Dammer's Saturday Night YouTube Post

It's Saturday night here in Owatonna. I've had such a rough day, what with all my sitting around the apartment. I even contacted Charter about my broken cable box. The result of this online chat conversation? The person told me they had no technicians available for the rest of the month, but I could call back in two days. Hmm....rest of the month is booked now but perhaps not two days from now? I call bullshit. I also call boredom. Tilla is out doing Tilla things, my girlfriend is working at the chocolate factory, and the Packers game was exciting yet boring at the same time since there was no suspense in the second half. On the bright side the Jags just scored and my hatred for the Patriots can continue to be fueled. Oh joy, Brady was just sacked on his first offensive play. Let the hatred flow I say! So how have I been using my time may you ask? Well I put in about 6 hours on the rating calculator, see the message boards on Daymonster's previous post for an update. I've also done something that always brings me a certain level of joy.

Have you ever heard the word aretè (arr-ay-tay if I were to spell it out like it sounds)? A political science course in college taught me that, according to the Greeks, aretè is the essence of greatness. Everyone has a certain level of it, but only few actually possess it. So then what does it mean to possess aretè? I'll put it in words that we all can understand. Halo words.

When you possess aretè you are in command of all that around you. In Halo, when you go into battle with no fear against nubblets you have aretè. It's when you are in control of the battle, or when you force multiple foes to cower in fear. When you get a triple kill with no shields left afterwards, have used only one AR clip, had no teammate help, and threw a perfect grenade or two...you have aretè. The reason I'm giving you this lesson is that it helps to explain why I enjoy highlight reels. Yeah the entertainment value is good, but there are highlight reels that make the average look amazing and that's not fair. I'm talking about the highlight reels that make the average and the amazing look downright silly. That's why I mine youTube for the best highlight reels I can find. Without further ado I give you the best of the videos I watched this afternoon, and also a description of pure aretè that doesn't involve words. I did give a Halo metaphor for each video though to keep in mind while watching. [Disclaimer: I am not at fault for musical montage choices. I have linked these videos instead of embedding six videos in one post 'cause that would be ridiculous.]

For all those times where your grenade bounced around a corner oh so perfectly. For each sticky throw that involves leading and anticipating your opponent's next move. I present to you The Pistol.

For those times when you're blinded by one single goal, be it kill, flag, or otherwise. For when you melee your opponent and actually melee with your controller in hand. For every corpse hump, post-death beatdown, and full frontal skull crush I give you the man with the worst golf swing ever.

As Puyo's interview says, there is a definite skill in being able to stay alive during a hopeless battle. More importantly though, it is the ability to kill after staying alive that gives you aretè. I present IMHO the best back the NFL has seen (Bo didn't play long enough for me to grade), Barry Sanders.

This is perhaps the most obvious entry in my list, but some individuals reach the pinnacle of their sport and when they do there is no question to it. This particular video is for every time you have finished a game and thought to yourself "I don't think there was a single time during that game that I made the wrong decision.". For when every conceivable piece of your game fell into place at the highest level, I give you His Airness.

Lastly I have a more recent video that, believe it or not, contains highlights better than some 12 year veterans could ever dream of. This is for every time you go on an unstoppable streak. These are the times when your sniper ammo is emptied and mostly resulting in headshots. It's when you get not one, but two sword triple kills back to back. It's when you average one kill per death for 90% of the game and then get your team's last ten kills without dying. Mostly though, it's hope for the future.

Obviously there are a lot more videos like this out there. I would recommend Shawn Kemp, John Stockton (don't laugh), Herschel Walker, The Great One, Ronaldinho.

Hopefully this will give you something to do tomorrow when the football games get boring or you wake up too early and there is nothing on tv. I always love to see new videos like this, so if you find one put it out there! This can include Halo montages. Speaking of, if you're super bored you can see Puyo and I's timing record videos for Halo 2 campaign levels. We have Halo 2's Regret level two-player at all difficulties. They actually are pretty interesting.