deezy, this guy would kick you ass...

(zyos is second from the left)

Zyos plays the video game Halo, plays it better than anyone in the world. His mother, Rhonda, watched him dominate the military combat game in San Francisco last year at the World Cyber Games--the gaming Olympics--and because of her status, because she is the mother of Zyos, Rhonda became a de facto celebrity herself. She didn't expect that. She doesn't understand the game, in which you kill enemy combatants on your own or on a team. Yet gamers from across the world approached her. Zyos is a great champion, they said. One of them, an earnest kid from New Zealand, sought her out to tell her he'd flown to San Francisco to study Zyos' playing tendencies.

Zyos plays Halo for a living, but the checks he earns are signed under his given name, Matt Leto. Major League Gaming signed Leto to play Halo professionally in the fall of 2003, when Leto was 19. MLG is a professional gaming league that holds tournaments across the nation and last year handed out $175,000 in total purses in its inaugural season--a season that concluded with MTV broadcasting its championship, further convincing MLG personnel that theirs is the new X Games. Hell, the new NASCAR.