Just had my first virtual pool game at yahoo with Quest. Surreal. I started missing the things I do around a real pool table. Like when I have a ball in hand, I have a habit of tapping a gentle kiss on the cue ball before placing it on the pool table, for good luck. Or pacing around the pool table checking out all angles. Or sitting around flipping through magazines and listening to music.

However, you can still banter with other virtual pool players on a scrolling dialogue screen like in irc. My problem is my mouse doesn't respond well while I'm prompted to take my shots, and I have a problem with 2D visualization (I have this urge to hunt for a ruler to align the shots on the screen. lol.)

One good thing with virtual pool is that it assumes I can do steeple shots which I still can't. Steeple shots are when the cue ball is too close to another ball and the only way to hit it is to stand your finger-tips next to the cue ball when taking aim. I'll rather take air shots (which is not to rest any hand on the pool table surface, and hence highly unstable) than steeple shots. Yes, strange, I know.

Thanks for introducing virtual pool to me anyway. :)