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
