On the date of August 24th, 2005, I was caught with my pants down in front of a cop car that had been set on fire, while holding a book of matches in one hand and a tank of gasoline in the other. As part of my community service, I've been ordered to bestow my vast knowledge upon the gaming masses. 

-- By Zack Huffman

Dear Zack,

I got totally owned in this Soul Calibur II tournament. Completely destroyed. I never stood a chance, despite devoting much of my recent life to the game.

Now Zack, I know you’ve never lost in any gaming tournament—or any game, probably—but let’s say you did. How would you react? I want to know how to lose gracefully because I’m not sure I ever have.

Sincerely,
Cervantes Shall Prevail

Dear Cervantes Shall Prevail,

The one time that I played Soul Caliber II, I was over at a friend's house. He broke out the coke, so of course we were up all night. While he spent hours repeating the same prank calls to the same five phone numbers, I played Soul Caliber II. By morning I think I was about two thirds of the way through the game, but that really doesn't matter. What does matter is that I lost an entire night to a damn videogame. 

Now, I bring this up to make this point. It doesn't matter what game you play, or how long you play it, if you've spent enough time playing a videogame to warrant entry into some lame-ass videogame tournament, then you're a loser. It doesn't matter if you actually win the damn tournament, in the end you still lose. 

I've never lost a tournament, but then I've never lacked enough self-esteem to even enter a videogame tournament. As for losing gracefully, it really doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you realize that no matter how big of a trophy the winner gets, he's still going to be a loser. Just remember that as many hours as you've lost playing Soul Caliber II, the winner has no doubt lost even more hours of his life that he's never going to get back. 

-Zack

Dear Zack!

What the hell?! I put down my Wavebird for TWO SECONDS on the refrigerator, and in those two seconds, my roommate rushes in from whatever drunken hallway party he’s attending, SLAMS the fridge door open (I didn’t even know this was POSSIBLE), and sends my wireless controller skittering across the floor!

I can’t BELIEVE the thing isn’t broken, and my roommate doesn’t give so much as ANY sort of apology AT ALL. How could he do this?? He almost  cost me $40 because he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to what he was doing! Why would he do this, and how can I get back at him?!

With love,
;sladgjka;eoiwuadcv.,mgasdf;gladjfa:JLkj;L;LSK

Dear ;sladgjka;eoiwuadcv.,mgasdf;gladjfa:JLkj;L;LSK,

First of all, why the fuck are you spending $40 on a controller?! I get buyer's remorse after spending $15 on any sort of controller. I don't care if it can vibrate while sucking your dick—I'm not paying $40 for  it. 

Secondly, why bother staying angry if your controller isn't broken? And I'm sure that you got some sort of apology. Let me tell you something about drunks, we can do crazy things like slamming a refrigerator door open. One time I actually fell up a flight of stairs, much to the  astonishment of my fellow party-goers. 

The other thing with drunks is that we say all sorts of things that people don't understand correctly. For instance, there was this one time when I was completely hammered. I was wandering around this hotel with a glass of bourbon in hand when I casually walked up to the overnight desk clerk and said, "Pardon me, but could you kindly direct me to your restroom?" Strangely, it came out sounding like this "I'z gotta piss, bitch. Which fuckin' way?" followed by incoherent gibberish. I was kicked out of the hotel, and later had to drunkenly sneak back in just to get back to my room. 

When your roommate knocked the controller off the top of the fridge, I'm sure he said he was sorry, just in a way that was indiscernible to your sober ears. Your controller is fine, so quit your belly-aching and 
stop investing so much money on videogames. 

-Zack