Time Burglars Anonymous

brbHi, my name is Nachos, and I’m a time burglar.

When I was a young man, I had plenty of time, few responsibilities and I liked playing video games. I have fuzzy memories of playing Starcraft and Diablo from dawn ’till dusk, heedless of what class or meal I may have missed. I am no longer a young man, and while I still like playing video games, I now have more responsibilities than time.

Although my wife would disagree, I consider myself a “casual gamer.” I bring my hunter out of the shed about 5-7 hours during the week, running the daily heroic and finishing some daily quests for some cash. I get in a little more time during the weekend, so that’s when my guild usually does its raiding. I’m cheating a little bit here because I’m not including the time I spend on Elitistjerks or Femaledwarf trying to optimize my toon. I do that stuff while I’m at work, so technically I’m getting paid for it.

But finding steady, uninterrupted playing time is not as easy as it used to be.

Around the same time I started playing WoW, my wife started a new job. It was a major career change, and she has been taking a lot of work home with her to keep up. So that basically leaves me to keep the house in manageable shape and to tend to the needs of a very precocious 3 year old boy and two dogs who still refuse to learn to use the toilet.

About half the time, everything runs smoothly. My son sleeps soundly. I clean up around the house and take the dogs outside to do their business. I check with my wife/shop foreman to make sure that everything is up to code, and then finally… I enter Azeroth. The night passes without incident, and after collecting some badges & gold, and sharing some LOLs with the guildies, I log off. I then maybe read a book, watch TV or silently ponder the pain I’ve been feeling in my right elbow.

The other half of the time..?

That’s when I turn into a time burglar.

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Here’s the Deal

I began this post earlier today, but then life intervened as it often does, and the post sat unfinished. During the several hours that passed from when I left my desk until now, I’d considered letting it disappear into the abyss and go unpublished. In fact, this is something I’ve done quite a few times over the past year. There have been at least a dozen posts with anywhere from 1K-3K words that I could not bring myself to hit the publish button on.

Why, you ask..? 9 times out of 10 is because I believe the tone is too negative for my tastes. I find there are too many people online as it is who feel the need to expend so much emotion and get so riled up over something so silly as a video game. I try my best to not be one of them. Once in awhile something such as the great BM PvP Nerf will get my dander up, but my incidences of nerd-rage are pretty few and far between and typically pretty mild. Instead, my irritation is usually caused by the people who get so pumped up over WoW, identify so closely with their avatars, and then behave badly without fear of consequence. Anyway, that’s another story entirely and I won’t expound upon that.

Anyway, after working my ass off this afternoon leveling our front yard and trenching for a sprinkler system that will be installed tomorrow, I decided I would go through with the post. I also approached it with a crankier tone. Being that my usual tools of the trade are a mouse, keyboard, and on rare occasions a microphone, manual labor (especially trench digging) irritates me. Of course, the end result will be a beautiful front yard, so I suppose it’s a labor of love. 🙄

Whether or not I will regret posting this, I dunno. I just feel compelled to get a few things off my chest. Essentially, I just want to present you with a state of the HuntsmansLodge Address, answer a few possible concerns, and speak my peace.

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