My rating is 38.  I carry a TAR-21 assault rifle, a .357 Magnum revolver, a smoke grenade, and a Claymore mine. I rack in most of my kills on the level “Highrise” in the underground tunnels by crouching under a staircase. I just reached my thousandth kill with my TAR-21 and my kill to death ratio is .823. My name is Nate Townsend and I think that I literally have an addiction to Xbox Live.

For years, my friends have played everything from Halo to FIFA Soccer on Xbox Live, an extra component for Xbox that allows users to challenge each other online. Not until two weeks ago, after purchasing the hit game, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, did I jump on the Xbox Live bandwagon.

The setup proved to be a little bit difficult, and I just about gave up on the whole thing. I almost wish that I did. The day that I joined the other six million users online was also the day that I sat in my basement for eight straight hours. The sounds of ringing cell phones and calls from my parents at the top of the stairs fell on deaf ears. As far as I was concerned, I was protecting my country from the Russians on the streets of Suburban America.

I had no time for such distractions. I was in trouble, but didn’t know it yet.

Now you may be reading this and thinking, “This kid needs help,” but I can tell you that this has gone long past the poit where I can vbe helped. I, as well as most of my male classmates, am stuck in an Avatar-like parallel universe that I don’t want to leave for anything. These last couple of weeks, I have lived for the hope that once or twice a day I could talk smack via a plastic headset and then shoot, stab, and blow up total strangers.

This didn’t seem abnormal to me at all until the other day, when senior Scott Morrison announced to our friends that he would be selling his Xbox to pay for his spring break trip. He might as well have announced that he had finally found a girlfriend. We were absolutely shocked.

After a long moment of silence, I admitted that, if I were ever in his shoes, I would rather sell my kidney into the black market than give up my Xbox. However, it wasn’t this asinine comment that was an eye-opener for me, it was the fact that all of my friends agreed.

Since then, my cries of desperation have been internal. I still find myself sitting on my Lovesac in front of my TV for hours at a time. I realize that I have signed up to be a part of the epidemic that infects our youth. Unlike drugs and alcohol, where I have been warned of the negative side effects, no one mentioned that Xbox Live would take over my brain like a horse tranquilizer.

Ladies and gentleman of Clayton High School: I write this letter as a means to stop those who are considering getting Xbox Live. It’s a trap. Some argue that it has benefited our society by providing a source of social networking and communication. Well, I can assure you that it does the very opposite.

You don’t know what alone feels like until you’ve experienced Xbox Live. My unsullied personality is now hollow with empty thoughts of a digitally programmed world. ⎫