My requisite new post, from a lurker who decided to join the community.
To make my intro relatively short: I have been a gamer for almost my entire life. At about the age of 5, my family became the proud owners of an Atari 2600 and the rest is, as they say, history. Since then, I've seen god knows how many video game and systems come my way. So, when I stop and think about it, video games have been a significant feature in my life, which I have no problem with since I like to think of them as a somewhat more intelligent and interactive past-time than just sitting and watching TV or something.
That said, though, despite my years of gaming, I think some people take games way too damn seriously. Whether it's console wars or achievement points or headshots or whatever, I do not really consider myself very "hardcore." I mean, I'm hardcore in that I'm a big fan of the medium of video games, but beyond that, no.

Like most people, my current weapon of choice is Grand Theft Auto IV, which may not be terribly original, but then I guess if I wanted to be really original I could say I don't care about the GTA games and would prefer to playing Sudoku in a darkened room on the DS or something. Actually I don't own a DS, so that wouldn't work. I could pretend. That'd be even more radical.
Anyway, I won't get into any appraisal of GTA4, at least not yet, except maybe to say that if you play one MURDER, RAPE, AND TERRORISM SIMULATOR this year, make sure it's this one, because you need to recognize quality in such a crowded market for kinds of things. You laugh at people like Jack Thompson now, but watch...in 10 years when you're in a Turkish prison for trying to become a globe-trotting, murdering, raping, terrorist, you'll want to thank him for having tried to warn you in advance.

Anyway....that's good enough for now, I'm really just testing this thing, but perhaps more is coming later. Greetings to all who click on this.