Who will reign supreme! Well, it wasn't me, unfortunately. But pretty close.
After much trash talk at the last autocross, Travis stepped up and bought a ping pong table. Finally, a forum where those who think they have a game can step up and show what they're made of!
To give myself the best possible odds, I ordered a Butterfly Kyoshi from megaspin.net, in the hopes that a superior paddle could potentially make up for a lack of skills. It showed up at my door just one day before competition, perfect! Opened it up and it still smelled like glue. It was fantastic.
Onward to the competition, and an introduction of the four players:
Travis: table owner, therefore the home court advantage was his.
Clint: talked the least smack, but showed up anyway.
Kevin: claimed his asian heritage would guarantee a victory.
Myself: bringer of the secret weapon paddle.
After some warmup, it became clear that the competition was very close. Official rules were brought up on several occasions, only to be shot down by "no way, that's stupid", and house rules ended up taking over for the most part. Literally house rules, as were we playing inside the house. Don't go looking for the high lob shot from 10 feet behind the table! Blinding light from both sides of the table also resulted in countless excuses from all parties.
Several mini-tournaments were held. Some single-elimination, some double-elimination. Overall, I'd say Travis and Kevin won more often than lost, and seemed to split games between each other. I lost more than won, but still won a decent amount, and the games I lost were usually close. Clint came in fourth, but he talked the least trash, so I suppose that's an acceptable finish.
With this day of ping pong complete, what does the future bring? Rumor has it that Kevin plans to pick up a table of his own, but for outdoor use. Will the extra space available outside be as good as we hoped, or will the North Valley winds make play impossible? General consensus was that I had the liveliest paddle of the group, but who will buy their own Paddle of Mass Destruction? And will it even matter? Will new competitors show up to stake their claims?
Stay tuned for round two.
Posted by Ben at February 21, 2007 07:45 PMThanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)
(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)