Top Ten and A Photonian Conversion

Sounds like an episode of the Big Bang Theory, doesn't it? More on that as we get there.

Several cool things happened at the laser tag center last night. First, the unexpectedness of walking up to buy my wristband for the night and being told that the owner had comped it and told the girl at the counter not to charge me. It was a nice gesture in thanks of a nice gesture and I appreciate it...thanks!

Next, the scoreboard with the top ten players list has been updated...and I'm on it!

As this was the first time my average would qualify for consideration I was interested to see whether it was high enough to land on the board. I suspected that after the last few "educational" rounds that it might be lowered enough to be right on the fringe...I was right and only by the skin of my teeth did my average hold, but at least my name is up there. My goal was to make the list in the first month I was eligible and, cool, it happened. I'm not suggesting this particular average is the triumph of all laser tag (far from it) and it was pointed out to me that there's small triumph in following someone who uses the name "I Lick Windows" (ahh...what's in a name), but still, not bad for openers. Next month's goal will be to raise that average back to where I can hopefully rise higher on the list. It will mean playing again as Tivia instead of what I've been doing (practicing under my other membership). However, I think it can...and will...be accomplished.

In the briefing room for the first game after I arrived there was a decent sized group and above the din someone calls out "Can we play Photon?" Ah...the young guy from the last couple of weeks has returned and is requesting his new favorite game. Love it! Although the owner (also acting as game master for the night) points out that there are only three people in the room that would know or enjoy playing Photon (as he points to himself, me and the guy who suggested it), it's quite cool to me that it's now even on the radar. This is what I call the Photonian conversion. Someone who did not experience Photon firsthand (there's a big age disparity even between me and gen 1 players, let alone this guy), had never even heard of the game before is now requesting it every week. I am going to take a bit of credit for that...hell, I'm going to take all the credit for introducing him to it since up until a couple of weeks ago he had no idea such a game existed. We brought one over to the light :) I happily took this opportunity to pull up some photos of me at Phocon wearing the original Photon equipment and showing him what it was like. Ah, the memories.

Well, we didn't actually play Photon this night, which was fine because my purpose right now is to improve my Laserforce skills before the Armageddon tournament, so I signed in as Tiv-D...this has its own set of pros and cons. My first couple of scores were good and I would have liked to have them count towards boosting my average on my other membership. However, I think it's more important right now that I put the emphasis on developing my skills ahead of racking up points. Still, it's going to be interesting discerning which games are best for practice at this point versus which games will help contribute to my high score goals. Ideally they will soon begin to blend, but I am very focused on achieving specific things and for the time being I'm going to do what I think will help me most in the end run without sweating the scores. In a backwards kind of way that's one of the great things about Photon...if it were considered a standard game (which it is not) there would be no question about how it would impact my average...it would kill it every time :)

If you have comments or questions please visit my websites at www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com or email me at tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com.