Chiprj seems to be the latest victim of the MMORPG bug. He was taken up with World of Warcraft. Alas poor Yorick I knew him well...

     Time for an intervention.

     Chip is far from the first casualty to the Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) industry. When I was in Korea we had legions fo guys who were totally addicted to EverQuest. These soldiers would leave work, (often not even changing out of uniform) head down to the PC rooms downtown, grab a bowl of ramen and a coke, and sit there and play straight through their until they had to work again! They would continue this cycle until they collapsed from lack of sleep. It affected their work performance and alienated them from their friends (unless their friends played too).

     Koreans suffered so heavily from this addiction (toss in a national obsession with Starcraft too) that they actually had a few cases of death! Thats right people played for so long that they managed to push their body past it's built in limits of endurance. It takes a truly stunning addiction to manage this but it can be done.

     One of my Swarm also had a pretty solid EQ habit and had to quit in order to keep his home life healthy. Another friend and his wife both played so much that they really only worked to pay for the habit and to have enough money to keep the kids in potpies.

     As a gamer I know the siren song of an engaging game world all too well. Fortunately for me my innate anti-social nature keeps me from playing MMORPG's or I am sure I would be an addict too.

     Come back to the light Chiprj... Come back...! Remember when you had the 8th highest blog here? We miss you.