2006 SUMMER THERE GAMES UPDATE

 By Rick_Slick

This summer brings us some increased competition and excitement as my fellow GREEN teammates are pretending to give other teams a shot at the gold medal this year.  Instead of completely ignoring all the events while buying RavenTresses presents and telling her how pretty she is, and then joining in the celebration when GREEN sweeps the gold medal as if I contributed in any way, shape, or form to their victory, I decided that I might come out and participate in a few events this time around.  What a treat it must be for my fellow GREEN nametag crew to come to the realization that I'm part of their team, therefore making the team totally awesome!  Also, it helps that other There celebrities such as There Fashion Challenge designer Elaur and fellow There staff ranter, er, I mean writer, Parker are also on our team! 

Here's a quick rundown of my experiences in this year's There Games, most of which involved self-humiliation and general embarrassment for myself and the rest of my team due to my lack of ability to do anything right.  The first event I attended was a paintball event of some sort, where the top three players in each round were recorded and won points for their team.  I incorrectly assumed that 10 years of playing paintball in real life, followed by 4 years of military service, in addition to dozens of hours of game time logged on Rainbow Six, Battlefield 2, and other first-person shooters would give me any sort of advantage on the There paintball field.  My keen mastery of field tactics, communication, Bond movies, camouflage, cover, concealment, and precision sharpshooting were no match for two women in pink bunny slippers with paintguns who double-teamed me while I was trying to go for a flag.  Good game GREEN team!  Walk it off!  I blamed the entire ordeal on lag and some potato chip crumbs stuck underneath the arrow keys on my keyboard. 

 

The next event I attended was one of those well thought-out contests of skill and intelligence where all you have to do is show up, stand there, and be counted.  What a perfect event for people like myself who have no eye-hand coordination or sense of timing!  If only this could be a sport in the real Olympics!  As an added bonus, you got extra points for wearing something in the color of your nametag!  Because I don't normally go around dressed up like some sort of freak leprechaun, I had to buy some green clothes right quick in order to hornswaggle GREEN some extra points.  While other teams hatched different plots to trick my team into teleporting to Karuna for some "free Therebucks" -- which I fell for only three times, by the way -- my masterful plan was to just simply walk up to another team and tell them in an official-sounding voice that they had all been counted and thanks for coming out.  Unfortunately, I didn't see the event hostess, Mackie, standing right there, quickly telling everyone not to fall for my gag by leaving.  Curses, foiled again!  However, awesome turn out for my GREEN team, who managed to snag 2nd place, I think.   Pfffft... when you're as awesome as we are, who really needs to count points?  Points are for teams who think they have a chance at beating us. 

My favorite event of all was Dihtri's WORD SCRAMBLER, which ironically, did not involve us having to scramble up any words.  It turned out that she had pre-scrambled them for us, and then we scored points by unscrambling them, which might lead one to believe the event was fixin' to be called WORD UNSCRAMBLER, but when I pointed this out I was pretty much just told to shut my trap and earn some points.  This event pretty much taught me that I'm not very good at words in general.  Now if this had been MATH SCRAMBLER or something with numbers or plus signs, then everyone would have been in very big trouble.  Someone on the purple team single-handedly whooped us all... I think she reads the dictionary for pleasure or something.  The only points I received for unscrambling these There- or There Games-related words was when I cleverly distracted my purple-nametagged opponent with sexual innuendo so she couldn't buzz in quick enough because she was too busy giggling.  The always awesome GREEN team tied for 2nd place during this event, but now that I think about it, we wouldn't have tied with the orange team had I not somehow unscrambled ROTHC into "CROTCH" instead of "TORCH".  If I were to run a There Games event, I would run one like WORD SCRAMBLER, but it would be about unscrambling words I just randomly made up, and I would actually call it WORD UNSCRAMBLER so people knew what they were getting into when they signed up.

 

That about wraps up my exhausting athletic participation in this year's Summer There Games.  Now, it's time to quit hustling the other teams and letting them think they have a chance at the gold this time around... let's earn some points, GREEN!  We're AWESOME!  Before I head out, I just wanted to provide a little further motivation to my GREEN team by reminding you of other famous and important people who sport GREEN nametags:

 

Those are in contrast to some famous and important people who sport, oh, say -- and I'm just putting this out there at random -- olive nametags: 

 So, in conclusion, best of luck to the GREEN team... let's get out there and whoop those other nametag teams!  As a sidenote, I find it a bit ironic how people are treated differently and oppose each other in real life due to differences in color, and now we're here in There all separating ourselves by color and duking it out and earning points for it.  Our little microcosm of society really came full circle on that one!  But I digress... GO FOR THE GOLD, GREEN! 

[Disclaimer:  The Voice does not endorse zero participation in There Games and then celebrating victory when your nametag team happens to win, distracting competitors with sexual innuendos, tricking teams into leaving at attendance contests, thinking there's enough C's in ROTHC to spell CROTCH during a Word Scrambler event, or abusing olives in any way.]