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Comment by pjmorris

15 hours ago

I confess that I had this in mind. Is it time to start running LAN parties again?

I appreciate the enthusiasm for LAN parties and will talk to my gaming friends about getting one going.

Related possibilities:

1. Dust off some DVDs and a DVD player, pop some popcorn and watch a movie or two. Explore the extended editions, commentaries, alternate scenes, etc.

2. Dust off some CDs and a player and jam. My 2008 Honda has a CD player, I'm not restricted to streaming Spotify through a Bluetooth adapter :)

3. Dig up an N64 console, Goldeneye, the friends you played against back when, and order some pizza.

4. Go find a local bookstore, new or used, and buy a book.

I'm sure there are a dozen ideas I'm not thinking of, feel free to plug them in.

I've been to several retro LAN parties recently. They're wonderful, and they cost nothing to run. 10/100 switches are free, and cat5 nearly so, and the people attending can probably bring plenty of both.

Today is Friday. Send out a group text right now. Saturday evening. Bring whatever. We'll order pizza, it'll be a good time. Make it happen.

Logistically: One was specifically focused on the CDROM era. Any game that shipped on CD or came out roughly 1995-2005 was fair game, and the organizers mentioned a few by name that you might want to pre-install. The other was anything-goes, networking optional; I brought a TI 99/4A and a handful of cartridges, and it was very popular, apparently that grabbed a bunch of folks right in the childhood, in between rounds of Quake.

The only thing missing was the Josta. RIP.