If there's one thing I dislike about Minnesotans (besides their use of a one-syllable regional subsititute for the word soda), it's their insistence on refering to the game of paintball as splatball. Splatball is a local company that has cornered the market on paintball in the Twin Cities area. What's worse, they're a bad company. They over charge; they run their fields poorly, and they're usually not very friendly. If I had the money I'd run a local commercial informing Minnesotans that if they continue to call paintball by a wrong name, the rest of the states will continue to laugh at them.

That said, I'll talk a little about what paintball is. It's the best stress reliever of all time. No one, no matter how dedicated to pacificism he or she is, can find an activity that helps him or her to vent like hunting and being hunted by other human beings. Paintball provides the perfect means to do this without making anyone's loved ones sad.

Paintball is played in large wooded areas (some people play it indoors, but they're heathens) marked off into fields which are generally rectangular in shape. Often objectives other than killing the other team are introduced such as capture-the-flag style flags. Regardless of the rules the game usually comes down to who's better at sneaking, waiting, hunting, being stealthy, and out thinking others. Those that hear of paintball and think violence are missing the whole mental aspect. You're not trying to kill people; you're trying to make sure you out live them. There's a big difference, really.

Paintball equipment can be quite costly. I figure I've got about $500 or so invested now. All fields offer rental equipment, and that's great for first timers or people who don't play often, but just like any other sport, eventually you'll want your own gear. Gear includes, as a minimum: a gun and a mask. I've collected a lot of other stuff along the way, some of it worth what I've payed and some not.

The cost of a day of paintball can vary from $10 if you've got all your own stuff to $50 depending on how crooked the field operator is (see Splatball in paragraph 1). On the average I'd say $30 for all rental gear and four hours of play is about fair.