I've been playing a lot of the new Mario Kart DS online recently.

It's one of the first Nintendo games that lets you compete with other players online. Not only can you can play against other freedom-and-Mario-Kart-lovin' Americans, but dorks throughout Japan and Europe as well. The game just throws everyone into a race. There's no way to communicate, even if we could. Though these opponents may be on different sides of the globe, we all speak the international language of Mario Kart.

The lack of traditional communication makes it difficult to express any personality while playing. One of the few things you can is draw an emblem that goes next to your name and on your cart. I was thinking about writing something obscenely jingoistic to intimidate my foreign adversaries, but then I realized they can't read English.