Day One

Thought I would give this a try.......definately something new for me....

let's see........what should I talk about......

Ok.....how about what happened last Saturday night (11/13/04)

Earlier in the week -- matter of fact, it was Tuesday 11/9 --the day HALO 2 came out...my buddy Donnie calls me while I was home (took the day off to enjoy the new release) and we start talking about the new game. He tells me that we were looking to get together Saturday night to LAN up some HALO 2. We usually get 4 Xbox/ 4 TV's going. So he goes on to say that this is planned, however the location was undecided. Now I should mention that I have hosted the last two Halo LAN's -- and the last one kind of pissed me off and left a bad taste in my mouth b/c several people backed out at the last minute and we had a poor showing. This was after I (like all good hosts should) spend some good $$ to provide food and drink for my guests. I should also mention that the food was my wife's kick ass cooking (not bragging, she is THAT damn good)
So anyways, with him saying he was unsure of where the location was, he was basically seeing if I would play host again. So I told him I would think about hosting....Finally on Thursday, I decided that I would do it.

Now I should explain, when I host these Halo LAN's, beside providing food & drinks, I provide: 48" Big Screen, 27" TV & 19" TV (dont think it is too much to ask that someone brings ONE TV, is it?) and the last 3 times I have set these up, I set them up in my 2 car garage. This way we have plenty of room to set up the tvs all back to back.

So people 7 showed up. Mike brought his brother Jason, Donnie brought his younger bro Charlie and Bill who I just found out left his wife and is living with him (no not homos, just a buddy helping a buddy out) my buddy Cory, and John. Mike's friend Karl showed up, but he left like 2 minutes later he left (when I went in to take a piss) not sure why, but they said he was pissed (probably b/c of Mike -- more on that later)....

We start playing, and b/c I am host -- I am setting up the games. We play for a couple of hours and I notice that Donnie who is usually pretty good, has some pretty crappy low and even negative scores (more later) but I am too busy having fun to really care.....

So sometime later, something starts to fuck up, I set up an all swords game, but when the game loads up -- it winds up being all sniper rifles. So I have the guys on my xbox quit, and while this happens Mike starts fucking around and next thing I know he takes control of the setups. Now, not that I am being a baby about this, but you have to understand -- first of all ....I fucking cannot stand Mike. He is one of those guys that has to win any video game he plays at all costs. He's the kind of guy who has "done everything before you, has done it better than you, and knows more than you can ever know" and the last few times he has come over here, he has gotten me to the point where I was going to take a hammer or a fucking bat to his skull!!! Even though he has about a 150lb weight difference on me. The first time, he made a comment about my wife that I did not care for, nor care to repeat. He's lucky I didnt fuck him up then. The thing that gets me the most, is the last 3 times I have had this here, he tries to act like he is in charge -- in my home! Fuck that. I am tired of it. The last get together, I told Donnie to tell him not to come, only to have a kind hearted last minute repreive.

Now Donnie and Mike have been buddies for a long time. Now the funny thing, When Donnie and I had our conversation on the 9th, he mentioned (word for word) that Mike would rather kill babies than lose at a video game. The ironic thing is that Donnie is JUST AS BAD! Case in point, you know how I mentioned before that his scores were low and negative? Its b/c he was being a fucking sore loser b/c he was getting beat and wasnt doing good in the new game. He was in a corner blowing him self up! WTF?!?!

So anyways, I give him a couple of games and he was setting up boring 10 kill matches that were going too quick, and when I finally asked him to give me back control, he started acting like a dick -- so then when I finally told him "house rules" he acted like a fucking two year old and turned off his Xbox and started packing up. When he started doing this, so did Donnie (like a fucking lemming). So then I said "what, so now your both going to act like a fucking two year old, and pack up and go home b/c your not getting your way?!?!?" Donnie pipes up and starts bitching saying that I "only wanted to play one weapon games". "Bullshit" I told him. We started off the first game with Rockets, and then the f'd up game with the snipers (that we quit) and then I tried to start a all Swords game, what the fuck are you talking about?" To this, he knew I was right and shut up. Hell those were the only ones I set up that way. We played tons of other games and I was both trying to make sure we all got to experience all the new maps, weapons, and gametypes - and thought I did that well. The last thing I said to them was "nice fucking gratitude....Im kind enough to host this, spend my money for nothing in return for a bunch of ungrateful fucks!" and then stormed out for a few.

Asshole (Mike) left and so did Donnie. But I give Donnie credit. He came back like 10 minutes later and apologized to me, saying that he was lacking sleep, and stuff. Now dont get me wrong....Donnie is good people. That guy will go out of his way for you. He has help us out on more than one occasion. So I really dont have any hard feelings, as far as I'm concerned he and I are cool.

But I have to tell you.. I am DONE hosting, and I am done LAN -ing with these guys. I have XBox live, and if I want that experience, all I have to do is log on. Matter of fact, when those guys left -- I was just me, Cory & John. They helped me get my TV's back in the house, and we jumped on Xbox Live on the big screen and had MORE FUN with that! What's also cool, is Cory now has high speed and just signed up for XBL.

Matter of fact, Donnie's wife emailed my wife today, and was trying to get feelers from her on where we were at with this shituation. (I spelled it that way on purpose). My wife basically told her that we are done with Mike, and we are done with Xbox parties. Apparantly, word got quickly back to Mike, b/c he tried calling me a couple of hours ago. (God I love caller ID!) Why would I want to talk to him? Didnt answer it.... Wonder what he had to say? Didnt leave a message on the machine...oh well, no big loss....

Was I wrong? Should I have handled this differently? Maybe......but I really dont give a shit.

What do you think?