Grub can sometimes make or break a good video game night. Nothing sucks more than having a house full of your best (and laziest) friends over and the only thing in your fridge is "that fish" from who knows when. Unless you have exceptional intenstinal fortitude, you can't always do McDonald's... or can you? Let's talk about what you're chewing on between LAN-brew. Our highly scientific research (I asked four dudes) has produced some contenders. The incumbent is the ever present pizza box who was once thought to be reserved for movie nights. Can it make the crossover? You bet that last fatboy slice it can. If you must cook: it's pasta - cheap and fast. You know you have that 18 year old spaghetti and that tomato bottle in the fridge has your back. Denny's is for late night hangovers and totally out of the question unless you're all packing PSP's, and Taco Bell is definately old reliable - we can get it when nothing else in miles will serve us at odd hours, or as a backup, weird twinkie things at the 7-11 clone. But spontaneous grab and go aside, what is your first pick? Let me kick this study off with my account. In the days before reliable broadband, my friends and I somehow squished 14 CRT's and towers into my den for an all night IPX-frenzied Starcraft tournament - catered by the Wang family down the street. In the house of Mr. Destructoid, all-day gaming (no cooking) usually starts with either $5 Papa Johns or a KFC bucket (that I pleaded that somebody pick up on the way) and always ends in delivered (subpar) chinese food. Chinese is my ultimate video game food. We got through half of Shenmue on an order of fried rice, or as we now call it -- "los chinos". Everybody chips in $5 and we eat like kings. Fried wontons, ribs, egg rolls, and those damn little cardboard rice buckets. My mouth is water just thinking about it.

There's something special about having the console on, passing the controller, and freeing your hands to grab an overdone barbecue rib. We do that shit from dusk to dawn on Fridays. If somebody brought over a projector - nobody sleeps. When the sun is coming up, I can see those little soy packets glimmering all over the floor with that damn panda on it. You know who I'm talking about. He's been eating that shrub for 28 years and he's the man. And when the panda's all dry and deflated - it's one man standing cleanup time. No many how many times we stain the sofa and get rice all over the place, it was worth it.



So what's your video game grub?