Life on the LAN – Late nites with the geeks at MSU

At 11 p.m. on a Friday night, the Red Bull is running, the bytes are whirring and the chip temperatures are rising.

The darkened Strand Union Building’s ballroom is throbbing with energy, blitzes of light and sporadic shouts from energized male voices.

"Gotchu!"

"RedSnow rocks."

"Urgggggghhh."

Welcome to the world of the LAN party, one of the hottest phenomena of the young, the male and the electronically sophisticated.

If you haven’t heard of Local Area Network, or LAN, parties, you probably have no interest in Half Life 2, UT2k4, X-Box games or mods, which is what gamers call their ultra-customized computer systems.

Think hot-rods with hard drives.

And you probably cannot understand why 80 of Montana State University’s most technologically gifted would play computer games from sunset to sunrise, eschewing sleep, healthy food and female company for a world of fictional battle.

"This is a huge thing internationally," said Todd Howard, president and one of the founders of MSU’s LAN group, msuhivemind. "In Las Vegas they have tournaments that draw thousands."

By CAROL SCHMIDT, MSU News Service

Full Story: http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2005/02/21/news/lanparty.txt