First off, I should apologize to Peter (peter) for being a day late. Sorry, mate.
Some time ago, someone came on the LingQ forum and mentioned a site called typeracer.com, a site where you can practice typing in English and dozens of other languages. I decided to check it out, and found that it was actually quite interesting. I always felt that improving my typing speed was an important task, especially considering the fact that I spend a great deal of my time in front of a computer screen.
Around two months ago, Peter, some other LingQ members and I were “hanging out” in a Google+ Hangout. I thought it would be fun to get everyone on the site to have a typing competition. I didn’t doubt that I would win, but was curious to see how other people stacked up. You don’t often get the chance to gauge other people’s abilities in such tasks as typing (I suppose much in the same way that you don’t really know how fast someone can run until you time them in a 100 meter or a 1 mile race, for example).
When the counter reached 0 and the race began, I pulled out to an early lead. With my eyes glued to the screen, watching the words as they passed by, I heard in the background some cries of agony as Peter struggled to move his fingers as quickly as possible at 4 in the morning. Nonetheless, I knew I couldn’t stop and look back. I had a race to win and nothing was going to stop me. My fingers moved quicker and quicker, the keys on my keyboard cracking like a whip as they slammed against the deck of the keyboard at breakneck speed. Nothing would stop me from winning this race, nothing. But in the midst of my intense focus, that Australian-accented squeal persisted. “What IS that??” I wondered to myself. I pressed on, blocking out all other senses as I punched in the last few keystrokes to take the victory. As I watched “Finished!” appear on the screen, I was suddenly thrown back into reality, and as the fog of war cleared I realized that it was Peter, who had a broken arm and a gash across is forehead, crying out in pain as he crawled along at a mere 40 words per minute.
“Not fair,” he said, “you cheated!”
Well, Peter. I’ve been practicing, and I hope you have too. I’m ready for this rematch whenever you are.
How’s my record? Well, there are plenty of stronger fish out there in the sea, but this war’s between you and me, mate. Here’s how my numbers stack up: http://screencast.com/t/zvU7rz71
See you at dawn.
