days of yore

Last week I had the opportunity to visit friends I haven't seen in a while. Justin x Monica got married a few months back and it's impressive to see them flourish - they've got a wonderful place in MacEwan and a beautiful life ahead of them.

I knew Justin since early junior high, when I transferred into his class after making the A.C. program (how little it matters now...). Having a common trait of playing way too many games, we hit it off pretty quickly. He introduced me to Fragapalooza and I showed him how to do Misty 1960s on X Games Pro Boarder. We are officially credited with bringing Counterstrike to our school back when people only played de_dust because it was like one of three levels, and we probably made VB's only clan (Clan Tichi).

Those were honestly the days. We reminisced about BMW Films and Clive Owen's first huge hit in Star, and how every role since then is minuscule in comparison to how great he was back in the day. I remember Madonna actually had bruises from the stunt man's driving, which is impressive - all the bumping around you see is completely real. You see BMW Films basically changed the internet by introducing high quality videos to the public featuring some world renown actors and directors - Marilyn Manson, Adriana Lima, Mickey Rourke, Forest Whittaker, Ang Lee, Guy Ritchi, John Woo...just to name a few. It revolutionized the age and brought viral to the world. It was all we could do but shiver in anticipation as we awaited the next episode.

We played online You Don't Know Jack, probably the world's best trivia game, because we couldn't install the original disc due to incompatibility with Windows 7. We thought back to hours spent in computer class clicking when playing the online StarCraft ripoff Nexus, which doesn't exist anymore but consisted of killing Zergling and Hydralisks, upgrading your cash flow and buying weapons so you could dominate. Our friend Jeff was among the top 10 in the world in that game, and it consumed our lives then.

How much has changed since those days. We're all focused on midterms, finances, babies. Try to remember something you did back in the day and go do it - the nostalgia is exhilarating.