December 28, 2004

After running a report in Quicken I was enlightened to the fact that I’ve spent $917.75 at The EARL in November and December (not including upcoming New Year’s Eve). This total is plastic only, I’ve also spent lots of cash there and at other bars and concerts. To me this is a lot of money, especially when the only return is a temporary good time. Obviously I need to slow things down a bit. To meet that end I went out and purchased World of Warcraft and Half Life 2. WoW is my first MMORPG, I have resisted them for a long time because I don’t like the fact you have to pay a monthly fee in addition to the initial game price. However some coworkers made the point that is much less than going out every night (which has turned out to be true). I still was hesitant on principal (what principal that is I couldn’t tell you) but finally broke down. I’m glad I did, however it’s a double-edged sword. I haven’t been going out very much but I’ve been spending way too much time playing the game. This is why my blog has been stagnating lately and I’m putting off unenjoyable but necessary tasks like laundry and doing the dishes. I have even been skipping (gasp!) football. Granted the Falcons already have the division wrapped up and a first round bye, so it doesn’t matter. Still I’m still missing it, which is surprising me. In case your wondering, no I will not miss the playoffs (I haven’t completely lost my mind in the depths of geekiness). Anyway it’s an excellent game and I’m a Tarun Shaman (Alavar) on the Stormreaver PvP server. As for Half-Life 2 all I can say is WOW! This game rocks, unfortunately I loaded WoW first and got hooked on it so I haven’t played much of it but from what I’ve seen it is excellent. The graphics are outstanding, the faces are extremely realistic, actually a little eerie. Even more so since one of the characters looks familiar to me. If you’re into FPS games, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

-Alex