Nerds have overrun Fort Mason. None of the coastal batteries or fortifications could hold back this roiling, unkempt tide. Where battleships once docked and carried nearly two-thirds of the total American personnel deployed in the Pacific during World War II, a few overweight 30-year-olds with messenger bags and prolix t-shirts Read More…
Hey, you! Yes, you — mediocre gamer. Yes, that’s right, I know all about you. You’re tired of being beaten by luckier, more skillful opponents, right? Do all of your friends joke that you’re just paying for the company at your weekly poker game? Is a nerd who figured out Read More…
Orie Guo’s room is a mess. There are papers, plates and bags of half-eaten snacks scattered across his desk next to a large, high-definition computer screen. In the corner of the room, darkened by the drawn blinds, there is a pile of at least seven or eight 2-liter Dr. Pepper Read More…
I’ve been dismantled. Every bishop, knight and rook I once marshaled on the checkered battlefield has been ruthlessly eliminated. It’s taken exactly four minutes and 47 seconds — my humiliation is complete. Across the table from me, an older man with wispy, thinning gray hair taps the reset button on Read More…
Whenever this column mentions a number, take a drink. It’s the summer of 2008, and it’s getting late — too late to start drinking, but I do it anyway. I’m in Groningen, northeast of Amsterdam, at an apartment 20 minutes from the city’s university. The August air is warm and Read More…
Another Wednesday night, and another defeat for my flag football team, Three Flies Up. This week we played the Hassassins, who clearly have no sense of humor. Our scrappy squad against the Wall-Street-destined suit jockeys. While we screw around in huddles they economize their time with preset plays and begin eviscerating Read More…
It’s Wednesday night, and I can’t help but fiddle with my growing hoard of chips. It’s one of the most basic poker rituals — take two even stacks of about five chips, use two fingers to lift up one stack and neatly slide the other into it. The effect is Read More…
Imagine being guided by an old yet firm hand into a living room and then sat before a growling fire and a bowl of ice cream. The hand pats you on the back after sitting you down and leaves momentarily to retrieve something: a circular wooden board, with semi-spherical divots Read More…
They are everywhere. They walk among us in the daytime and appear no different from you or I — they are neighbors, friends and co-workers. But come dusk they undergo a startling transformation. They occupy the back rooms and clandestine chambers of your cities, passing ghostlike through the streets and Read More…
It is almost time to go on stage, and I am terrified. Thoughts are bouncing around inside my head like frenzied bees, and I’ve broken out in a full flop sweat — the kind that immobilizes you with its awful gravity and torrential volume. The act before me consists of Read More…
