[Chewbaccus]

I love these stories. It's a guaranteed nostalgia trip back to when I lobbied my mother for a solid two weeks to get her to buy me a copy of Mortal Kombat 2 for Genesis. I failed utterly, of course, despite what I still feel was a highly-advanced level of debate and negotiation on my part for a child of my years. If I had to guess, I'd say the negotiations fell apart after she took the radical approach of going to the local EB and seeing MK2 on a demo station they'd set up. I didn't anticipate it, I didn't know parents could or would actually preview questionable material before granting viewing approval to the child. I dropped the ball, and I can only blame myself.

I'm a firm believer in the "it takes a village" philosophy of child-raising. For example, it takes a parent to set and enforce limits upon what the child can and can not see/do/etc., and it takes an older brother to help the child devise ways to covertly circumvent those limits. Such ways include, but are not limited to, playing Chris Rock albums in his car in the child's presence, watching Jackie Brown with the child at his apartment, and taking the child to an ECW house show two towns over. (Killer seats, bro. Thanks again.)