i had some high hopes for 2008 on elscorcho. obviously it has been better than 2007, but not near the golden age from college. which is fine, i guess, but we all deserve better. so, today, a story.

one of my friends at work, sam, entered a ping pong tournament with two other guys i know from work, roy and derek. i didn't sign up because i got caught up with some work, but i wanted to. regardless, i missed my chance, until sam got crazy sick last week and asked that i step in for him in his first round match.

now, sam's a good guy, but he's not that good at ping pong - he tries really hard, but he isn't that great at getting anything on his shots. i'm fairly confident that i'm better than sam at ping pong is what i'm getting at. so, after getting the lowdown on the first round opponent, i quickly offered to forfeit the match. twice. i said i wasn't sam and it wouldn't be fair to the integrity of the tournament if i played in his stead. i made it bigger than me or the opponent, mostly because i was concerned i'd win and then have the opponent complain that i was not, in fact, sam.

so i tried to forfeit twice and i was rejected twice. some suggested i throw the match, but that goes against my personal code - i'll forfeit, but niv doesn't take a dive for anyone. not for anyone! so we played and i won in 2 games 21-12 21-19. the second game seemed close, but i was in control for most of it. whatever, it was a fine match, not particularly hard, and i offered to forfeit one more time. of course, i was rejected again. apparently some people don't like making it to the second round without winning the first round.

since i was now in the second round, i told sam i was going to replace him in the tournament permanently. he agreed without much hesitation. THEN i saw roy's first round match. roy lost 21-10 21-4 to a player significantly better than both my first round opponent and myself. i guess i got ahead of myself - i also saw another first round match in which a player who was slightly better (maybe? maybe not) than roy's opponent was destroyed. so now having a feel for the tiers of talent, and knowing full well that i'm probably #12 amongst the 12 remaining players, maybe i should have left sam in the tournament. of course, i'm playing the guy who beat up on roy in the second round.

this is kind of rambling, but the end of it is that i invested in my own paddle and case this past weekend, because if i'm going to have any chance to continue onward, my equipment has to not be falling apart, and the common ping pong paddles in our game room are falling apart. i played my first round match with a paddle missing half of its handle, and it was the good one.

in looking for my own paddle, i stumbled into the intense world of competitive table tennis. we all know its kind of insane, but looking around on butterfly's website really took it to new heights for me. i did not make my own custom paddle using a blade and rubber kit, and i did not spend over $10 on my paddle. just for the record.

continuing on from that rambling mess of a story, i've been playing halo 3 pretty consistently since it came out last year. it's the go-to in my xbox, lurking to take over behind any new game i get. so, i've gotten semi-decent at the game now - i can hold my own in about 50% of the matches i play in, which i guess is how matchmaking should work ideally. however, i am not as good as these maniacs. if you have ever played halo 3, this video will hurt your brain. if you haven't, just try to parse the table tennis story instead.