![[Get Opera for Windows!]](http://www.opera.com/banners/win/600/ow600_01mic.png){kind=small}
2001-07-24 - 12:40 a.m.
Monster Paintball
OK, first, let's focus on the main fact of the weekend: It was hot. Normally I can live with hot, because I've got central air. However, this weekend I spent playing paintball. The paintball field, being outdoors, lacks air conditioning. I view this, along with biting insects, as the main problem with the entire idea of "outdoors."
Anyway, the heat was made worse by the fact that it was the hottest it's been all year. I've found that if I work out in 90 degree weather, I can play paintball in such weather for a few hours and get away with it. Since I got the Bowflex I've been working out in 75 degree weather. Oops. Also, it barely got above 85 all summer anyway. Until Saturday. When it was 90. And muggy. And we were scheduled to play paintball all day.
It was the Michigan Monster Game, you see, with as many as 1500 people playing. In the Monster Game format, you don't have a 20-minute time limit. You play until you get shot out or three hours go by. Then you get reinserted anyway. As a result, it pays to carry every pound of ammunition and air you can. It's very sad when you have to leave the game not because you got shot, but because you ran out of supplies. That's doubly true when you consider that the opposing team scores at least one point every time you enter the field. (In theory the points are scored for kills, but in practice it's impossible for the outnumbered referees to count eliminated players, so they count reinserted players instead.)
The upshot of all this is: heat exhaustion. Between the hot air, the humidity, the oven-like effect of the dust bowl that is the dead zone at Hell's Survivors, the need to wear thick clothes and knee pads for protection, and the desire to carry as much gear as possible, we all set ourselves up for serious pain.
On the plus side, we (Shade, Yarg, the Redneck from Hell, and I) got to see our buddies Gumby, Conan, and Weltman. We got to run around the woods shooting fully automatic paintball guns. I don't normally use the full auto option; they're not as accurate as I like and it costs a lot to keep them in paint. For the Monster Game, though, they rule.
In normal paintball, you might have 25 people per team, tops. You eliminate one player, you move up to get a better angle on the next one, and eventually you triumph. In the Monster Game, you travel in platoons, and every guy you kill is a statistic. Mass makes the difference, not picking up a small position here or there. Normal paintball guns, even the notorious Angel, don't have the power to push people around without a lot of people firing. But the AT-85R, the type of gun we all carried, is different. It uses a chain drive, and there's something about the sound that says, "you're being shot at by a machine gun." That mechanical chatter evokes memories of war movies and creates a primal desire not to be shot at. In other words, it scares people.
So all four of us carry them.
Anyway, we got in about 2 1/2 hours of paintball in the morning the first day, and another hour in the afternoon, but after that we were done for. That night we bought more Gatorade and some camp chairs. Sunday morning we came back for more.
Sunday went the same except it was sunnier. And it seemed hotter. We managed a good show in the morning, but I was the only one even considering playing through the afternoon, and I didn't feel like doing it as a solo act. So we packed it in early, leaving us to anticipate next year's game. And leaving me just as glad that I won't be playing any more paintball for a couple weeks.
I expect to leave the game with the typical bruises left by paintballs. They look ugly, but they don't really hurt. After two days of the Monster Game, though, I have welts with bruises on them. Medic!
