Some critics say that Rockstar's excessive filters detract from the series' impressive visuals. I say that these peeps is crayzay.

Unless you're stupid or have a life (which is stupid), you'll realize that today marked an incredibly exciting milestone. In less than ten days, the universe as we know it will cease to exist and the streets will run red with the blood of the innocent. Unfortunately, it's just going to be digital streets, digital blood, and digital innocents, but I'm sure some of this generation's finest minds are hard at work trying to find a way to create an even more immersive experience for us next time around.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I've always been far more entranced by a video game series about killing people, penis jokes, and stealing stuff than should be humanly possible. There's just something about GTA that hooks me; it's not the best at everything it attempts, but there's so much love and effort put into its creation that it just sweeps me away unlike anything else that's out there. And Rockstar's taste in music is always kickin' rad.

I've also kept a completely superfluous manual countdown on a whiteboard for each new Grand Theft Auto game since GTA III. On one infamous occasion, I felt the pain of actually adding days to the countdown, just because some jerks decided that New York had too many skyscrapers. But gaming history finally arrived, and it was well worth the wait. Vice City's process was similar, with a less tragic delay factored in that time around, and for San Andreas, I actually began the countdown about five months before it was released. Even I recognized that this was overkill, so I showed tremendous restraint with GTA IV, only starting with twenty-two days to go. But even though I should be more mature now, I'm not, and I still can't avoid jumping up and down in glee upon the realization that ten days have passed and the game that I've waited years to get my hands on is finally moving into the single digits on my crude but love-filled ritual.

So, with GTA IV on the verge of mainlining pure, distilled joy directly into the pleasure centers of my brain, I've decided to share some interesting facts about the number that has given us (me) cause to celebrate.

Ten facts about the number 10


Dutch coaches, Eastern European criminals, rocks, French kids and pets, and dead Americans are but a small sampling of those who eagerly anticipate the release of Grand Theft Auto IV, which has been hailed as a turning point in real-time strategy

1. There are ten days in a week.
2. There are ten weeks in a year.
3. The loneliest number? Ten.
4. Ten individuals could actually band together to invade Centralia, Pennsylvania, if it weren't such a creepy, uninhabitable hellhole.
5. The number ten starts with the letter T,
6. Or the number One (1).
7. The number 10 represents a totally perfect score and anyone who gives any currently-existing game a ten is evil.
8. Speaking of evil, ten murders were committed by carnival people last year. This is down from the record of 2,700, which was set in the halcyon days of 1936.
9. Forbes Magazine's "Ten People Who Could Change the World" are an almost uniformly unattractive bunch.
10. Ten is a very interesting number, don't you think?