This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

Whatever happened to all-American college pastimes like smoking weed and robbing the pizza delivery guy? Kids in fancy schools these days apparently spend all their time engaged in a "team-based locally social online sport." No, not organizing group sex encounters on Craigslist; playing GoCrossCampus, a popular nerd-based internet game similar to Risk. And it's not just confined to Stanford, as we had hoped; it's everywhere!

As something that started in the Ivy League, you knew that this trend was due for a big piece in the Times, and the paper doesn't disappoint. Eleven thousand college kids across the country are involved! I fear for the future of our nation.


For example, at a recent battle between the residential colleges at Rice University, one team gathered in the cafeteria during a particularly dire point in the game. Once assembled, said Jim Deyerle, a junior at Rice who coordinated strategy for his team and now works on the game, "one of the commanders delivered Morpheus's speech," referring to the stirring oration from the second "Matrix" movie. "Then we brought out our laptops to sign more people up," he said.

See the similarities?

This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.
This image was lost some time after publication, but you can still view it here.

[pic via NYT]