“Yes, we want to kill you, DieHard Jim!”

In pondering all the “muthafuckas” in his piece about House of the Dead Overkill and mature gaming on Nintendo Wii, J mentioned that the Driver I.D. gang got together last week. True enough, and along with displaying and discussing the distasteful stereotypes of Detective Washington and tossing out Street Fighter IV beatings to each other, Dustin and J played a little Halo 3, using my headsets and J using Dustin's & Maureen’s LIVE accounts.

Now we’ve done this before, except last time Dustin thought ahead and brought his own headsets and controller, so we could all play and chime in; this time they were stuck with my janky headsets and I was left out of playing. Still, I was content to watch. The last time we did this was shortly after Halo 3 came out, and never before has so much smack talk and absolute lunacy reigned over at my house. However, back then, everyone on LIVE was chatting. This time, no one was. Therefore, no one could talk back to the endless jive J was spouting off at. From insults to pure randomness, the man is hilarious to watch go off on Xbox LIVE.

Some other people must have thought so too, as they tagged along and stayed in Dustin and J’s party throughout several games—even though J was being downright mean. He wasn’t really being a jerk; more like he was parodying things he’s heard on LIVE or people complain about on LIVE. Very tongue in cheek, indeed. Still, no one was talking to us. Until we met “DieHard Jim.”

Good ol’ “DieHard” (AKA “Earthworm Jim”) was a lad no older than 12, and probably much younger than that. He was talking up a storm! Like any grumpy adults, J & Dustin asked him if it was past his bedtime, and shouldn’t he be drinking his chocolate milk? Yes, we’re all bastards. Through all the shit talk, Jim’s falsetto voice piped up: “Are you guys really trying to kill me?!?”

“YES! OF COURSE WE ARE! IT IS A HALO 3 DEATHMATCH THAT WE ARE PLAYING!” came the reply from our end. DieHard didn’t seem too fazed though, and rode around in a Warthog as much as possible, yelling “WAHOOOOO!” …or at least until J or Dustin caught said Warthog with a rocket—something that happened many times.

So what’s the point? I guess that we’re people who just try to have too much fun in unconventional ways? We’re guys who pick on the little guy, then post his gamertag on our blog? That Xbox LIVE needs an enema? That maybe WE’RE part of the problem? (Probably.) Maybe the point is, folks online should watch the hell out when the Driver I.D. crew gets together and plays online for a few laughs. Maybe it's a good thing we haven't been able to mobilize our podcast yet! (But we will...)

Max