A virtual date ruined at HOME

Its New Years Eve. My boyfriend and I decided to have a virtual date on the new PlayStation HOME. After weeks of getting him to put his XBox360 aside for one night and join me on the PlayStation Network, and telling him about the wonderful games, funny things he can do and the friendly people he can meet. (Insert the sound of a needle dragging across a record here.)

Wow. What a way to celebrate the new year than to have some jerk making lewd sexual comments to me, racial comments to another person joining us for a game of bowling and insulting my boyfriend. Based on his personal opinion of what he tought about our avatars. While he flamed everyone in the bowling alley, I'm on the telephone stuttering with my boyfriend swearing that not everyone on HOME are jerks. HOME's bowling alley soon erupted into a violent riot of text, fist shaking avatars coming over to scream at the jerk. Eventually a moderator from Sony America shows up to deal with the situation. And the jerk, who I'm convinced is a 17-year-old kid shoving doritos into his mouth with one hand and trying not to pee his pants while laughing at the chaos he's created.

Seriously, is there no etiquette on the networks?

What in the world is wrong with guys online?

Okay. I love playing online PS3 games, I really do. But is it really necessary to:

1) Make sexist comments about me once you find out I'm a girl. I'm not blind and can see what you are typing and hear what you are saying on your microphone.

2) Make it a point to knock me out or shoot me (even when I'm on your damn team) just to teabag my character and then kill me to raid my corpse? Seriously this is juvenile.

3) Tell me about the status of whatever is your pants (alien, human or other). I don't care. In fact I hope you go blind and enjoy your hairy palms.

4) E-mail me nasty comments because I either sniped you in the head with my sniper rifle or managed to get a lucky shot in by punting your character out of the ring. It's just a game ... you'll live ... trust me.

Seriously, whatever happened to good sportsmanship on the playing field (virtual and actual)? At any rate, so far they've been a little better and those who enter my arena now know where I stand. So its getting better in Metal Gear Online but the flaming goes on in Soul Caliber 4.

Its still fun and even though the run ins with jerks are at a minimal now. But still. Dude. These actions may explain why you have no girlfriend or boyfriend and have difficulty mastering decent social skills. And let's not get started on the new PlayStation Home. ... Okay. I need to get this off my chest. (cough) (cough)

ITS JUST AN AVATAR!!!!! STOP CROWDING ME WHEN I'M PLAYING POOL OR STANDING THERE!

There... I'm better ... no ... wait a second.

I HAVE A BOYFRIEND! STOP ASKING! I'M NOT INTERESTED!!!!

Okay. I'm done for now.

So far, I love Metal Gear Online, Soul Caliber 4 is okay, Dark Sector ... well ... its Dark Sector and Little Big Planet is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Cute! Can't wait for the Final Fantasy costumes for my little sack boy. (I'm soooo eyeballing the Sephiroth costume in the ad.)

Happy Holidays!

Funny moment while playing Soul Caliber 4

I have recently figured out how to get my PlayStation3 online in a small town struggling to become a big city with spotty services, limited choices on phone companies to go with locally and so on. The big fix? Switched everything to road runner.

So any ways. Its become the biggest time consumer for me after a hard day at work ... and yes I've become quite addicted to it actually.

The games? Metal Gear Online /Soul Caliber 4/Little Big Planet/Dark Sector. in no particular order. There's not much I can do with only an hour to fix dinner, feed the cats and then go to bed since the holidays are the busiest days of the year at my weekly publication with only 3 photographers.

You'd think that it wouldn't be that hard until you have to drive like a madwoman to one side of the installation to photograph someone handing out free Christmas trees to troops, to the other side of the post to photograph kids decorating a free tree to the next for training. This will take place every day until December 30. Even the weekends are becoming busy.

What can make the evening so funny I can barely sleep?

Soul Caliber 4. The scene. An icy landscape with woolly mammoths frozen into the mountainside,
we're on a platform. I with my menacing level 1 Darth Vader and my opponent is a level 47 Yoda.

It's bad enough I'm being targeted as an easy level up for some people. And I admit I could have walked away.

But I'm having a stressful evening and need to kick, swat and smash the rest of my stress away. I'm blocking mostly as his Yoda makes mincemeat out of my Vader. Until in a last minute attempt to at least get one hit into the fight.

I can't remember which button I hit, but the next move sent me to the floor laughing so hard.
I could barely breathe let alone do the victory dance. Barely half an inch of life left on the bar
at the last battle after losing the first two and like a football player running down the field for the winning kick.

Vader punted Yoda into the icy waters and won the match for the ring out. Putting my once level 1 Vader into the level 2 slot.

I'm actually still laughing about it. I'm not sure who the person was, but if they read this I
would have to say "Thanks. I needed that."

It made the stress go away in one last minute punt.