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THURSDAY
July 11, 1996
GGIE
Page 3
Fire flwoy
Continued from Page 1
and distribution rights.
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Cory Mancuso, of Bryan, aims as he
sneaks up on an opponent.
great,” he said. “I didn’t know what
to expect with the students not being
in a regular school session.”
Business is one thing, but Meinecke
said people can expect is to have a
good time playing the game.
“It’s fun and you can’t really
describe it,” he said. “You can
shoot people and when you get
shot, it doesn’t hurt.”
A change in the game began in
England about three years ago
and now new arenas are pop
ping up all over the Unit
ed States.
With better technology
than in years past, laser tag
is more versatile than ever —
and not just for kids anymore.
Kathryn Whaley, manager at TJ’s
Laser Tag and a senior recreation
and parks major, said the wave of
the game has hit places such as Six
Flags and Discovery Zone.
Whaley said people come to play
for clean, positive fun.
“It’s indoors and it’s cool,” she said,
“something families and friends can
do in the summer.”
With summertime in full swing,
laser tag is especially popular for high
school kids who believe there is noth
ing to do.
Whaley said laser tag action for cus
tomers is ten minutes of constant hide-
and-seek gaming in an effort to win.
“You’re divided into two teams, red
and green,” she said.
“You wear a lightweight, comput
erized vest that slips over your head
with your laser gun attached.”
Once an individual suits up, the
next step is the gaming room —
where the competition begins.
“You play in a darkened arena that
has an obstacle course lit with black
light and there’s a fog machine,” Wha
ley said.
Mixing black light with a fog machine
allows players to see the red laser beam
when it is shot from their gun.
Yet another facet of the game aids
individuals during play.
“Your vest talks to you,” Whaley
said. “It (the vest) tells you when you’ve
been hit and when you can shoot.”
The vest communicates to players
when they can shoot because of a five-
second layover time occurring after
being hit.
During this time, the players
cannot fire at others, nor can they
be hit.
“At the end of the game, you down
load your gun and it sends your scores
to the computer,” Whaley said.
A player learns how many people he
or she has hit, and vice versa, in a com
puted score determining the winner(s).
Laser tag is only a game, but
some worry that shooting lasers at
people is too vivid for players to sep
arate from reality.
“I don’t think our establishment
puts it into that light,” Whaley said.
“Most are just interested in the fact
you can see the laser.”
Whaley said from time to time she
has seen a parent or two come in to
check out the game, but usually they
end up playing with their children.
With the technological advance
ment of laser tag, some may wonder if
the sport will see another decline be
cause of the creation of computer-en
hanced games.
“We looked at the virtual re
ality,” Whaley said. “But I don’
think it will take over the physi
cal part — people enjoy the hu
man interaction.”
Marc Cellucci, a senior mar
keting major, is just one person
who would not give up th
physical aspects of the game
for a visual experience.
“I guess the part I enjoy the
most is the action,” he said.
“It’s not like paint ball.
That’s expensive and you
get big welts.”
Cellucci said he has oth
er motives and reasons for
the entertainment value of
laser tag.
“It’s just exciting to go
out and shoot your
friends,” he said.
“It’s cathartic to blast
your friends away, and
you get bragging rights
with the stats the ma
chine keeps.”
Cellucci said there are a
few ways to be successful
during the game.
“You have to be sneaky,
efficient — trying to help
out the team and watch out
for the enemy,” he said.
Players anxiously await
score reports after a round to
see whether they have been
vindicated.
“It depends on how my
stats come out,” Cellucci said.
“You compare with your
friends, but it’s a fun way to
let out the stress of the day.”
Pat James, The Battalion
Scott Watson, a junior accounting
major, lurks behind a corner.
or You!
Editor
-or
OR
■m’iiics Editor
—ing the fall
sessions
vsity.
■e. Texas
The do-it-itself Austin band has played with other punk rock bands Green Day, Rancid and Tripping Daisy
By April Towery
The Battalion
GALS PANIC
Austin punk band Gals Panic is
influenced not by the great bands of
yesterday and today, but by Mexican
food and cute skater girls.
“Our style is so vague and ambigu
ous — just loud rock’n’roll,” guitarist
and vocalist Jeremy Pollett said.
Pollett, who moved to Austin from
New York in 1990, said he met lead
vocalist Lance Sever in a video arcade.
“It’s kind of ironic that Lance and I
met in an arcade because Gals Panic
is the name of a cheap Japanese video
game,” Pollett said. “I think they tried
to translate it into English and it did
n’t translate too well. We liked the
ambiguity of the name.”
The band, which recently re
leased an album on the Goopy Pyra
mid label, has been together for
about three and a half years.
Even more interesting is the
name of their new album, I Think
We Need Helicopters.
One of Pollett’s high school bud
dies is Broadway playwright Tim
Levitch. He sent Pollett a copy of
one of his latest plays around the
time that Gals Panic recorded their
first album.
“The play was really funny,” Pol
lett said. “This guy wakes up one
morning to find that his penis is
missing. He files a missing person’s
complaint, so the police begin to
search for it. It grows to be six feet
tall, and steals the guy’s job and his
girlfriend, and basically becomes a
better man than the protagonist.
“There’s a scene in a doughnut
shop where two cops are talking
about what they’re going to do
about the runaway penis. One cop
looks at the other and says, ‘I think
we need helicopters.’”
Pollett said that the Gals Panic
album turned out to be a bit symbol
ic of his friend’s play.
“The album is really a masculine
album,” Pollett said. “There’s 19
songs out there autonomously. It’s
very sexy- horribly out of control. I
hope we do need helicopters.”
Gals Panic has had some interest
ing experiences playing live shows.
“The difference between recording
and playing live is like the differ
ence between a photograph and a
movie,” Pollett said.
Before Gals Panic picked up
bassist Cardinal Connor and drum
mer Dave Keel, it played with a drum
machine and a keyboard player.
“We played at this place called
the Cavity Club in Austin three and
a half years ago and just brought
our entire living room onstage,” Pol
lett said. “We had a potted plant, a
desk, a chair, and a TV set. It was
total improvisation.”
Besides the Cavity Club, Gals
Panic has played in a variety of
places with well-known bands
such as Green Day, Rancid and
Tripping Daisy, along with play
ing in bowling alleys, residential
basements, and Sudsy Malone’s
Laundromat in Cincinnati.
“Playing at the laundromat was
cool,” said Pollett. "People are totally
spinning their laundry and it’s a
battle to hear the band over the
damn change machines.
“It’s funny because the people
who actually came to see us play
were these dirty punks who looked
like they hadn’t done laundry in like
three months, so it was a good way
to get people to the laundromat.”
Gals Panic consider themselves a
self-sufficient band. They book, pro
mote and publicize their own shows,
and sell the albums themselves.
At a show in Austin, Pollett said
he wished he had a bodyguard.
“A drunk girl close to the stage
was blasting one of those horns you
blow at basketball games and no one
would stop her,” Pollett said. "I went
up to her and told her I was going to
take her horn until the end of the
show. After the show she could play it
as loud and as often as she wanted.
“Well, in the middle of our next
song I guess I was really rocking out
because it totally took me by surprise
when she tackled me onstage and
punched me in the mouth. She broke
my front tooth, but it was kind of a
cool rock and roll experience.”
Gals Panic is known for their on
stage theatrics as well.
“I’m somewhat of an exhibition
ist,” said Pollett. “I love being on
stage and performing live. It’s im
portant to me to have that kind of
communication with myself.”
Gals Panic made their motion
picture debut recently in the crime
film The Underneath. Steve Soder
bergh, director of sex, lies, and
videotape, asked them to play mu
sic for a bar scene.
Pollett taught himself to play gui
tar, which he believes has helped
him develop his own style.
“I don’t know or care much about
theory, so I make up chords myself,”
Pollett said. “My older sister’s
boyfriends used to show me a chord
every now and then, but I always
liked doing it on my own.”
Pollett said Gals Panic is all
about originality.
"My theory is to always be your
self,” Pollett said. "No one can pla
giarize. Everything is original if it’s
intense and sincere.”
Gals Panic will be playing Mon
day, July 15, at Vertigo with
MU330, whom Pollett said is a band
worth seeing.
“They are just the epitome of
cool,” Pollett said. “They have so
much energy.”
ITALY SPRING 1997
Study with TAMU in Castiglion Fiorentino
at the Santa Chiara Study Center
Interested?
Attend any one of these
Info Meetings in
358 Bizzell Hall West:
Fri., July 12
3:15-4:00 p.m.
Wed., July 17
5:00-5:45 p.m.
Thurs., July 18
3:45-4:30 p.m.
Students will select a minimum of 12 hours:
ARTS 350:
LBAR 332:
ECON 320:
SOCI 205:
SOC1 230:
Arts and
Civilization*
Prof. Paolo Barucchieri
Global Economic Issues
Prof. John Moroney
Economic
Development of Europe
Prof. John Moroney
Introduction to
Sociology
Prof. Stjepan Mestrovic
Classical Social Theory
Prof. Stjepan Mestrovic
(No Prerequisites)
♦Mandatory for all stu-
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Service includes Diagnostic $Q>|95
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