At the “Lunch on the Lawn” after church today, my son and I were talking about one of his favorite pastimes: playing Star Wars: Battlefront online with his friends from all over the world. “You should play it, Dad,” he said. I replied that I was certain to embarrass him and his clan by being such a noob (newbie). “That’s okay,” he said. “You’d get better quickly. Plus it’s a very friendly group. Most of us play just to hang out. We also have a birthday alert that lets us know when someone’s celebrating their birthday.”

I paused for a moment to mull over this new bit of information. A birthday alert for a bunch of guys flying X-Wings around and running scrimmages with other guys? Interesting. Suddenly Star Wars: Battlefront started to sound like YASN (yet another social network). Which of course it is … but here was explicit evidence.

To break the silence, my son went on. “Really, Dad, you ought to try it once. There are lots of Yodas in the clan.”

Yodas?

“Sure: guys over 40.”

You know, it could be worse. Ol’ greenie’s not too bad with a light saber, after all.

Next installment, I’ve promised my son I’ll blog about the game of “bowling” he invented for his clan buddies. It seems there’s quite a lot of play-within-play going on in-world.