Wow!

I used to blog every day. I used to do a lot of things..

I have had World of Warcraft for 159 days. In that time, I have spent a total of approximately 31 days in the game, in the kingdom of Azeroth. That means I've spent 19.5% of the past 159 days playing WoW. To give you a better perspective, I sleep on average 7 hours per night, which is 29% of the past 159 days. So in the past 159 days, I have spent nearly 50% either sleeping or playing WoW. And that doesn't cover all my video gaming — what about the breaks I took to play Knight of the Old Republic, and countless hours of Bomberman, Smash Brothers Melee, or Halo 2.

31 days. That's 1 month, a long month. An entire month spent playing with Smee, Wahya and Havarti (she's new).

The friends I've made. I didn't really know Duncan that well until we started playing WoW together. Smee and Luffy constantly competed in the race to reach level 60. First it was to see who could reach 40 first, then who would get their mount, then who'd hit 60. It was no contest though, Smee had more time on his hands, plus he isn't engaged and getting married in the fall. Smee also met and played with Luffy's real life friends — people like Jooky, Jeir and Eponine. Without them, Smee would never have met Kiran or Unon.

Ah, Kiran. He is the closest thing I have to a close "pal" in the World of Warcraft. "Kiran and Smee, we was like peas and carrots." We did everything together — questing, instances, grinding and even ganking. Kiran and I met in the Deadmines, and became nearly inseparable for the next 20 days. What do you expect though, the duo of Hunter and Rogue is nearly unstoppable. And over time we learned eachother's tendancies, and timed everything to the tee. I knew exactly when to Cheapshot and exactly when he was going to send Cuddles in to tank. I always knew which mob to Sap and which Horde to ambush. We got along great and we still do. Probably the only thing we disagree upon is the New England Patriots — I hate them, and he loves em.

I don't know much about the man behind Kiran except that he's also chinese and lives in Southern California. I believe he attends USC and is currently on an internship. He's the reason I say "bleh". Those were some good times. He had even more time than I did, reaching level 60 nearly a week before Smee.

All that is sort of gone now. We both left the guild "The Knights of Unon", and both winded up joining "Brethren". Brethren is a massive guild compared to Unon, and we've gotten lost in the crowd. Luffy has stopped playing, as has Jeir and Eponine. It's sad, although I've made new friends now, like Onyxx, Nephlite, Deviate. But it's not the same.

I guess what got me thinking about all this was reading a few posts from fellow Brethren about quitting the game. It's the realization that a game has taken over your life and become #1 priority. I'm really glad that that hasn't happened for me, although it almost did a couple of months ago. In some ways, I'm lucky that I have such a low attention span.

One guy blew off his sister's surprise birthday party because he had "other plans" — that being, taking part in a guild raid. Another guy admitted to have 58 days of playing time. Ponder this for a moment: 58 days. Out of 159 days. That's over 1/3 of the time playing one single game. It's unbelievable when you think about it. He had played the game more in the past 159 days than I had spent sleeping. Even more unbelievable when you consider it takes on average 20 days to reach level 60. That means he'd spent more time at level 60 than I have played in total. I read about another guy who had to quit because his wife was complaining about not getting enough attention.

O_o