Category: True Life

Saturday night, had the Testerfolks and Stan over for dinner with my folks, in part to inaugurate the new Anniversary Grill. Discussion turned, of course, to CoH, which ended up with each of us showing my folks our stables of characters, Doyce giving a demo with Hang Time of how the game works, etc. As Stan put it, it was sort of like
Then, yesterday, Margie got Mom playing, and they ran around for a while on some server or another (while all the others were down). Which was fun to watch.
Later at dinner, the unbidden comment, “That’s fun!” from Mom. Heh.
Of course, I haven’t gotten any game time for a couple of days …

Katherine, feeling cabin fever being shut in with the snow, called up (or asked for someone to dial on her behalf) Jackie and Doyce, and then proceeded, in her sweet way, to read them, Uncle Bear in particular, the riot act regarding our recent hobby. To summarize:
“Ever since they got City of Heroes, they play and and don’t play with me, and if you stop playing then they won’t play. And tell Justiin to remember to tell you that if you forget.” Or words to that effect.
As Doyce put it to Margie afterwards, “That was cute … in a gut-wrenching and guilt-inducing way.”
It wasn’t tearful, or angry, more of a “wheedle” manner of speech. If we could spend 24/7 focusing on her, that would probably not be enough for her desires (nor healthy for her, for that matter). The reality is that we’re trying to be careful not to let City of Crack lead us to neglecting Kitten. We go for walks. We worked together on the yardwork on Saturday. We took time out yesterday to, the three of us, play some games with her. We try not to use the TV as a babysitter.
But the fact is that, like other hobbies and interests, it does take time from her — not more than before, I think, but it’s a more readily identifiable chunk (i.e., it’s replaced several other time sinks, rather than creating a new one). And the time it takes tends to be less interruptible and bigger-blocked than reading and gaming and blogging. Hence Katherine’s good-natured reprimand.
That said, it’s worth bearing what she’s saying in mind. And we’ll continue to try to spend quality (as well as quantity) time with Katherine. That’s where the real heroism in our lives comes in, after all.

My favorite main, DaveMargie, dinged 10 today. Coolness. Certainly the best toon I’ve run, and the one I’ve run with longest — powerful, resilient, capable of dealing with mobs and with bosses. Good to run with our various friends, but also solid to run solo. Always seem to have a lot of mishes, but that just keeps things fun.
Got sort of a late start with running DaveMargie, but I look forward to many, many Security Levels to come.

Just to make it publicly clear, I take full responsibility for the amount of time I’ve been devoting to CoH over the past weeks (and the time I’ve not devoted to other things that would like doing). Despite giving Doyce the occasional ribbing for getting me hooked, and Margie the occasional ribbing for not being my usual sanity check/brake on my obsessive hobby activities, it’s my choice and all that.
For all that I’ve been playing, the most rational evaluation I can give things is that I haven’t let anything important slip because of it. Sure, the Christmas decorations are still up (at least in the living room), and there are similar discretionary housekeeping tasks that I could be doing. But most of what’s slipped has been other hobbies and the like (and if I weren’t not getting around to taking down the tree because of CoH, it would be because of blogging, or the wiki, or gaming, or other pastimes).
I’ve been trying to make sure that Kitten’s needs are being met, and we’ve been making a point of doing walks with her, playing games, etc.
And, ironically, Margie and I have been spending more evening time doing something together than usual, via CoH, so that’s pretty cool, too.
So regardless of the “I blame Doyce” bits (which are meant, of course, all in fun), or “It’s Margie’s fault I’m chronically short of sleep” (not something most husbands complain about, mind you), I do acknowledge it’s my responsibility and decision and all that. I can quit any time (and will, if I think it’s a real problem). Really.
Now, whether I’ll be able to drag Margie away from the keyboard … 🙂

I’m sure part of it is just all the time I’ve spent in Paragon City of late, but I felt more aware of the cityscape around me as I drove around LA yesterday on the way back home. Outside my office, over the railroad tracks, was another big electrical substation. Beside it, a big corrugated steel warehouse with stairways up the side. Around it, dirt lots. No clockworks, but it sure felt like the southern reaches of the Galaxy City zone.
Then, driving down through downtown, along the Harbor Freeway (110), it was time for Skyway City. Freeway interchanges, overpasses, the “Four Level.” Glancing under odd corners of confluence, bits of concrete backwater, expecting to see trolls chatting in the shadows, or Vahzilok shuffling along, staring at the cars. Then down south of the downtown, the big elevated carpool lane area towering over the freeway, and thinking how much faster Velvet Super-Jumped her way through town than I was driving.
(And, yes, I know that the acceleration of time in the game means she doesn’t move nearly that fast. Except traffic was really bad, and Velvet could actually run faster than I was driving. Heck, she could run without Sprint on faster than I was driving.)
And, actually, that’s the difference between Paragon City and LA (aside from the huge bombed-out or collapsed zones — and just wait until the Big One hits for that): LA has cars. Lots of cars. Lots and lots of cars. All of whom were traveling the same time I was. Paragon City, on the other hand, seems to have trains, a busy sidewalk life, and — well, enough cars in populated zones not to seem too utter abandoned, but a hell of a lot fewer than real life. Or at least what passes for it in LA.

Arriving in LA, I was riding in the shuttle bus to the Hertz complex, and we went by barren dirt lot with a big electrical substation in the middle of it.
I found myself listening for the ratcheta-ratcheta of Sprockets …