My First "LAN"

I digress from the research and grad school themed posts to bring you one STRAIGHT OUT OF FUN LAND. Last night, I had an epic evening.

(Random thought: You know how you can say "evar" and put some sort of internet spin on the meaning of the word ever? I think epic has started to become overused and we need a new spelling/saying of it as well. Maybe EPUC or something.)

After a very long afternoon chasing keys (long story, won't go into it), I finally embarked on my role-playing, taco-eating, mountain dew-drinking, zombie-killing evening. Nobody reads my blog, but okay, I will admit it. I am a nerd. There, I said it. I've recently joined a tabletop role playing game known as Star Wars Saga Edition (or SWSE) for short. Think of it as a Star Wars themed Dungeons and Dragons. We role dice and talk about star wars and it's pretty cool. There are usually tacos involved as there is a Taco Bell near the house we generally play at. All-in-all, it is good times.

I've also been playing some video games with the guys involved in SWSE. One of these video games is Left 4 Dead. Here is a brief synopsis: Zombie invasion. You and three other players (Yes this is where the 4 comes from) must shoot and esplode your way through several levels of zombies before you can meet up with the rescue convoy. There are general "horde" zombies, and there are special zombies. These are hunters, smokers, tanks, boomers, and witches. These throw in more interesting situations than just BANG BANG BANG KILL ZOMBIES RAWR.

Anyway, this is a game created by Valve. There are several achievements you can unlock, one called ZOMBIE GENOCIDEST in which you must kill 53,595 zombies. This is a cumulative number and can be achieved over weeks or months of play. From a total zombie kill number of approximately 22,000, he was bet that he couldn't reach the magical 53,000 number in 24 hours. So, after SWSE, we travelled back to Moose's apartment and got ready for a VERY long day. We started playing at about 1am and basically played for 8 hours straight with a very specific strategy, running the starting area of one level OVER AND OVER again. I would not fire shots, and he would basically get all of the shots and kills from explosives. After lots of mountain dew and caffiene, by 9:30am, he had over 51,000 kills. EPUC.

At 9:30, I brought Moose to class and we called it "a night." I crawled into my bed at about 11am, but have been unable to sleep due to random techno music coming from one of the neighbors.

Perhaps I'll post about stochastic simulation later today if I still cannot sleep.