Road to the Record: Return to Funspot - Part 1

When our original plans for a weekend trip to visit friends fell through there was only one thing to do - that's right, head on up to NH for a classic Funspot trip. It was all fairly last minute but we scored an amazing hotel room at the Summit Resort. Seriously, we're talking a 2 bedroom "apartment" accommodation with full kitchen, fireplace, jacuzzi tub - the works. Only downside was a 10am checkout but I'm willing to cut them some slack. When we return (as I'm sure we will since our less than $100 room sleeps 6!) we'll simply ask for late checkout. Accommodations aside, I know you're not looking for details on where we slept.

Though Saturday afternoon/evening found me battling the beast in an epic Dr. Mario game, I'm not going to focus on that just yet. I want to first address the surreal adventure we found ourselves on when entering Funspot. It was really as if we'd walked straight into cult video game classic King of Kong. For those of you who haven't seen it, King of Kong chronicles the battle for Donkey Kong glory between newcomer Steve Wiebe and the Antichrist Billy Mitchell (he of the Billy Ray Cyrus haircut and zero spine). Though Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell themselves weren't there, you could hear their names being whispered throughout by the cast of backup characters that apparently haunt Funspot with a certain regularity. Enter Robert Mruczek, Brian Kuh, and Mark Alpiger. These guys all played minor roles in the King of Kong movie (with varying degrees of sleezitude) and it was pretty weird to see them in person. As you all know from previous postings about Funspot, the Donkey Kong machine sits only a few machines down from Dr. Mario so not only did I get to see all these guys in person but I did hear some of the smack they were throwing around about each other as well. Don't let anyone tell you that the video game world is devoid of bitterness.

When we came back Sunday morning there was no sign of the sycophant Brian Kuh (who we encountered when we were leaving Saturday evening - apparently he can only be seem under the cover of darkness) but the others were still around, hovering around the Donkey Kong machine. There was extensive filming going on throughout Funspot - with a veritable camera crew and lighting system at the Donkey Kong machine (thanks for shining that light in my eyes btw) and an official Frogger Off happening as well (we're talking roped off machines people).

I know that in the scheme of things, Dr. Mario just doesn't rate but there's quite a bit of irony in me playing for the record with all of these video game B-level celebrities hanging out around me. We'll get into that in Part 2 of the post.