With Green Key Weekend approaching, Schmidley and I decided to tackle our most difficult debate yet: pong or beirut? If we confined this debate to Dartmouth, then I might say pong. But lest we forget that there's an entire world out there beyond Hanover's borders where beirut reigns supreme. I love pong as much as all of you, but haven't you always wondered what more there is to life as you're waiting for a six-deep table in a urine-soaked basement? Okay, perhaps the story would be the same if we played beirut instead of pong, but beirut still has several advantages.
Before I argue for beirut, let's first examine why we love pong so much. Pong is a competitor's game. Its fast-paced action gets the blood flowing. Moreover, pong allows for much greater skill differentiation. You can step on a beirut game, never having played before, and be completely competent. Pong? Not so much. Pong is a more complex game than beirut, and one would think all this makes for a better game ...
But this isn't the Olympics, this is drinking. Why complicate things? Why create an environment conducive to injury? Why make skill a prerequisite for success? You shouldn't have to practice hitting spin serves for hours on end to remain competitive. As for what truly makes beirut the better choice, I'll give three easy reasons.
First, pong is to tennis as beirut is to what? Would it matter? Any sport has to be better than tennis, right? Well, pong is to tennis as beirut is to basketball, and basketball is easily the better option here.
Second, beirut is an equal-opportunity game. We've all heard stories about how pong's been designed to give men an edge. And most of these stories are probably false, but pong does grant significant advantages to men -- and not because Dartmouth doesn't provide enough social spaces for women.
Drinking games are supposed to be social. By putting a substantial number of people at a disadvantage, pong severely limits its appeal. Guys, think about how many times you've asked a girl to play pong and been turned down because "she doesn't want to embarrass herself?" Would that happen with beirut? Never. But I'm sure she could still find another excuse not to spend time with you.
Third, beirut is far more portable than pong. You can play it in your dorm room, and you can play it at a bar. You can play it in a pool, and you can play it on a pool table. Remember how I argued just last week that baseball is still America's game? I never addressed why baseball is falling in popularity. Unlike basketball or football, baseball isn't conducive to pick-up games. Pong is the same.
In conclusion, I'm sure I've done nothing to persuade any of you that beirut is the superior game. Just know that there's a time and a place for pong, and it certainly works for Dartmouth. There's also a time and a place for beirut, and maybe once you graduate from Dartmouth, you'll remember this again. Until then, one for ship?
