Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

I was something of a rebel in my youth.

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Long hair, piercings, and every bad "rebel without a cause, Lost Boy wanna-be" cliché that you could think of. In the summers it was the skateboard up and down the mall, out running mall cops and laughing in my badly ripped acid-wash jeans.

But in the winter?

In the winter it was snowboarding.

There was just something invigorating, almost magical about pissing off skiers as you whizzed by in a blur of snow and disregard for the safety of others. Snowboarding was fun, snowboarding was freeing, and snowboarding was something that I gave up years ago.

And I have no idea why.

I was working on my truck the day after a heavy snow fall when I noticed my daughter and a group of barely-teens snowboarding down the steep hill we have in the back lot. It isn't a mountain by any stretch of the imagination, but given the right conditions - you can really pick up some speed. They went up and down, falling and laughing with the "my bones are still forming and thus made out of rubber" energy only youth can bring, and as they drew nearer, I grinned to my daughter and nodded to the snowboard.

"I used to snowboard." I grinned, the cool guy that I am.

"Yeah RIGHT. You're too OLD to snowboard." They laughed at me as if I were an 80 year old geezer regaling tales of my youth from the front porch. I was insulted, a bit miffed, and god damn it - not OLD at all. I mean I'm 34. It wasn't THAT long ago that I was pissing off the "grown ups" and tearing up the hillside to the anger of skiers everywhere. I'm still YOUNG, right?

Before I could whack them with my walking stick and yell at them for being on my lawn, one of the little punks thrust a well worn snowboard towards me and uttered the words that no REAL man can ignore.

"Prove it."

A line had been drawn in the sand... er... snow.

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Without hesitating I grabbed the snowboard and walked defiantly towards the hill, which looked a LOT steeper now that I had a snowboard in my hands. I slid my feet into the straps and buckled down as I wobbled unsteadily.

This wasn't like the snowboards that we had growing up. This was a cut, curved, honed, and finely tuned instrument of shredding. Not the raw cut pieces of lumber that we used to strap ourselves to....

...but still they were watching, and laughing...and so I inched hesitantly towards the hill and...

They pushed me.

One minute I'm wobbling on the board and trying to get a feel for the device, the next - I'm flying towards certain death at ungodly speeds. When suddenly...

...it ALL came back to me.

Balance restored, feeling for the board found - I was young again. The wobble gone, my senses back, I was riding a snowboard for the first time in years, and I hadn't lost ANY of that youthful edge that I used to have. I even showed off a bit for the whippersnappers as I jumped up and gave a quick 360 spin, laughing inwardly as I heard them hoot and holler in disbelief.

I pulled it off without effort and it felt GREAT! I felt amazing, I felt alive! The wind and the snow whistling past my ears, the cold frost biting at my face, it felt GOOD, and for the life of me I couldn't remember as to WHY I had given it up!

Then the edge of my snowboard hit a rut in the snow.

Not a deep rut, but just harsh enough to cause me to tip straight forward at 900 million miles an hour without any time at all to break my fall. In fact, by the time that my brain had registered that I was falling, I had already smashed into the hillside with the impact of a comet colliding with the moon.

One minute I'm a man remembering and recapturing his youth as he zipped deftly down a hillside in defiance of age, or the youngsters that he's trying to impress - the next, I'm just laying there, imprinted on the side of the hill like a really pale gingerbread man who is trying to make a snow angel.

And it hurts.

It hurts A LOT.

What you have to try to envision is 175 pounds of 30-something coming to a complete stop in a split second. I didn't bounce, I didn't roll, I didn't tumble and slide down the hill. I stopped. Completely. And in doing so, I shattered like glass.

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Or at least that's how it felt.

Broken.

But I'd be DAMNED if I was going to let THEM know that.

The hoots and hollers of encouragement transformed into sharp, biting laughter that would have pained my ears if I knew where they were, and a moment later tell-tale snow crunching gave way to the snowboarders who had dared me to prove them wrong.

"Daaamn. You okay man?" They laughed youthfully as I lay there like an indent on the hillside, my nipples spinning like two coins on the frozen snow by my head.

"Feh. Meh murglepluff." I said cockily as I tried to act unfazed, despite the fact that my liver was slowly sliding away in a long oozing red trail of gore. If I could have located all of the pieces to my hand I would have given a thumbs up to signify my well being, but since I couldn't, I lay there nonchalantly and coolly prayed for death.

"We were wrong man." One of them laughed as he offered a hand to help me up. "I wish my dad could do a 360!" He said in a bit of awe and admiration. I had done it. I had proven that I was still young! That youth hadn't left me and that I was able, when need be, to jump feet first into the fray and battle with the best of them.

Even though it had apparently killed me.

Snowboard returned to its owner, youth taught a valuable lesson by age and wisdom, I walked off in victory, trying desperately not to cry like a baby with each agony inducing step as they watched me leave.

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I hurt.

A LOT.

And at that very moment I remembered exactly WHY I had given up snowboarding:

Because falling down SUCKS.

When you get older, you don't bounce back with the speed or uncaring energy of youth. You lay there, hurting like that old broad from the life alert commercials who has fallen, and can't get up.

So I admit defeat.

The young can have the snowboarding and skateboarding, and extreme sports that involve things like abdominal muscles and spray on tans.

I don't need'em.

Because I have my video games, and behind them - years of experience. Young, old, in shape or out, video games are the ultimate level playing field, and upon it - I am a master.

Or...I will be...as soon as I can move my fingers again.

-Coyote