The first couple of games were spent playing speedball. Cool stuff! They had a big field set up with all sorts of "bunkers" to hide behind:
big wooden spools, old cars painted with primer, old drink machines, huge sheets of plywood, netting to look out and see the field at home base. The game is 10 minutes and your objective is to eliminate the other team or time runs out and you have a tie. Each team has someone stay at the netting and call out other teams location. This is key to knowing where to direct fire and pinning the other team down, and also knowing where people are hiding so you don't get hit cross field. In an ideal world you don't get eliminated in the 1st minute.. Doh... thank god this isn't real.

There are your recreational paintballers such as myself...I've played 2 times now, I rent my gun from the field, it hooks, it slices, it shoots high, or low, it's basically random. Bernoulli couldn't explain how this gun aims. Then you have your weekend warrior types who buy their own guns...$700 for the gun, $300 for the special air cannister. These guys are 28 and talk about what it was like back in "Namm" You could hit a quarter from a mile away with their guns....17 times in one second...and that's on semi-automatic mode. So this guy insisted on bringing his gun, and shoots everyone on our team the first match. @#$@#!

It was terrible the things I saw happen, and they were just boys!!!! Paint on the mask!!! At least I didn't eat paint this time. *spit* Anyhow... I managed to get shot a lot... It doesn't help to be too aggressive. The best matches were the capture the flag in the forest. Uhhh... someone was supposed to stay at home base and actually guard that. Well the camoflage finally paid off and I lived. After the game was over I got lit up ..."god damn it" I mean I've heard of some Japanese being found on islands who didn't get word that WWII was over but this was ridiculous. The #@$@#$ game is over.

Our crew enjoyed some R&R and delicious rations... 80 pack of hotdogs cooked up right on the gas grill. Proper!

Anyhow I managed to have a good game... crawled to the rusted automobiles and shot 1... ran up to someones bunker to tap on it (counts as a kill), then should have had the guy with the Guns of Navarrone but I could have been more accurate throwing the paintball than with that gun. Finally got eliminated.

So we played a some more...It's around 2:45...I pack up the car while John plays out the last 2 games...I'm out of paint and ready to go catch the end of Virginia Tech but decided to not be a whiner and waited patiently for the games end. These kids are playing and they all have the $2000 sniper rifle paintball guns...huge cannisters of extra paintballs. They're good too! It's toward the end of the game...Sadler makes a be-line for the old drink machine...he stumbles and hits his head crying out, I'm just like WTF?!? watching this happen from about 25 feet away from behind the net. call 911 I broke my leg. oh shit. and he sure did... leg one way foot the other... ouch This outright has to suck worse than anything I've ever seen happen to anyone... falling off my bike and smashing my mouth when I was 8 was no picnic either. My teeth ended up straightening out and didn't have to get braces. Weird.... ok... Fortunately no bleeding, no protrusion, and he's really calmly dealing with the pain. Ambulance gets there and they give him morphine... Get him on the stretcher.. Oooops, we put him on the wrong way...leg is at the head part.. OK now this is killing me !! That's me talking, not john.

It took a while to get to the hospital... following it at 70mph with the hazards on... I felt kool. Jeesh people are damn idiots. Get out of the way.

he's getting surgery tuesday, ankle disclocated, shattered shinbone... ouch! Gonna put a screw in that.
(gotta run)

Later,
Jah Rome