls of geekery, into which my wife will still only peer timorously from the doorway.  A lifeline of sorts, I suppose.

Invitations were always made up and there was much anticipation as the date drew nigh.

We would always have to have two tables set up, segregation of winners and losers is important, you see.  A randomized mix to start off, to be sure, but the winning players of the loser table and the losing players of the winner table would change positions at the end of each game with much brouhaha and blustering. 

"I woulda won if Jeff didn't throw that Cataclyst on my front Realm!"  Good times.

A symbol of the elite versus the bourgeois players, necessary given our propinquity in a single room, was the permissible beverage at a given table.  We all had red plastic cups with our names (or suitably geeky monikers) writ large with black magic marker.  And the contents defined our status.  The Doritos, the seven layer dip, the chocolate almonds, the ubiquitous potato chips; they were free for all to partake.  But the winners got Dr. Pepper to drink, and the losers were permitted only Mountain Dew.  Or rather, for them the Dr. Pepper was strictly verboten.  An icon, The Grail to which they must aspire.

I don't know how exactly the tradition started, but the lot of us still have all of our Spellfire cards stored lovingly in Velveeta cheese boxes.  It makes sense though.  They're perfectly shaped and can store about 500 cards.  One friend of mine has four boxes FULL.  Geek to the extreme!

It's been a whole year now since I've played and my Velveeta box lies unopened in my garage with my D&D books and 20-sided dice.

Comments

[Jenn]

Is that your wife sitting at the table playing with you? What a woman!

HILARIOUS Gavboy picture.

You're in good company. We were D&D nerds too.

[fv]

Spellfire? Wow. I've known a lot of cardfloppers but you're the only one I've ever heard of that played Spellfire (I guess someone must have...)

You don't even want to pretend to imagine how many Magic:The Gathering cards I have. And my fellow geeks and I still convene weekly.

To seal the geekery deal, visit our homebrewed Magic website:
http://www.0--0.org/magic/

Reload the front page to see famous quotes and inside jokes from various gatherings...

[BOB]

Come on back. We can have you both play with us on friday nights. We use Klooge (www.kloogeinc.com) to play over the Internet. Friday nights, you can bounce him on your knee as you play. Or like other players duck away from the keyboard to change etc.

And I already have 3 women playing so your wife should feel right at home.

Email and I will give you details if you want to just pop in one night to watch.

BOB