And apparently it's been "recoded to increase page performance." In other words, somewhere a Microsoft programmer is wincing from the still-fresh whip wounds and a marathon coding session, drinking a free orange soda to alleviate the pain.

My Xbox Update [Major Nelson]

See what a little persistence will get you? Over the years we've run posts where people could put up their own gamer IDs, be they for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii or PC. But the problem has always been that that post eventually, usually quickly, moves off the page and people forget about it. So I started bugging our tech folks about maybe adding it to Kotaku's increasingly robust user profiles and sure enough they did it.

Now if you want to know a fellow Kotakuite's 360 Gamertag, PS3 ID, Wii Friend Code or Steam ID you can hit their user page and check it out. To add yours to your page just sign in and click on your name at the top of the page. You'll find the boxes for that information on the right side.

Have at it and play nice.

Major Nelson's brain apparently turned to slush when he walked onto the Girls Gone Wild volleyball court. It's hard to tell from this video because the blackhole like density of the two women he's interviewing could make a rock look smart.

"No, I mean yeah, I mean no" Brian Crecente

Earlier this week Missouri sheriff's deputies found 13-year-old William Ownby, who had been allegedly kidnapped while getting off of his school bus.

When police searched the home of alleged kidnapper Michael Devlin, 41, of suburban St. Louis, they found both Ben and Shawn Hornbeck, 15, who had disappeared four years ago while riding his bike.

On Sunday, GamerTagRadio and GamerTagPics broke the news that Devlin appears to have an Xbox Live Gamertag and that he had created a profile on GamerTagPics which appears to feature a photo of Hornbeck standing in front of Devlin's apartment.

When contacted Monday by Kotaku, a St. Louis Post-Disptach reporter confirmed that the photo of Hornbeck used for the profile did appear to have been taken in front of Devlin's apartment.

According to the stats of gamertag DevilDevlin, the account has been used to play two dozen games and the last game played was Saints Row, which was accessed on Jan. 12, the day the two children were rescued. On Jan. 11, DevilDevlin played Samurai Warriors 2 and some Final Fantasy XI.

Messages to the account have not been returned, nor have emails to Microsoft to see if the Xbox Live team has been contacted by law enforcement about the account activity. Brian Crecente

Kidnapper's Connection to Xbox Live Community [GamerTagRadio]

See Also: Odd internet trail points back to MO boy, alleged abductor [Boing Boing]

Want to get in on the action? Throw your own Wednesday Night Arcade party! We'll even help get you started with a Party in a Box. Okay, there's not really a box, but here's what we'll send you: A free pizza from Papa John's. 1000 Microsoft points. Use 'em to download Xbox Live Arcade titles! Free digital music download to get your favorite eighties tunes. All we ask in return? Take some pictures of your party and tell us who was there and what happened. What did you play? What did you listen to? Did you get pepperoni or sausage on your Pappa John's pizza?

I'm not quite sure where they are going with this, but why are they only sending one pizza over? That's not a party. They need to be paying for at least three... and a donkey. Now that's a party!

If you're interested in a Microsoft-sponsored party hit them up at xlmail@microsoft.com with Arcade Party in the subject line and make sure to include your gamertag. Brian Crecente

Lightdarkness sends us a tip about a site called MyGamerCard.net. You enter your Xbox Live gamertag into the site and it spits out a JPG image of your online avatar and stat sheet, presumably for use on your blog or whatnot. I don't know why you wouldn't just visit Xbox.com, log in and take a screen capture (as I did with my gamertag to the upper right) instead of using this site. But, we're here to inform.

MyGamerCard.net [Official site] (Thanks, lightdarkness)

The Knicks Channing Frye is going to be the special guest on this week's Game with Fame. Frye, the eighth pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, will be Live on Dec. 22 from 6:15 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. playing NBA Live 06 on the old school Xbox. He's going to be using gamertag ChanFryeGWF. Like a lot of up and coming Bballers, Channing is an avid video gamer and even runs his own website.

I'm not sure eactly when it happened, but this morning I was able to sign my retail Xbox 360 into Xbox Live. Unfortunately, I lost all of my game saves due to another issue, that has nothing to do with the console or plugging in. Kinda sucks because I had played through a big chunk of Condemned and some of Madden. In theory my Gamertag up above this text should update live what I am doing on the console. Which is kinda cool.

Next week I might post a thread to let everyone do that so we can stalk each other's game habits.

How To Embed Your Gamertag [Xbox.Com]