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8.24.2005

Live, via Internet 

I sound like a nerd.

Or so I've been told by many, many faceless people. See, every now and again I enjoy a few matches of Halo 2 on Xbox Live, which shouldn't surprise you. But I probably wouldn't play nearly as much if it wasn't for my partner in crime across the state, Troy, who makes playing games a bit less random and a lot more fun.

But for the uninitiated, the Xbox Live community is a vast cesspool of gamers spanning all ages and demographics. It can result in some pretty fun, competitive matchups. It can also reveal the dark side of human nature that exists when the anonymity of Internet voice chat is combined with the comfort of one's living room.

It's like an odd social experiment, if you think about it. Give people free reign to say and do whatever they choose in an online world with no repercussions for their actions whatsoever. The results just might make you lose faith in mankind.

The worst kind of player is the 12 year old boy whose parents shouldn't have bought him a copy of a mature-rated game, and should probably move the Xbox to the living room where they can keep an eye on their kid. Honestly, I don't claim to have virgin ears (or the cleanest mouth in the world, for that matter). So, when something that I hear from a small child even manages to shock my numb conscience, you know it ain't pretty.

But forget that. Let's talk about my favorite kind of Halo player: the guy who pays $50 a year to berate everyone he can. Don't be fooled: this guy usually isn't a kid. He usually sounds like he's in his late teens or early 20's, and he's probably got a few friends on which he can't take out his aggressions, so he's found an outlet for it through Halo.

Halo is kind enough to provide you with a ten second "lobby" with your randomly chosen teammates and opponents while the game loads. Some take this opportunity to introduce themselves, some talk strategy, and then some like to get people riled up.

Troy and I are usually in the midst of conversation as the lobby loads up, and these types of people typically take the opportunity to let us know what kind of gamer they are.

"Hey, you!" they usually say, followed by mispronouncing our easy-to-say gamertags. "Shut the fuck up! I'm gonna kick your ass you little bitch!"

Of course, it usually goes beyond that. But the real fun happens when the game starts, especially if the guy sucks. Seriously, ain't nothing stupider than shit-talking and then getting your ass kicked.

To add to the fun, Halo also provides you with a post-match lobby. This is a room where all the players can chat as they view their statistics for the previous matchup. Players can leave this room pretty much immediately if they don't want to talk, or, if you like, you can stay as long as you want.

And the "guy" who's all about spewing insults, he's always there. He stays after the match to yell at you. And he won't leave until you leave first. It's a macho thing, you see. If I leave first, then I've lost the battle of the wits. My own personal global pissing contest, right in my living room.

Of course, you can always ignore this guy, as most people certainly do. It would probably be more effective.

But I have a problem. Like sick gluttons for pain (or entertainment), Troy and I will stay and listen to every little bit of insight this person has to offer. We'll even play along. We'll insult ourselves, we'll laugh hysterically, we'll insult them - anything we can do to keep them in the chatroom and keep them angry at us. It's way too much fun.

Sure, most of the shit you hear is the typical "your mom" jokes, but we all know those can only so far. If you bait a good person, they run out of mom jokes really quick, and they have to start digging deeper for more insults. As you can probably imagine, these aren't the smartest folks, so the insults can get pretty out there, and that's where the fun starts.

Forever burned into my mind is some guy with a thick New York accent who tried his best to get me riled up, but only succeeded in flaring up his own temper.

"Yo man," he said to me after a series of mom jokes. "You sound like a nerd. You do realize that, right?"

"Well damn," I said back. "I guess my dream job in phone sex isn't going to work out."

"Hey, fuck you man!" he said. At this point he was out of mom jokes and had to stretch for some material.

"Yeah, make sure you put in your retainer at night before you go to bed."

"Actually, I wear spacers at night," I said. "That's different from a retainer."

"Do you have a cold?" he asked. "Why don't you go get your mom to buy you some Vicks Vapor Rub and put it on your chest?"

Troy and I lost it. Vicks Vapor Rub? What? Where the hell did that come from? We wanted more. We begged him, keep going.

"Fuck you, man," he says, resetting his train of thought. "I bet you like that Vicks up your ass, right?"

I do! How did you know? At this point, all you could hear over the headset was the unstoppable laughter of Troy and I. Our New York friend got frustrated and left the room.

But tonight was a real classic. Troy, Brian, Fraser and I were all playing together as a team against random opponents. We joined the lobby for a new game and were instantly being harassed. Some guy who tried his hardest to sound like a gangster had the name SyndicateOC, and (no surprise here) started telling us stuff about our moms.

"Syndicate? Like a crime syndicate?" I asked. "Hey," I said to my teammates, "do you guys listen to the rap group 'Crime Mob'? I wonder if this guy likes them."

"Yeah, the Orange County Crime Syndicate, sounds like a good rap name," Troy said. "Hey man," he asked the kid, "do you watch 'The OC' on Fox?"

"No, no, no, we've got it wrong," Brian said. "He wants Fox to syndicate the show 'The OC'!"

And so we all started laughing and talking about the syndication of 'The OC.' Our real-life Syndicate Gangster, meanwhile, got pissed and decided to tell us we were pronouncing his name wrong, and threw in something about our mothers.

The match ended and Gangster Boogie and his buddies got beat pretty harsh, but decided they'd stay and try to insult us.

"Hey man," he said to me. "You sound like a fucking nerd."

Haven't heard that one before.

"I bet you're a huge fan of the film '8 Mile', aren't you?" I asked him. "I hope you are," I said. "That movie really makes me want to go out and try to participate in rap battles."

And now he's fuming. Doesn't take much to get these guys going. They do it to themselves.

"Are you from San Francisco?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm from the Bay area."

"Oh, I knew you were a fucking fag!" he said.

"You're right," I said. "Actually, I live in a bath house." I think that one went over his head. "To tell you the truth, AIDS is destroying my way of life."

"I bet you're a fucking gay prostitute, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I'm a giggalo."

"Giggalo?" he said. "More like gigga-HO!"

We all lost it. The hysterical laughter of four nerds instantaneously flooded the Internet.

"Hey man," I said. "That's pretty good. Did you write that, or is that a Missy Elliot song?"

Troy jumped in with one of his favorite stock lines: "I make way too much money for way too little work. I am better than you."

"Bitch, fuck you," he said. "I've got more money than you can ever imagine!"

"Oh," said Brian, "I didn't realize we were playing Halo with Ted DiBiase."

And as we all laughed, OC Syndication apparently decided he had enough and left. Somehow, I doubt he realizes how much he left us with in what little time we spent together. SyndicateOC, we hardly knew ye.

8.02.2005

Piss poor 

This is the story of how my piss ended up on a 350-pound man's face.

It was a frigid Gainesville night, and I was out on the town, enjoying a few gentleman's sodas. As anyone who's consumed a large number of liquids knows, when you've gotta go, you gotta go. And I went. A lot.

That's the luxury of being a guy, you see. I can pee anywhere, any time. Just pull it out, find a tree, a lawn ornament, a hallway, an extra-long pipe, and I've got a urinal. The world is my bathroom.

And why the hell should I have to wait in line with a bunch of chicks who take forever? I'm an American, I don't have to wait. I do what I want. So I pee outside.

This particular home had a nice, luxurious backyard, full of so many potential places for urination that it made settling on one location difficult. Each trip to the "bathroom" was a new adventure: Where do I pee next, the gazebo or the lawn gnome?

I settled on a tree. And man, was it cold out. Suffice to say that my manhood was not at its manliest on this particular evening. After a few moments of collecting myself and getting the pipes warmed up, I let a nice stream of urine fly out. It featured a healthy outpouring of steam that radiated before the piss even hit the ground.

The residents of this particular establishment has a pretty cute little dog, and he really loved people. Apparently, he was pretty cold too. Poor little guy. So he came running out back to find me, next to a tree, draining out my bladder.

I think you know where this is going. You probably also know that once you start peeing, it's impossible to stop.

So here's this dog, bathing itself in my running stream of steaming urine, and I'm in a desperate struggle to keep my piss away from him. I love dogs, I don't want to pee on one. But this little guy was really enjoying the heat. Like an incredibly awkward game of keep away, here I am with my dick out, trying to pee anywhere but on this dog, and he's just running wherever the urine flows.

Out of piss and disturbed by the situation, I hurried inside away from the dog and filled up another beer. I'd have to be more careful next time, I thought, and make sure the dog didn't find me when I went out to piss.

A few beers later, we find ourselves in the same situation, me and this dog. I started peeing in a remote corner of the yard behind some bushes, and out of nowhere, like he's got a radar on my piss, there he is, jumping into action.

The beers kept coming and the urine kept flowing. By the end of the debacle, I was tired of fighting with the dog and too drunk to care, so I just peed and he just sat there and enjoyed the warmth.

At this point in the night, the whole ordeal had become a bit too humorous, so I had to share with someone. I found my comrades for the night and told them the gritty details. "Don't pet the dog," I told them.

I sat down by the stereo, a few folks were dancing to the blaring music in front of me. One of them was a large black man. The type of guy that could shut down both a buffet and a Bar Mitzvah in one sitting. The only surviving member of the Fat Boys was working up a sweat on the dance floor, and he sat down at a recliner across from me and took a break.

And in runs the dog, looking for some attention. And oh look, he's dripping wet. He's rubbing up on the now seated large man. The guy pets the dog and picks up his hand. He looks at the moisture on it.

Turning to one of his friends, he says "The dog is wet."

"Must be running through some sprinklers outside," he says.

Not content with a mild sampling of my urine, he goes back for more, rubbing his hand firmly into the dog's piss-soaked coat. With sweat from the dance floor dripping down his face, the large man takes his wet hand with a heaping dose of my piss on it and proceeds to wipe it on his face.

I lost it. I had to tell someone. Someone I trusted, though, 'cuz I really don't feel like getting my ass kicked. So I run back to the group of friends and open my mouth. Before I can even get a word out, the music at the party cuts off instantaneously.

"HEY, EVERYBODY!" I hear. It's one of the girls who lives at the house. "I hear someone has been pissing on my dog, and that's really fucked up," she says. "Please, stop pissing on my dog!"

Oh... shit. Someone heard me tell the story before.

Shit.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see our large friend still seated in his recliner.

We've gotta go before I get my ass kicked.

Faster than a stream of hot fluid, we were out of there. Fortunately, I was never implicated in that night's dog pissing incident. We returned for another party a few months later and the dog and I met again. Only this time, he had been hit by a car and was missing a leg.

Dumb dog.

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2003 - 2005
Reverend Hughes