Dear Journal: My Trip to Boston/PAX East Part IV (Final)

Sunday 8 April 12, 2012

I was able to shake off the fact that my cousin had the same views on sharing as my four year old daughter and actually got better sleep than the night before.  Unfortunately, the cold that I had been getting seemed to hate my guts more than ever on Sunday morning.  Hell, it didn’t really let up until I was sipping on my hot Dunkin Donuts coffee.  Yes, three days in a row we ate at a donut shop, but that was honestly the only place to grab a freaking bite to eat.  This day sucked even worse for the bus.  Not only does Boston hate its citizens by sending the bus every eighty freaking minutes on the weekends, but it was Easter Sunday and we had no doubt in our mind that they were going to make us pay.  I had even set my alarm to go off at 0545 that morning, even though I told my uncle that it was set for 0600.  That actually happened to be the time that he was taking his shower.  I just wanted to get a super jump start on the day so we could try to get there at a decent time.  Well lucky for us the bus was nowhere in site, so we started walking the three miles or so to the subway.

This picture has nothing to do with this paragraph

We walked far enough to reach the next bus stop and saw a man standing there waiting.  Hell I figured he was most likely a Bostonian and he knew the bus schedule.  Surely it had to be coming soon right?  Well apparently this man had been waiting there for over an hour already and we stood with him for another twenty minutes.  It wasn’t too bad though because he provided some pretty neat conversation.  He appeared to be a hard working honest American, but we soon found out that he was a compulsive liar.  I guess the thing that gave it away to me was early in the conversation he had told us that his dad’s only job had been at the airport and he retired from that at the young age of 35.  But later, as we were on the bus, he had revealed to me (because I told him I was in the military), that his dad was a retired Veteran, even though earlier he stated he was a retired Airport employee.  Apparently he served in the Army starting at the ridiculously young age of fifteen and was forced to retire at the much older age of 62.  He told us his dad turned down Sergeant Major because he didn’t want more responsibility, so the Army forced him out.  His dad then went to Kennedy to try and stay in, but Kennedy told him to fuck off.  So everything he had said up to that point was immediately put into question on whether or not it was fabricated, but we didn’t care because he was a fun dude to talk to regardless of how full of shit he was.  Sometimes you’ll meet characters like this and you just need to let them be who they are. 

Despite the Boston public transportation treating us like dirty hookers, we still managed to get to PAX shortly after the doors opened, which was at least an hour better than the other two days.  So since we got there so super early, we managed to get into the third Hunger Games row.  Of course showing up this early meant we had to stand there and wait a decade for the show floor to open at ten.  I’m kidding; we sat down and discussed our strategy to get as much swag as we possibly could.  We figured we’d head over to say happy birthday to Lord of the Rings Online first because they were handing out hoodies.  Then I would give my Uncle my phone that had my Facebook displayed where I was talking about Max Payne 3 so he could nab a free T-shirt from the Max Payne booth.  I had done it the day before and the chick at the counter didn’t really read what I said on there.   I could’ve said Max Payne 3 sucks more cock than Justin Beaver and I still would have scored my shirt.  Let’s be honest, they get free publicity and actually save money on all the shirts they hand out, not too shabby eh?  So after that we would go to the Assassin’s Creed booth to pre-order the game to get a free T-Shirt from them, even though we didn’t have any intentions on actually purchasing anything from Gamestop.  I hate Gamestop, mainly because of their used game system. 

“Yeah I want to return Halo Reach.”

“Okay, we’ll give you ten dollars for it.” 

“Seriously?  The game is only a week old.”

Sure, I exaggerated the buyback price, but they do low ball you like that because they’re cheap bastards who will turn around and sell it for almost the full price of a brand new copy.  I’d rather buy my used games from Gamefly. 

As opening grew closer, people began standing up off their asses and crowded the front of the line.  Apparently more space is used when people sit down because when everyone was within dry humping range of each other, I noticed that the line wasn’t even half full.  Unfortunately there were still hordes of people coming in to join the massive line and thought it would be a great idea to hop over the rope in the lines ahead of us and take a permanent spot there.  It was total bullshit.  Granted we were in the third line and not that from the front, but it still pissed me off because we had waited an hour and a half and these people had just walked through the door.  So me and two people we had been chatting with cut over into the second line, this way we weren’t being cheated by the ass hats that were just making their way in.  It took some convincing to get my Uncle to come over, and he finally did.  Not without regret though, he felt bad for most of the morning as far as I could tell and maybe even longer than that.  I suppose the fact that when the lines did open and we started moving, a person from the third line cut into the second line as it was moving.  It was the same thing we did, but she did it right in front of the people monitoring the traffic.  She was yelled at to move to the back of the line for cutting.  It even made me feel a little guilty about it cutting, but then again, I wasn’t a dumbass about it.  She must have given some sob act or flashed her boobs because they let her go ahead anyway.

As planned, our first stop was The Lord of the Rings Online booth where they had a bunch of hoodies set out in anticipation of the oncoming birthday wishes.  All we had to do was say happy birthday.  Unbeknownst to me, we had to say it on camera.  At that point I would have whored myself out for a free T-shirt so getting on camera was no issue at all.  It was like I was addicted to crack and my crack was the useless free shit being handed out everywhere.  As I was standing there waiting to talk to the guy who was doing the camera footage, some chick came walking up to me dressed as an elf.  I assumed she worked at the Lord of the Rings booth because she was sporting their logo on her cape.  She had the hugest Adam’s apple I’ve ever seen, by the way.   

“Are you here to say happy birthday to LotRo?”  Sweet Jesus it was a dude!  I can’t believe I just called him, it.  In my defense, he totally looked like a girl because of his white silky hair that went the length of his body, his girly facial features, and his big perky breasts.  What a weirdo.  So all we had to do was look into this guy’s camera and say “Happy birthday LotRo!”  I may never wear the hoodie, but damnit if it wasn’t free.  Besides, we didn't make the cut for their stupid video anyway haha.  After speaking with the dude chick and posing for the camera, I gave my phone to my Uncle so he could go get a free Max Payne T.  Instead of walking over there with him, I decided to check out Witcher 2.  I’m wasn’t interested in that game so I played it for thirty seconds and began to walk off.  I didn’t even make it off of their game area when one of the dudes working their booth shoved a free Witcher 2 T in my face.  Hell yeah bitch, I want a shirt to a game I’ll never play!  My Uncle found me after that and decided he wanted a new shirt too.   

While I was standing near the stairs, which happened to be perfectly aligned right between the Witcher 2 booth and the Xbox staging area, I saw the funniest thing.  Have you ever seen people play the Kinect?  It’s funny as hell to watch, depending what title they’re moving around to.  Well I was in the perfect position to watch someone play the Kinect, even though the Kinect was located on the other side of the wall he was looking at.  He was looking at the TV that was displayed to show people on the outside what people on the inside were playing.  He was literally the ONLY person who wasn’t aware that he wasn’t controlling the action on the screen.  The game was Star Wars Kinect and it was the game mode where the giant monster thingy runs around and smashes all the buildings.  So basically this guy was jumping up and down and waving his arms wildly trying to smash everything.  It was priceless.  Considering the arms never reacted to his movements or anything, he probably thought the game was terrible (which I’ve heard it is), and he walked off before capturing the whole thing on film even occurred to me.

After the free entertainment we made our way over to the Diablo III line, and I have to say my feet were already killing me.  It was barely 1030 and we were most likely going to be in the building until five.  Standing in place while my arches were screaming in agony really sucked, but my mind was able to drift away from it as we watched people playing Diablo, Torchlight, and new Battlefield 3 content.  The line was for one of the three, but we actually only wanted to play Torchlight because they were handing out pretty sweet swag bags.  My Uncle had decided that Diablo was coming out next month, so he could wait to play it.  While we were waiting, my Uncle asked an Enforcer if there were any developers from Blizzard on site, and the dude pointed one out the same way my daughter would point at a weird person in public.  The dude saw the enforcer pointing at him so he walked over and asked if my Uncle had a question.  He didn’t have a question so the guy says to us, “If I hand out beta codes, would you guys still stand in line?”  Hell yeah we’d stay in line because we’re not here to play Diablo III, but we’d still totally take a code.  That’s what he did; he went around the line and handed out codes.  So we played Torchlight II and it was grand.  Although, having since played the Diablo III beta, I can say that Diablo is a much better game by far.  Much better. 

Sunday was our lazy day; we didn’t really want to do much because our dogs were killing us.  So we decided to wander over to The Secret World booth because I told a friend that I would play it for him.  While we were over there we stopped by the Red vs Blue booth.  I don’t know if you’re familiar with the show, but one of the voice actors, Gus (don’t know his last name, don’t really care) was there signing autographs.  Now I’m a huge fan of Red vs Blue and I own their first five seasons on DVD.  I don’t own their latest ones and they had a DVD there that had all three of them on one disc.  So I asked Gus how much and he said 30.  He didn’t bother making eye contact with me, even though when I was standing there wasn’t anyone else who was begging him for his Herbie Hancock.  I’m guessing it’s because he’s a huge celebrity who thinks that making eye contact with the bottom feeders of the world would make him less famous, even though he’s not a real celeb.  So instead of trying to conduct business with this ass hat, I ask the chick next to him how much the shirts are.  I’m so addicted to shirts at this point that I was seriously contemplating on buying one.  Twenty dollars is the damage, which is a total crock of shit if you ask me.  There are tons of booths giving them away for free.  So she asks me what size and I tell her the sexy kind of man size that I am and she’s all like, we have this one and the Gus shirt in your size.

“Who the hell wants a Gus shirt?”  It wasn’t meant to be hilarious, but the dude didn’t even notice I said it.  Either it was too loud and he couldn’t hear me, or he was just ignoring me.  Perhaps if I had offered to inflate his ego in exchange for a worthless autograph he would have laughed at such a stupid joke…No I’m just kidding, I don’t think he’s conceded like that.  He just ignored me because I was being a flaming douche, which I was doing on purpose, because I don’t like him.

I'm in the game, well, the poster anyway.

So I hopped across the way just in time to watch a live demo of The Secret World.  I had enough time to waste since my Uncle needed to tinkle for the tenth time that morning.   It was like half an hour long so even he wound up watching it from the back of the crowd.  At the end of the demo the developers got the crowd psyched up for some free beta codes that came with dog tags.  I was like, hell yeah!  But instead of handing them out one person at a time like normal people do, they tossed them into the crowd like we were a bunch of starving slaves.  I may have elbowed a few faces to get two codes, but I totally got them so back off.  Then they wanted to give out some free T-shirts for wasting thirty minutes of our time.  Just like with the beta codes, they didn’t hand them out one at a time, they made us fight for them like football players after a fumble.  They only had three shirts for like a hundred people.  The first shirt went to the right, the second to the middle, and finally, the last shirt made its way towards me.  I reached up and caught a fist full of it.  I had a decent grip on it because I caught it first, but four or so people behind me grabbed it too.  They tried to wrestle it from me, but I used all the manly muscles I have (which is tons), and yanked it to safety.  I had to see who I just owned because the victory was so juicy, so I turned around and saw that at least three of the people I fought were girls.  Small girls who couldn’t punch a cardboard cutout over.  Oh well, life isn’t fair and I wanted that shirt like Dan Marino wanted a Super Bowl.  We can’t all be winners can we Dan?  I went to show my Uncle my prize and to my realization, there were two shirts stuck together.  Perhaps that was the reason I was getting so many dirty looks as I strutted away with a smug look on my face. 

I wanted to pretend to grope the girl's boob

With the day winding down we squeezed in enough time to play Max Payne three again and viewed a live demo of the new X-Com.  X-Com is a strategy game that I’ve never thought of playing in the past, but it actually looked really amazing.  Watching someone else do it was pretty sweet and it showed me how it should be played, so it may be something I test out in the future.  After that we were done.  We went up to the main lobby where my Uncle snagged a bunch of free Five Hour Energy shots while I stared at a chunky girl holding a sign that said “Free Hugs.”  I contemplated it but then decided that she had herpes on her sweater.  I tasted one of those five hour energies by the way and it was like downing a shot of grape cough syrup.  Gross.  So all in all we had a great weekend, played some new games, met a lot of people who were just like us, and got a ton of free stuff in the process.  I smashed my knee getting on the bus; I assumed that it was karma for stealing two shirts from those wimpy girls and not hugging the fat chick. 

Dear Journal: My Trip to Boston/PAX East Part III

Saturday 7 April 11, 2012

So I don’t really drink anymore and because of that my tolerance for alcohol has plummeted so much that the two beers I had the night before made me feel slightly light headed.  It threw me off of my game and that sucked because we still had to ride the subway home with all the rapists and murders.  I assumed they were rapists and murders because it was after nine and if all the stores closed down at that time, there had to be a reason why, right?  Not to mention I had to pee really bad by the time we entered the subway and there was no bathroom in sight.  For me, having to pee like a race horse while enduring an uncomfortable train ride sucked harder than Mass Effect 3’s ending.  So after a freaking forty minute subway ride/waiting an hour for the bus/riding the bus/walking to the apartment, we were finally able to rest, and pee.  I think I was more exhausted from the time change than anything.  It could have also been because of the crappy sleep I had the night before.  The couch I was sleeping on split into two parts, which fooled me because it looked like a single the way it was set up.  By the time I woke up my ass was hanging through the crack in the center and Lord only knows how I even stayed on the couch let alone remained asleep.

Our routine began the same way; we hopped on down to Dunkin Donuts to grab some hot coffee and food.  I opted for one donut this day and a super huge regular coffee with cream.  That Dunkachino the day before was terrible.  I don’t know what a sweaty pair of guy balls tastes like, but I have a weird feeling that the Dunkachino may be reminiscently close.  We ate our food like we just escaped prison and walked to the bus stop, coffee in hand.  Unbeknownst to us, Boston hates the people that use public transportation and figured that no one ever needed to get to any place in the city on a weekend.  We waited much longer for the bus than we did to get ready and eat some fat cakes en route.  While waiting there, some lady who was at least 150 years old came up and sat down at the bench behind where we were standing.  There were a couple of things I noticed about her that I found really odd.  The first one was that she was smoking a Black and Mild cigar.  It was just weird to me because I’ve never seen woman take on a cigar before.  She owned the shit out of it though and after every inhale she would take a giant gulp of water and then licked her lips.  Was it to get the taste off?  Who knows, it was just scary as hell because her tongue protruded from her mouth and retracted the same way I’ve only seen cows do.  It like, rolled out of her mouth like a rolled up hose, it was gross.

An hour later we arrived at the venue and despite waking up much earlier than the day before, we only arrived there a half an hour earlier.  At least our spot in the Hunger Games line was a lot closer to the entrance this time around.  Before I can continue on, my Uncle had slept in the same room as me (because he’s secretly gay and wanted to be close to me), and told me that I was breathing like the dude in Ghost Busters was while I was asleep.  Was I having a sex dream or was my fat ass literally out of breath from some fake running?  Who knows, I just wanted to share that story because I found it funny.  It was kind of weird because I’ve been having that stuff happen to me lately.  It only seems to happen when I’m extremely overtired.  Like a few months ago my wife woke me up out of a dead sleep because I was screaming.  I think I was having a zombie dream and I can only assume that the screaming was the battle cry I was letting out as I made the zombies my bitch.  It was that or I was having a dream about Sarah Jessica Parker stripping, and we all know that would be a moment of true terror.



Yay Claptrap!  Best costumes there.

So our plan for the day was to play some games that haven’t been released yet.  Number one on our list was Borderlands 2 because Borderlands is amazing.  Our first panel didn’t start until twelve so we figured two hours was enough time for us to play at least one game and then make it upstairs.  Actually I wasn’t going to the panel at noon, but rather to one at 1300 because it was held by Epic.  So we rush to the line and when we get there it doesn’t look too bad, or so we thought.  The entrance to the line was backed by a group of tables that were apparently being used as an overflow.  We were told to sit down and wait, but people kept coming and standing in front of us.  So as we muscled our way up to the front of what was the shittiest line formation ever, I realized that we were standing in a line that led to another line that led to the game’s actual line.  It was the shittiest set up I’ve ever seen and it really didn’t make sense to have to wait in line to get in line.  Plus the dumbass running the show kept picking people who showed up a year after we did to go join the real line.  Perhaps if they had a decent “Line starts fucking here you dick wads” area, then there wouldn’t have been a cluster fuck of people trying to lie and cheat their way to the front. 

They seriously had the best booth

We eventually got into the organized line and the long wait was boring as hell, but I had brought my Kindle Fire and burned through some chapters of a book I’m reading.  Other than that it was all about getting to know the people enduring the line with me while we watched people walking around.  People watching is very fun, you should try it.  So while we’re standing there, I hear these douche bags behind me who thought they were the best whistlers ever.  The whistling wasn’t annoying; it was the fact that they synchronized it and acted like it was the “hip” thing to do.  Does whistling decently open the door to getting a lot ass?  I doubt it.  So three hours later my Uncle and I got to play the game for fifteen minutes.  Hell, we even got to play together despite the fact that we were separated by six people.  The dudes between us didn’t want to leave each other so they let him come up to the front with me, booyah?  It was an amazing fifteen minutes of Borderlands 2 game play and we had a lot of fun, despite missing the panels we had wanted to go to.    



Bioshock hat/Halo shirt/Borderlands 2 booth = Awesome

The wait was totally worth the pain barking in the arches of my feet from letting my body weight smash them to the ground.  Gravity is a whore.  So like I said, we got to have our way with Borderlands 2 for fifteen minutes and it was a blast.  I wish we could’ve had more time to explore the new landscape though.  The new guns felt powerful and fun, the cartoonish graphics are back and still amazing, and the enemies are fresh and new.  The enemies are still pretty challenging to kill, although I have to say it can be done with a little more ease.  Is this because they wanted us to actually kill big monsters in fifteen minutes?  Most likely.  Am I asking a lot of questions that I answer right away?  I am.  So we didn’t get to learn a whole lot of new stuff about the game, but we got to experience the new skill tree and one of the new characters and I can easily say that the game is going to best the original based on what we played. 

We grabbed a short snack after snagging our free Borderlands 2 shirts, which I’m assuming was not only a gift for being a fan, but for tackling that ridiculous line.  After eating we figured out that we didn’t really have any other place to go since we missed our panels.  So we decided to hit the floor again to test out some different things.  My Uncle was going to make his way over to Diablo 3 and I was on my way to see the new Assassin’s Creed 3 game play video.  It sucked trying to even get into that line because it was smack dab in the middle of all the popular booths and it didn’t really have a designated overflow area.  Instead they had some chick at the end of the line holding a sign that said the line was closed, but it opened up every fifteen minutes.  That was actually a decent strategy and it kept the crowd to a minimum.  I tried coming back twice only to get thrown out both times due to the fact that we were crowding the walkways.  There were like thirty thousand people at this event, everything was crowded no matter where you stood.  So I had no place to go since I already went to the Max Payne 3 booth to score my free T-Shirt.  I stood in front of the Far Cry 3 booth watching a shit load of dudes getting their hair cut into Mohawks while I waited.  Apparently, if they got their hair cut like that and let the chick write FC3 on the side of their head, they’d get a free copy of the game when it released.  I briefly contemplated this, but then realized I didn’t like Far Cry enough to shave my head for it, even though it would have been free.



Awesome booth as well, look at that line!

So I finally got into line behind the chick holding the sign, even though I wasn’t supposed to stand behind her before the fifteen minute mark.  An Enforcer actually came by to kick me out of that spot, but the girl didn’t care, probably because I’m drop dead gorgeous and smelled amazing.  I looked at my watch and it was two forty four.  The line was going to be opening in less than a minute.  I didn’t move.  This line moved very quickly and in the end I got to witness the most amazing Assassin’s Creed footage ever.  I was concerned at first that the game was taking place during the Revolutionary War and that it seemed a lot of it would take place out in the woods.  My questions about how navigation and stealth would work were quickly answered.  They rebuilt the game from ground up to accommodate those navigational changes and it looks sexy.  They made it so climbing and traversing amongst trees took the place of scaling buildings and running across rooftops.  The new protagonist, Connor Kenway (his Native American name is Ratonhnhaké:ton, fuck that), is brutal too.  The fighting sequences were extremely violent and fun to watch.  I kind of feel demented to say that violence was fun to watch. 

Yes

There is also some new equipment that is going to be a blast to use, like this dart blade attached to some rope.  Connor was standing on a branch watching some British soldiers make their way towards him (oblivious to his presence of course) and when they got close enough, he threw the dart around the neck of one of the soldiers and then jumped from the branch, lynching the dude in the process.  He then grabbed the dudes buddy and used him as a meat shield while the other four formed a firing line.  After they shot and missed terribly from point blank, Connor rushed in and made them his bitch with the most satisfying brutality ever!  The final segment of the video was the best because it showed off the new running assassination feature where Connor could kill people without missing a stride.  There were two people in the way of Connor’s target, so instead of finding a way around them, Connor booked it towards the first guy and dug his tomahawk into his forehead.  The whole thing occurred as Connor somersaulted over him and ran towards the next guy, killing him and hopping over him towards a tree stump that he used to launch himself at his target.  That’s where the video ended, which was good because I needed a change of pants at that point.

After that I figured I might as well go hop in line at Max Payne 3 while my Uncle was no doubt still in line for Diablo.  He actually called me to tell me that he wasn’t because it was too long.  Instead he came over and stood in line with me for Max Payne.  Our feet were killing us by this point, but lucky for us, the line was moving fast despite how long it was.  We were almost to the front of the line when my Uncle pointed out that Morgan Webb, the co-host for X-play alongside Adam Sessler, was walking by.  She’s hot.  I totally had a crush on her when I was younger because like female mechanics, gamer chicks are a huge turn on.  Now I do have to say that she is paper thin which is kind of gross, but it doesn’t matter because my wife is a hundred times hotter.    

Finally we make it into Max Payne 3 and played the short five minute demo they had.  No wonder the line was cruising.  This demo felt a lot better than Borderlands 2 because they let us sit down rather than stand while we played.  They also had a dude or chick monitoring a certain area telling you about the game and its features.  Playing through it and experiencing bullet time again was very nostalgic.  I was previously going to boycott this game because Rockstar thinks adding a multiplayer feature to a single player oriented game is a good idea, and the fact that Remedy should be making it (they made the other two).  I’m afraid I may buy it sooner than I had originally planned though because the updated graphics and smooth game play was the icing on this proverbial nostalgic cake.   

As we left the gaming area of that booth, we were showered with mountains of Max Payne swag.  By mountains I mean one hundred stickers with the same exact pattern which told me they obviously made too much for this event.  So upon leaving we went straight for the Assassin’s Creed booth again so my Uncle could watch it.  That was two pair of shorts I had to change in one day.  Terrible.

It was that time in the evening for the show floor to close and we were spent.  I just wanted to eat and go back to the apartment, but my Uncle wanted to see the Hitman Absolution reveal, so we decided to grab a bite to eat in the crowed cafeteria area.  With the show floor closed, we were a little surprised to see a lot of people still hanging around.  Most of them hung around for the night concerts that would take place up in the main theater and others were here to see the Hitman panel as well as the Giant Bomb panel.  Everyone else made their way to watch people play Rockband or to the console free play rooms that let people play whatever games they wanted on whatever system.  Pretty wild stuff.  We tried to get into console free play as well, but it was over crowded.

Uber pwnage since 33 A.D.

So we waited in line for to see Hitman instead and I’m glad we did because it was so awesome.  I can’t wait until the videos hit the web for this one, if they haven’t already.  I just realized I have a lot of editing to do before I release this blog.  So we get in there to find a red tie on our seats.   The ties weren’t really that nice, but they were free, so we turned around and took another one off of the empty seats behind us.  If you don’t know why we got red ties, then it’s obvious you’ve never play Hitman.  The panel showed off a trailer for the game as well as a play through of one of their levels.  They actually played it twice, the first time being as stealthy and professional as possible, and the second one being run and gun.  I don’t know what else to say about it other than it was awesome.  Oh, the ties did come in handy though because they took a giant picture of everyone wearing them.

After that we took the hour long public transportation back to the apartment so we could get some well deserved rest.  My Uncle and I were crashing in the area of the small apartment that served as the living room area.  My two cousins and grandfather were in there to greet us when we came in.  I saw that Brian was drinking a beer and I was all like OMG dude where did you get that.  He had bought a six pack down at the local store I guess.

“Can I have one?”

“No, it’s my last one.  Why don’t you go down and buy a six pack?”  So I’m going to shorten this up because we were all tired and grumpy at this point.  I don’t drink a whole ton so I didn’t want to buy a six pack of beer that I wouldn’t drink nor did I want to buy a forty ounce because I wouldn’t drink it all.  I just wanted one of his six.  Hell he already had five that very evening.  So we got into a petty argument of who has done what for whom in the past and that was the gist of it.  I think he may have been drunk and I was tired, so whatever.  Come to think about it, I could have gotten a six pack and shared it with Brandon, but he’s underage and that would be wrong.  I’m just kidding.  Not about him being underage (he’s 20), but the fact that I care about him being too young.