Over the last couple of months I have been spending some time hanging out at the Internet Forums of an international computer gaming group (more commonly referred to as ‘Clans‘) called the 1st Mechanized Infantry (or 1MI for short).
Basically the group started out focused on a single game – Auto Assault. A small group of players from the same game fraction decided to band together and hence the name of the group which is both military and robotic sounding so as to keep the favour of the game fraction. (Which is an order of militant cyborgs). Since then the group has expanded to en compress other games and membership has grown to an official number of about 250.
In any case, one of the more active members, who goes by the internet handle Typwn, was recently affected by the hurricane Katrina. Affected in the sense that his house was almost completely flooded and is now living in the shelters, hanging out in internet cafés, while trying to find a job and make ends meet. Recently his situation has gotten more dire in which, due to some mishap, he recently discovered that he is not entitled to any insurance.
Some of the other members of 1MI have since set up a donation system for Typwn via Paypal, in hopes of helping him along in this difficult time. Others have advised him to move away from the area in order to increase his chances of landing a job and have willingly offered their homes for him to stay in. Others still have volunteered to the American Red Cross and have flown out to the devastated area to lent a hand.
Being so far removed from this incident, it would be easy for me to just ignore it, consider it to be someone else’s problem and maybe just consider donating a bit to one of the charity groups operating in that area. But actually knowing someone caught up in it, someone I would consider a friend even from behind the computer screen, it just makes things more personal…more real if you like.
With that in mind, I hope to be able to do just what little I can.
As the old saying goes “Every little bit helps”
