Where did the time go?

I am a WoW widow.

Sort of…

My roommates go through periods where they are all lost in the wilds of WoW, and I get the entire house to myself. It’s quiet, but at least I get to spend some quality time with the PS2.

The boys will come out for food, and to yell at each other about how a raid really went down. I figure I’m not missing much by not playing.

During one of their excursions, I’ll ask one of them if they finished a project they were working on. They sidestep the question and assure me they’ll do it when they’re finished with whatever they’re currently trying to do on WoW. I laugh, go back to my game for a bit, and then go back into hiding myself (often to work on my own projects).

I’ve always loved playing video games (even when I didn’t have access to them), and I’ve been known to lose entire afternoons to them. But I’ve found that I tend to go for games I’m just working on (as opposed to games like Guitar Hero and Mario Kart, where I’m just playing what I want) when I’ve cleared my to-do list.

Have I suffered from “gamer regret”? Sure. I’ll never forget having to use my cell phone as an alarm clock right after I started playing Kingdom Hearts. I’d sit down intending to just work through a section that was giving me fits, or to just play for a couple of hours. The next thing I’d know, my stomach would be reminding me to go eat something and I’d be wondering when it got dark outside.

At least I’m not addicted. I can shut off my DS Lite whenever I want…unless the Picross level is really cool! Then it gets a little harder, and true gamer regret sets in.