A LAN (Local Area Network) party is a phenomenon only recently made possible by the march of technology.

A group of friends pile round to someone's house with their computers, spend several hours connecting them up, and then settle down to blow the hell out of each other on various computer games, such as Quake II.

There are several incontrovertible rules that govern LAN parties:

• The number of people who actually turn up is impossible to calculate until after everyone has gone home, and bears no relation to the number of people who actually know about the LAN party, or even to the number of people who have the required technology.
• The time spent setting up the network and arguing over which games to play will always be greater than the time spent playing games
• After everyone's gone home, the LAN party host will always find that they've gained several technical-looking but completely useless pieces of technology, as well as various coats and the occasional PC.
• The amount of space available for a LAN party is inversely proportional to the number of people who arrive, both of these quantities being uncertain until just after the last minute.

Nevertheless, if you are interested in playing computer games against your friends, I suggest you get hold of a 'Combo' network card each (so that you can network using coaxial cable or a hub), a coaxial cable each, a T-Piece each, and a couple of terminators. It's likely that nothing will work the first time you try this, but keep trying... it's worth it when everything comes together.