Attack!

I do not enjoy studying. I like what I am learning, and I like the idea that in 2 and a half years I will be a lawyer, but I do not like to study. Reading books for hours and hours on end has given me nothing but a reoccurring headache and stress induced asthma. It hasn't even worsened my vision enough that I require glasses. (I have always wanted glasses because I think I look very good in them. Sadly though my vision has always been very good so I can't justify buying a nice pair. In my junior year at Miami I did get the mock trial program to buy me a pair to wear during trial. There was a time I wore the fake glasses around pretending I actually needed my vision corrected. I liked the way I looked but I lived in constant fear that another person would ask my prescription and when they discovered I had no prescription at all in them I would be revealed as a fraud. So I stopped wearing them. Since then I have read computer screens in dark rooms and sat too close to the TV in hopes that by the time I was out of law school I would need a pair. Yes it is superficial, but when you look good you look good.)

Since most of my time here at the law school revolves around finding a way not to study I have found a series of ways to distract. I started by playing ping pong about 2 hours a day, but I would get sweaty and gross so that was out. I then tried making regular trips (or "adventures") out 

around downtown to things like target or various eateries until I realized I do not have enough money for that. This blog is turning into my newest time wasting device. There is one time wasting device that has stayed with me since the very first day: Attack!

Attack is an application on facebook (the pinnacle of all time wasting devices) that allows users to play the board game Risk on the computer. It is called Attack instead of Risk to keep from copyright infringement other than that there is no difference between the 2 games. Risk is a game of world domination (you may have seen it 

on one of the iconic Seinfeld episodes in which Kramer and Newman have an epic battle going and try not to disrupt the game board while transporting it on the New York subway system). The game consists of a game map like this: 

Essentially as a player you are assigned a color and get a designated amount of armies every turn with which to conquer the world. You get more armies if you can hold an entire continent for a turn [7 extra for holding Asia, 5 for North America or Europe, 3 for Africa and 2 for either South America or "Oceania" (Australia)]. So long as you attack and conquer a territory on each turn you get a "risk card" with  infantryman, a horse or a cannon on it. If you turn in a set of these cards (either three of the same kind or one of each card) you will also get extra armies. The game sounds kind of complicated but it is actually rather simple. 

Now I have an inflated ego, and as such I like to play board games where I can dominate the entire world map. We used to play this board game in high school my friend Frenchie would get so upset while playing with me that she decreed we could no longer play the game. Fortunately in law school I have found a group of players that A) also have large enough egos that they want to conquer the world and B) are scheming and conniving enough to hang with me in the game. 

I would say that I have personally converted about 1/6 of my section into loyal Attack players. We play live games sometimes during class and have "friend" games (games where each person takes their turn whenever they can) going constantly. Currently I am involved in 8 separate friend games. and I finished 3 yesterday. I won't go into all the people I play with but I will tell you about one friend in particular: SlumLoanMillionaire. 

SlumLoan has a kind of addictive personality. He is addicted to many things that distract him from studying but as far as I can tell he is addicted to nothing more than Attack. He wakes up in the morning and the first thing he does is check his turns in friend games to make sure he isn't holding anything up. When he has 100 pages of reading left he will ask all of us if we want to play a live game "just to take a break." Although SlumLoan has only been playing for a few months he has probably played as many games as I have in my year and a half of playing attack. 

The funniest thing about SlumLoan though, is that he thinks he is the greatest thing to ever roll the dice on a risk board. At law prom last week he told me "you know TheHamborlger, if you ever beat me in Attack anymore it is only luck. You know I am better than you when it comes to skill." The nerve! Now, in Live games each person can acquire points- there are different games of various buy ins starting with 20 points and going all the way up to 5000 points. Usually I do not care too much about points but because of SlumLoan's boast I felt the need to start getting competitive. 

SlumLoan thought he was a little too big for his britches and bought into a 5000 point game, and promptly lost. He ended up on the day having only 40 points (you get 100 points just for signing in to the application everyday). Now as you all know I am hardly a boaster. I am not known to be cocky or kick a man when he is down, but SlumLoan's comment to me at law prom combined with his lack of points (for perspective i have about 29000 points) brought down on him a taunting the likes of which he has never seen. The best part of it is that SlumLoan takes it so seriously. Since my taunting began he has repeatedly threatened to "murder me in my sleep." No I respond to this by saying "SlumLoan, you know it takes someone smart enough to have more than 40 points to get into my house and murder me in my sleep." This angers him even more. 

Essentially my complete domination of SlumLoan in Attack points has given me the moral superiority I need. Anytime SlumLoan says anything to me even the least bit pejorative I can respond with "scoreboard SlumLoan, scoreboard."