Great Article Joe. It was a touching piece, to say the least. I liked how you generalized it to the "horders" of the virtual generation. I've never had a similar experience, because I don't play on live. But its weird how much more you get than you ever expect from a world from behind the keyboard. I mean, I met my Girlfriend on this very site and we're a year and a half steady.
Maybe its time more of us realized that there is humanity and companionship to be found online, among the trolls and piles of rotting corpses.