Early Saturday morning I hopped in my truck and drove 250 miles to Bentonville, Arkansas, for another round of hunting for and playing videogames with several of my friends from Digital Press. Icbrkr and his wife once again hosted the festivities. Icbrkr’s buddy Grimbal showed up, along with 98Pacecar (from Dallas) and Gapporin (from Joplin). Yes, I know constantly referring to people by their online aliases is geeky.

Due to a mix-up in directions I ended up following Icbrkr’s instructions intended for Gapporin, who was driving from Joplin. I knew something wasn’t right when I left Oklahoma headed for Arkansas and ended up in Missouri. While the new route was significantly longer, it actually only added about five minutes on to my normal trip time. Typically I take 412 east out of Tulsa; this time I remained on 44 east all the way to Joplin. While a change of scenery is always nice, it’s a little scary when you arrive at a state you weren’t planning on visiting. Things worked out, and I arrived around 10:30am.

For the next few hours the five of us drove around Bentonville, visiting game stores and pawn shops while shopping and chatting about everything and nothing. I got to spend some time in Icbrkr’s Honda Fit, one of the cars I’m considering purchasing, so that was cool. I think everybody in the group found games they were looking for. To be honest I was more simply “along for the ride” than anything else this week. Each time I found a game or system I was looking for I would think about my credit card bill from Vegas that I still haven’t paid off, and put it back. That’s okay though; like I said, I was mostly there for the conversation and company and both were great as usual.

Once the game hunting subsided we all went back to Ice’s house for some gaming and hanging out. Hands down, I am the worst Guitar Hero player of the group. Funny thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m the best guitar player of the group. Go figure. After getting booed off a virtual stage while playing Suicidal Tendencies’ Institutionalized, I passed the guitar along and let some of the pros play. Gapporin and I were forced to sit through several rounds of Chicken Shoot, a Wii game where players, well, shoot chickens. And not just regular chickens, but cartoon chickens doing things like knitting and tanning. I don’t know if it was the angle or if the game is simply this buggy in two-player mode, but I spent the majority of my time playing trying to get the controller to work right. Half the time my side of the screen would look like someone having an epileptic fit was playing. I’m not that bad at games — honest, guys!

After a few hours of gaming we all went downstairs and had some great home cooking from Icbrkr’s wife. Whether it’s spaghetti like last time or fajitas like this time, Ginger’s cooking is always terrific and much appreciated. Thanks again! After dinner the party broke up and we all moved slowly toward our cars. I think I finally hit the road around 8pm. I started off strong but somewhere down the road the long day combined with the fajitas caught up with me, so I stopped at a gas station on the turnpike and took a 30 minute nap. After the quick cat nap, with a little coffee in me I was able to make it home around 12:30 or so.