Chapter 3

My whole life changed after I got my trusty new cell phone. The phone and I became instant buddies. On school nights I still have a 9:00 o’clock bed time. I begged my parents to let me stay up and work on my new phone my first night. They let me stay up until past 10. It was great.

I set up my password, put on a cool screen saver, added several sites to my list of favorites, downloaded songs to my MP3 player, and personalized all my computer settings. Man that took some doing!

After Dad knocked on my door and told me to go to bed, I turned off my trusty companion. I sat in my bed staring at the ceiling for nearly an hour, thinking about the best present I ever got in my whole life. Finally, my mind turned off, and I went to sleep some time just before midnight.

The next morning was Friday, and it was time to get serious. I had to leave for school around 7:45, so if I took a one-minute shower and took one minute to get dressed, I could still manage nearly half an hour on the phone before I had to leave for school. That gave me just enough time to get started on my very favorite thing to do on computers: video games! It was weird playing games on my small phone, so I plugged in my keyboard most of the time, so it seemed like a regular computer game.

My parents wanted me to be careful about what kind of games I played. They told me about some kid several hours away that played so many fighting video games that he went nuts. The kid apparently played Mega Death Warrior Villains for four hours in a row. After he finished playing, apparently the kid dressed up like a warrior villain and ran through his neighborhood screaming and looking for people to annoy. Apparently he got into a squabble with his grandfather when he tried to urge the odd kid to come back inside his house.

Some woman from my mother’s Bible study group cut that article out. Mom posted that on the refrigerator for weeks. Needless to say, my parents preferred that I play competition or sports games that were low on violence.

I began searching for a cool game. An energetic power sports game came up on a sports game website called Nuclear Attack Ball (or NAB, as I soon began to call it). It was the perfect game for me—challenging, fast-paced, and different from the lamer games my parents seem to prefer. This game was so cool because if you got to a certain level on NAB, the balls turned into gun-toting aliens. It was so addicting!

I stayed up on Friday night playing NAB until my eyes were bloodshot red. My parents came in a few times to see if I was still awake. Finally they made me turn off my phone at 11:30. By the end of that night I had made it to level 3 out of 90 levels

I woke up before 8:00 a.m. the next morning and stayed in my bed playing NAB until I was so hungry I couldn’t stand it. I was almost ready for a break because after level 5, the gunned up aliens starting growing teeth and fangs. I got a little creeped out, so I switched programs.

A few months earlier I had signed up for a kid’s social site called, Facepad. It gave the under 13 year old crowd a good place to connect online and talk with each other. The cool thing about it was this site was picture-based. I never got on there much because someone else was always on the computer at my house. Now that I had my new phone, I was going to spend more time there.

I logged into my account and sent a few notes to the guys that were coming to my house that afternoon. Aaron sent out a note to several of us that surprised me.

“Hey guys, I started playing this awesome new game a few weeks ago called, Nuclear Attack Ball. It is beast! I am already to level 9. Have any of you tried it?”

How weird was that? I, of course, told him how sweet that game was and how I would soon own him and pass him by, moving up to higher levels very soon. The rest of the guys had not played the game, but they all mentioned they would check it out soon.

I love my friends, but sometimes one guy—Ralph—makes things like my party a bit awkward. He is a pretty good guy when he is by himself, but in groups he comes off like a crazed lunatic. My friends at school have a real low tolerance for him. Ralph also goes to my church and sometimes even plays on the same sports teams as me. I have had my “Ralph-fill” many times in the past.

A few guys were asking me if Ralph was coming to my party. Wouldn’t you know it…ol’ Ralphie boy said he wouldn’t miss it for the world.