musings of a neurotic mind

these days i am busy riding my road bike and thus i am only online in the evenings. it wasn’t an easy decision to quit WoW since the virtual world the game presents is quite seducing. whereas we are experiencing a loss of faith in the social order in RL the game confronts the players with a strong yet easily understandable social order and creates a whole new culture envolving around it. part of that culture is the development of a sort of unique language with new terms like “pulling”, “tanking”, “zerging”, “ganking”, “respeccing”, “procs”, “…ftw (for the win)” and so on. i could possibly write a research paper about the language used in MMORPGs like WoW… playing the game was an experience which i am glad i could made. however, now it is time to move on… i found a great community there but at the end of the day i am still all alone here. this leaves me with an empty feeling because all that i accomplished in the game does not matter in RL. yet, if i feel some kind of anger because the game crashed when my raid group slayed the final boss in Upper Blackrock Spire… that means it still affects RL, although we claim it does not because it is “just a game”. i drew the same conclusion in my PhD thesis when discussing another MMORPG (Neocron).
so i feel way better at the end of the day when i made an hourlong bike ride. i achieved something, i conquered that climb, i rode faster than the last time. somehow the physical pain of riding adds to the pleasure you feel afterwards. you can’t have those experiences when slacking in front of your computer.

i just decided that i am not going to renew my World of Warcraft subscription by canceling my account. my human warrior hit lvl 60 more than a month ago and there is not much left to do now besides pvp’ing or raiding instances. i have been thinking about this decision for quite some time now. WoW was a good distraction, even something like a pressure valve where i could vent some steam during the preparation for the final exam and stuff. after almost 6 months in azeroth i feel it is time to move on now… there is a RL waiting out there for me after all.

i thought once the whole phd stuff is over things will calm down a bit. however, this past week turned out to be quite busy. had to run a few errands, getting things in order. hence i did not manage to take the bike out for a ride this week. the weather wasn’t that great anyway. last weekend was gorgeous with temperatures like in august, hot and dry.

speaking of hot weather… the summers are getting increasingly hotter here in austria. i have been thinking of getting a mobile aircondition unit for quite some time now. although i have no problems with temperatures above 30 degrees C (86 degrees F) on the cycling path, i have a hard time falling asleep when the room temperature is above 26 degrees C (78 degrees F). so that’s why i purchased an aircondition. it still needs to be installed which is due sometime next week…