The News and Observer from Raleigh, North Carolina • 47

TIE NEWS OBSERVER FRIDAY MARCH 31 2000 Friday 3E Check before you chat TOTAL MOTION 'PHYSICAL THERAPY Forget bars singles parties and health clubs The fastest way to meet new friends and find old ones is alzoqito on the Internet But meeting and greeting in cyberspace has its own set of rules its own etiquette Well chat room survival is just one of the many aspects of the Internet lifestyle that arc examined explained and demystified every week in Access Magazine It's your 00ti 1 IGA guide to the Net :4 '1' 414'1' "el'" 4h ik 0 i 'rlt VE trtfirl Every Tuesday i ti (ill tiS I relqi Va '110 410411)0 1 GI() 1 lit) mom 04 minsar swot4 TO 0 good to be hi 42 IIIE 444 "7 om neurons iv more 4" to wvit: Ilk" 'frile 114 uto Coiii -'''''A -z? airptid n)EW (4 2912 ilighwoods Blv it uBsE ROteliAIN527604 --4As04 i-y 71345 i 6 (AB I OUR FAMOUS ANNUAL itt 1 -4 WAREHOUSE SALE 4 NORTH RIDGE LOCATION OrZtart) OA OFF MIR MRPOSRS 0 1 reg prices L4CCESSORIES A' SPRING SALE BOTH LOCATIONS It 1 i 0 0 reg prices -4111Blitt JII 0 Excludes Arthur Court Products 1 0 A I tvj IIT () II) VI 0111Clp CAMERON VI titt EGANCE COMES i DIF EREN SHADES SHOPPEATE 82 599 SI NC me 6 92 072- 253 Check before you chat Forget bars singles parties and health clubs The fastest way to meet new friends and find old ones is on the Internet But meeting and greeting in cyberspace has its own set of rules its own etiquette Well chat room survival is just one of the many aspects of the Internet lifestyle that are examined explained and demystified every week in Access Magazine It's your guide to the Net Every Tuesday A2A uBSEt OUR FAMOUS ANNUAL WAREHOUSE SALE NORTH RIDGE LOCATION MPS 5 0000FF MIRROR reg prices kCCES SPRING SALE MPS MIRRORS 0 bCCIESORIIES Excludes Arthur Court Products TOTALMOTION PHYSICAL THERAPY gW(ftlID 0 iffi NR attention of boys and men Teague says Men don't get together just to talk Bonding is centered on an activity "One guy is not going to call another guy and say 'Hey I want to spend some time with you'" 'Iague says "There always has to be an excuse and that's the activity IP And football whether virtual or real pigskin is always a good excuse for guys to call The b-ball game was just a warm-up for the real challenge: Electronic Arts NFL 2K football Football games are the most popular sports video games Now with a simple switch of the discs the setting has been changed from hardwood to Mtrohni Almost immediately Simpson who is leading the Minnesota Vikings scores a touchdown against Rider's Green Bay Packers "Oh my word!" exclaims Simpson who later wins the game "You know you never beat me" During the two-hour contest the action becomes secondary Side conversations about school work and who is dating whom become just as important The men talk about plans they have made to play basketball later in the week and reminisce about times they have played together That always happens when there is a console and these Like in January when the guys drove to Charlotte to watch the Carolina Panthers play the Jacksonville Jaguars After watching Jacksonville win it was time for the boys to play But when they got to the hotel room Simpson realized he'd forgotten to pack the cord that hooks the console to the television So Simpson and Potter drove around town until they found one at a Wal-Mart This occasion could not be wasted They stayed up talking and playing until 4 am "The main thing is that we can't do this stuff ourselves" Potter says "The competition makes you feel good about yourself We can take the aggression out on each other without hurting ourselves" Staff miter Elizabeth Wellington can be reached at 8364799 or ewellingnandocom been named co-anchor at 5 and 11 pm He joins the station from KGTV an ABC affiliate in San Diego Calif and also has a background in law enforcement At 5 pm Gaines replaces anchor Art Edwards The lone survivor of NBC17's failed "New Generation of News" experiment of five years ago Edwards moved to WDIV an NBC affiliate in Detroit Edwards has a severely mentally disabled child Briggs said and he found North Carolina's services lacking In Michigan his child will get better services and Edwards gets a job as weekend anchor at the market's top station Gaines takes anchor Byron Day's spot at 11 pm but viewers can still catch Day at 6 pm Staff writer Adrienne At Johnson can be reached at 829-4751 or adriennanandocom irresponsible ways to say nothing of the company he keeps a scruffy beatnik the only bearded 35-yearold high school student in America with a marked aversion to gainful occupation in any form Indeed the father is so disturbed by his son's lack of character that he often talks about killing him 'The Andy Griffith Show' But as we fly over the hills to rural Ma3rberry we've finally come home or at least so it appears What could be healthier mentally and socially? Dad is a widowed sheriff living with his kitchen-savvy aunt and his adorable young son who will likely go far in the movie business The barber and other townsfolk are always ready to lend moral support in an emergency But wait Really the entire milieu might have been crafted by William Faulkner or some other Gothic Southerner not so much because of town drunk Otis whose alcohol addiction is so incorrigible that he is permanently assigned a cell at the jailhouse but because of Dad's cousin What's wrong with this guy? Is it a glandular disease or an anxiety disorder or both? He imagines himself a legendary police officer as opposed to what he is a lowly deputy sheriff who is only issued one bullet at a time and must carry it in his shirt pocket and whose job clearly is the fruit of nepotism His dreams of grandiosity are almost frightening in their persistence and intensity Best thing will be never to leave him alone with the aunt and the boy You never know when he's going to snap ware for $200- Potter buys the sports game discs which run about $40 apiece They keep the game at Rider's house where they meet at least three times a week on a recent Tuesday evening Rider and Simpson pop an NBA Showtime disc into the Dreamcast console Rider becomes Latrell Sprewell and Patrick Ewing of the New York Knicks pitted against Simpson's Gary Peyton and Vin Baker of the Seattle Supersonics At first glance it is easy to confuse the video game for a real basketball game Between quarters NBC's familiar brassy half-time music blares from the speakers The players' uniforms are vivid shades of orange and blue The game's version of Ewing looks just like the real thing as he grimaces while making a layup And Sprewell's hair is braided so neatly you can see the parts between his cornrows The players perspire and with each play comes a grunt and high five in full stereo sound Yeah! As Peyton plays he sits hunched over on the couch gripping the controls The baggy pants pooling at his ankles make him look like a poster boy for the hip-hop generation "Come on give me that ball" Simpson says as Peyton goes in for the la3rup scoring two points The Supersonics win 47 to 44 "There goes hotness" Simpson boasts Rider frowns throwing his hands in the ain "Don't get upset man" Simpson chides The competition and glitzy graphics of video games appeal to men says Michael Teague a Raleigh psychologist who specializes in male behavioral patterns "It gives guys a chance to do something on screen that they may not ever be able to do physically" Teague says "They may have the eye-hand coordination but not the great bulk" Bonding while playing Competition has always been central to male bonding Teague says Video games are the 21st century version of such popular male pastimes as hunting chess or stickball It's only natural that video games have grabbed and kept the TV in the show's first airing so programmers decided to broadcast it again and again In all the concert aired 10 times Steve Volstad UNC-TV's communication and marketing director says the show attracted a lot of new viewers "The music cuts across a lot of age groups in the audience and it's appropriate for the demographic group that watches public television" he says While that probably means we'll be seeing "Doo Wop 50" next year the typical pledge program has a life of only a few years The exception to that rule has been "North Carolina Is My Home" featuring native son Charles Kura 11 After five years or so it's still in the Top 5 among moneymakers Gaines and losses That new face over at NBC17 belongs to Bill Gaines who has of each show it is borne in upon him that his wife and sons love him no matter how lame he is but the next week he's right back acting out on the same old insecurities 'Bachelor Father' What's that again? Well OK it's not about an unmarried man raising his out-of-wedlock child it's about an unmarried man raising his deceased relative's perfectly legitimate orphan daughter But he's not much of a role model for the poor girl always gadding from one attractive lady to another and with a positive phobia for commitment of any kind 'Love That Bob' You know perfectly well what it means to be a handsome successful fashion photographer and this show bears that out With scarcely a thought for the impression he's making on the nephew who lives with him the lensman spends every episode dealing with a dizzying array of well-favored women the unmistakable implication being that he enjoys sexual relations with every single one of them 'The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis' Here the nephew from "Love That Bob" turns up as a 25-year-old high school student he looks at least that old) who obsesses out loud before a hallucinatory audience about the trouble he has forming connections with girls Small wonder that his father proprietor of a grocery store is perpetually at his vAt's end with frustration and anger over the boy's aimless BONDING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 screen with a console These have the most detailed graphics and make up just over half of the industry's US sales And the quality of the games is always improving Last July Sega introduced Dream-cast its latest video game hardware Sony plans to introduce the US version of PlayStation 2 its latest video game hardware in August With its young professionals college students and sports enthusiasts the Triangle is not immune to the trend Managers at the Durham and Raleigh Best Buy stores say that games especially the sports games are being grabbed by everyone from garbage collectors to doctors from single guys to married men with grown children "It is entertainment that allows guys to get together without sweating" says Mark Ltpremborg a manager at Buy Rite Video Games a Raleigh hangout for garners "We have a hard time keeping games on the shelf once they come in" Couch competition Jeremy Simpson 22 James Rider 21 and John Potter 21 all of Durham have been playing video games together since their days at Chtmey Middle School Every day after school the friends went to the arcade where they would spend $5 on games like Pac Man and Centipede The threesome remained friends during their years at Hillside High School They took tests and played video games they got after-school jobs and played video games they even got girlfriends and played video games Each year the companies introduced more cartridges and the graphics got even more awesome They're young adults now and video games remain their passion and their excuse to get together They sit in Rider's living room munching pizza and playing until the wee hours Last year after Sega introduced Dreamcast Rider bought the hard NOTES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 'Doo Wop' does it for UNC The folks over at UNC-TV have also been spending time looking at numbers but there the news is all good During its annual fund-raiser the network reached its goal 10 days before the 32-day drive ended In the end contributions totaled $41 million a 43 percent increase over 1999's $29 million Much of that increase can be attributed to "Doo Wop 50" The concert featuring such famed 1950s acts as The Platters and The Cadillacs drew pledges of $1092128 The show has done well for public stations in other markets the first showing in New York brought in $650000 The doo-woppers brought in about $300000 for UNC TV FAMILIES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 They apparently have a hard time forming social bonds The only friends they have are completely unsuitable their elderly landlord and his dowdy wife All the four of them do together is play cards gossip and engage in petty feuds The performer's wife exceedingly dissatisfied with her lot as a hausfrau is always trying to break into show business despite her manifest lack of talent These efforts necessitate that she lie to her husband constantly She vents her frustrations and resentments by mocking his foreign accent he treats her as though she were a mentally retarded child 'The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet' We bid Lucy and Ricky Ricardo adieu and travel from Manhattan to Anytown USA where we find a middle-aged couple and their two rapidly growing boys Everything looks pretty idyllic here the boys do well in school the younger son plays the guitar the mom is capable and sane and dinner is always on time The problem is Dad Perhaps older than he looks at first glance he seems to have retired early at least he's always hanging around the house He appears to be very much at loose ends But the biggest problem is his obvious lack of self-esteem Many of his schemes are designed to win the respect of his which he seems to feel is lacking At the end 1 APRIL 16 AUGUST 13 1000 ono to 714 6'1' c1 141 17 13 tek Vt TOUR PASS TO I 'MEEKS OF THE ARTS CULTURE 'THEATRE DANCE RI CBI MUSIC MUSEUMS AND DISCOUNTS TOUR PASS TO IT WEEKS OF THE ARTS CULTURE THEATRE DANCE MUSIC 14)SEUIS Discover the fine art of flashing Go ahead Give it a try Flash your Festival Rodin Super Pass at the North Carolina Museum of Art See? 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