STOP THE PRESSES

Hell has frozen over!

Pigs are flying!

Aku is thinking of a monogamous relationshiop!

Peace has finnaly come to the middle East! (Okay, maybe not that much.)

I logged on to Live yesterday afternoon, and noticed that I had a couple of friends online already. I went to my friends list to see who they were, and saw Sin Throttle and Stormblade. That was when I did a double take. Not the fact that Stormblade was online on a Sunday afternoon, since we all know he has as much of a social life as I do, that was not the surprise. The surprise was the fact that he was playing *gasp* Saints-Row 2. The same Saints Row 2 that he has vehemently rejected as beeing the worst game of all time! Worse even than Paintball 2, Battlecruiser 3000A.D. and Daikatana all rolled into one! (2 of which I owned).

But then a sininster thought came to me. Perhaps Stormblade was the victime of a robery, and someone logged into his account to taunt him. I quickly sent him a party invite to ascertain the identity of the fool who would dare perpetrate an attack on a member of the clan, only to be stunned into silence. The voice that answered me at the other end was that of Stormblade.

I did not know what to say. I was speechless. Not the kind from my lack of voice, but the kind where you are faced with an impossibility that just boggles the mind, such as Aku comming out of the closet with his "better half" Roger the catcher from the softball team.

Not only that, but from the way he was talking about the game, and what he was doing, it sounded like he was.. he... that he was.... actually ENJOYING HIMSELF! After what, 2 solid months of berrating us (myself, Blackwalt and Coxxorz that is) for spending so much time in a "horrible game", he has given the game a chance, and now is addicted to it.

It seems we have our friend Coxxorz to thank for his change of heart. He sent Stormblade a joke invite with the goal to obviously irritate him, but it had the opposite effect. Although initially it probably did irritate him, but I guess he figured that playing Saints Row for 5 minutes to shut up the clan member would not hurt him too much. His eyes would only melt out of their sockets, fingers would fuse together and mind would explode. But that is nothing compared to the pain he experiences from having Blackwalt and Q-Bert as friends, who still have not read his book.

And then something strange happened. The 5 minutes turned into 10 minutes. Then 30. 60! And he was enjoying himself. He was actually enjoying playing the game. Yesterday we played from I think it was 3:30 or 4:00 until 12:00 AM! (With a 1 hour supper break). I went passed my bed time so we could complete the 6 levels of the snatch activity, which did not come to pass as I accidently shot the 6 th ho as she was disembarking from the car at the brothel. It had been our 10th try!

At the end of our game, he actually said "We'll try again tomorrow." Although if my nepheu MiniGee shows up, I will switch to play with him, but until then, I will hold Stormblade's hand in the world of Stillwater, and guide him along the wonderful ride that at least some of us have delightfully been taking in this city.

Oh, and I will also lob a few grenades at him too. Just because it's fun. I wonder if I should help him get the Tornado, and then shoot it out of the sky just as he lands at a helipad.