Several weeks ago Jill and I made plans with the once famed drummer of “The Firebird 4000 Project” from the Denver, CO; no other then the boy-genius Matt Montemore, aka “Matty Mo!!!”…”Matt Attack!!”..a man of many names. These plans happened to follow several very cold days at home waiting for Xcel to come turn our natural gas back on. Let me just say, thank god we have a neighbor who repairs furnaces for a living or we would still be waiting (nice customer service Xcel) for the heat to turn on; even as I type we would be pushing 53 hours without heat…but I digress. So, what were these fabulous plans with the famous Matty Mo?

Old School Nintendo, 80’s flashback party. I use the term ‘party’ loosely because there were only 3 of us, but when we want to, we can really thrown down. Since Nintendo only has 2 controllers (sometimes 3) any more people would have been a drain on our play time. Growing up in the 80’s meant that just about all kids shared the same gaming experiences, as they were limited at best There weren’t a vast array of gaming devices or even options of games to play. Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Cube, Sega…By the mid 90’s things started to expand, but we were playin before all that jazz, so Nintendo and Super Nintendo were our gaming devices for the night.

The first “classic” game of the night was Mario Cart. It was fun to replay this game (and several others) 20 years later. The game is relatively simple (they all are), yet more challenging than I remember; especially since we are pretty avid video gamers to this day. We realized quickly that our new-school gaming skills are no match for the old school games. Today, most games are so easy and effortless to play, there really aren’t a lot of tricks or cheats. But Nintendo games are something different. They require a skill with the simple controls that require a little practice, and we were pretty rusty.

Once warmed up, we tried our hands at ‘Ninja Turtles: Back in Time”. We gave this one an avid go, fighting our way through the foot clan and numerous bosses. We found ourselves several levels in without anymore ‘lives.’ The thing about modern games is that you can just keep playing from a saved point until you clear the level. The old games only give you so many chances, and once you’re out of ‘lives’ you have to start from… the VERY beginning of the game. This practice requires a level of mastery in gaming that we haven’t seen in this country since the 90’s. We continued the evening with other games like Mortal Combat, Joe & Mac, Caveman Ninja (which Jilly dominated) and various others.

I forgot to mention that this party was a theme party…like all Challis-devised parties. So we dressed up in “totally 80’s” garb. We also thought it’d be super fun to “keep ourselves fueled” with a careful selection of popular 80’s treats. We feasted on these classic favorites: Pigs in a blanket, pringles (Did you know the classic ‘pop top’ snack got it’s packaging wonder from chemical weapons packing technology?), cheetos, twinkies, gushers, white castle burgers, spaghetti O’s and a plethera of other snacks; washed down with IBC Root Beer in glass bottles.

Several hours in and properly fueled, with hands greased to perfection, we cautiously made the switch to Super Nintendo and were blown away by the ‘new’ 64-bit technology. Suddenly we were playing in pseudo-3rd dimensions with classics like “Mario Tennis”. We also had the option of a third controller by this time, so it made it even more fun because we didn’t have to take turns playing. The primary feature of the evening was Mario Party 2, a 1999 boardgame-type video game, with a whole plethera of “mini-games” and adventures. We were completely sucked in by then. Jill (Princess Peach) & myself (Mario) fought valiantly against Donkey Kong (computer) and the ‘evil’ Yoshi (Matt). Matty Mo’s superior gaming skills (and far more practice with these games), wiped the floor with us. However we did play this game until the very end (which was not the case with the others).

Playing old video games was a nice distraction from our deep-freeze reality in Boulder, and took us back to a simpler time… a time when staying up at all night, having sleepovers and getting a stomach ache from too many Twinkies were the BEST nights a kid could have; and proving that it still can be.

Life Lesson: I suggest that everyone take a night or two and go live in that simple mind-set, because we really do not need all the ‘things’ & ‘stuff’ and technology we are constantly surrounded by. All we really need are some good friends and a tray of hot pigs in a blanket and life is just as sweet as ever.