Let the blurry lights lead you to the conclusion of our Lazerescent joy.

Me and the gang were hanging out at FunLand in Longbeach, WA, just minding other people's business when the recruiters caught up with us.

Maybe it was the games we were playing that drew their attention. I was bonking hippo heads with a squishy mallet while Patrick was popping balls pinball flipper-style at race horses to make 'em giddy up. We're young and reckless, so I guess we fit their bill.

Before we knew it we were conscripted to wage five minutes of war, following an intense 4-minute briefing and training video. It was as intense a boot camp as any I've ever seen, but I'm still not sure it was enough.

It's true you can never understand war until you've lived through it. I expected violence and bloodshed, but instead got spaceman armor, popcorn rations and a tidy sum of joy, not to mention honorable discharge fewer than ten minutes later.

LEFT - Now right there you got yourself a kid -- who's never been permitted gun play -- for the first time enjoying the feel of cold, hard, blasting plastic in his mitts. He may be little, but his joy isn't limited to the spectum of his shooty-rifle.

Lazer warfare is less about "urban combat" and more about "upstairs combat." Upstairs from FunLand, that is.

They've got state of the art Lazer Tag gear (complete with computerized shooty-tracking), fog machines, black lights and thumping, bassy music. It's almost like a high school dance, except with plastic guns instead of real ones.

RIGHT - Here's me and the Hippo machine. Sure, you can be critical and point out that my boppy-body victims are actually crabs, but why would you be so picky? Are you oppressing me? Do you want me to bring my Lazer Squad to bear on you and yours? Just bear with me and enjoy the ride.

The arena wasn't full of light beaming soldiers when we took our tour of doodie. It was off-season and off-hours, so we were free to absorb it fully with and without our techo-gadgetous firearms, but all without bodily risk. It was good for us, but was our seemingly extensive training all a waste? Was the magnificent power of their recruiting blown on us?

Maybe, but maybe I'm off base and the whole place is really all about having fun.

So if you put the warfareous-battle-is-hell bit aside, here's what Fun Land has to offer:

ABOVE - See us here practicing in our crazy new getups. Though we couldn't understand the purpose of it all, we had a grand time getting comfy in our new exo-skins.

While FunLand doesn't offer anything uniquely Longbeach, it's still something not to be forgotten nor overlooked. If the weather turns on you or darkness falls, very little is left to be done. Go play a game or twenty and walk out with a fine prize in hand. It's what we did and I speak highly of it.

Oh, and if you find yourself conscripted to a Lazer war, don't worry, the Geneva Convention makes no mention of such matters, so you're still all good.

ABOVE - Even before we donned our suits of most technological, Taiwanese enfanciment, we toured the arena and practiced playing dead. Looking back (and down) I can't recall what led me to lie on the floor, but for that fleeting, captured second, I was at rest. A state I would not enjoy again on our trip until remarkably late on any given night.

ABOVE - I call this shot "pure blur." While it shows you nothing of our battle, joy, nor features, it acurately displays the excitement of the moment. We were crazy giddy, and despite the many photos of this piece, the experience was mostly lost due to insufficient camera memory. Hey man, it's high resolution, what are you gonna do?

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(This article available for syndication)

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