New Personal Blog

I love writing about stuff too much to give it up totally so I decided to create a personal blog. So as requested by Kimberly, here it is.

Be forewarned that it will be random stuff as I come up with it. It will not be about WoW although I’m sure I’ll write about it from time to time. It won’t be for everyone, but if you’d like feel free to drop by.

Heigh Ho!

From about November thru February I didn’t have much to do, but now? Yeah I’m going to be swamped from now until August. It’s making it hard to post, but I’m still here.

I’m An Average Gamer…Well, 2 Out Of 3 Ain’t Bad!

OK, so someone anonymously posted a story over at MSNBC about gamers in the comments of my Blocked post. I have two things to say to you.

COWARD!!!

and

LMFAO!!!

First, let me say you’re a coward for not posting your name. Second, you really should get credit for showing me this because aside from not taking offense, which I’m guessing you were concerned about, it’s a pretty interesting article and I laughed when I read the first sentence:

A new study says the average age of video-game players in the United States is 35, and oh, by the way: They’re overweight and tend to be depressed.

Ky’s Checklist

35? Check.

Overweight? 5’9″. 230lbs. According to BMI? Yup. Check.

Depressed? Nope.

Ah well. Two out of three ain’t bad. LOL!

OK, first off let me point out that I’m among many that think the BMI is a load of crap. If I was 5’9″ and 230lbs looking like Stallone did back in the day there’s not a person in the world that would say I’m obese. But according to the calculator I hit a BMI of 34 and obese I am.  To be fair though the site does say, “[BMI] may overestimate body fat in athletes and others who have a muscular build.” I come from a long line of short husky men. I’ll admit I’m overweight, but far from obese.

Now that I’ve got my rationalization out of the way, let me point the one problem I have about the article.

The article tends to imply that video games lead to obesity and depression. This is articulated with the statement, “The findings appear consistent with earlier research on adolescents that linked video game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status and mental health concerns.” The problem with this statement is it doesn’t mean that video game playing is the cause, but that’s what millions reading this article will think. What the findings really mean is that people with a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status and mental health concerns are playing video games.

Who here really thinks that kids playing violent video games has led to tragedies such as Columbine? Who here believes these were really disturbed kids that were attracted to violent video games and unfortunately committed these atrocities?

I’m not an expert and besides each case is going to be different, but I have to believe that video games aren’t making people fat. Our sedentary lifestyles are. If I wasn’t playing video games, I’d be watching TV. If I wasn’t watching TV, I’d be reading a book. Either way I’d still be getting fat.

As for those with mental health issues like depression? Having survived two severe bouts of depression in my past that nearly ended it both times, I think I can safely say I know what video games offered me during those times. They were escapes. Ways to avoid the problems in my life and remove myself from the pain I was going through. But escapes are not ways of dealing with the problems. Video games are attractive to those with issues, but they aren’t the cause. Unfortunately they can make the cause worse when one avoids dealing with the problem.

So what do I need to do? First, I need to get off my butt and exercise. I need to eat a little better too. Second, I need to make sure that if I ever have a problem with depression again to realize that video games are not a solution. And third, since I can’t get any younger I apparently need to get older fast so I’m no longer right smack dab on the average age!

Winding Down

I can feel it. I’m dreading it. But last week was just a sign that WoW is winding down for me. And it makes me sad.

In the last two years, during the holidays I found extra time for WoW. My kids often watch holiday cartoons or run around playing with their toys as the weather often sucks too much to go outside (it rained all week btw ). My wife is often in “craft mode” frantically working on lists for Christmas presents which often include scrapbook pages to send to her parents, quilting, crocheting, etc. So even though I spent a lot of time with family and even seeing extended family, I still end up with a lot of “free” time. Just like this last week.

Monday and Wednesday I showed up for raids. Even participated in a ToC10 raid on Wednesday just so they wouldn’t have to pug. I quickly did some of the holiday questing on Tuesday and logged in for literally 2 minutes on Saturday to shoot a Troll Rogue. I couldn’t bring myself to log in to level alts or power-level cooking on them which I had planned on doing.

Work was letting us go early on Wednesday for the holiday. I left even a few minutes earlier than that when my wife called asking me to rush over to someone’s house to pick up a bunk bed. We’ve been talking about getting one for my boys for a while now. It’s a metal frame and nothing fancy, but it was free! We then ran to a mattress store to pick up a full-size mattress for the lower bunk.

What’s special about a bunk bed? Well, remember creating forts when you were a kid? Yeah, apparently that’s still fun as hell! Dad (a.k.a. me) decided that once it was up it would be a great idea to scrounge up all the large unused blankets and make a fort! Which the boys had a great time with and we did that for an hour or so.

Aside from all the house cleaning my oldest boy and I did, I just spent time goofing off with the kids and relaxing. Finally caught up on all those Flash Forward episodes stored on my DVR. I must say that the show didn’t really appeal to me much, even with recycled Lost actors, but my wife insisted and I must say that once it gets going you sort of get sucked into it.

And as a side note, I’m really disappointed that after V just barely started, we now have to wait out the holiday TV season until it comes back. No wait! I’m just pissed! Because not only do we have to wait out the standard holiday season that usually comprises December through half of January, we also have to wait until March until we get new episodes!!!

Anyway, most of my “free” time was spent playing Assassin’s Creed 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I think I’m almost done with AC2. I’ve unlocked all The Truth videos and I must say…cool. Now I know why they put the announcement on the start screen that this game was made by people of various religions and beliefs. I find it ironic that I believe more people would be offended by this video than by the fact that you’re playing a guy that goes around killing people. But then again if they can handle The DaVinci Code they should be able to handle this.

Call of Duty is just awesome! At least the multiplayer is. I still haven’t gotten close to finishing the single-player game. I’m just working on getting to 70 so I can start Prestige mode! I think I’m into it almost 40 hours of play time and I’m only level 52 or so… Gotta love this time sink!

I did spend a couple of hours playing Warcraft 3. I got through the first few Scourge campaign levels. That game is still enjoyable after all these years.

Anyway, back to the point. Last week I spent a lot of time doing things other than WoW and it was great! Unfortunately, I can see the draw of WoW begin to ebb and the draw of other things begin to brighten. I’m not quite there yet, but it’s making me wonder if I can even last until Cataclysm?