WELL I ONLY HAVE ONE HANDLE SO I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN

Not totally sure I know what you mean.

Sure, what the hell, every functional organization needs one of those. I'll add your ass.

Oops, you replied to the wrong guy.

Added your ass. You can now create posts and shit over there.

If you go to the little globe-y icon in your Kinja, uh, bar or whatever, you should now see "sidespin" listed as one of your "blogs." You can now post things there. Congratulations.

Er, I didn't create it. It was bequeathed to me. It's super-special and groovy.

Sidespin!

My objection to the big BF3 "patch" was that it basically forced you (through the replacement of all or nearly all of the Dice servers with player-controlled and -customized servers) to re-up for the privilege of playing the same game you'd already purchased. That is to say, unless you wanted to take your chances in…

It's kind of amazing (read: horrifying) how game companies jerk their customers around. Battlefield 3 was one of the few games I've really gotten invested in since my wife and I had kids, and I vividly remember when Dice released a "patch" which (by getting rid of all the developer-hosted multiplayer servers in favor…

Yeah, the online-only thing struck me as odd, although I don't think I know enough about where the industry is to know whether that's uncommon or what. I read some speculation that it's a DRM thing, which, given the total disregard EA is showing for its consumers by releasing a game that cannot be played, seems…

Well, I have to say that I'm not personally having any problems with SimCity, because I don't own it and likely never will (I haven't had a PC game since the first Sims game came out, what, a dozen years ago? More?); I'm just following the fracas because there was so much hype surrounding the release and it's been…

Nah, I'd never heard of it before now. Is this becoming regular industry practice? "Hey, pay for and/or download the game now, and enjoy it in some indeterminate number of months when it actually becomes functional"? When do people stop giving their money to these game companies?

So, I'm not a hardcore gamer at all, and even if I felt like I were remotely game-smart enough to get my money's worth out of the new SimCity, I don't have a computer that could dream of running it without bursting into flames. I have, however, been following the ongoing disaster of its launch from afar, and I do…

No, we should not care about that. I don't know if you ever had a star back in the old days, but we used to get tons of "YOUR A HARTLESS DOOSHBAG1" replies back then, too. The difference is that they used to be pink, and invisible to unstarred folks.

Nice.

Well of course his teeth hurt - there's radio transmitters in there.

OK, fair enough - but now you're asking a closeted gay player to make a leap based on the notion that his teammates and opponents will stop slinging "faggot" around as an insult and recognize the error of their homophobic speech once they know one of their fellow players is gay. That's pretty much the definition of a…

As I asked BBW in another thread, why do you think there are no out players yet? Surely there are gay players - why haven't any of them come out? Do you think it's because they're worried fans won't like them? Or do you think it's because they've heard "fag" and sexuality-as-toughness shit tossed around as insults…

I think you and I would have a harder time with the fanbase's reaction, which would absolutely include more vociferous and outrageous responses. I think there's a strong likelihood our hypothetical out-Dolphin would find a more subtle but no less alienating response from his teammates a lot harder to deal with.