Pinto's Last Stand

Last night I had to say good bye to a very dear friend, Pinto Jueve. Sadly, he officially announced his retirement from the wires of Xbox Live. He was always living on borrowed time and finally, 'the master of the house' called him home. So as I was waiting for this guy to come over to buy my Xbox I turned the lights down low and the volume high for a final game of Call of Duty. What happened next is all true. The identities have been kept the same for glory purposes.

It's 4 v 4 on the smallest map - Shipment. Usually a blood bath of mayhem where no man can hide from flying grenades and random bullets. For all of you that have played, as the game was counting down to begin....8....7....6... I started to feel nervous, like this is my Senior year of high school and I knew that this was going to be it. 5...4...I select my weapon of choice the M16 3...2... the colors fade from black and white to game colors.....1.... Domination.

From that point I don't know what happened. My hands had a mind of their own as I started to slaughter the enemy before me. Like the 300 spartans, I slaughtered enemies without number (ok, 7) and I called in the heli-copter. I am sweating bullets (remember the high volume and dark lights... it felt real) and then I see a 10 kill streak and realize I haven't died yet. Is this a message from the Xbox gods? Should I keep the sticks? It's too late, the guy will be coming any second.... I continue my slaughter when my gun is out of ammo. That's where it goes Rambo. I literally took my pistol and went charging into the fray...... I get shot in the leg but not before I put the guy down... kill #13. I steal his gun and ran back to my hideout... Kill 14..15...16...gun goes out of ammo...(my highest kill streak ever was 17 so this was horrible time to run out of ammo) I did what a true solider would do, I ran buck naked (pistol out of ammo) into the fray and grab someone's gun, turned around... kill 17...18...19... The Army and the Marines just called my cell phone requesting me for a special mission.... Kill 20...21....and then it happens. I am surrounded by 2 guys and a gun that is almost out of ammo. Like the super hero that has to choose between the girl and the civilians, I could only get 1 before the other got me.... 22 Kill streak before I even died once.

That my friends was done without the use of Performance enhancing drugs, no game genie codes, and no regret for taking a human life.

At that moment, my craigslister walked in with his black high top boots (This kid looked like he would go Columbine if you know what I mean and told me a story about HAVING to play Street Fighter 4 this weekend and then I realized that retiring my online avatar was a good thing.... Good night Pinto Jueve, it was a good run and an even better ending.......