Halo Night

Thursday is a day I look forward to throughout the entire week. Thursday night is freedom. Thursday is soothing, relaxing. Thursday night is the one night a week I can forget all about the stresses of school, and do one of the things I love most.

Thursday night is Halo night.

Geeky, I know, but I love video games, and the king of all video games is Halo. Every week I wait and wait for Thursday. Each day that brings me closer I get more excited and jittery. Thursday night is the highlight of my week. You may be thinking, "wow, Connor, get a life, or at least a girlfriend," but let me explain. Everyone has that thing, something that they are good at, something they are proud of, something that they can do that a majority of people can't. For some people, their thing is writing, for others it is music. My thing is Halo.

I knew coming to college my parents would never allow me to bring an Xbox. They are paying for me to focus on studying, and it would be far too distracting to have an Xbox in my dorm. I accepted this as a necessary sacrifice, but I knew that needed to be able to just chill, relax, and play Halo once a week. Playing video games is how I relieve stress, it is my guilty pleasure (everyone has one, don't blame me). But imagine, musicians, writers, and runners, suddenly not being able to do the thing that you love, that you pride yourself in. Imagine having your guitar stripped from your hands, your computer seized from you, your basketball popping in midair as it soars to the basket. Thats how it felt not being able to pwn noobs in Halo when I got to BYU. When my roommate told me his brother organized a Halo night every Thursday, I almost cried with happiness.

We play in the spacious attic of a garage in someone's house 20 minutes from campus. It sounds dark and uncomfortable, but it is a Halo fan's paradise. Halo posters and memorabilia line the walls. A full size cardboard cutout of Master Chief (Halo's main character) looks over you as you play. A refrigerator full of Mountain Dew sits in the corner. Four televisions with four sofas and four original Xboxs face four different ways (to ensure no screen-looking). One side of the room is painted blue for the blue team, the other side is painted red for the red team. The ceiling bears the massive green Xbox symbol. We play from 7 to 11 most Thursday nights, and the whole time we listen to the band Depeche Mode at full volume (that is a story for another blog post). We can have up to 16 people playing in one game, but we normally have a turnout of 8.

I have completely alienated my audience by now, so I'm just going to finish by saying that I love Thursdays and I love Halo. Tonight is the highlight of my week. Thanks for listening. So in the comments below, what your guilty pleasure/thing is that helps you stay sane at college?