Complete Heal

You have to love the mainstream press that online gamers get these days. A few weeks ago the movie Second Skin came out which presented a rather unflattering picture of the average gamer. Today, I pulled the headline above straight off a story I saw on the main page of the msnbc.com website. Truth be told, they are probably on to something but stereotypes are dangerous and those about gamers are no exception.

I know plenty of extroverted gamers who don’t weigh 300 pounds and hang out in their mom’s basement eating cheetos and pounding mountain dew. Hell, I’m one of those guys. I balance a pretty successful career, family, kids, outside hobbies (stressing the word outside) and still get a decent amount of time logged in my favorite games. Is it easy? Nope. But it’s worth the balancing act. Oh well, at least I’ll sleep better tonight with the information presented HERE. Honestly, couldn’t you just take the word “gamer” out of the title and plug in the word “American” and have an equally true statement? Something to think about.

I thought I might drop by and say a quick hello to everyone. Where have I been? Well, work has been crazy over the last month or so and I figured that I needed to be on my toes so I’ve been taking a break from late night gaming sessions. The lack of sleep was catching up to me and I was making it through the day on coffee and Dr. Pepper. On top of that nutritional excellence, I put on about 20 pounds and pretty much started feeling like crap. I was bouncing around between so many MMOs that I didn’t feel like I was getting traction in any of them.

In the last few weeks, I’ve been spending more time with the family, getting more sleep, being on my game at work and getting back into shape. I’m even cooking meals and helping out more around the house. While this doesn’t sound super exciting, the wife digs it and that’s pretty cool. I guess my siesta came at a good time. I really wanted to give Vanguard a shot but the live gamer thing rubbed me the wrong way. I don’t really have much motivation to play anything else – except maybe the 10th anniversary EQ server but it’s not out yet. I may be back for that release or perhaps Vanguard will pull me back in again one day in spite of SOEs lack of common sense and communication skills. Then again, I wonder if I’m not approaching the end of my MMO career. I’ve been raiding and staying up late most nights for over 10 years and my focus hasn’t really been in the right place. It’s been a hell of a run and I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet but my motivation for putting the kind of time in the games that they require is wavering. Until next time, take care everyone.

It’s been a few days since my last update and that’s mainly due to the fact that I’ve been out of town. I took the family down to Disney World and just got back a few hours ago. You know you play too many MMOs when you watch the various parades throughout the day and start to imagine the evil characters as raid mobs. Take the character Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty for example. This lady wears a black and purple robe with WOW like caster shoulders and equips a very cool staff. She has a pet raven called “Diablo” and can shape shift into a Dragon. In the Disney night parade, the dragon is in full force. I also had thoughts of Hillsbury Manor from Vanguard as I stood looking at the outside of the Disney Haunted Mansion. Thoughts of Pirates of the Burning Sea entered my mind as I ran through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Disney was a fun trip and a great opportunity to spend quality time with the wife and kids. On a side note, I did see about 10 guys walking around sporting World of Warcraft t-shirts. Amazing.

When I got home tonight, I fired up my computers and my main gaming rig sputtered. It kept rebooting itself until I noticed an “overclock failed” message on startup. I finally got it to load Vista in safe mode but the screen had these long blue vertical streaks all over the place. I scanned for malware and viruses and everything came out clean. I also reinstalled new video card drivers and that didn’t correct it either. Finally, I plugged in the monitor to another machine and it looked great so it’s not a monitor issue. I’m going to try to put in an old video card tomorrow and see if that does the trick but if that fails I may have to upgrade that machine. The good news is I recently bought a gaming laptop that will run all my MMO’s just fine so I shouldn’t skip a beat. If you guys get a chance, head down to the Magic Kingdom in Orlando sometime. One final thought – Mickey has crazy DPS. He nuked my wallet pretty hard.

Merry Christmas to everyone. I hope you all are having a great morning with your families. As for me, I’m spending the morning drinking mimosas and playing on our new Wii. Is the picture below insider information on the Warcraft gaming habits of Santa “Leeroy Jenkins” Claus? Perhaps…