"The World's Fastest Table Sport!"

I know that visiting camp is sold as "the best week of your life" what with all the activities and games and loud and/or shiny things to look at (ended in a preposition! Ha!). But I live at camp. Score one for me.
Well, actually, I don't get to do all that stuff, so I really don't win, but it's still fun to watch others doing it. Out of the plethora of things to do, what with the zipline and giant swing and blob and climbing tower, etc the only thing I've gotten to do is the game room. You know, shuffleboard, ping pong, billards, fooseball, and, what inspires me to write this, air hockey.
I love air hockey.
Like have an irrational love of air hockey.
There is something simple and beautiful about air hockey. It requires little or no skill (except some elementary hand/eye coordination) and yet I hold the firm belief that I am quite good at it. My defense is much stronger than my offense, though I have a great left bank shot. Seriously, I rarely lose. You wouldn't want to play me. (To learn some sweet air hockey moves, check this out. )
There is a professional billard leaque; ping-pong is an Olympic event. Fooseball is found in most good American bars (including Taps--holla to the Westcott Nation). But air hockey? No such thing. There are "world rankings" but they consist of people from mostly Ohio and Colorado. Spectators don't gather to watch two players battle over that little plastic puck, there are no professional leagues, no way to raise through the ranks of air hockey-dom. That is one thing I love about it; it is still unmolested by sponsors, ESPN, elitism and doping scandals. There is aggression with no physical contact. There are moves but mostly luck. I live for that satisfying TWAAK of the puck against the mallet, the corners.
Everything I do has some sort of purpose to it, to gain something, get past something, feel something, get over something. Not with air hockey; I love the purposeless of it.