LittleWyvern.com

First and most obviously, I am in the process of putting together a new look for this site. I eventually got a bit bored with the grey/white of my most recent look and so decided to mess around with something new. I only spent an hour or two putting this together, focusing almost entirely on making the site functional. The next step involves making it pretty. If you come across anything that doesn’t work as advertised, please let me know. I spent minimal time with Internet Explorer and expect that a number of things may appear a bit odd. For instance, can anyone please tell me why all the font looks to be bold in IE but looks just fine in Firefox? That is a first for me.

Speaking of firsts, yesterday I went ahead and did something that only one year ago I would have sworn could never happen. Matt owns an Xbox 360, the presence of which significantly raises the Douchebag Factor of our apartment (your D.F. being directly related to the number of Halo sequels you own and inversely related to your Wii Bowling rating). I generally tolerated the system’s residence beneath the television because of its use as a DVD player. However, a few months ago it finally proved its worth as a gaming system when Matt brought home Tiger Woods 2007. My eagerness to conquer the PGA tour forced me to put aside my long standing disgust. And so, after creating a profile of my own I went ahead and accomplished what I had set out to do. I am the Rookie of the Year. I am the PGA Tour season money winner. I took down the FedEx Cup.

But what then?

Having proven my dominance over the electronic foe there was only one last battlefield to conquer: the abstract concept of the Internet. I say abstract because although the opponents I face online are probably real people, I really have no interest whatsoever in getting to know them. Based upon my extensive experience, it is clear that everyone (besides me) who plays on the internet is either ten years old, a hardcore racist, or both.

At any rate, beyond the inherent troubles of navigating the electronic recruiting grounds of the Junior KKK, playing Tiger online brought about a whole slew of new problems. For one, although I created my own user profile on the 360, in order to play online I need to use Matt’s profile because his is the only profile linked to an Xbox Live account. That becomes a real problem for me because not only are all my online statistics (and ridiculously impressive victories) credited to his account, but because of the stupid design Microsoft/EA uses to manage user profiles, I can not use my custom golfer online. And what the hell is the point of even playing online if the world doesn’t get to see my character’s rugged goatee and flashy pants?

After an hour of futile attempts at workarounds I pulled out a credit card and bought my own Xbox Live subscription. Yeah… you read that right.

When we found out that Bill Gates was going to be Monday night’s guest on the Daily Show I casually told Matt that Microsoft has eighty billion dollars in cash. To which he cruelly replied, “No. Now they have eighty billion and fifty dollars cash.” After throwing up into my mouth I had to tip my hat and give him credit for such a direct and powerful burn.

In addition to the occasional game of Tiger Woods I have also been spending quite a bit of time playing Uno online. As you all are aware, Uno is a game of maybe 5% skill – that skill being entirely restricted to making sure you yell “UNO!” when on your last card for the sake of avoiding a two card penalty. And yet somehow I am among the worst Uno players on all of Xbox Live. With four players to a game it would fall to basic probability that I should expect to win about one game of every four. Last night, before finally calling it a night, my online record was 0-10. How does that happen? (The odds of losing ten Uno games in a row is only slightly better than five percent.)

These are words that I would never have expected to say:

“I think there might be a flaw in my Uno strategy.”