To go along with our story on how Microsoft polices Xbox Live, we decided to test the rules by trying to break them. What follows is a personal diary of our attempt to get kicked off Xbox Live. It's not an instruction manual!

Day 1 - Sunday
The Gamertag “MyIdeaOfFun” starts its free Gold trial in the Underground zone. I can’t bring myself to be racist or homophobic, so I’m going to focus on simply being obnoxious.

5 minutes
The first Gears of War ranked match loads and the swearing begins. Every comment comes with an F-bomb, and I accuse my teammates of not backing up my brain-dead suicide runs. Two guys apologize and say they’ve never played on Live before. Now I feel legitimately bad because their first impressions of the service are of me being a tool. Also, will the newbies even know they can report me? In a last-ditch attempt to annoy everyone, I quit the game early. My soul turns slightly black.

Cleanup on aisle 666.

30 minutes
I switch to Texas Hold ’em tournaments because I think I can piss off more people at once that way. But everybody’s good-natured, even when I’m a complete jerk. I start telling everybody that I will teach them how to play poker; I openly command people to fold. I get into a great shouting match, which basically devolves into another guy yelling “Viva Piñata!” and a phrase about maternal copulation that can’t be printed here. He was the most obnoxious one at the table. Hey, he stole my schtick!

50 minutes
In an act of desperation, I start sending rude text messages to recent players. To the Piñata shouter, I send a close-up Live Vision photo of my extended middle finger and tell him I’m going to get him banned for cheating.

One hour, 10 minutes
By boasting incessantly, insulting everyone, and repeatedly licking my microphone just to make annoying scraping noises, I finally get an entire table to turn against me. They all sound like decent people: I’d hate me, too. Just for good measure, I write them all dirty messages...but I don’t enjoy it. After the first 90 minutes of play, I have 20 points of Gamerscore and an 80% avoidance rating on my Rep.

Day 2 - Monday
One hour, 30 minutes
Nobody replied to my previous notes, but my negativity has risen to 85%, spread across Trash Talking, Language, Disruptive, Aggressive, and Unsporting Behavior. Clearly, I’m doing something wrong and doing it right. Armed with some new dirty words suggested over lunch with our friends at GamesRadar.com, I’m ready to dive back into Texas Hold ’em with trash talking, some shouting, and really loud belching. Luckily, my console freezes during the game, giving me the perfect opportunity to accuse everyone else of hacking. For some reason, the main guy I was screaming at sends me a Friend request.

Two hours, 10 minutes
Poker isn’t violent enough — time to fire up Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. I’m really bad at it, so I’ll be talking smack while getting completely destroyed. It doesn’t take much to send an MK opponent into racist, homophobic overdrive, but I don’t think he would have gone there unless pushed. Because he’s nice enough to threaten to have 10 of his friends report me, I invite him to a private chat and constantly hit Y to page him. He doesn’t answer; maybe I’m blocked. Meanwhile, I’ve managed to hit 90% avoidance. Still, harassing individuals won’t turn the world against me. I gotta get back out there and do some mass damage – quick.

Add your own racist and homophobic taunts.

Two hours, 50 minutes
Call of Duty 3 supports 24 players on Live, but only three are in my match, and they’re all on my team. That doesn’t stop me from killing them and gloating loudly and proudly about it. They all wisely log off immediately. I conscientiously follow up with text messages that insult their patriotism and call it a day. Three hours into this wretched experiment and I’m still not banned. What more will it take?

Day 5 - Thursday
Three hours, 10 minutes
Two days of no activity means it’s time to step things up. There are supposed to be agents actively policing Uno, so I make rude hand gestures on my Vision camera and play a drumbeat with the microphone to make another player’s echo problems even worse. I feel bad because there’s a very nice woman in this room, reading a book on-camera. Naturally, my rant devolves to the point of demanding that she take off her top. Because Uno players can jump in and out at random intervals, I manage to offend six people in a 15-minute game. But wisely, the host boots me after that. What were they waiting for?

Keep. Those. Pants. On.

Four hours, 30 minutes
Being reprehensible is hard work. After four-and-a- half hours of gaming, I’ve got a 93% disapproval rating but no official warnings, and I’m running out of ways to be an ass. It’s occurred to me to go totally hardcore over-the-top with hate speech, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. But this might make the difference.

Day 6 - Friday
Four hours, 40 minutes
If I can’t get the surprisingly tolerant Xbox Live populace to truly hate me, I’ll have to turn to the people who already do: my friends. I’ve asked six people to report me — three for abusing ingame chat, and three for the more serious video violations. By the end of the weekend, that will be six strikes against me. How long now?

Day 11 - Thursday
Five hours
As a farewell gesture, I grabbed my crotch on camera in Uno for a half-hour this morning, but I’m a little sad that I never got so much as a communication ban from Chris’ team. Apparently, players perceive a difference between being merely obnoxious and being truly offensive. Did I never go far enough? Would flashing a body part while screaming racial slurs have sealed the deal, or is Microsoft soft on e-crime? Or is my 94% negative Rep enough to keep me quarantined from the general populace? Regardless, I feel filthy. After trying my best to be a complete jackhole, I can only imagine what the “thousands and thousands” of folks who have been restricted from Xbox Live had to do to get themselves banned. And frankly, I’m glad I’ll never play them to find out for myself.

Eleven days, five hours, 94% hatred.