The time has long since come for all the little boys playing Gears of War, Halo, and CoD4 to realize that some gamers who play shooters on Xbox Live are indeed of the female persuasion. We're not ten year old boys, we're not c*ntbags and for the most part we're most definitely not fat or ugly.

Ugly and fat are not requirements for women to play Gears of War 2. I checked the box.

I teach kickboxing, I work out 3-5 days a week when I'm not injured, and I participate in four different sports on top of work and getting my engineering degree. I lead an active, varied life that includes occasionally playing Xbox with my friends (some of which are female). I understand trash talk is the currency of online play, and I can handle it just fine. I'm just confused as to where these myths came from, and why I hear them spouted word-for-word from every 16 year old boy with an attitude problem I run into online? To clarify, I'm not trying to prove that every girl who's ever picked up a controller was a supermodel, but just like with male gamers you'll find samples from the whole spectrum of girls. I'm sure there are plenty of stereotypical fat male slobs living in their parents' basement doing nothing all day but playing CoD4 with their clan while smoking blunts and chowing down on cheetoes. For every one of those guys there are probably two or three (or more) attractive, motivated men who like to spend their free time gaming. I'm sure it's much the same for female gamers.

The really funny part is how every guy who pops off with some crude remark about female gamers thinks he's really smart and original. Little do they know that sexist jackasses are a dime a dozen and they all play the same tune. Not just kind-of the same tune, either. When I say word-for-word, I'm serious. Here's some of the gems I hear on a regular basis.

A) "Why the **** do you sound like a girl?" --Because, your tiny brain is so rotted, you can't take in evidence of an obvious conclusion and connect the dots from point A to point B before opening your mouth.

B) "You have a boyfriend? You're a f*gg*t!"  --First of all, if I mention my boyfriend during conversation while playing with a group of my friends and you're the odd man out, it's none of your business. Go find your own group of friends to play with. Secondly, see part A about connecting dots to obvious conclusions. Is it possible that I have a boyfriend because I'm female? Is that too much of a logical leap for you to make?

C) "You're a girl and you play video games! You must be ugly and fat. Only ugly girls play video games." --Obviously you play video games. And since you probably don't have a girlfriend who plays video games with you, and you're at home on a Saturday night playing GoW2 solo, that leads me to conclude that you don't have any friends at all, nevertheless a girlfriend. Well done, Romeo.

D) "Suck my dick." --I would like to believe that very few men/boys exist who have such a complete and utter lack of balls that they would say this unprovoked to any woman while hiding behind a gamer tag. Unfortunately for female gamers, they exist in vast numbers. The good news is that these guys are probably a$$holes online because they don't have anything going for them in real life. They don't get to be the big man anywhere else, so they go home and turn on their consol, they put on their microphone and try to act like they know how swing it with the big boys. It's an extremely translucent act, and at the end of the day it gains respect from no one.

So yeah, boys, keep the trash talk coming. Keep proving over and over again that you're unsophisticated, uneducated, and generally unpleasant. Just do me a favor and come up with a few new put downs so I can at least give you props for originality.

To the guys who like to raz the other team in good fun, none of this applies to you.

To the guys who are gracious and respectful regardless of winning or losing so long as the other team does the same--I hope you get laid every night of the week, and twice on Sunday. Xbox Live needs more men like you.

www.mania.com is my source for this story. The other interesting bit is that Halo 4 may be the first big game for the Xbox 720. Does this mean that Microsoft will try to get a new console out in the next few years? If so, will they keep support for the 360, or cut their losses on the 99.9% failure prone system? Will BC be an issue? Or will the 720 be a 360 with a much lower red-ring rate, and blu-ray capability?

I get it.  Unions are a big thing for registered members of gamespot.  There's a point system, there's some competition involved.  I understand unions are very important to their creators, and to a good number of their members.  What I can't understand is why I keep getting invited to join unions, and on the rare occasion I do actually join, eventually I get hassled for not participating.  I've even gotten kicked out of a number of them because I don't 'contribute,' or whatever.

I understand this isn't facebook.  People actually join groups on gamespot and interact through them.  What I don't understand is why anyone would think the average college-aged human being would want to spend their spare time talking about tv, video games, or movies when they could actually doing those things in the small amount of time afforded to them between studying for tests and doing an unending amount of homework.

I guess it comes down to this.  If you invite hundreds of people to join a group, not all of them will do it.  Out of those who do join, not all of them are going to participate--not because they don't care, but because they simply don't have the time.  Anyone who is unwilling to accept this eventuallity should only invite people they know will participate to join their unions.

I'll step down off my soapbox now.

It's Monday morning and I'm completely smashed.  So far gone I'm typing with two fingers and I can't find the 'submit' button.  Right now I love college.  Ask me again tomorrow when I attempt to make my nine thirty class, and I don't doubt I'll probably hate it.

But that's a whole eight and a half hours away...

Seriously, going back to school is way overrated. I think we need summer vacation at least four times a year. We can go back to school for like two weeks and then go on vacation again.

Just my opinion...