Visibly Worn

Peddling crack.

And with that intro, here we go:

I’m the sort of guy who, despite his best intentions, is always late to the party. Well, I would be, if I got invited to parties, or actually even wanted to go to a party instead of staying at home trying to tweak a little more oomph out of my home computers (yes, plural as in many). The point, anyway, is that I tend not to be amongst the first to partake of new trends — even geeky ones.

The Oregon Trail by Broderbund

I’ve always enjoyed computer games since the days of playing Oregon Trail on the school Apple II and Pitfall on the Atari 2600. Though in more recent years I don’t spend nearly as many sleepless nights navigating repetitious dungeons or fighting countless enemies of little variation, I do still play the occasional desktop, console, or portable title. Unfortunately, I’ve been missing out on a good many titles for the latter two categories as the new systems seem to cost the crown jewels and the games aren’t cheap either, but that’s probably just as well anyway.

The junction between my opening paragraph and game playing for this particular post arrives on the subject of massively multiplayer online games, commonly referred to either as MMO’s or MMOGs. I’ve had some experience with these sorts of games wherein you, as the player, join potential countless others in an online universe for the sake of playing a game together. There are many categories of games that have taken the MMO mantle, from role-playing games (RPGs), first-person shooters (FPSs), space combat sims, and others.

Graal Classic by Cyberjoueurs

Mostly I’ve just played in the free-beta stages of a couple, now non-existent MMO’s though I have dabbled a bit in a few others. At that time the MMO was still a relatively new concept, one which relatively few gamers really got into, and the flagship of the MMO empire was the now defunct Ultima Online. Though curious about this semi-popular title, I never gave it a try, mostly because the notion of paying monthly fees for a game didn’t jive with my poor student status. Also, it had the stigma of being a game for Dungeons and Dragons fans, of whom I had somehow convinced myself I was much cooler than.

Time went by, more MMO titles came and went. Some, like Everquest (players called it Evercrack) were immensely popular, and plenty of others just kept afloat. Still, I stayed away, content to play games I only had to pay for once.

World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment

Today the title that all MMO’s aspire to topple is Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft (players call it World of Warcrack - notice a theme?). Clocking in at several million active subscribers around the world it is the one MMO to rule all MMOs, or so the fans would have non-players believe. As a fan of Blizzard’s previous titles like Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft, I found myself much more strongly tempted than ever to give it a try. Still, for over two years I held out.

During that time my younger brother, Alex, got into the game. He began trying to push free trial passes onto me and yet I held out. Then, more recently, my good friend Stu also began playing it. A couple months ago I started my new job at KOR and I found out that my coworkers actually have their own in-game guild. Now, surrounded by subscribers, I’ve finally decided to surrender and give it a try. I’ve downloaded the 3.5 gigabyte (yes, gigabyte) client and am going to use the latest 14-day trial pass my brother gave me.

I’ll set foot into the game for the first time this very evening and not without some trepidation.

I can only hope I make it back.

I think my clever bits of word play say a little too much sometimes…

Rearranged words resulting in fart jokes aside, I’d like to address a subject of great personal concern — how to pass time while driving to work (or anywhere farther than two blocks).

Driving inherently seems to offer surprisingly ample time to engage in complete and utter foolishness. Some people choose to express their foolishness while driving by absorbing themselves completely in conversations with their cellphones, others by dressing and grooming themselves, and others still by chasing after that peanut that dropped by their feet somewhere. It seems like everybody has a method by which to express their madness, lest they realize that they are, in fact, driving.

The bicycular nature of my commute for the last year and a half of my previous employment didn’t allow me the luxury of really establishing my own set of driving to work behavior. Something about being on seventeen pounds of aluminum with my body fully exposed by the frame encouraged my attentiveness on the road. The simple thought of becoming squishy with my guts on the wrong side seemed to have a very dramatic effect.

However, with my new job of the past month and a half, I have found myself once again behind the wheel on a daily basis, driving to and from the office, for at least a half-hour each way. Fully encased in a steel frame, surrounded by a hard candy shell (wait, am I describing an M&M?), I find myself once again free from the constraints of common sense and ready to join distracted drivers everywhere.

The only problem is, I don’t quite know what to distract myself with.

Thus far I have tried:

• Radio karaoke - flip through the stations, find a song you know, and scream along. Remember, people in other cars couldn’t possibly hear you however loud and off-key you scream (”Hold me close now tiny dancer!”)
• Air guitar - flip through the stations, find any song, and stroke that air guitar! Yeah, Wylde Stallionz!
• Drums on steering wheel/dashboard - if screaming and stroking isn’t your style, maybe you should try beating it (what’s with that funny expression?)
• Make faces at rearview mirror - it’s even funnier when the people in front and behind you think it’s at them.
• Jet-fighter simulations - my car has a distinctly flight-stick-like gear shift with trigger button to boot, so it was only natural.
• Doing fake movie voice-overs - “In a world where the traffic really, really sucks…”
• Arguing with the GPS - “No, you take a U-turn at the next light!”
• Drawing in the dashboard dust - it’s like an Etch-a-Sketch you have to wait a week to clear.
• Sliding the wedding ring off and on - my wife seems particularly displeased with this distraction…
• Wind tunnel impressions - Turn the AC on full, point the vents at your face, and make like it’s pushing back with gale force winds.

I’ll continue to experiment with ways to make the dreadful minutes pass, lest I realize I’m driving too. I’ll also gladly accept suggestions others might be practicing, or at least contemplating, and give them a whirl as well.

So come on then, clue me in.

One week into married life and my wife has already left me.

Wait, no, that’s misleading.

I meant that Ali has been called away by her work to travel from our quiet town of Los Angeles (we’re very humble here) to company headquarters in Reston, VA.

She returns late Friday evening which means that starting today and for the next three days (give or take a few hours) I’m back to living the single guy’s life. To some men this means hitting clubs, bars, and discos every night, living large, partying hard, and staying alive. But not me — I’m a geek.

For me this will be a time to browse blogs, watch movies, and play videogames. Sure I’ll take advantage of this opportunity to make ‘underwear’ the official dress code for the apartment, order in a pizza with extras of my favorite toppings, and take up the entire bed when I sleep, but these simple pleasures are all I expect to take away from this experience. I won’t even be leaving the toilet seat up, though truth be told that’s actually to keep the cats from drinking out of it (Ali swears that they will).

Unfortunately, singledom will also require me to be the one to prepare my own meals (can’t afford to eat out all the time), clean up after myself and the felines, and provide warmth for the entire bed (stupid chilly June Gloom). It will also mean there won’t be anyone around to consult for clothing color coordination (yes, I will wear poorly coordinated outfits and never know it), present my culinary successes (and failures) to, or share fart jokes with (the cats just don’t see the humor).

In fact, this time away from the missus may not be quite the easy vacation from civilization I had hoped for afterall. I may just have to reevaluate my plans.

In that case, who’s joining me for drinks?