thogs_travels is the Terminator. Personally, I have a hard time thinking of Duri as "Thog" his crack board and live journal name. My first impression of Duri is from a year or two ago at the Mercury. He was one of 2 or 3 tall guys with beards that would dance to angry songs. I'm not sure these guys even hung out together, but they seemed to be on the dance floor around the same time. Their expressions when dancing did not invite me to approach and say "hi" afterward. As if I would have approached anyone then anyway. But I don't recall seeing him smile much.
This year, my recollections of Duri more or less start sometime in late March. Maybe it was April. I had seen Thog on the crack board. I had connected that persona to the tall guy at the Mercury. burgunder was flirting with him. I still don't recall seeing him smile, except for at Kim.
Sometime in late May or June, wingedelf invited a bunch of people for food at the Bad JuJu before hitting the clubs one Friday. I had no idea the Bad JuJu even served food. After we had eaten and mostly finished conversing, Duri show up to get some food and to play on his handheld computer. Someone introduced him around, and I got a chance to talk to him while waiting in line to get drinks. I think the conversation was something about crack board names and how they stick.
Duri smiles a lot. And not the kind of smile that says he is going to eat you. He may ride a motorcycle, live the life of a semi-loner, and turn into raging killing machine in defense of his friends. But much of the time he is a huge dork. He has a goofy laugh. Incredibly nice guy. This is my view of him from all the chances I've had to talk with him since.
The third paint ball game we played yesterday was called "Terminator." The idea behind this game is that one person goes out into the field and hides. Then everyone else goes in after him. He can take as many hits as he can bear, but his pursuers are out as soon as they are shot. According to the refs, this game is usually over in a couple of minutes, as most people who take on the mantle of the Terminator give up after taking 5 or 6 hits. Duri gave up because he ran out of ammo and he couldn't see through all the paint on his goggles. He said afterward that he wanted to walk around and tell people to surrender (a tactic you can do if you get close to someone) then take their ammo, but he couldn't see well enough to do this.
To be clear, Duri ended up taking maybe 50 hits before he ran out of ammo. That's a lot of hits. He had welts all over his body. I took 4 hits over the course of the day that resulted in marks. Paint balls hurt. I got hit maybe 6 or 8 times in places that didn't have a lot of padding or were protected by my headgear. 50 hits is a lot. The paint ball referees, guys who see paint ball games all the time, were amazingly impressed. Duri is going to be one sore person for a few days at least.
So perhaps Duri is Thog after all.
Ed note (9/23): final count according to Thog is 141 welts. More than I estimated. Way more.
I enjoyed paint ball immensely. This was my first time ever. I figured I would suck. I didn't do completely horribly and I was starting to get the hang of it by the end of the day. Next time, I will have to start off with better gear. I was wearing Jason's (metalmensch) Army trench coat, as my clothing was pretty bright. I blended in much better, but the coat's length made crawling through brush and behind fallen logs difficult.
The first game, I hung back and played defensively. Eventually, Brett (wakko) and I moved forward and caught Deirdre (evillinn) and Raven (ravenmimura) in crossfire with another group that was shooting at them from another direction. I'm not sure if I am the one who took Deirdre out, or if it was Brett. I'm thinking I did, just so I can say I had a kill. Brett took out Raven.
Then I turned around and went back the other direction where another opponent was shooting down toward some other team mates of mine. I started shooting at him from a completely different direction. Since he couldn't shoot two directions at once, he stayed down for a few seconds, and alternated shooting at me and the other group. I crawled closer and started shooting from a prone position behind a rise and some ferns. He charged and jumped over me shooting down as he jumped. I was tagged 2 or 3 times and dead.
In later games, I started working with Scott (tasty_ghoul) hanging back and playing defense. Did all right when doing that, but when faced with numbers much greater, I had no clue what to do. In the general's game, Scott, I and one other person were defending the base against the final incursion of our opponents team with their general. They had sent through one person to harass us from the other side. We had him pinned down, but if we were to stop shooting at the harasser, he could pop up and tag us. That prevented us from defending as well against the general squad. I was on the side the general came up on. I thought they hit me, then I realized the paint ball didn't break. So I started shooting again, but they had used the quiet moment to move up even closer and as soon as I started shooting again they hit me. Scott's gun soon jammed and we were left with one remaining defender. He held them off for a bit. They won. Turns out our general squad had knocked off the last of their defenders and were about 5 seconds from ringing the bell themselves. Fun game.
I think that's enough paint ball stories for now.