| Dead Army HQ |
| Videogames - Geek Adventure | |
| Written by Pixelsmith | |
Thursday May 1 2008Waking typically late, Peyota ushered us to life with coffee. There was a professional gaming tournament on the TV, nerds clustered together to prove their worth on Fifa and Project Gotham Racing. It was hideous. The videogames player is, by and large, not a breed which stands up to being idolised. This kind of televised competition would be fine if it didn't take itself seriously, but it's pitched as some kind of equivalent to actual sport, even down to being shown on a sports channel. Proper sportspeople are generally at the peak of physical fitness, meaning even the ugly ones look impressive in a way. Plus they have tangible skills. Scrawny teenagers whose main claim to fame is good hand eye co-ordination do not compare favourably. A random cheerleader-style model spiced up proceedings slightly by being attractive and shouting "woo" occasionally. This just made everyone else look worse. Plus she clearly didn't even know what a videogame was. She was just there to wave a flag.  This day was to be the day of the Dude. Driving over from his part of the city, Dudemeister picked us up to take us out for a meal. "Treat them well," his dad had told him. "And they will do the same for you when you visit." Brodos made it clear that this wasn't the case.Before we left, I filled Peyota in on the plug socket and fax machine I had totalled the previous night.  "These things happen," he said, before repairing it with the assistance of Dudemeister. They know how to look after you, these Serbians. If I'd done this in an English house, I'd have felt terrible, but here it was so relaxed I thought I might as well take a photo. At the restaurant, my fellow diners ordered something which looked like a donkey's penis. It was an insane heart-attack type sausage which involved getting a load of meat, rolling it up with kimac (that's the funny cheese stuff) in the middle, then coating the whole thing in batter and deep frying the result. I don't eat meat - long story, involves my father and a bludgeoned baby goat, you don't want to know - so I munched on a load of mushrooms and veg and mashed up beans, Serbian style. Which probably sounds like rubbish to anyone who likes a nice bit of steak, but that stuff is like crystal meth to me, so I wolfed it down. Next, we headed into town to take a look at a few more of the sights. This included some of the targets in NATO's bombing campaign, back in 1999. Security outside the American Embassy seemed no greater than it had been in Berlin, although the building was much smaller, and pristine. Down the street, the immense building which had housed Yugoslavia's Army Headquarters stood broken and empty, a corpse with a thousand shattered windows.  There was no more Yugoslavia after the war, so the building remains derelict. To an outsider, it looks like a scar. It seems that, for anyone living there, the scars are more political. As a citizen of a nation so recently at war, Peyota would need to pay 80 Euros and queue for a day at an embassy - with no guarantee of getting to the end of the line - to get permission to visit me and Brodos in England.Mind you, I wouldn't let him in my country. I duelled him a few times in WoW and he tore me to shreds. He's a monster. Next week: Gunshot.Read from the start:
|
Brodos makes this comment
Sat 26 Sep 2009 00:21:57 CDT