Raise a glass!

[seabolt]

hubris

Did somebody call me?

What? Say it three times fast, I might pull off the puff of brimstone schtick. Probably would smell like pork ...

Top shelf! Obviously means something else in North America. Either that or you delete the best posts!

Dude. It's 2008. We've got the Internet for that bizness now.

Seriously, though, it's very nice to find a community of likeminded goofs. I've loved this game for a long time, because there are few things* more cathartic than to take the field of pixelated battle and do my utmost to render my opponent's icons into electronic oblivion. I play ruthless because I can, without any serious emotional backlash, and I also love this game because it's sophisticated enough that it can't hold your interest unless, at some level, you get what I'm talking about. *Nobody* comes here without being humbled at having thrown away so many little fictional lives, and *nobody* comes here unless they thrive on making me throw away more of them. But we still manage to trade friendly quips in the process. In a small way, it brings to mind our long-ago ancestors, who called it quits on Christmas Day and saluted each other before plummeting 2K meters smoldering and sans parachute. It's just a game, but it reminds us to remain human during the inhuman. Maybe only a game could.

But then I've been drinking heavily. Maybe I'm just talking to myself.


*Once I convinced my team of 12-year-old wannabe footballers to play even in a playoff with a team of head-taller Real Athletes. My son broke his wrist, my star tailback cracked his shoulder blade in half, tears were streaming down the faces of my future band geeks. Nobody. Would. Quit. On. Me. I didn't draw a single decent breath in the fourth quarter. I was terrified that one of my boys that just became men would get flat-out killed. That felt something similar to trying to punk Vesku's Nazi hordes ... ;)

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