What is a burning question? It’s the, you know, often asked but seldom satisfactorily answered questions all ballers have about paintball but are afraid to ask out of the fear of appearing foolish. Or, um, actually being foolish. Since I am both fearless and routinely demonstrate my foolishness online anyway I figured I could both ask and answer some of the secret burning questions I know many of you wonder about as you lay awake at night cursing a cruel and indifferent universe in which you bought an Xbox when the coolest game you’ve ever seen just came out as a PS3 exclusive.

Is cheating still cheating if there’s no one there to penalize you?
Whoa, this is a deeply philosophical question, man. After an extended period of deep thinking (yes, I’ve been known to snore when deep in thought) the answer is: it depends. If you don’t get penalized ipso facto you didn’t cheat because there are penalties for cheating. Right? An appeal to authority has the same result. If the refs didn’t call a penalty the action that might have been misconstrued as cheating obviously wasn’t. See how that works? And everyone knows it isn’t cheating if the other player doesn’t know about it. And the rules really ought to take into account bounces off the ground or bunkers. Those kinda hits shouldn’t count. The list of exceptions is nearly endless.

Are there any drawbacks to using a ghilley suit? You would be amazed–or maybe you wouldn’t be–how many scenario snipers are thwarted when they accidently put their ghilley suits on the ground in the woods and then can’t find them again. And on a more practical note it’s very surprising how many of them do not have zippers in the front–if you catch my drift.

If legal ramping is bad how come the most out-of-control, dangerous guns are in the league that doesn’t allow ramping?
I confess I almost fell for this one. It is, on second (or was that third?) thought, a trick question. Most of the out-of-control guns are on recreational fields around the world and off in the woods blazing through the underbrush like Arnold Schwarzeneggar’s Terminator unleashing a minigun.

What are the minimum requirements to be considered a paintball athlete?
This is an oxymoron. And, no, I’m not calling you stupid. Paintball athlete is like jumbo shrimp or military intelligence. The minimum requirement is a pulse and a bag full of awesome gear. (That’s a paraphrase of a direct quote from the old NPPL rulebook.)

Is agg dead yet?
Yes, agg is dead. A Sandana is just a headwrap and not an investment. Wearing pink just means you need to check your estrogen level and it’s time for all the fanboys to move on to some new, uber hip trendiness they can follow to demonstrate their individuality.

What is a goggle system? Is it different from a plain old pair of goggles? And, come to think of it, a pair of goggles isn’t really a pair at all, is it? Where’s this system hiding? Does a goggle system clean itself? Change its own lenses or tighten its own straps? I’m thinking the use of the word system is marketing code for we jacked up the price, fool, and expect you to pay even more. Which is a pretty sneaky system if you ask me. But I could be wrong.

Why is overshooting called bonusballing?
It’s the pre-eminent symbol of paintball altruism; being better to give than receive. Maybe even paintball’s golden rule: Do unto others before they can do unto you. Which might be, you know, ironic.

If a paintball can smell good why can’t it taste good?
This is really a much more interesting question than it seems at first read. If you’ve ever seen a dog at a paintball field you already know why. Dogs, by nature, are intrigued by all sorts of odors, the more disgusting the better. (Little known factoid: GAP produced the original banana ball to put dogs off the scent, so to speak.) Once a dog discovers something horrible it eats it. So in order to save man’s best friend from repeated bouts of self-induced dyspepsia paintballs taste bad.

If the warp drive worked in Star Trek how come the Warp Feed didn’t work in Paintball?
Did we run out of dylithium crystals? This one is, I admit, both silly and geeky, but I’m trying to connect with the nerd herd that plays paintball. You know who they are and you might even be one yourself. It’s okay, you can be a nerd and still be a manly baller if, you know, you also watch any of the Stargate incarnations.
The Warp Feed failed because back then players had the peculiar idea that is was an important skill to be able to shoot with either hand. Since then we have developed the Kentucky Left Hand and the Dixie Cross techniques which allow players to always play with their dominant hand.

Why is it referees need to huddle for five minutes to make a basic playing on call?
And still get it wrong half the time. Like all effective criminal conspiracies the refs need to meet periodically and make sure they have their stories straight. Although it can be innocent too. Sometimes one of them has just remembered a really funny joke and wants to tell the others before he forgets. And there are dinner plans to be made and since no two refs ever see the same thing the same way you can imagine how hard it is to agree on where to eat. (Refs always eat together because they are properly shunned by all decent society.)

Has any company made a marker in the last 5 years that wasn’t “tournament-ready”?
The answer is they do it all the time but there is a huge difference between actually being tourney ready and claiming to be tournament ready. It’s kinda like the huge gulf between claiming your gun’s electronics are legal this and legal that when in fact they’ve mostly just re-labeled every cheat known to man while extolling the virtues of semi-auto play.

How would a manufacturer promote a new gun that wasn’t designated tournament ready? Well, given the latest trends in the industry maybe we’ll soon see scenario-worthy. Or perhaps Rec-tacular? Maybe even Mil-Simerrific

If you have any questions you’d like to see answered in another edition of Burning Questions sometime post them up in comments.