Face it, if you are incensed by the irrational desire to accumulate additional achievement integers, this will only make you more depressed.

I am tempted to take my 360 offline permanently. Not because my wife wills it, or because I want to lose the rest of my XBL membership, but because I have a beautiful palindrome score. Check it. . . 23232.

I overshot the 22222 by unlocking an achievement of greater value than was required. Despite my best attepts I could not bring my score into palindromic agreement because of dedication to the joy of playing Lost Planet, and the allure of other low-hanging fruit in other titles.

Last night I got home from work and immediately commenced the download of Alien Hominid HD. If it weren't for Castle Crashers, Hominid would have been my most anticipated XBLA download from the Behemoth. Like my affection for palindromes, cel-shaded graphics make me warm inside. The little alien guy looks so adorable when he is biting heads off of FBI agents and carjacking. The achievements I unlocked this morning basically carried me back to a palindrome equilibrium. I will definitely play more, but I find myself obsessing again over ensuring my score keeps its parallel properties.

I still have four more achievements in PD0 (120 points) I am working on offline. My stomach turns every time I see that as my #1 game on mygamercard.net. A couple guys online and I wonder how drunk on new hardware some people were to give that game across-the-board glowing reviews. Sure, the light reflecting off of the tile was impressive, but the gameplay is so tedious! If I wasn't trying to finish the multiplayer to get me that much closer to the Old Spice challenge line, I'd just take that thing back to the GameCrazy from whence it came. . . but I digressed.

The thought of accumulating points offline is actually entertained often, but the effort required to map out which achievements I would need to unlock to correct my score has become tiresome. I would only reconnect my console to update my numbers, lest that delightful score be altered from its positioned nearest Nirvana. But in the end, I have friends with whom I enjoy playing games. I would miss playing more than I do now. Play time isn't just about the numbers it boils down to one thing: my 360 is only as good as the people I play with online.