The needle and the damage done.

Shockingly, it has been a week since my last update here. Much has happened in that week. Most of the work on this site has been transferred to an outsourcing company in India, so I figured it was in good hands. But now that I'm here I see they haven't blogged for me yet, which was not part of the original agreement. So an international conference call has been scheduled for later, with my attorneys present, in which head will roll, my friends. Heads will roll.

In the meantime, I guess I'll have to update the blog MYSELF, which, really, at this point in my career, is asking a lot of me. Shouldn't I just be able to bask in my success on the executive board of Greenspeak, raking in the profits, padding out my golden parachute, laughing contentedly on the golf course with my other grey-haired white male friends, secretly worrying what the Obama presidency is going to do to my portfolio? Ah well.

On the plus side, or maybe the down side, I am totally addicted to WoW again. It didn't take long. In fact all it took was a reinstall on my still-crappy PC, as well as a download of Wrath of the Lich King, to sucker me back in, hardcore. Goddamn it! There I was, minding my own business, happily playing all sorts of other games---Fallout 3, Warhammer, Dead Space, World of Goo, Ticket to Ride, Final Fantasy IV, and many others---and now the evil folks at Blizzard have reeled me back in to the point where I've got those junkie-like jitters just being away from the game right now. I have achievements to catch up on! I have new zones to explore! My new deathknight, Deathbert, has bad things to do! When you factor in not only other games, but also other aspects of life--my job, my family, exercise, books, TV, longstanding home improvement projects dating back 10 years or so, personal hygiene, and a host of other petty distractions--it's clear that WoW just can't fit in with all of that. So that's why I'm giving all of that up to devote myself 24/7 to WoW. Yay! I think that is the only logical and mature decision to have been made here.

And speaking of achievements in WoW: Ugh. Really? I've been gone for months, so I knew they were there but hadn't experienced them yet. And here's the thing: I'm not an OCD kind of guy. I'm not. But there's something about seeing these obviously useless Achievements sitting there, waiting to be achieved, that activates the hamster-brain in me even as I know what I'm doing is stupid and pointless. To wit, last night I spent a good two hours roaming around the Eastern Kingdom, all over those lowbie zones, simply to get the Achievement for exploring that continent. I was surprised to see I didn't have it automatically, given how much time I spent there 4 years ago, but upon looking at the requirements, saw that I was missing a landmark or two in every single zone. But rather than just ignore that and get on with my life--or at least explore Northrend with my Coke Zero and Cheez-Its--I spent the evening riding around filling in all those zones, as moronic a way to spend my time as I can imagine. And yet, I liked it.

One achievement I got this weekend, too, freaked me out, almost to the point of scaring me straight off the game. It was the achievement for completing 1000 quests. ONE THOUSAND. (And what's scary, too, is thinking of all those I haven't done---boy, those developers have written a LOT of quests for this game) . 1000 times I have accepted the drudge work and delivery jobs and assassination requests and diplomatic missions and more for every random person I've met in the game. And yet, I get resentful every time my wife asks me to take out the trash. Something is not right here. And while I'd love to ponder it more, I really do have to get back to the game now. Oh wait, no---I'm at work! Shit!

HALP ME.