I don't mean to generalize. Not all games writers are the same kind of uncool dorks. They actually come in varieties of…well…uncool dorks. Just peruse some of the E3 booth babe photos at the different sites or in next month's print issues and you'll see they tend to break down into three major types. Perhaps the most endearing species of games writer is the innocent goof, those youngish looking chess club refugees who smile much too broadly in these photos. They almost always wear gaming t-shirts, caps, shorts, white socks and an oversize wristwatch that looks like it could track incoming ICBMs. These are the poor guys who haven't a clue how dumb they look standing next to the EIDOS girls or some leather-clad faux dominatrix. They're just happy to be within slobbering distance of female breasts, synthetic or real.

Then there are the snide and ironic types, usually looking like frat boys in button-down plaid shirts, khakis and superior smirks. Immune to enthusiasm of any sort, these are the quasi-reviewers, the ones who say they are paying the rent with Lemmings and Daikatana critiques while they finish that sci-fi novel in the bottom drawer. The last skin color any of these shut-ins ever received was by mistake, waiting ten hours for the first showing of Star Wars Episode One. Many of them like to look as if they are the ones condescending to pose with the model - as if it's all just a self-aware send-up of convention rituals. Isn't this a hoot, they seem to be saying. I'm standing with the bimbos. Well, condescension doesn't work for these Letterman wannabes, either. There isn't enough irony in Jim Carey's entire body to make these pictures look good. They look no better than their granddads did at the annual Pipe Lubricant Convention in Boise thirty years ago. Anyway, look carefully and you'll catch them peering down the young lady's cleavage. Who are they kidding?

And then of course, there are the lotharios, the truly pathetic types (usually West coast editors in goatees) who actually look confident they could make time with this EIDOS chick if they really wanted to. "That's right, babe. The PR Assistant at LucasArts and I are like this. " These clowns haven't the decency to look goofy or ironic in the booth babe snapshots. They actually think they belong there.

What exactly is the fantasy underlying these photos? If even only in jest or slathered with post-modern irony, is the idea that these ladies like posing with guys who resemble either Gilligan or the Skipper? What exactly do game geeks imagine attracts these women to them? Their encyclopedia knowledge of Star Trek trivia? Watches that beep ostentatiously and for no obvious reason every 20 minutes? Their bad fashion sense? The asthma inhaler?