Stuff Magazine, EA Sports Games, and the Official Launch of My Hunger Strike

Stuff magazine runs a cool contest called True Lies -- the archive of which is a fucking goldmine -- in which they pick a topic and ask readers to relate a great story from their own lives about that topic. (On Sundays the Washington Post Magazine runs a trite version of the same contest, Editor's Query.)

The latest True Lies features people writing about surviving a riot. Up next: "Tell us about the longest you’ve gone without food for a chance to win EA’s Arena Football!"

Wait a minute. Hold on there. EA Sports makes an arena-football game?!?!? Did I read that right?

Why yes I did! And it comes out this month.! How fucking cool is that?

Arena football is one of those few sports I have no interest in watching on TV but am absolutely certain makes for great gaming. It's got a small field, scoring is pretty much mandatory on every play, there are nets and boards, and you get to smack the crap out of your opponent. What's not to love? It's for these same reasons indoor soccer would make a great EA game, and why I'm planning to pick up FIFA Street 2 when it comes out this spring.

There are other sports I don't get to watch much of but that I'd love to play as a video game. Take cricket, which I've only seen on TV once (in Bermuda about 10 years ago). EA Sports makes a cricket game, but they inexplicably don't sell it in the United States. I'm sure it wouldn't exactly set sales records in the U.S., but there are definitely millions of well-to-do twentysomething descendants of and immigrants from the crown colonies who would love to get their wicket on. As Bill Simmons would say (though probably not about a cricket-themed video game), "This has to happen."

So what am I doing right now besides blabbering on about EA Sports games? I'm fasting, dammit. I'm not eating a fucking thing until at least next week, and then I'm going to enter the True Lies contest, writing about my hunger-strike experience in hopes they'll name my bony ass the winner of the new arena-football game.

If anyone out there wants to halt this unprincipled hunger strike in its tracks -- and man do I wish I'd eaten lunch before I decided to do this -- you can do so by purchasing the game for me here.

Update: Commenter Thomas Greaves has played a cricket game. Sort of.