We are one week into this shindig and I hope all you kiddies are having fun, I know I am. The release went off without any major hiccups and then Jeff (president of the company) danced around the office in his underwear, no joke, they had Christmas trees on them. I promptly made him put his pants back on before we all became sick, and then we got down to the business of the release party. We had a great turn out with quite a few members of the press showing up and promising Zack(marketing director) his 15 minutes of fame in one of their various publications. He was very excited but kept his pants on, thankfully. If you're in Chicago look for us soon in the Red Eye, and on Comcast SportsNet. We were already in the Chicago Sun-Times last Thursday.

Release parties are one thing we do well around here, well, at least our first one was good. The bells were rung, the whistles were blown, and a man from Wisconsin won a grill. It was a very successful evening. Skill Technology, being the gracious company that we are, decided that during the evenings festivities we would also try and raise some money for charity. First Tee is an organization that "provides young people of all backgrounds an opportunity to develop life-enhancing values such as confidence, perseverance and judgment through golf and character education". I'm happy to report that we raised over $1,300 with our raffles, all of which will go directly to First Tee of Chicago.

The evening came to a close, and the next day was upon us with a new world of turmoil. Thanks to the cool heads of our programming team, server glitches, game bugs, and total mayhem were quickly fixed, and the world was set right. Everything has been running smoothly since.

It's great to log on and find new people to add to my friends list every day. Even with the influx of gamers I know game lobbies are still scarce. So if you find that there are no lobbies open when you log in, start one. Then check the community tab to see if anyone else is online and invite them to your game. A few other notes about how you can help build our community:

• A forum devoted to Gimme Golf will be up soon, and in it we'll have a section for setting tee times. Check it, and add your own.
• Keep inviting your friends. The more people playing the more people there are to play with. Duh.
• Most of all, have fun. Remember, there are some people that have been playing in the beta for a few months now who are rather good (e.g. Jakem952. I can't even beat him and I designed the courses.)

Don't get discouraged if someones scoring better than you, this is a game of skill. I promise you will get better the more you play.

Peace Out
Doc