I recently realized that I had been rather lax about getting a new blog post up and decided to slowly get myself ready to start writing again. For some reason I thought I would get inspired by checking and seeing when it was that I started this blog. May 16th 2012 was the date I "published" my first post, and the fact that my one year blogiversary is a month and a half away was not the first thing that I noticed. When I saw that the last post that I "published" was January 29th I almost swore outloud. (I was at work at the time, and thought it would be inappropriate... I cannot even type that with a straight face. The people who sit near me are some of the sickest, most twisted and generally inappropriate people I have ever met... and I love them for it! )
I knew I did not post anything in March, but had no idea that I had missed February as well. Now you may be asking yourself, "How could he have not realized that he hadn't written anything in two months? Was he sick? Did he hit a rough patch in his life? Drugs? Alcohol? Did he get really busy?" I truly wish I could say yes to any of these, but the reality of the situation can be summed up in three little words: World of Warcraft.
Yep, an online video game derailed my creativity and took over my life for the last couple of months. I wish I could say I was done with it, but alas, I will be fighting an ongoing battle to balance my time between writing and gaming for the foreseeable future. The problem was that Blizzard, the makers of WoW, came out with a new expansion for the game. At first the price point was beyond my meager finances, but after months of ignoring it, the price dropped down to a mere twenty dollars and I couldn't say no. Then it began.
I become obsessive when it comes to video games -- it is a problem I have always had. I would get a new game and do little else until I beat it. Once I got into a game I would lose hours of my life. I can remember one time my ex-wife commented that she went to bed and woke up the next morning and I was in the same exact position. It was true: I had played straight through the night, saying to myself "Once I get to this point I will stop." I would get there and say "Just a little bit more," and the next thing I knew it was the next morning. (It was one of the Zelda games, if you were wondering.)
This is not a new condition for me and I am not the only person in my family that suffers from it. I remember as a child, my family always seemed to have a video game system. We started with a pong game, moved on to an Intellivision, then to the Atari, and finally the Nintendo. My mother would play just as much as us kids. She used to tell me that she would get the high score in a game, and then my brother and I would play like crazy to beat her score. It was also the first time I ever heard my mother swear. She was playing a game and I kept hearing "shit!" and "damn it!"
This obsessive personality is one of the main reasons I avoid video games now. I have a Wii and a couple of Game Cubes for the kids, but I really don't touch them. It is too easy to get sucked into games -- at least for me it is. Especially since the graphics are a million times better than the best video games of my youth. I mean, I remember the handheld football games that were popular in the 80's. Just a little dot, with up, down, left and right buttons (plus a pass and punt button). The only games I do play now, except for WoW, are the Rock Band/Guitar Hero games, but I will talk more about my love of music and my desires to be rock star in another post.
I have basically committed myself to playing just one video game. That is how I am trying to handle my gaming addiction. Unfortunately, the one game I have chosen is an unending MMORPG. World of Warcraft goes on and on and on, and just when you think you have done everything that you want to do in the game, they come out with a patch full of new content. These patches are designed to keep you happy and playing until the next big expansion comes out. When an expansion is released, you go crazy working to get your character to the next maximum level, raising all of your character's skills to the new maximum level, and then you can start going after all sorts of achievements. Aaaaahhhh. Too much to do. I am getting all twitchy and wanting to switch over right now, but I won't. I am going to finish this blog post tonight, and if I have time maybe I'll jump on to WoW for a little bit.
One of the things I find funny, and a bit sad, is that the game added farming to the things you can do in the game (which already includes First Aid, Fishing and Cooking) with the newest expansion. I log on every day to plant new crops and harvest the ones that are ready to be picked. I also run/fly (not only can my character turn into a bird, but I also have a good collection of flying mounts) around and fish, to get the ingredients I need to increase my cooking skill. I will spend hours fishing and farming in the game, two tasks you couldn't pay me to do in real life.
I don't exactly know where this post is going -- it was supposed to be a way of explaining my absence from blogging, and was going to contain an apology for those who have been reading faithfully, that I left high and dry. I am truly sorry! But if it is any consolations, my main character is at level 90, First Aid, Fishing, Cooking, Skinning and Leather Working are all at 600. I just got my reputation to 'exalted' with the Tillers and I am about to work on the Anglers, and sorry, I am sorry, I will stop now. I'm geeking out big time again. (I'm Lemykins on Quel'dorei server, find me!)
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| Notice the giant vegetables I have planted... help me!!! |
P.S. You will also notice this post is shorter than my usual one, but hey, I did say I would jump on the game after I finished blogging....
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