...except for those here on Destructoid.

That's right, I'm talking about charity.


Apparently her name is Charity according to Google Images.

So I woke up on Saturday morning and went through my usual morning routine of checking my email accounts and Destructoid. I saw that Dtoid was having a live 24 hour webcam/gaming broadcast to raise money for cancer research. Slightly intrigued, I clicked the link. That one simple decision, that one simple motion of lifting and pressing down with my index finger, changed the entire course of most of my Saturday.

I was greeted by a series of different angled shots showing the interior of the Dtoid Miami office, where three individuals were playing Rockband -- Rey, Colette and Not (Bizarro) Jim Sterling. Rey was belting out his own lyrics to Rage Against the Machine while in the chat channel thing on the right, anonymous fans were screaming "VISIONS VISIONS VISIONS" over and over.

What had I got myself into?

I was hooked. Next up, Colette sang a wonderful rendition of "Welcome Home" with Rey harmonizing on the "whoas" in the outro -- of course his lyrics were better than the actual song. Puuuuutaaa Maaaaadreee, etc. You get the idea.

This was about 10am PST. I ended up staying in my room watching the feed and participating in the chat for about 4 hours or so. It was one of the more entertaining Saturday (days) I've had in a long, long time.

The best part is, it humanized Destructoid a little bit for me. See I'm fairly new to this site. My length of membership is measured in months, not years. I've been able to get a feel for some of the site's editors via their numerous humorous posts a la Jim Sterling, or via the Podtoid (see Anthony, Samit, Topher, etc.)

But a lot of the other people were something of a mystery to me. Rey was the guy with the Hispanic name and the 3's in his user name. Colette was one of the people on the side bar under associate editors. And to me, Niero was either a made up character or a Phantom of the Opera-esque character with the Mr. Destructoid helmet covering up "the gross half of his face."


Oh, if only...if only.

But seeing them interact with each other, and with the people chatting in the channel, really brought them to life for me. Plus other Dtoid editors like Topher, Brad Nicholson, Jim, Hamza all showed up to chat too. Then (I don't remember his real name) Bacalao showed up, donned a blonde wig and announced that he was Mexican Chad. The chat was then filled with shouts of AMAZING and ASOMBROSO (Spanish for amazing.) The merits of Alien Ant Farm were discussed when Jim was there. Many other great things happened - rubber horse heads, pictures of Brad's biceps, (and many others I missed) and I feel fortunate for having gotten to see them.

I didn't stay for the whole thing, but I was there enough to really a feel like Dtoid is a living breathing community. Normally, I don't have the money to donate to charities, but the whole experience was so awesome that I just had to donate what little I could. Thank you Rey, Colette, Gabe, and Niero and everyone else that participated for really fleshing out my perception of Destructoid.

The fact that we raised over $4000 shows that the stereotype of gamers being apathetic losers doesn't apply to the great Dtoid community.



Plus I got to hear Niero speak. It sounded like angels playing golden trumpets while riding flying panthers.