On Crack...

Today, for your assured derisive pleasure, I present you with another edition of “Beeley’s Idiotic Social Disorders”. I will once again produce for you, my jury of…peers, evidence of inanity for you to judge me according to your tribe’s standards and customs. Just a note, last week you used too much tar and not enough feathers. You have to cover the whole body or otherwise it just looks like you don’t have your heart in it. And I’m supposed to be barefoot when you make me walk over hot coals. Amateurs.

Last Thursday saw me admitting my addiction to a particularly odious form of optical assault, “Dancing With the Stars”. Not to beat this dead horse or anything, but it did take me almost a full week to deal with the fact that George Hamilton got the boot. I did manage to cope though, especially since my wife told me that she only had time to console one crying family member, and was not that person. K-Mad and I are developing quite the rivalry.

This week I dive back into my Hopeless Addictions and General Chicanery file to bring you another juicy tidbit of embarrassing information. This is a post in serious need of a disclaimer though. So, if you are a jock, a prep, someone who steals or once stole lunch money, a redneck, a cheerleader, prom queen or any kind of leader of snobby females…this post is not for you. You may feel yourself desiring to do some sort of physical harm to someone, say like giving them a wedgey. Or you may be looking around in desperation for a toilet to dunk someone’s head in.

In other words, the rest of this post will be ripe with “the geek”. You’ve been warned.

I play online games. I am a gamer. I would not call myself hardcore. I do occasionally come up for air, make sure my marriage is intact, confirm that an actual sun exists and even sleep. Nevertheless, the glow of the computer monitor produces an energy…maybe even an essence that I am drawn too. Like every good gamer…well, of my generation, the hook was put in at a young age with the Atari. The Atari was my marijuana…a stepping stone to other more powerful and illicit mind altering devices. Nintendo. Sega. Ah, the hours of waking life I gave to NHL ’95. I’m not proud to say it, but I even dabbled in the Playstation before I recognized the depth of my depravity.

It wasn’t until a “friend” of mine (I’ll give him the pseudonym Jimmy Larkin to protect his actual identity) introduced me to desktop computer games that I was a complete lost cause. It started with old Apple computer games like Ancient Art of War at Sea. That was also the last time Apple produced any machine worth playing games on… Then came college, a naturally experimental time in a young man’s life. Away from my parents, Jimmy pushed Command and Conquer on me…my first PC gaming experience. It only took one hit…and now I can’t get clean. It’s in me…it’s in me always.

I’d still call myself more of a casual user. I may not be able to exactly stop when I want to, but at least it doesn’t affect my work. I can still play this game called “normal life”. I look respectable on the street. I can hold a conversation about acceptable things like investments, Vice Presidential firearms and formula vs. breast milk. Yet I know… I know that helplessness I harbor inside. PC games were good enough for a while. They produced a high that I could live off of for a few years. But it wore off…

I needed that next fix and it came in the form of online gaming. Online gaming allowed for competing against other people…other presumably human people across the digital nothingness of the internet. It started with first person shooters. Games where you go around “fragging” other players through the first person eye of your “character”. It’s like virtual laser tag…except without the threat of exercise.

I had a line though. One of those places I would never go. One of those places that I saw from the outside, saw the faces of the truly hopeless souls glued to a virtual reality called Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). This insidious tool of the devil (and I’m not exaggerating, there are people who would argue this) creates entire worlds were people build online lives doing…stuff…with seemingly no end game. I mean, there may be an actual end to the goals created by the game, but after you complete those you still can…mill about.

Take The Sims. This is a game where you create a life…a character that essentially does all the totally mundane things you actually do in real life. I’m not kidding…down to washing your friggin’ clothes or making the bed. That’s a game? Then there are the fantasy worlds of almost every stripe. The Matrix Online. City of Heroes. City of Villians. Ultima Online. Dark Age of Camelot. Star Wars Galaxies. World of Warcraft.

Ah yes, World of Warcraft. This was the one I knew could cause trouble. It wasn’t long before it’s true moniker of Warcrack came out. I saw friend after friend go down that path never to return. Not me though. I would stay strong, keep up my ability to stay casual…stay functional. I stayed with in my first person realm of Battlefield 2 defeating terrorist organizations with the forces of good. I would not succumb to that life sucking force.

And then came Jimmy again. And Dan…and Mike. Guys I grew up with. I should have known better. I had tried to stay away from this crew. In High School these guys forced me to do awful things. Things that involved trees and toliet paper. I will admit, they were works of art, but I'm not sure the owners sanctioned most of those...collections. You can never quit them though. They drag you back in. Before long I was in some dark isle searching for Warcrack and downloading it to my hard drive.

The one complaint I had with these MMORPGs was that while you could run around doing things like fighting enemies or creatures, there was a large group of people that didn’t do anything but “farm”. It some games, that was literal. You’d farm crops. Or bake food. Or some other such nonsense.

Which is of course why I find myself going around mining ore in World of Warcraft. That's right... I'm mining virtual ore for virtual money in a virtual economy. I knew this crap would happen. I knew I’d spend mindless hours doing nothing important and yet, I’m not going to stop. Oh no. I’ve got armor to make…you know, for my fake warrior in my fake world. I’ve got to level up, so I can get the new weapons and go to the new territory without getting my Troll (yes, I’m a troll) butt handed to me.

In other words, I’m a complete loser….and I’m loving it.