Skateboarder Tony Hawk and graphic designer David Carson

At Newsweek HQ, most of our colleagues are either boomers in name or boomers in spirit, which means there haven't been many serious gamers among our ranks. But from the increasing number of game-related conversations we've had with our office mates, it's clear that this is starting to change. Our de facto Xbox 360 correspondent Rolf Ebeling, who in his day job is the creative director for Newsweek.com, posted here back in September about getting a new post-Red Ring of Death Xbox 360 just in time for the Halo 3 launch, followed by a postcard showing off his very first kill in Halo 3 multiplayer. In today's entry, Electronic Arts' Skate serves as a jumping off point for his boyhood memories of the birthplace of modern American skateboarding.

I have some news. You might want to sit down--I've been playing a game that isn't Halo 3.

Given my almost exclusive interest in multiplayer FPS chaos, you would have thought I'd barely be able to dress myself and hold down a job after midnight on September 25th (for non-believers, that was the release day for the Master Chief's final chapter). Yes, I have been spending nearly all of the Xbox Live time I can scrape together sticking people with spiked grenades, but EA has managed to divert my attention for an hour or two with a game about plywood, polyurethane and the police: Skate.

Knowing that I grew up north of San Diego in the 70s and 80s--and if you could hear me speak, you'd detect the slight So Cal accent in my voice--you might assume I spent a fair amount of my youth loitering in front of the local 7-Eleven on a skateboard. Truth is, I could barely go twenty feet on the street without wobbling off the board and watching it sail out into the intersection. Yet, however painfully unskilled I was in the actual act, I've never lost an interest in culture and aesthetics of skateboarding; it was part of the air I breathed. Shamelessly, I've even stood in line on opening day for both "Jackass" movies.

My hometown of Del Mar (better known these days for having briefly been in the path of the Witch Creek fire) has its place in modern pop history. Just check out either of the two recent films about the Z-Boys. The 1975 tournament where they introduced their rougher street style of skateboarding took place at the Del Mar Fairgrounds, minutes from my house. The Del Mar Skate Park, one of the first such parks in the nation, was built right across the street from the Fairgrounds, and managed to survive both the ups and downs of the sport's popularity and the rising insurance costs until 1987.

There's more: guess who was a sociology teacher at my alma mater Torrey Pines High School?: David Carson, who was art directing the seminal Transworld Skateboarding magazine at night while serving as the yearbook advisor (the 1987 edition has hints of what he'd go on to do with Ray Gun in the 1990s). But the biggest name-drop I can manage is this: I can remember being a freshman on the first day of school and having a friend point and say in a hushed voice, " Seriously...that's Tony Hawk's locker." Check out that sweet '80s haircut in his senior photo, pictured above.

It's nostalgia for that era moreso than the gameplay that draws me to games like Skate. I do like the low-slung camera angle, and the "flicking" of the controller sticks is a clever and addictive interface for doing tricks, but what I'd rather just wander the streets of the various maps in whatever goofy outfit I've selected. That sound of the wheels grinding on pavement and the dodging of authority figures is irresistible; it's my chance to be the talented wiseass and ollie over cars without breaking my face. EA would be catering to my particular and peculiar relationship with skating games-not to mention taking their eyes off their goal of unseating the dominant Hawk series--but if they'd like to complete my fantasy, I'd be the first to preorder a game set in 1982, complete with a Vandals, Circle Jerks and TSOL soundtrack. And the ability to customize my checkered Vans slip-on shoes.

I'd change my gamertag to Jeff Spicoli in a heartbeat.