Do you remember the name Gary Gygax?

Doesn't ring a bell? Well, how about these four words:
DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, BITCH!
Looks like they had their 30th Anniversary back on August 16, 2004. What, you were barbecuing on that day or taking a dump in the bathroom? Well, so was I!



This reminded me, however, of my frolicking youthful days when I tried to get into D&D. For better or worse, I never was able to "get into" it. The first time I played, it was with some friends at one of our parents' parties. After spending an hour just creating our characters and figuring out what a Dexterity of 30 was, we were finally off in some ancient forest, walking down a dirt trail, when lo and behold, we came across our first monster to fight. I was thinking to myself, "Hoo-yeah! It's finally dragon-whomping time! Or maybe we'll face some beastly Orc-hulk, where I could use my special Elf dagger to flail him." Instead, I was sorely disappointed to be standing face-to-face with a Gelatinous Cube. My first reaction was, "What the hell is a gelatinous cube?" My friend next to me explained, "Well, it looks something like this," as he drew it out:



I can't even remember if we defeated the gelatinous cube or if we even finished the game. Recollection tells me, we probably stopped and went back to the living room to do something else.

My sister bought the Dungeons and Dragons game for me for X-mas once, but my dad made her return it, because he just read in the news about a boy who played the game, and then threw a homemade fireball at his dad.



I was definitely pissed at my dad, but for his sake, I didn't know how to make a homemade fireball. Instead of the D&D game, I had to settle for some "Choose Your Own Adventure Books." Yawn.



One of the last times I played D&D, I figured out how to use the political lobbyist approach in befriending the dungeon master and getting him to give me a special bow and arrow that shot out electrified arrows or something. There was also this kid who kept wanting to use his "Change Someone Into an Animal" spell. He became so annoying in asking if he could use the spell over and over again that the dungeon master finally gave in, but made it backfire, and the guy ended up turning himself into an anteater, for which he had to play the rest of the game as.

Oh, such were the joyful and innocent days of my youth...

I'm such a geek.