Month: October 2006

On his blog Soul Kerfuffle, Dave Yeager invited a friend to submit an article about why he quit the popular (and apparently very addictive game) World of Warcraft. Here are a couple of excerpts:

The worst though are the people you know have time commitments. People with families and significant others. I am not one to judge a person’s situation, but when a father/husband plays a video game all night long, seven days a week, after getting home from work, very involved instances that soak up hours and require concentration, it makes me queasy that I encouraged that. Others include the kids you know aren’t doing their homework and confide in you they are failing out of high school or college but don’t want to miss their chance at loot, the long-term girl/boyfriend who is skipping out on a date (or their anniversary – I’ve seen it) to play (and in some cases flirt constantly), the professional taking yet another day off from work to farm mats or grind their reputations up with in-game factions to get “valuable” quest rewards, etc… I’m not one to tell people how to spend their time, but it gets ridiculous when you take a step back.

…

…it hit me like a ton of bricks after I had changed so much and lost enough of myself that the most wonderful girl I ever met broke up with me.

I remember clearly after fumbling around life for a few weeks that I dragged myself into the bathroom to get ready for work. I was tired because I was up until close to 2 AM raiding. Every week I read though email or I would run into one of my “real” friends and I’d hear “Andy, what’s up, I haven’t seen you in a while.” I looked in the mirror and in a cinemaesque turn of events and a biblical moment of clarity, told myself “I haven’t seen me in a while either.”

I think it’s time to trot out the old The Dangers of World of Warcraft Comic (a remix of an old comic book warning of the dangers of alcoholism) again. Click the comic below to see it at full size and higher image quality.

Click the comic to see it at full size and higher image quality.

The How to Cook a Steak article in the foodie blog Tastebud Chicago had me at “A $30 restaurant steak can be had at home for less than $8 per steak. We promise. We’ve done it.” Better still is the fact that their recipe uses an iron skillet rather than a grill, which is great for when the weather’s too rotten to barbecue outside or for those of us living in condos.

Despite the fact that the Catmas holiday has come and gone, and even though I’m really a dog person (I think of cats as “egg rolls waiting to happen”), I still update the Catmas site every now and again. Click here to take a look at today’s darkly funny cat picture…