The Greatest Night Ever: Part 2

Continued from Part 1. See link above.

Bored of poker because of our undiagnosed ADD, we quickly came to the decision that we had to go down to the basement and play on Ryan’s Xbox 360 with the controllers and games that I had brought. We tore down the stairs, into the basement, where, to our great disappointment, we discovered that Ryan forgot his video – sound cable for his game console (NOOOOOO!!!!!!!) Russell and Ryan both looked down to the ground in defeat. “It’s over” declared Russell. I looked at them both – square in the eye – and exclaimed “"What? Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now! 'Cause when the going gets tough…the tough get going! Who's with me? Let's go!…What the !@#$ happened to the Russell and Ryan I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts? Huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you're going to let it be the worst. 'Oh, we're afraid to go with you, man. We might get in trouble.' Well, just kiss my $%# from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this! That scary road? It’s a dead man. That Xbox? Dead! THAT 360 CABLE…!" “Dead!” pronounced Ryan and Russell in unison with sudden courage and inspiration. “Now let’s do this!” I cried, leading the charge out of the house and to Ryan’s car. Ryan started his engine and off we went.

I had thought that traveling down that twisty, windy, dangerous road in the pitch black night was scary enough when I was driving. I was wrong.

With Ryan driving, it was terrifying.

He drove the speed limit, but three teenagers, loud music, and the constant messing of the CD’s in the CD player do not a safe car trip make. Luckily we made it safely to Ryan’s house in my old neighborhood in one piece with only one incident; Ryan failed to see a parked car (That’d be something to tell the cops, “I swear sir, that parked car came outta nowhere!”), which Russell, thankfully, pointed out in time for Ryan to dodge it. We went inside Ryan’s house, instantly greeted by Ryan’s rather friendly and rather large dogs. Ryan ran off to grab his 360 cord leaving Russell and I behind to entertain his dogs. I petted and rubbed one dog while the other traveled around the corner with Russell disappearing closely after it. Next thing I know, the dog came sprinting around the corner, yelping, with Russell coming after it. The dog, apparently terrified of Russell (Who isn’t?), quickly scurried behind me, in an attempt to hide from him. Ryan came running back up to find a traumatized dog, a confused me, and a suspiciously quiet Russell. Ryan went off to comfort the dog, once again leaving me and Russell to stand there and wait. Soon finished, Ryan returned and we set off once again to destination known, making a minor detour at a deserted gas station, listening to many songs as we go. In fact we only actually finished one, very obscene, songs by The Lonely Island: “I’m on a Boat”  which we all sang badly off-key to (In fact I’m pretty sure that we killed a couple of deer that had heard us singing while driving along the road). We only listened to about thirty seconds of every other song by artists such as Styx, Michael Jackson, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Van Halen, Kenny Loggins, and REO Speedwagon. Ryan skipped songs and changed CD’s in his CD player like there was no tomorrow…and with Ryan’s driving, who really knew?

Back at Russell’s house, we charged back in to the basement finally ready to begin our entertaining night of gaming…and then realized that we didn’t know exactly how to do this. Surprisingly, we, some the best and brightest in the school, spent around half an hour trying to figure out just how to connect an Xbox 360 to a projector. In our defense though, Ryan and I spent most of the time trying to shoot coins with a snap of our fingers, while Russell tinkered with the projector. For five minutes alone, we took everything upstairs to troubleshoot and change settings on Russell’s TV. Baffled we go back downstairs, where Ryan and I figured out the answer to all of our problems, but Russell, being the naysayer that he is, disagreed so we cleverly sent him upstairs to google the answer while, unbeknownst to him, we set it up like we had wanted to. Genius. Our method worked and we high-fived triumphantly, while yelling for to come back down to realize the fruits of our labor: video games.

SHORYUKEN! We start off with Street Fighter IV, a game of pure chaos as we all take turns battling each other in multiple one versus one showdowns to the death. After that we play Star Wars: Battlefront II, in which I, playing as the Empire and the Droids, completely destroyed Russell and Ryan, playing as the Rebels and the Clones, in various two versus one matches involving the remarkable conquests of planets and spectacular ship-to-ship space battles. So many brave and good men were lost in these enormous battles. Next we played Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and to make a long story short, I demolished the opposition – Ryan and Russell – into oblivion. We came to the decision to stop playing after it became apparent that I was unbeatable in my 125-10 lead and had enough skill to single-handedly conquer my own country. Having worn out all competitive games in their entirety, we played a cooperative game together, Castle Crashers. In this period of time Russell drank about twelve mountain dews and made an almost equal number of trips to the bathroom, requiring us to pause the game aaaannnnnd wait each and every time (Thanks a lot Russell). Eventually we did the impossible, we became tired of video games and so we moved on…

CHARGE! The black and grey uniformed forces of the Tiberian Empire clash against the green and blue uniformed forces of the Skull Federation in South America, using their bayonets to deadly effect. The metal shines in the noon day sun and the yell and screams of the millions of fighting and dying men fill the air. Soon the battle ends, the armies of the Tiberian Empire victorious. Halfway across world the Tiberian Empire tries to end the Cold War like stalemate in Europe and Asia by invading the lands held by the People’s Republic of Sloan. Tens of millions of soldiers all across Europe and Asia battle with their red and yellow uniformed counterparts from the People’s Republic of Sloan. By the end of the month the Tiberian Empire had come, saw, and conquered, now controlling most of Asia, Europe, and North America, and all of South American and Africa.

“Pwned noobs” I proudly declared at the end of my turn in Risk. Russell began to babble incoherently and bash his head against the nearest wall while Ryan quietly sobbed in a corner. I pull out my cell phone and check the time – 6:30 – a.m. “Would you look at that!” I exclaim. Ryan and Russell look at me, “It’s time for me to go. Let’s count our regions and see who won.” Using my highly advanced brain I had already counted out the regions ahead of time though and knew that I had won. “Oh, would you look at that. It appears, Mr. Rusty and uh...Mr. Smith, that I have won.” I let that sink in a moment. I then let out whoop, “Victory! This day shall forever be known as V-T day, victory in the Tiberian Empire!” proceeded to badly sing, “Iiiiii am the champion my friiieeeeends, aaannnnd you couldn’t stop me in the eeeeennnd.” and then dance around the room terribly singing “Nananana dodo ehmehm can’t touch this. Nananana dodo ehmehm can’t touch this.” After boasting and tooting my horn until my heart’s content we all went back upstairs and left the house, walking back to our vehicles, conversing about our awesome night and how epic of a story it would make. Saying our goodbyes, we left. 

  The entire “purpose” of our night was to have the most epically awesome night ever in the history of the planet and – I have to say – we did it.