I want to scrape out a living on the outskirts of society.
Dirt
June 25th, 2009My Own Little World… of Warcraft
May 24th, 2009I have a confession to make. Along with over twelve million other people, I play World of Warcraft.
That’s not the embarrassing part.
I love the game more than I’d ever admit, even here, even though I hardly ever play it these days.
Back in November of 2004, I bought the game because a few of my friends were getting it, and I had time to kill.
I was 21, my girlfriend had dumped me, I had just started smoking cigarettes, and I didn’t really get out much.
World of Warcraft opened up not just a new game, but a way to interact with people. My friends, who I didn’t see very often, were playing this game with me every night. We’d play and level together and race each other to reach new plateaus in the game. It was great! I even started to make new friends from all over the world, some of whom I still talk to frequently, four years later.
Then, most of my local friends slowly started playing less and less, some of them quitting altogether. I still had social ties in the game, though, and never thought about quitting. I was never into the endgame raiding content, and I rarely even ran instances with other players. I was just out by myself, exploring this virtual world, occasionally talking to people as they logged on.
Eventually I joined guilds, and instantly had dozens of new people around to talk to, and being a fairly generous person, I made friends easily.
Nowadays, I play WoW almost like a chore. I work screwy hours, so I can’t play much with my guild, so I just do daily quests and make short-term goals.
Every year, my reasons for playing the game have changed, but even now I wouldn’t consider quitting. Sometime I’ll be enjoying it the way I used to, and I’ll have a bit of a head start when that happens.
I know it’s silly, but it’s a game that’s helped me take my mind off of things that I dislike, and I dislike a LOT of things.
D&D and Chicken Wings
May 24th, 2009Every week, I look forward to two events: On Tuesday nights, I go out and get chicken wings with some friends of mine. On Wednesday nights, I play D&D with them.
Other events are nice, like seeing my girlfriend, or playing World of Warcraft when I get some free time, but D&D and chicken wings are the highlights of my week.
Buffalo Wild Wings sells 45 cent wings on Tuesday nights, for about $5, I get more wings than I need. Really though, I could do without the chicken wings. I just like having a scheduled time that I get to see my friends. My life is normally pretty chaotic and pointless. I don’t go to school, I work from 11pm to 7am four days a week, and make under $1,000 a month. Despite how unimpressive that is, I have very little time to relax. Whenever I get some free time, I have to keep one eye on my watch, because I inevitably have something I need to do soon.
Tuesday night is different. Even though I have to work afterward, the act enjoying a planned, shared event is strangely relieving.
And on Wednesday, well, I’m the Dungeon Master. All week while I’m at work, I set up what’s going to happen on Wednesday night. Again, I think I most enjoy the scheduled social event. It puts some semblance of order into my week.
The rest of my time, I’m either supposed to be sleeping, or I’m supposed to be adventuring with my young lady friend, or some other catastrophe is in the works, and it’s up to me to save the world.
I’m not a serious person, and I almost never treat things seriously, but I think I treat my LIFE too seriously. I have a silly job, and I get paid crappy wages to do almost nothing.
I don’t know what I want to do other than that, though.
I’ve almost joined the military several times, but something always comes up.
These days, the only reasons I haven’t fled yet are my female companion, D&D, and weekly chicken wings.
