My nephew came over to the house today to play with our Xbox 360 and WII consoles. Like any young kid, he was absolutely convinced he could beat an “old guy” like me in the latest next-gen games. He told me that adults didn’t know how to play games and that he was going to tea-bag me in Halo 3. Little did he realize that at this point in my life I’ve been playing video games for almost 30 years and that I eat little shits like him for breakfast…figuratively speaking, that is. I don’t actualy condone eating children or shit. Unless you have to.

Once the young’un had been properly schooled and tea bagged, his father (my brother-in-law) decided that he was going to take a turn at trying to give me the Halo 3 beat down. He’s about 7 years younger than I am and even cockier than his son. He figured my hands would be tired after a 45 minute deathmatch session with his son and that I would stand no chance against his…how did he put it?…”mad skillz.”

I snickered to myself and properly introduced my wife’s brother to the taste of my balls for the next hour and a half. He failed to realize that, in this world of ergonomically crafted game pads, someone who had suffered through years of the “Atari Claw” could play for hours upon hours without tiring. I had worked through the pain of God-only-knows-how-many 8 hour stints playing Yar’s Revenge, wearing an oven mitt to try and protect my hand from the arthritis-enducing Atari 2600 joystick and single red button. Fighting through the agony as I was forged into a living machine of death by that cruel little black stick. He couldn’t have imagined that, much like the Master Killer’s head, my hand had become a lethal weapon and that his “mad skillz” paled in comparison to the steel-like grip of my “Atari Claw.”

This little gaming session only prooved that kids today are pussies. They are over-protected, over-coddled and over-babied. We still had asbestos in schools when I was a kid. Kids’ toys had an insane number of swallowable parts - lord knows how many tiny Star Wars or GI Joe guns made their way in to my feces. Silly-string was flamable, as it should be. And toy guns looked like real guns - yes, if you were dumb enough to point one at a cop then you would get shot. Duh.

Ok, so a few kids died here and there, but it made us faster, stronger, better than before. The 80s were a perfect example of Darwin’s Laws in action — the strong survived and the weak were taken out by the fascinating combination of silly string and birthday candles. Nowadays kids are slow, weak and stupid.

In order to make our kids tougher, I say we get rid of the bright colors on squirt guns. I say we bring the lead paint back to toys. And, I say we get rid of anything with the word “ergonomic” on it. If we don’t want our kids to be pansies, I say we bring back the “Atari Claw” and teach them what it’s like to live!

By the way, if you don’t know what the “Atari Claw” is first hand then you have absolutely no right to watch “Family Guy” because you aren’t old enough to get the jokes. So turn it off and go back to watching your Digimon, you fucking Naru-Tards.

-NiftyMat