Prepare for the Pankration

In a week and a half I'll be celebrating the fourth annual Pankration (Pan-krat-e-on, not pan-kray-shun; it's not a medical operation). The Pankration is a video game holiday that I made up four years ago. Since then it's grown to be honored by dozen(s) of people, mostly my ex-pledges in the fraternity. However, that doesn't mean it's not real.

For those of you who do not know, SPOILERS AHEAD. Like I said, the Pankration is a video game holiday, a gaming marathon from sunset the Monday before Thanksgiving until sunrise the following Tuesday. It started in 2007 when I decided not to go to class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Now I'm extending an offer for you to be as lazy as me.

Ever want to be this man? On Nov. 22, you can.

(The name is Greek; pan, meaning all, and kratos, meaning awesome, roughly translated. Literally, strength, as in all-strength, but the Greeks hadn't yet invented the word awesome because they had yet to play video games. In ye olden days, the Pankration was an actual Olympic event between Greek city states, a wrestling match with three rules - no eye gouging, the fight ends when the sun goes down, and no Spartans. Spartans would never give up, so a number of them ended up dying before they were banned.)

This will mark the first time the Pankration has ever had an international following. I'll remain in Van, Turkey for the festivities. I asked off but since my department head couldn't pronounce the name, he said he thought it would be best if I taught my classes on Monday, which, since Daylight Savings Time, now end right after sunset.

Unlike the original event, participation is open to everyone, so please join in. The only piece of electronics I have with me in Turkey is my 2006 MacBook Pro - if I can't get my pirated copy of Final Fantasy VII to work, I'll be playing Knights of the Old Republic (both of these games would be in third grade or higher if they were humans. The technology in Turkey is sort of limited).

It Is Finished

At my house, we don't have a television, or internet. We're off the grid, just in case the robots come looking for me. Therefore, I don't play video games during the semester. I [SARCASM BEGINS] focus on school work [SARCASM ENDS] instead. This was the original purpose of the Pankration - to provide a video game binge after a semester in rehab. Thus, I spent months (literally, months) of deliberating which game I would play, oscillating between titles like Dragon Age: Origin and Fallout 3. Last week I sat down with my little brother in the fraternity, Tim Yopp, and asked his advice. After a solid half hour, we decided on Final Fantasy VIII, a RPG released in 1999 for the original PlayStation. I had to go back a decade to get the proper Pankration experience. That's why I'm the Laser Wolf (which I just decided is the title of the head of the Pankration. I'm shooting from the hip, but I think it will stick).

Final Fantasy VIII uses Roman numerals instead of Arabic characters to communicate that it is a very serious game. It uses four discs, and Tim told me it took him ninety (90) hours to beat the game. That's like four days. Without ever sleeping.

I fell asleep around 3:30. At that time, I had been playing for ten hours, and I had completed the first disk and turned off the console in order to put in the second. That was my mistake. I should never had given my body a chance to escape. Curse my flesh! It can't even play a video game for ninety hours!

I love Japanese stories. They are entirely too melodramatic; they always involve young people embroiled in strong emotions. There's always an unexplainable, spiritual element circulating. Some nights, I will go to Blockbuster without a specific movie in mind, just with the parameters that it must be anime, because I want to experience emotions so over the top that human actors couldn't pull them off.

Final Fantasy VIII is no different. It's everything I hoped for in my own life, but cannot have, because the leading scientists it the world still can't figure out how to make swords in the shape of eight foot long planks of wood.

My pledges all reported in yesterday. They all saw the sunrise; most fell asleep immediately afterwards, around 5:30. One, David, made it to 7:02 exactly. I'm not sure what's significant about that. I talked to Tim Yopp around lunchtime. He still hadn't slept. He was just starting his third game.