Andrew reacts and then blames Satan

So by now you've all read Andrew's blog. And if you've ever played Street Fighter 2 for Super Nintendo you probably laughed pretty hard. It paints a perfect picture of the game. A game that drives you to play better so you can hear the voice say, "PERFECT!" when you secure a flawless victory. The game does breed competitiveness. I used to be a product of it's competition. One time I lost to Andrew and our roommate Jordan so many times that I let out a tirade of "f-bombs" so fierce and so horrible that Andrew and Jordan just looked at me and started laughing. I had offended so much that it went past shock and disgust level and went straight towards laughter. After this Andrew and I created a system to help keep each other from swearing. Every time one of us swears we owed a dollar to the other person. Seeing as how money never changed hands, we then resorted to punching one another. This system is working much better. Although the last time we were together we spent a large amount of time spelling swear words instead. "Oh c'mon son of a b-i-t-c-h-!" Hmmmmm ....

I digress. After playing my friend Joe who isn't very good at Street Fighter 2 and getting creamed, I decided it was time to put down the controller. I needed to go deep within myself and find the source of the problem, or at least a temporary cure. I decided that perhaps I was not as good at Street Fighter as I had originally determined, but at times got lucky or hit hot runs. How could this be possible? Video games are designed to put people on an even playing field. Take away the fact that I am fatter than Andrew. Take away the fact that he's faster than me. It creates people who have strengths that offset the fact they're fat (E. Honda hurling himself across the screen and yelling Doof Gooey) or the fact that they may be smaller (Dhalsim being able to stretch across the screen or throw fire). All things in Video Game Land are even. There is no room in video games for luck I thought. This my friends is not true.

It still happens today on your X-Box or your PS2, but it happens WAAAAAAY more often in Super Nintendo. You hit the block button for Ryu and somehow, SOMEHOW, Ken's foot gets through your hand it kicks you in the head dropping your health some 25%. You cry out, as Andrew often does, "No way. NO FU$&*#G WAY! I BLOCKED THAT!!" This is usually followed by Andrew chucking the controller at say our sliding glass door. What we don't know, but what usually happens I'm sure, is the 2nd grade kid next door hears this and goes crying to his mother out of fear. Fear that this man might bust through the wall and inflict harm on him or start hurting his ears with curse words again. But the point is Super Nintendo is an inexact science. If you're in the general vicinity it's going to count as a hit. Even if the fire barely touches your ankle, your whole body is ENGULFED in flames causing MASSIVE damage. This dawned on me. That's how you can get lucky. You get the other person frustrated. They begin mashing buttons even more. Next thing you know things aren't as precise with them, in an already inexact game, and you have a couple wins come rolling your way.

This is probably how I beat Andrew 4 or 5 straight times with Zangief. I'll let that sink in.

I beat him with Zangief ... multiple times.

Zangief, or the Big Red Machine as I like to think of him as, is just that, a huge communist. He can shoot no projectiles, he has zero speed, and he has the hops of a white kid with a disability. This guy is bad. But as Andrew kept running at me I'd just keep throwing kicks at him hoping that they'd land in the area and count. Which is exactly what happened. My demons had been exorcised. I didn't blame my fault on Satan and now rarely get extremely pissed while playing. Even though I lost more than I won that night, I was alright with it for the most part.

Andrew has yet to find this out. He still takes losses personally, and allows the competitive spirit within to begin shouting many a profane word and he starts physically throwing stuff. I've actually seen him expectorate on the floor in anger. Yes on our carpet. After he lost once he turned to the left, chucked the controller, and I had to put my foot up to keep it from shattering our sliding glass door. My foot instantly welled up red. You would think this injury incurred in real life, not on the video game screen would have curbed Andrew's real life anger. No. After some other loss later that evening he began to throw his controller like a baby, let out some unmentionable "You gotta be fu%^&ng kidding me. This game is complete bull s@#t.", and began throwing things. He threw pillows, the threw our little round chair over, he threw couch cushions, soft foam coolers, and other items such as magazines. It was a baby tirade to end all baby tirades.

So Andrew says Street Fighter 2 was invented by the devil. I disagree. I think Andrew just hasn't been man enough to look inside himself and realize it's a game. He hasn't seen the inexact program that Super Nintendo is. Sometime you should ask Andrew about how fiercely competitive he is in one-on-one sports. Ask him about his pitching wedge in golf. Or that time in racquetball what happened to his racquet? It's only a matter of time before I can add to that list, "Andrew what happened to the sliding glass door? or Andrew what happened to that shattered SNES controller?"

Just thought you'd like to know the real truth about Street Fighter. It's not that it was invented by Satan. It's that Andrew has a fiercely horrible and diabolical competitive streak. That said I'm off to play Madden on my Playstation. Have a good one guys.