People,

Bear with me today as I can barely type. My left hand is locked into a vice of gnarled nerd-dom from the nine hours of Halo 2 that I played yesterday.

For those of you who have lives, Halo and Halo 2 are ultra-violent video games based on the principle of a US fighting force waging a war on a foreign planet. Sounds reasonable, right?

Anyway, it's also based on the ability to successfully manipulate the many dimensions of the X-Box controller, which includes two control sticks (both of which have multiple functions), eight buttons and two triggers. For someone like me, this is no bueno. To give you an idea of my manual dexterity either a) listen to our records or b) know that I have only one pair of shoes with laces - for good reason.

Anyway, 12-G fabricated up a geek paradise last night and he, myself, Lang-Bang and this dude Dave (hereforth known as "Dicktits McGoo") all played ourselves silly. 12-G hooked up two X-Boxes to two TVs and the internet. So, not only did we get to fight and kill each other, we also got the chance to be killed by groups of kids from all over the world. Awesome.

Playing on the internet is a trip, because of both the novelty of playing in real time with strangers and because you can see how good some people get at this shit. I mean, we got our asses kicked. HARD.

However, there is one great equalizer, if you can call it that. There's a microphone that you can attach to your controller that allows you to speak to your teammates and the opposing players. The Mic is for you to communicate strategy, but was essentially was used by me to hurl insults, profanity and death threats at what were no doubt a bunch of twelve year olds sitting alone in their bedrooms. Sweet.

But sometimes I would mix it up just to mess with people. To one player named 'wallimart' I just kept yelling "Yeah Wallimart! I just had dinner! It was pizza and it was great! I LOVED IT! NOW I'M DRINKING DIET COKE! WITH A STRAW! AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I, you see, am a grown up.