Happy Halloween...(aka Supergirl Shoots at Harley Quinn)

I went out for some laser tag over the Halloween weekend and arrived dressed as I typically am when I play tag...t-shirt, jeans, sneakers and my signature Photon cap. And when I walked in there was a big crowd of people who were wearing regular street clothes. Then in walked Harley Quinn...no, not Kevin Smith's daughter (lol), but a teenager dressed as the comic character. I give this girl props for two reasons...one, it takes guts to walk into a room and be the only person in costume (there was intended to be a costume contest that night, but it didn't take hold with the majority of the players) and two, in a head to toe red and black velvet bodysuit she must have been sweating bullets to wear that while playing. Well, we played a few games and the thought occurs to me that I actually have a costume of my own in my car. So, in the middle of the evening I decide to throw on my Supergirl costume and chase Harley Quinn around the arena in full Halloween spirit.

To be honest I only stayed in my costume for one game (I was dying from the heat!) before I changed back into street clothes, but it was fun to get into the Halloween mood by dressing up.

Alex showed up in monster make-up that would have been even more impressive if he hadn't sweat most of it off (the practicality of wearing a full costume for tag is a little bit lacking).

And no sooner had I changed out of my costume did someone else put on (for all of about five minutes) an inflatable Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man costume. They held a really casual contest which the Marshmallow Man won, but I must say Harley probably equally deserved simply for surviving playing tag all night in her outfit. Well, all the runner-ups got treated to a free slushie, which was good enough for me!

I had no sights on even being in a costume contest, but what I did want to do was make sure I played rotating all my membership cards, which I did. Why? To make sure to keep my averages up and my status active on them all. You see, the top ten board was updated since the last time I was there. Although I am still on it I did drop a couple of spots, so I guess I need to make a more conscious effort of playing smartly with my accounts.

But that gives me something to strive for next time around. This night was just about playing for fun...and if these photos don't say "fun time at tag" I don't know what else would!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Testing a New Way to Play Laser Tag

When George Carter III, the inventor of the original laser tag (Photon) ended his interview with me in July 2015 by saying "Stay tuned, I'm working on a new way to play laser tag and you'll hear about it next year. I'll put you on the press release list" you can bet I was intrigued. I've been keeping my eye on his TZUUM project all summer so of course I was excited to receive this message in my email...

"Congratulations! You have been selected to join the TZUUM closed beta! You can be playing by this weekend."

I'm not sure I should say too much about the game itself at this point other than to tell you that it is a blast to play using just my cell phone and I feel really privileged to get to be a beta tester for this new game. Since getting my access code I have had a chance to test it out with one of my coworkers throughout my office (the footage from the security cameras must have been interesting!) and across a pretty good distance on the grounds outside. Look in the distance and you can see how far we tested it.

I am really loving this and can't wait to try it out further with some of my other tag friends!

If you want to learn more about this latest innovation in laser tag check out www.tzuum.com.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Photon Authority? I'll Take It. :)

While visiting the Laser Tag Museum's website (www.lasertagmuseum.com) I recently found something rather flattering. It was a reference to the interview and video I had made a couple months back with the museum curator, Erik Guthrie.

http://www.lasertagmuseum.com/laser-tag-news/2016-news/entry/2016/08/06/laser-tag-museum-interview-with-tivia-chick

You could have knocked me over when I saw this! What I find really cool about this is reading in print that someone actually considers me "the world's authority on the Photon television series". Over the last couple of years I have been working hard to document and preserve this facet of the laser tag history and it's quite nice to be recognized like this in a blog article (or should that be "ARRticle"...lol) for the museum. I feel very fortunate that so many of the people involved with Photon have agreed to talk with me and share their memories so that this element inspired by the original laser tag can be remembered nostalgically over thirty years after the fact. I am constantly trying to add to the collection of Photon history that I have been amassing. Here are a few of the latest gems that will soon be added to www.photonforever.com.

And if you missed the video the first time around you can check it out here. It's a tour of the Laser Tag Museum's spectacular collection. Enjoy!

Comments or questions?
Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com
Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com
Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Partners Tournament

Last night was the Partners Tournament in Syracuse and it made for a really good night of tag. I think competition can be a really healthy way of making people step it up...even though in Syracuse it seems that simply showing up is half the battle!

Razz and I were the first team partnered up about a month ago, so we were solid going in. In typical fashion some of the other teams were forming at the last minute, but that didn't negate the quality of the performance they brought. I was glad there was decent competition. I was also glad that we were keeping the lead as we pulled first place all the way through the preliminary games. Three teams of two players each went in each round. Out of five prelims that we played we came in first four times and second only once. It was enough to keep us in first as the top seeded team going into finals. It was also a good ego boost to earn some respect for that as one of the other teams commented that they really underestimated us. Smile at that. :)

The finals came down to one game played among the top three teams. Going in as the top seed we opted to play green knowing that the next team was likely to pick red to keep the final team on blue for the main purpose of keeping them from cycling on center. Frankly I think this game simply boiled down to stamina. Cody was as "hyper" as ever (that's a joke...go back in this blog and during my first tourney before I knew people's names I nicknamed the players of one team Tall, Hyper and Crankypants) so he was an energy force to be reckoned with. Honestly I didn't feel like I was seeing enough of the other players in the arena to pull enough hits for the points we needed. I know Razz felt like he ran out of steam mid-round too, so it wasn't our best game of the night. Really, that's the kicker since we had been so "on" for the whole night up until that point. So we ended up taking second place in the finals in what turned out to be a very last moment turnover for that spot. Congrats to Ass and Nate for taking first. Meanwhile, the fight for second was close and came down to this...

Two shots in the final seconds of the game are what determined our placement in this tournament. I got one last blaze of glory shot off on Cody. Then his partner inadvertently shot him as well! Those two shots flipped the placement between second and third making this a really close game in that respect.

Well, second place is still a respectable standing and again, I congratulate the winners and all the other teams we played against. And it was a cash tournament so we basically covered our investment while having a good time, so it's all good!

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com

Hello Helios Pro!

Last night I went out to Albany to support Zero Gravity with their first weekend operating with the Helios Pro equipment. Although it's bittersweet because I do have a soft spot in my heart for Infusion, this is a big step forward and I was excited to play a few rounds. I said I would only play moderately to save my full force for the next day's tournament...ha! Well, I really didn't go full out, but I did play about 10 back to back games and had a blast with the various players who came out to experience the new system.

I haven't gotten to play a tremendous amount of Helios Pro games in public matches...actually most of my experience with it came during last year's Philly Invites, so this was a night of learning and experimenting. They have installed gems throughout the arena for power-ups. At one point I decided to wait to get my base until I had the "multiply score" come up...however it didn't actually multiply my base score...well, good to find out now, so I don't waste effort trying to make that happen. I enjoyed getting my shot timing down and felt like I had pretty much gotten the rhythm after the first game.

The evening ended with a round of free for all. I hadn't intended to keep going that long...but who could resist.

Then it was back home early (relatively) for a Saturday night at tag. Had to return to check in on my new pet. I just adopted a baby gecko and I have named him Leon. A few of you might understand the laser tag symbolism in that. If not, maybe this photo will make it more evident...

Can't wait to get back to Albany again. Had a great time and I look forward to seeing what they do to grow their member base and competitive scene now.

Comments or questions?

Contact: tivia@tiviachickloveslasertag.com

Websites: www.tiviachickloveslasertag.com and www.photonforever.com

Blog: tiviachickloveslasertag.blogspot.com