As Ryan was making arrangements to return my 360, he mentioned that Ubisoft was giving out goodie bags to the people who provided the hardware. Cool. But when he showed up at my door he shamefully explained that, as it turned out, “goodie bag” just meant “bag.” I liked it better when I was doing this out of the goodness of my heart rather than whoring myself out for a corporate branded tote bag.

I do also have the Far Cry 2 achievement points that someone random earned for me, though. The people at that party must've been logged in as the default Gamertag of the system they happened to walk up to. In my imagination, none of these these players knew each other, so they referred to each other by Gamertag as they yelled strategies around the room. These people would surely become fast friends, and their respective Gamertags would become permanent nicknames in memory of how they'd met. One of these people -- hopefully the only girl in the group -- would be known as “Jim Crawford” for the rest of her natural life.

On Twitter: @mogwai_poet