Wednesday, February 23, 2000

Wasteland Revisited

Wasteland Pub, why is this name synonymous with foosball in Malaysia? Well, for one thing, not only was it a place where a lot of foosers gathered but it was also the breeding ground for new foosers.

The first time I heard about Wasteland was in 1997 through my friend, Nirvanic. Nirv was a close friend of Junior, Richard and Robot, three of the few shareholders of Wasteland. Since, I knew Robot through my RPG and table-top gaming days, I decided to pay a visit to Wasteland. To my surprise, I met a few familar foosball players - Ah Boy, Bernard Teh and Alex Chong; whom I met in Time Out Sports Pub. Turning regular, I got to know many others players like Terence, Kenny, Ronnie Kok, Ben Tan, Ray Ng, Sean Yeap, Kevin Chang, Mohan, Calvin, Albert, etc. Just too many to name.

During that time, the Mild Seven National Championship was underway and the winners were sent to the World Championship in Dallas, Texas. Well, you can say that all the winners were Wasteland regulars. And naturally, after the Worlds, those players came back with new ideas, techniques and tactics. There was a big buzz and players were exchanging ideas and telling unbelievable stories from the West.

From then on, the player-base increased, skills improved. But unfortunately, Wasteland was sold and turned into a non-foosball establishment. T'was a sad day.

I still remember what a friend of mine once told me, he said, "When I go to another pub to play foosball. All I need to do to gain a psychological advantage, is to say that I am a regular at Wasteland."

What a great place!

Note: The name I used, "countryman", originated from Wasteland. How that came about was that I used to blab and yak a lot when playing a game. Always jesting and yakking away and annoying the hell out of the other player. And my favourite quote was from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, when Mark Anthony makes his speech after the death of Caesar. It goes, "Friends, Romans (I substituted Malaysian) and country man..." I would use that phrase when they score a goal on me. Later, I just called my opponents, "Country man, why you like that... blah, blah, blah". And since then I have been tagged as such... a countryman :-)