Your videogaming nemesis could take any form. It could be a friend, a rival, or a particular boss character, maybe yours is a particular stage or level. My own particular nemesis is a time... 28 seconds to be exact.

Less boring than exercise. Well, isn’t everything?

I really can't recall who it was, but either my brother or myself received this game as a birthday gift around 1980 (give or take a year or two). We quickly fell in love with game #3 the slalom run of 30 gates. The first 2 skiing games are geared for the bunny slope, games after that are full tilt, throw caution to the wind, barreling down the hill. Also, Activision would reward you a patch should you beat a score of 28.2 seconds on game 3. A few days later I had mastered the patch time, took a picture and sent it off in hopes of getting the Skiing patch.

I can't quite recall if I received the patch or not, because honestly it wasn't important. What was important was a rumor that you could get a time of under 28 seconds. Mind you, no internet, thus not sure if it was attainable. One of my brother's friends' cousins had claimed to have gotten a better score than 28, but offered no picture and was known to exaggerate a bit to impress his peers. The kid was also supposed to be unbeatable in Atari Basketball, but I squelched that myth in a showdown, but that's for another story. We never did get under 28 seconds, although all through college and most of my adult life, I'd occasionally pop this game in and give it a try.

Look at what you could’ve won

Let me set the scene, if you will - Last night, in the basement, on the exercise bike, I have the Atari hooked up to while away a boring workout. Decide to play...

And then, 28 seconds later, I achieved the unachievable - I did it.. Yep 27.99. Only took 20 years.

Get in

I wonder where my brother's friends' cousin is? I’d like to send him a little something.

April 2006

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