Halo 3 Widow

Alright. For those of you who don't already know, Halo 3 came out today. For those of you who don't know what Halo 3 is, it's the third installation of this alien war video game on Xbox.

Here is the reason you should care about this: the release of Halo 3 today was the highest grossing thing in entertainment sales history. That means that it made more money than any movie opening ever. I think the same thing was true of Halo 2 a couple of years ago. So that should give you an idea of how huge this is. There is also a Halo movie coming out pretty soon, and Mountain Dew (or some drink) has its own red Halo 3 version out right now.

It would be an understatement to say that Nathan enjoys playing Halo. Not only does he play it pretty regularly, but he also checks all these Halo-related websites and blogs every day when he gets home and is up on all the Halo news. And y'all, I am not lying when I say he actually left school early today after he saw online that the game had been delivered to the house. Yes, he left his office to come home and play Halo 3. He did pull himself away from the TV for about an hour this evening, then came back and said it was "torture" not to be playing "on opening day," so I handed the control back over to him and picked up the computer to let you all know about this and maybe get a little sympathy. I think that for the next few weeks I may be a Halo 3 widow.

Now, this Halo deal is an ongoing thing. He started on the whole Halo kick when we were in college. I remember walking into his dorm room one day, and he excitedly asked if he could show me a video on the computer. I said yes, and he lived to regret showing it to me, because it's been fodder for making fun of him for a long time. Basically, it was a little replay of someone playing Halo. He just kept saying things like, "Look how high those tanks went when they exploded!" To which my response was, a little baffled at why he was so impressed, "You mean the fake, animated tanks?" And my personal favorite, which he said with true awe in his voice, "Look at how pretty the landscape is!" To which I rolled my eyes and repeated my earlier sentiment: "You mean the animated landscape? As opposed to a real one?" So now I still make fun of him every so often and I say, in a voice full of awe, "Will you look at that beautiful landscape??" (Now, the graphics in Halo really are good, and I will say that I also--slightly against my will--think the music is actually excellent.)

**Okay, no lie, Nathan is sitting here next to me playing the game, and he literally JUST said to me, "Look how pretty that is!" He was referring to a mountainous background. OH my gosh.**

The only thing I have to compare this to is Amanda's description of Fantasy Football (scroll down to "Fantasy Land"). And I do have to say that after reading that, I was actually thankful that Nathan is into Halo instead of Fantasy Football, considering that he doesn't spend nearly the time playing video games that some guys spend compiling stats and stuff. He has also pointed out to me that it is not as if he is obsessed with every Xbox game that comes out, like apparently some guys are. He just sticks to Halo, which he can play online with his brothers, since they all have it. So I definitely have some things to be thankful for, even though when it comes right down to it, I just don't get the attraction.

Anyway, y'all can pray for me. I might need it after a few days. ;)



And this is pretty funny.
Here is a picture of the John Harvard statue in Harvard Yard:

Here is a picture of Master Chief, the main character in Halo:

And here is what some MIT students did to John Harvard the other night: