So as I alluded to in my previous blog, I went to visit my friend this weekend to attend a party that was hosted at his house. My friend lives with his friend Jon and Jon's wife. Jon and Jon's wife's birthday both fall in this month so they decided to throw a joint birthday party Friday night. In the den of their house is a Xbox hooked up to a projector with really good surround sound. When I arrived on Friday, my friend and I were playing Bad Company 2 with me in the den and him in the other room. Jon's wife understandably wanted us to quit playing when guests arrived, so we obliged. Well, all of Jon's wife's friends were annoying, young little girls and they all hung out outside on the patio (where it was hot as shit), while my friend and I stayed inside (where it was NOT hot as shit) and entertained Jon's co-workers, who were all pretty cool. On of Jon's co-workers brought her boyfried; some dude named Omar.

When Omar walks in the house, he immediately looks at the projector and the speakers, and traces the wires back to the the Xbox. His eyes lit up. After entertaining small talk about how firm his handshake was (dude nearly broke my fingers), he asked "what kind of games do y'all play?" I'm sure that as gamers, a lot of you have a 2 answers to that question; one that you give to people who you know game on your level, and another that you give to more casual gamers. Since we don't know shit about this dude named Omar, we gave him the latter - "Guitar Hero, Call of Duty, <insert random other game that everyone knows the name of>." Omar's responds, "Call of Duty?" His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. My friend jokingly suggested that we fire up the projector and play some CoD. Omar was all for it. I don't blame him, he was in a house full of folks that he didn't know at a party he probably didn't want to come to, and just so happened to stumble upon two dudes who are willing to play some Call of Duty with him on a projection screen. His girlfriend was, predictably, not so happy with the suggestion. Besides, Jon's wife would kill us if we "ruined her party by playing video games in the middle of it." So it didn't seem like it was going to happen.

As the party dragged on and things were getting more and more boring, you could almost see Omar physically itching to play. Despite telling him that we weren't really that good in CoD and we don't play it anymore (sold my copy when I got Bad Company 2), he would bring it up in conversation every so often. Turns out that he is "that guy." My friend and I often talk about the mythical beast that only plays CoD, and last night we met him. From his mouth "I pretty much only play Modern Warfare 2. I don't plan on playing anything else until the next CoD game comes out." My friends and I played MW2 casually and most of us weren't that great. Out of the 4 of us that played only one of us even played enough to prestige. And here we were, face to face with "that guy." A guy who plays for hours a day and has prestiged multiple times. A guy who was bored out of his mind and was being taunted by sitting in the midst of this great gaming setup with his favorite game at the ready. At this point it almost seemed like a crime not to let this guy play.

So to hell with Jon's wife, we're letting Omar play some MW2. All eyes instantly turned to this spectacle. I have never seen someone so good at MW2. He started out with a butt naked gun with no attachments (since he was playing on my account and I never played with his favorite gun) and was still going to town. Everyone seemed a lot more interested in watching him play than whatever previous convo they were having. Everyone except his girlfriend, of course. He saw her giving him that "I can't believe you're playing video games right now" look and ended up quitting after a couple of matches, despite the fact that he obviously wanted to keep playing and pretty much everyone else wanted him to continue. Was fun while it lasted I guess.

So even though I prefer BC2 to MW2, I just wanted to give a shout out to the Omar's of the world. Your skills and dedication are admirable.