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PAX 2007: LAN parties terrify me

4:04 PM on 08.26.2007   |   Nex

PAX 2007: LAN parties terrify me photo

One of the big draws for PAX is the ability for people all over the world to meet in a centralized location with a couple hundred like-minded geeks for an orgy of blood and erratic jumping courtesy of the magic of an ethernet cable.

For the past three days, in a room directly across from where all the fancy, shiny new titles are being shown off, sit hundreds of people bathed in the luminescent glow of the cathode ray tube (or glowing liquid crystals if your pedantry is such that you MUST screw with my phrasing). From the crack of mid-morning until well after everyone else has gone off to kill their brain cells with booze and falling off of beds into hard, sharp tables, they've been locked into their various virtual worlds -- chief among them: Counterstrike, Halflife and the various flavors of Battlefield.

As much as I could go on for days about these virtual warriors -- perhaps an epic poem like Gilgamesh sans the flood and with more back hair -- the entire thing really struck me as terrifyingly eerie. Walking through the rows of computers and people completely transfixed by said computers, you get the sensation of having stepped into a Gibsonian future dystopia where the line between human and machine has blurred into a disgusting slurry of liquid fat and silicon.

After today I'm growing a beard and moving to a cabin in the woods. If the flying robotic squids ask, tell them I'm washing my hair. 








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8 comments | showing # 1 to 8
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Jark212's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/26/2007 16:31
Jark212
do those machines include sexy androids???
Aaron Mxy Yost's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/26/2007 16:36
Aaron Mxy Yost
LAN parties are awesome when you have around 4-8 people hooked in together... then it starts to get a little creepy.
Pangloss's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/26/2007 17:36
Pangloss
I love a good LAN, but what really baffles me is all the people lanning it up with Battlefield and Counterstrike et al. when new games are being shown off in the next room over.
Wedge's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/26/2007 23:18
Wedge
I went in there for an hour at the end of the day. The rigs in there were absolute top of the line, and there were tons of them. It was pretty funny to see people playing CS on those (total overkill). Also I played this awesome game that had guns, blood, and balls. It was not an FPS. I can't remember what IT was called actually, but it fucking ruled.
Doomtrain's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/26/2007 23:24
Doomtrain
Me and my friends loving getting together with a few dozen pizzas, few cases of Rolling Rock, and our computers. Nothing beats throwing down in your favorite games with all of your opponents in the same room. Much, much more fun that playing with the same people over the internet.
Snaileb 's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/27/2007 09:08
Snaileb
...sounds like fun really.

908peruvian's Avatar - Comment posted on 08/27/2007 11:33
908peruvian
i'm all for LAN's

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