I can't be the only guy who cares about stuff like knowing exactly what time an online game will go live so I can start playing already! For instance, I can tell you that Xbox Live updates tend to go live between 2am and 3am on the day it's schedules. On Steam, stuff goes live whenever someone rolls out of bed, has a shower, watches a little Oprah, swings by Pete's Coffee on the way to work, checks his email, browses the auction house, and then remembers to flip whatever switch at Valve has to be switched before I can play whatever game I'm waiting on. Steam's update schedule is rarely more precise than the 24-hour span of the release date.

Well, that's not going to wash with a big release like Left 4 Dead 2. So Valve has clarified that the game will go live at midnight tonight, East Coast time. Meaning those of us in the rest of the country will technically be able to start playing on November 16th instead of the scheduled release date of November 17th. Ha ha, take that, New York!