The weekend from hell

Usually the weekend pure bliss. Gaming can continue uninterrupted by trivial matters like work or sleep.

This weekend had mixed results.

My last post ended with me forsaking a gaming session for a concert. This I now realise was a mistake.

After rushing to get there I was told that my friend had neglected to check the date on the ticket. I thought I was 45mins late but it turned out we were 24hrs late.

At this point you may expect me to explode with anger or at least moan but I didn't. I calmly suggested we go for a drink. This is because this was a very close friend and more importantly a recovering gamer. Sadly with his last girl friend of several years he was forced to retire from championship manager and destroy his copy of pool shark. Although they both blame other factors I know it was gaming deprivation that caused their eventual break up. You can only suppress the gaming instincts for so long.

Now my friend is getting back on track (with the help of a PS2 and GTA:vice city) as a fellow gamer I felt it only right I give him a break.

Anyway, from then on things got worse. I got a call from my wife. Let's just say she wasn't too impressed at me for standing her up for this non-concert. As a non-gamer she didn't realise that for me to miss a gaming session what I was doing must have been important.

Even a grand master such as myself got married. I nearly slipped into the realms of a casual gamer (see previous posts) at one point - more on that another time.


I was told not to bother coming home. This is now serious. Another gaming session down the pan and nothing to show for it.

The natural alternative would be to go to a games cafe but my local one closed down. Apparently 80% of their income came from me, and when I got broadband and spent more time at home the business collapsed.

In the end we shot some pool which I won of course. Jimmy white's cue ball 2 pays off at last!

Now the smoke from my house could be seen from the pool club. The wife was was white hot at this point so I brought in some backup. I called a mutual friend over.

The human shield protected me from receiving the wife's flame attack.

My friend wanted some pix copied to CD so I went straight to my PC but I was not prepared for what I found. All my passwords had been changed! I was unable to login to my own PC!

At this point I wanted whip out my long sword +1 and do her some damage but as my human shield was there I settled for pulling out her cable TV viewing card. No more TV.


As you can imagine I spent the night on the sofa.

Well they say every cloud has a silver lining so here is the up side. That night I "hacked" in to my PC by logging in as "administrator" I changed my password and all was restored. Not settling for this I made a back up user account, changed the friendly pic login to the more secure username and pass. I also password protected the bios and changed all other user accounts to limited. Not wanting to stop there I child locked the TV.

I then enjoyed a gaming session on Lineage. This is where the silver lining stops. All though I played until 4am I didn't level up once. I collected more than enough xp but server lag caused of to die 3 times and I took out my frustration on an NPC which killed me again.

That ends my miserable Friday night and gets my weekend of to a flying start.


Fortunately my friend was leaving the country the next day and had to empty her camera now.

Mobile blogging

You may or may not have realised my last blog (and this one) were written and submitted using my mobile. This a really useful feature for a regular Blogger as you can post an update even if you can't get to a PC.

The disadvantage is that including pics and links is difficult as it is not easy to upload a pic or find correct links to them on most phones.


Nokia may have found a solution. They are releasing a new service called life blog. This service allows you to send ribs that you take with the builtin camera on your phone to your blog page. You can also send pics that you have received in an Multi media message along with some comments. Check out the details on Nokia's website. You can find a link to it if you look up the Nokia 7610 phone as this phone is the 1st 1megapixel camera phone to be release by Nokia, making it ideal for good quality web snaps.

Please note I am happy for anyone to leave comments on my blogs. You don't even need to register.

Gaming break

Despite my craving to get online and slay some dragons, I just couldn't turn down free tickets to an Alesha Keys concert. In fact I'd doubt I'd turn down free tickets to anything remotely interesting under normal circumstances but after an extended episode of game deprival it takes something special to get me away from my PC.

I better put in a major session of gaming in tonight to prevent myself slipping. Spending to much time away from gaming is like being idle in a team based multiplayer game - if you remain inactive to long you're going to get kicked from the server. I've seen it happen before, a gamer gets a non-gaming girl friend (big mistake). He becomes "idle" and starts thinking of ridiculous questions like "is there more important things in life than gaming?"

Sadly questioning his faith is only the 1st step. His concentration is disturbed by the non-gaming enticements his new girl friend has to offer. This greatly reduces performance and the gamer soon starts playing like someone with a ping of 300.

It is at this point a decision must be made.

Choice 1 - the gamer finds the apparent lag is ruining his gaming experience and starts spending less time with his girl friend to bring his skills back up to standard. This usually leads to the gamer to being dumped. The gamer will then drown his sorrows in extended gaming sessions. He will re-affirm his faith in gaming. His status as a hardcore gamer is restored.

Choice 2:
Sadly some succumb to the will of their girl friend and become what is known as a "casual gamer". The casual gamer deludes himself into thinking that his 30-45mins a week on a 3month old game means he is still a real gamer. He's skills reduce to that of a drunken primate and he is easily fragged into submission by a 13yr old.

The final sad stage is when the casual gamer realises that he can no longer compete and retires from online gaming. Some are satisfyied to play single player games set to easy difficulty. The rest leave gaming completely.

I shudder to think what would become of me if I was reduced that far.

Ok I am late for the concert! Check back for an update later.

Mid-afternoon moan

My fired up mood has been doused by the tedium of work.

Only thing keeping me going is Copter

This was sent to me by one of the non-gamers, so there is a glimmer of hope yet.

Topped up and Ready to go

Well that did the trick! I am totally fired up now. Watched a few vids on gamespot.



But the main attraction was chatting with uBer babe - Suicide Girl. One of the only truly cool girl gamers in the world. On the downside she is an import (from US) but more than makes up for it with her ultra hardcore gaming. Incredibly funny and the fact she is hot is a bonus. Totally maxes out my gaming pleasure meeting up with her.

Another clan member made this animated GIF about her. He worships every frag she makes, and who can blame him.


Now I am fired up I will wipe out my work load in record time so I can leave work on time instead of wasting valuable game time catching up with work.

TOP TIP:
To help you get through the day, work out how much you earn per day. Then work out which games or gaming accessories you can get for your efforts.

If I work hard for the next hour it will pay off my next months subscription to Lineage2.

Lunch

Ok I almost made it to lunch. I can actually feel this place sucking the joy out of me. It's like work drains XP. I have to do something about this. If I don't act soon I could level down. When that happens everything goes gray and you get tunnel vision. All you can see is your work load and nothing else matters. This is the state of half my colleagues. They do not understand the joy of gaming. Some of them are too far gone to every recover from this condition.

I try to save those that I can by sending group emails with links to gaming websites but this is not kindly recieved by the non-gaming joyless souls.

Time to get my "fix". Although I cannot game here (damn those system admin restrictions) I can at least do my 2nd favourite think - talk about games. I plan to chat to my clan on there forums if I don't lvl down by then.

Got that Friday Feeling

I usually try to get up about 5am to put in a good gaming session (gets all the aggression out before I see my work colleagues). Unfortunately after staying up until 1am for a live broadcast from Gamespot I was too tired.

I hate the time zone issue. Everything is geared around US time zones so I have to wait up with bloodshot eyes for an US afternoon event.

Well the lack of gaming and the tiredness set me up for a brilliant day of work. Thank god it is friday. Otherwise their would have been carnage. The Friday feeling helps soothe the rage and Gaming withdrawl symtoms. Instead of laying waste to the office with a BFG or Sniping the rival company across the street I managed to restrain myself to posting angry forum messages. I have a feeling the flaming is going comeback and bite me in the Ass.