Word: pongs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Beer Pong is a virtual rendition of the popular college drinking game that requires players to toss Ping-Pong balls across a table and into a cup of beer (if your cup is hit, you drink). The game was designed for the popular Nintendo Wii platform, and its maker had planned to release it as the first game in its new Frat Party Games series. But concerned parents began sending angry letters to JV Games and Nintendo - Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal even got in on the action, sending his own missives to the companies - until JV Games agreed...
...never anticipated such a severe reaction to the word beer," says Jag Jaegar, co-owner of JV Games, which released Pong Toss on July 28 with a kid-friendly rating of E for Everyone...
...controversy isn't entirely surprising. The point of beer pong is to get your friends drunk - and parents and university administrators generally frown on that sort of thing. Last fall, Georgetown University banned beer pong, specially made beer-pong tables and inordinate numbers of Ping-Pong balls and any other alcohol-related paraphernalia in its on-campus dorms - even in the rooms of students of legal drinking age. The University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and Tufts University have also banned drinking games. "We're pleased that Tufts has put this in writing," says Michelle...
Still, there's no guarantee that simply taking the beer out of beer pong will have the sobering effect that college deans intend. Last year, Dartmouth College banned water pong, the real-world version of Pong Toss, because of the risk of water intoxication - it's no joke, as an H2O overdose can be fatal. "I know that [water pong] seems like a good balance between the Dartmouth drinking culture and just trying to have fun," Kristin Deal, a Dartmouth community director, wrote in an e-mail to students announcing the prohibition. "However, it can be just as dangerous...
This single-minded drive explains why China has full-time academies dedicated to what most countries consider a rec-room pastime. At the Luneng Table-Tennis School in Shandong province, 230 boarding students crowd a gymnasium set up with 80 Ping-Pong tables. In the morning, children train for about four hours. A few hours of academic classes are held in the afternoon, more than at many other sports schools. Three times a week, students hone their table-tennis skills also in the evening. Many kids see their parents for only a couple of weeks each year. "China...