Pyle of List

…this guy.

Let me preface this “victory” by explaining the circumstances of the event. JP invited a bunch of guys to come play FIFA 07 at HIS house on HIS Xbox 360. He owns the game. Most of the contenders have played it sparingly, if at all. Basically it’s a glory-fest for Big Jon. He invited 7 guys over to his place under the pretense of a “tournament”.

We had a field of eight competitors with a bracket-style single-elimination tournament. In the first game, I believe there were THREE penalty kicks…all against one team. That guy really fell in love with the slide tackle button. In the first round I played a fairly well experienced fellow by the name of David. Fortunately for me, I chose a team with some speed, Spain. I could chase down the slower Brits that he was playing with and outrun them when I had the ball. I was victorious in a 1-0 defensive strategy session. However, JP and I met up in the second round and he beat me 1-0 in another defensive struggle.

The two best players of the tournament were JP as the Irish (we all chose international teams) and Jeff as the Scottish. These guys didn’t need quality 5-star rated teams like Brazil or Spain to win. They added a degree of difficulty to their quest for plastic trophy gold by playing with second tier teams. They did the honorable thing and played with lesser teams, I’ll give them some credit for that.

However, I still can’t help feeling like the whole thing was just a rouse of self-glory to dominate less experienced players. Am I bitter I lost to JP? Hell yes. Is this sour grapes? That’s a big fat “maybe”. Did JP already start gloating about the trophy. Yep.

JP has access to the game all the time. It reminds me of that episode of Seinfeld when Elaine tries to get a gay man to “change teams”. Obviously, it doesn’t work out and Elaine tells Jerry why: “Well, here’s the thing. Being a woman, I only really have access to the, uh…equipment, what, thirty, forty-five minutes a week. And that’s on a good week. How can I be expected to have the same expertise as people who own this equipment, and have access to it 24 hours a day, their entire lives?”

That is how I feel after the tournament. Am I calling JP a gay man? What? You didn’t hear that from me…