v22.9 - The Last Day

Morning folks,

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Today is officially my last day of work for the week.  Tomorrow is my birthday and my boss found it in his heart to approve my request to take the day off.  My last job used to give us birthdays off without impacting vacation time, but those were the good ol' days and things have changed drastically since then.

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I'm really looking foward to having the day off tomorrow.  Even though my day will be packed with running around and doing errands, I plan on having a good day regardless of the outcome of some of my appointments.  My Deathknight in World of Warcraft is nearly level 80 (current max level) and only a couple more hours of questing should finish it off so I can start getting him geared up.  I am quite surprised at how quickly my baby sister has caught onto the game.  She was always a gamer growing up so it only seems natural that she would catch on quickly.  Her character is currently level 30 (or 31) and she and her boyfriend are moving through the levels together.  I was also surprised to see some achievements come across the guild channel; apparently my sister has also decided to take up fishing in-game.  Good for you sis!

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Of course the last thing I wanted to do was to get the majority of my family addicted to this game.  I remember when I first told my father about World of Warcraft.  On the phone he said he may check it out and didn't sound too interested.  Little did I realize that he took the first opportunity he could get to drive to the store and buy it and had it installed and playing it by the next time I spoke to him.  Of course at the time he was playing on a completely different server so we couldn't interact with each other.  Eventually though, thanks to Blizzard allowing us to copy characters for a fee, I was able to transfer my max level characters to his server to join him and my step-brother.  Yes, the infection started with me and trickled through my immediate family with my wife and son and then to my brother-in-law, my father, my step-brother, several friends and my most recent "victims" are my youngest sister and her boyfriend.  Mwaa haa haa haaaa!

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So where does this leave me?  I have been playing World of Warcraft for WELL over 4 years now.  I started playing in February 2005 and I have leveled many characters to max level.  I have experienced most of the game on the Alliance side and I've made many many friends.  Some would argue these friends only "virtual" friends, but people don't understand that I interact with these people almost daily.  Typically the first thing we do when we login is hit our voice chat server and login there.  You see, when we play WoW we do very little typing to each other.  In fact, I would say only 15% of my communication to my "in-game friends" is done through typing, the rest is all voice chat.  I've gotten to know these people just like I would get to know someone in real life.  Though I've never met any of them in real life, I have seen pictures, I've chatted about real life things and we've slayed thousands of monsters and traversed hundreds of dungeons together in the name of The Light!

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I'm sure many of you reading this have had online friendships before either through a message board, IRC or some other community tool.  I've had people want to add me on Facebook that I've never met and only know me through someone else.  Hell, I know my online friends better than my real life friends in some cases, how strange is that?  Of course this seems to be the way of the future.  We are moving to a virutal age where a lot of what we used to do in-person will be done virtually.  There are more and more meetings being had that span different timezones.  No longer do you need to be in a certain place at a certain time.  You can do banking online now without ever having to talk to a teller or go down to the bank.  I can buy something online with my credit card (or PayPal, Certapay, etc) and have it delivered to my house without ever having to go to a store.  Some companies these days no longer have store fronts and only offer their merchandise via the internet to save the overhead costs.  I can auction off my stuff without ever uttering a word and I can bid on someone else's things.  We are living in a changing age where personal contact and interaction is becoming optional.

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So how does this make you feel?  Are you one of those people who likes to go out shopping and prefers to spend time mingling with people or you someone would much rather avoid the hustle and bustle of social interaction and be able to do your shopping and other errands online?  They both have their advantages and disadvantages I guess so keeping a healthy balance may be the answer here; though I can honestly say that standing in line at a bank or a store is a pain.  I would much rather click a button and have things delivered to my house but then again there are times when getting out of the house can be soothing.

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Anyway folks I need to take off here and get some work done.  I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject of virtual vs. real.  Feel free to leave a comment or two and let me know where you physically or virtually stand.

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Cheers,

Al