{"id":378,"date":"2005-05-18T17:45:00","date_gmt":"2005-05-18T21:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=378"},"modified":"2005-05-18T17:45:00","modified_gmt":"2005-05-18T21:45:00","slug":"the-pin-is-quivering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/?p=378","title":{"rendered":"The pin is quivering."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I bring you a tale of <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Tiger Woods<\/span>.  Well, more of an image, really.  Some time ago, a college friend came back into town for a few days and swung by the apartment to catch up on some much-needed videogame competition.  I introduced him to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.easports.com\/games\/tigerwoods2005\/home.jsp\">Tiger Woods PGA Tour<\/a> for the Xbox, a game which quickly devours the soul of all who play it &#8212; so fun, so addictive.  He quickly built a character &#8212; Fish &#8212; and hit the links with vigor.  Another friend came by to join in the fun, bringing with him a memory stick with the Alpha and the Omega of TW gameplay: his character, Victor Cracker.<\/p>\n<p>You see, Victor Cracker is to TW what a god is to mortals.  When he descends from the realm of the ideal and interferes with the lives of men, he leaves a wake of destruction and lamentation.  Tales of the visit last for generations.  But, like gold inlaid over silver, Victor Cracker only augments the remarkable skill of his human.  The guy&#8217;s got an unnatural knack for the game, and having a maxed-out character only adds to the point spread.<\/p>\n<p>So, we play a few rounds and Victor Cracker dominates.  Everyone is fine, we shake hands and say good night.<\/p>\n<p>The next day, Fish is back.  Something is different, though.  His hands are as still as stone, and in his eye can be seen a faint gleam.  He had come this day to topple Cracker.  We call Victor&#8217;s human avatar and insist he come back for a rematch.  At the end of the first round of play, Victor&#8217;s given name proves to be well-earned. <\/p>\n<p>In the middle of the second and final round, Victor Cracker unsurprisingly makes a magnificent shot, and the commentator responds with a loud &#8220;ooooh!&#8221;.  TW has commentators judging your every shot, delivering a large number of phrases such as &#8220;should have used the nine-iron here&#8221; or &#8220;that&#8217;s straight at it, Billy&#8221;.  The &#8220;ooooh&#8221; was new, and two of us found it quite funny. <\/p>\n<p>So, the image I present to you is of a lean, hungry man in the zone, possessed by the thought of ending a dynasty, stretched forward and focused on the TV with the steadiness of an eagle diving after its prey, flanked by two grown men who can&#8217;t stop saying &#8220;ooooh!  No, no, it was like &#8216;ooooooh!'&#8221; and laughing heartily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I bring you a tale of Tiger Woods. Well, more of an image, really. Some time ago, a college friend came back into town for a few days and swung by the apartment to catch up on some much-needed videogame competition. I introduced him to Tiger Woods PGA Tour for the Xbox, a game which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/galaxyalex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}