Ouch! Sorry for the bad pun. So in two weeks, the MNC will be visiting our very first convention ever. The event (Con Nooga) is going to be in Chattanooga Tennessee and it falls on the 22nd through the 24th of February. If we have any fans in the area, you’re welcome to stop by and said hi. Irving, MAD, and myself will be in attendance. MAD will be drawing a comic for the following Monday, but he will also be doing complimentary art work for anyone who is interested. If you’re interested in attending or have general questions, you can check out the official site here.

This week also marks the first week that Irving and I will be holding our weekly online gaming night. From this point forward, we will be playing some game online every Tuesday night from 7:00pm until whenever. All times are Eastern Standard FYI. This week, we will be playing Call of Duty 4 on the 360. Our gamertags are MNC Dover and MNC Irving, respectively. If you want to join us, just send email or message and we will jam out. We plan on changing the game up every week to something different to keep things fresh. I know that we’ve discussed Tetris DS, Puzzle League DS, Team Fortress 2 PC, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory Xbox, Battalion Wars 2 Wii, Advance Wars DS, Picross DS, Mario Kart DS, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl DS, Rock Band 360, and many others I’ve forgotten. If you see anything on that list that looks interesting and you are looking for a cool people to play with, let us know. We will also be joined by the others from the MNC from time to time.

I finally got a decent game of Advance Wars DS under my belt and must say that playing a friends match is the only way to go. No bothersome time limit, a choice of any map on the system, voice chat, and the ability to change up options. If you play Advance Wars and you are looking for someone good to play, please drop me an email. I crave the competition.

This week also marks the arrival of Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village. If you’re looking for a good puzzle game with high production values, Mr. Layton won’t steer you wrong. It’s so good in fact, the sequel has already been announced. Oh yeah, while you’re at the store getting Layton, make sure to download the Ninja Gaiden DS demo. It rocks quite hard. It reminds me of Phantom Hourglass with a much larger focus on action/combat. Well, I’d hope so since it has, you know, ninjas and stuff.

- Dover

Greetings from Beau’s Eight-Sided Cage of Pain . . .

So it has arrived and poked me right in the hindquarters like a speeding train to ouchville! Uncle Sam, you are such a greedy bastard. Is it not enough that your take from me all year long only to take again from me at the end of the year? Damn it man, have you no soul? Are your pockets so deep that you require them to overflow to feel satisfied? To loosely paraphrase Cameron of Ferris Bueller fame: "Mr. Tax Man . . . you sir, are an asshole." For those of you who understand the quote, I salute you; for those of you too young to understand the quote, I also salute you with a slightly different hand gesture.

Death and taxes huh? This is what adulthood brings? Working for the sake of paying some entity in a government office to which I have no relation. You have got to be kidding me. I think back on my early working years and smile. Some of you my age (which I will not identify) will remember when you worked all year just to get back nearly everything Uncle took from you in a glorious lump sum check. Yours, all yours to spend as you please and to frivolously spend with nary a concern for tomorrow. Adulthood, well . . . adulthood curb stomps those memories and then steals your wallet for remembering them in the first place.

Now it is the same endless grind for slightly more money and no benefit at the end of the year. I feel a bit like I did when I purchased fuel at $3.00 plus a gallon. Does Uncle Sam really have my back? I guess only when he is ramming me in my wallet area with his Giant Government DICK!

- Beau

One of the best aspects of the real Monday Night Crew (i.e. not the animals here) is our weekly gaming night. Once a week we come together to rock out to Rock Band, drop explosives in Bomberman and throw fisticuffs between Street Fighters. Because of the MNC, I’ve been priviledged to experience NBA Street v.2, Pac-Man Vs. and Conflict: Desert Storm the proper way: in multiplayer. Thirty hour Mass Effect sessions or all day Zelda marathons are fun and all, but kicking back and putting some distance from work and the real world is the way to go.

I don’t think that I could ever enjoy Unreal Tournament III alone, but on a LAN with the MNC? Beautiful. From Mario Parties to Halo nights and Virtua Fighter beatdowns to Wii Sports roundrobins, some games are simply meant to be enjoyed with friends to be, well, enjoyed. Perhaps more so than any other facet of our hobby, social gaming has really jumped into its own. It now occupies a comfortable and accepted position in our society, and why not? Games stimulate many of the same senses as sports. I don’t think that gaming stadiums will ever see much traction, but that certainly won’t stop my historically anti-gaming neighbors from firing up Rayman Raving Rabbids 2, or sway my Age of Empires-obsessed co-workers from skirmishing until the wee hours.

Multiplayer gaming essentially represents a powerful word-of-mouth. The Guitar Hero series certainly followed that pattern on its way to becoming multimillion sellers and invigorating its parent company. I like being able to talk games with others, but playing beats it by a long shot. The advantages of showing rather than telling when the subject is videogames goes a long way to legitimizing our hobby in the minds of others. While I don’t typically care much what others think, I do like that otherwise disparate individuals can come together over a quick game of Big Brain Academy. It’s about a close to an absolute good that I’ll ever find in this world.

- Irving