Road to the Record: Return to Funspot - Part 2

As you all know, I spent the past weekend in the warm embrace of Funspot, on the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. I've already written about our very boss hotel room and the incredibly odd presence of minor characters from King of Kong in Return to Funspot - Part 1, but I know what you're all really waiting for...

The answer is yes, this was the weekend that I beat the Dr. Mario Record of 960,000 (on the arcade machine). Saturday night, upon arrival at Funspot, I made my way to the machine and (in the glare of some pretty nasty lights due to the film crew at the Donkey Kong machine) slowly but steadily racked up a score that pretty much puts to rest any concerns I had about achieving this goal. On level 19, I hit 969,000 points, putting me just over the currently recorded score by one Nik Meeks.



Did I stop there? Oh no... Though I was pretty certain that I was only moments away from dieing, I managed to hold on for quite a bit longer - 5 levels and nearly 400,000 points longer in fact. It was, as they say, an epic battle. In the end, I lost on level 24 at 1,303,000 points. It was majesty, pure and simple. And though the mass of video gamers located around me had no clue what was going on, I did (and so did my much maligned manager who has been pushing me to train more and more lately and has benevolently lent me his Nintendo DS for many hours). It was a pretty exciting moment if I don't say so myself.


Now, just to get this out of the way - I know this is just a video game. And after seeing the many folks at Funspot for whom video gaming is notjust a hobby, I'm grateful for the other things in my life that allow for this Dr. Mario adventure to be what it should be - a comedic lark. That said, I was pretty excited to see that score on the actual arcade machine... and it has only increased my need to see the score in the tiny grey font of the TwinGalaxies official scoreboard!