Remember the rules once you get a headset. Note that these rules are based upon my experience playing in the USA (I'm British but live in America). From another thread it seems that after the recent patch, my ex-fellow countrymen now are seeing shining examples of these rules being followed perfectly:
1) Above all, try not to use it for anything useful in the game e.g. team tactics, warnings etc.
2) Take it off, put it on the floor in the middle of your family and have the kids/wife/grandmother have a loud conversation around it. Preferably in Spanish.
3) If you're not using it, don't mute it. We want to hear what's happening in your life while trying to flank the enemy.
4) Give it to your annoying kid to play with to distract it from your COD play and let it jabber into it constantly.
5) Have some really loud music playing into the mic. Preferably some ganster rap (see the start of Office Space for some tips on how to listen in your car).
6) Toss instults around in the lobby and then stay silent in the game while avoiding teamwork as much as possible.
7) Imply to everyone that you're a war veteran when in fact you're an inbred farm-hand, ****-scared of his own shadow.
8) Imply that you have friends in the special forces and they have somehow magically transferred their abilities to you by association.
9) Be a racist bigot.
10) Read the rules above and not understand my point (that would make you American and you'd therefore follow the rules to the letter)
I'm not joking, the other week the wife was out so I settled down for a good uninterrupted hour playing COD4 in glorious high definition, volume set to 'war'. Every lobby I found had some complete idiot following the rules above. The most frustrating one was a decent game of sabotage absolutely ruined by some pillock who'd left his mic open and his wife and daughter were having a conversation in Spanish. I swear that they didn't breathe for 20 minutes. No kidding. A constant barrage. It's scarred me. Every time I join a lobby and hear a high-pitched voice I get flashbacks. They say combat causes post traumatic stress disorder and they 'aint wrong.
I've learned my lesson and have a headset which I will not be using on my head, but laying next to the PS3 and be setting to MUTE. Yes, MUTE MUTE MUTE MUTE.
Sorry, I need a lie down...