In case you hadn’t already guessed, I was definitely building up this story a bit more than I should have. BUT that doesn’t make it any less awesome.

A few weeks ago I engaged in an epic lazer* tag battle in an ancient temple-themed facility called ULTRAZONE. ULTRAZONE claims to be the largest lazer tag facility in L.A. So it seemed fitting that the largest group of warriors in L.A. (Ithaca’s ICLA students) should schedule a group trip there.

Mallory and I were running late from work and a subsequent Chiat intern sushi night, but managed to get there in time to play just one epic game. We walked into the temple-themed building, which looked like a poor attempt at reproducing a scene from “Indiana Jones”. The marginally curteous 13-year old employee gave us ULTRAZONE WRISTBANDS™ and we walked into the ULTRAZONE STAGING AREA™ where we were briefed on the ULTRAZONE RULES™ (which included the ‘Don’t Run’ rule, which is the most frequently broken rule in lazer tag…walking just doesn’t suffice when lives are on the line).

Casey and Kelli and I decided to join the red team, the sole reason being that red was easier to distinguish under the black lights than the other colors, which were blue and green. We entered the arena together, armed with guns and ready for battle. The inside of the arena was two floors, and included enough windows, catwalks, barricades and dark corners to excite even the most experienced lazer tag warrior. With music blasting and adrenaline pumping, we began the battle of our lives (which only lasted for about 10 minutes).

At the end of the game, we emerged unscathed (well, mostly…I took an elbow to the face at some point). Casey was the top ranked lazer-tagger, and I floated somewhere around 30th place (I know, you’re impressed). I’d definitely go back, despite the decided lack of fog in the arena (you can never have too much fog when playing lazer tag). Regardless, it still put Ithaca’s lazer tag place to shame**. There may be another lazer tag trip sometime this semester, and I’ll be sure to let you know if we make it to ULTRAZONE again.

That’s all for now, but don’t worry, I had an awesome experience at a giant castle on Sunday that you will hear about sometime soon.

Until next time –

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*Yes, this is spelled wrong. But when you spell ‘lazer’ with a ‘z’ it makes it so much more extreme.

**Ithaca’s EXTREME LAZER X on State Street is definitely worth checking out sometime, though. Don’t worry, they go heavy on the fog.