Sibling rivalries go hand-in-hand with a family of natural born gamers. So is the case with the Chow siblings, which includes Sister Chow, Brother Chow, and myself (aka Oldest Chow). But man, Brother Chow is one butt of a brother, and now Canabalt has revived one of the more passionate sibling rivalries between us in years.
The following is a summarized time line of the competition for best score, or most meters run, between my brother and I. It is best to have some knowledge of both Canabalt and the movie The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Hit the jump for the full summary, and also, I love my brother, despite the fact that I hate him for even trying to beat my score.
November 10th | .tiff gets a brand new iPod Touch for her birthday from her parents. Finally! She gets to play that game that everyone's been talking about.
November 16th | Twitter reports a score feud between Brandon & Steph. .tiff proceeds to beat both of their scores by the end of the day with 12,680m.
November 26th | Brother Chow is home for Thanksgiving. .tiff shows Canabalt to Brother during lunch. Brother gets a score of 7,000-something meters on his first few attempts.
December 8th | Brother Chow e-mails .tiff with a screenshot of a Canabalt score of 14,574m, adding "Did this before I even got out of bed. Btw I hate walls." The fued begins.
December 15th | A few weeks go by, and .tiff encounters several failed attempts at getting close to 14m... Finally, on her bus commute to work in the morning she beats Brother Chow by a mere 264m, with a 14,838m final score. She sends a screenshot to her brother, subject line: "BEEEATCH"
Now this is where things get fishy.
Two hours later, Brother Chow sends the following E-mail:
AUTOMATIC CONTROVERSIAL BILLY MITCHELL RESPONSE:
I was at work and had little time to examine what he had exactly sent me, but all I could recognize from the thumbnail was that he had beat me with a ridiculous score and that he sent me the sketchiest looking "screen shot" I've ever seen in my life. So, I reply:
it looks like it was photocopied. don't believe it.
Brother Chow:
Too bad twin galaxies loves me so much. They will recognize it as the record and you will forever be in my shadow. Muhahahaha.Love, Billy Mitchell
By this point, it became scathingly clear that my brother is two things, a cheater and someone who doesn't know how to take a screen shot. Looks like my brother stuck his iPhone in our black and white copy machine to send over to the photochopping center. Pulled a Billy Mitchell on me, that guy. What a LAME-O.
Anyway, I have every right to take this opportunity to make fun of him, since yesterday he 'worked' all day on beating my score and finally got a 15,065m before missing a window. Dammit. The saga continues, and I have no doubts that I shall once again reign triumphant in the C.C.C. (Chow Canabalt Challenge).
Love you brother.
Best Update Ever: I won. Brother is now trying to 'beat' me in VVVVVV high scores but I'm not even interested. I am the superior sibling. Haw!
Classic.
As the youngest of 6 boys, I can relate...but it was usually the older ones cheating me. Something like pausing as I jumped over a hole, which caused me to fall straight down (Original Super Mario Bros).
Posted by: Account Deleted | December 16, 2009 at 09:10 AM
It's like he photocopied the screen, and then literally cut and pasted in a 1. With glue. Or tape. Or spit. And then scanned *that* and sent it to you.
Posted by: Michael Sippey | December 16, 2009 at 09:50 AM
damn, that's intense. did you draw on your iphone screen to study the patterns and such like Wiebe did?
Posted by: aquma | December 16, 2009 at 05:05 PM
GREAT IDEA
Posted by: .tiff | December 16, 2009 at 06:24 PM
"Billy Mitchell".. Is that something I can reuse again?
Posted by: kimmi8 | December 16, 2009 at 11:24 PM
Behind the magic: Black and white and blurring effects were courtesy of Photoshop Mobile, now available for free on iphone and ipod touch. Limited in actual functionality but quite useful if you just want to create controversy.
PS, downloaded it on Papa chow's iphone. His current record is about 2300.
Posted by: Billy Mitchell | December 17, 2009 at 01:00 AM
CURSES, BILLY. Always harsh-ing my mellow. Dude.
Posted by: .tiff | December 17, 2009 at 01:21 AM
Haha, best thing I read the whole day. I'll get an iPod Touch soon.
Posted by: Tim | January 18, 2010 at 09:31 AM
Yeah! Get one, and then we can compete! I was thinking about updating this post since I'm now IN THE LEAD with 26,265m, but I don't want to rub it in my brother's face :P
Posted by: .tiff | January 18, 2010 at 10:00 AM