Fritz & Jim - High School Memories

Memories of high school hanging out with my friends Fritz & Jim:

• Running jokes:
• Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe: someone realized "left-waffle" sounded hilarious
• VGA vs. Super-VGA graphics (?) I think this was an advertisement in a PC trade magazine
• BBS door games:
• The Pit (1993)
• TradeWars 2002 (1991)
• PC games:
• Civilization (1991)
• Castles II: Siege and Conquest (1992)
• MechWarrior (1989): Joel McCue liked this
• Wolfenstein 3D (1992)
• Sega Genesis:
• Rented video games after school
• NHLPA Hockey '93: led to much NHL watching and becoming a fan of the then-current Boston Bruins team
• Road Rash
• Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium (1993): this game. I think I experienced the Level 99 glitch, where ... it rolled over after investing so much time into the game. Crushed.
• Board games:
• Risk
• Sports:
• One-on-two basketball in Fritz's mom's horsebarn
• Tennis at the 6th St & 3rd Ave courts (now gone)
• Random:
• Fritz's house:
• His mom had a fridge in the adjacent basement room with horse semen, as she bred horses
• The basement smelled like potpourri: on 2021-11-07, I smelled a potpourri jar at World Market and it brought me back--the label read, "Pomegranate/orange, filled with notes of pomegranate, orange, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, and cider".
• Two Boston Terriers: I forget the names, but remember them snuffling a lot
• Jim and I would sleep on the floor on opposite sides of Fritz's bed; I remember the noise of the ceiling fan 
• We'd stay up well past midnight, but as time went on Fritz seemed to want to go to bed earlier
• Sometimes I'd get up first and head downstairs and play Civ 
• Remember getting excited about hearing how the federal government had mandated fuel efficiency standards going up to something like 50 mpg in 10-15 years ... it would take a bit longer, but we're getting there
• Fritz's brother Alex came home from military training and showed us what he called his "anti-rape glasses" (basically chunky black frames)
• His family liked white chocolate
• Sometimes we'd eat at the dinner table upstairs with his parents
• The tank above the toilet overflowed at one point, and I was clueless about how to fix it
• Broke my glasses one night playing basketball
• The horse barn lights took a long time to illuminate enough so we could play -- it was cold
• Played basketball on packed earth in the far corner of the horse barn
• We'd walk over to Memorial Medical Center where Stephen Bechdolt worked as a pathologist and watch TV (Batman: The Animated Series), then Dr. Bechdolt would drive us around town
• I remember Fritz and his dad talking about attending a family reunion in Germany, and remarking on my surname as well
• Fritz's dad was thinking about buying an AK-47 before a gun ban went into effect (unsure if he did)
• Jim's house:
• At Jim's house we'd sometimes play Nerf basketball; I think Fritz brought over his PC, so we'd at least have two
• Milk in clear plastic bag in a pitcher (remember because it had a distinct taste from what I was used to)
• Surviving relative: Jeff
• PC's:
• Fritz had two PC's, I think: 
• One dedicated to running a BBS
• Two lines in his house
• One had an Intel 80486 and the other an Intel 80386, I think
• Turbo buttons, heh

The social aspects and gaming sparked my decision to go into Computer Science after high school. They were my people and closest friends in high school.