Bird droppings

It really gets frustrating to me to see people railing against the weirdos of the world. Whether it be about a man wanting to walk barefoot in the state capitol building, or complaining about someone's purple hair, or crying about queer people or poly people, or rants about Burners and ravers...

Here's the thing... All of these people are complaining about these oddballs... but the oddballs are the ones creating the future! Who do you think is making the video games, board games, card games, internet services, search engines, operating systems, iPods, etc.? Completely ordinary people with no creative impulses? Or more weirdos and lunatic artists and engineers, creating the world from their imagination?!

If you want there to be innovation and creativity, you need to recognize the value and need for people that *have* it! And more often than not, many of these people are going to be eccentric and weird. They're going to shirk the laws and rules of society to create their own realities. Because *THAT IS WHAT ARTISTS DO!*

I'm noticing something interesting in being a wow player.

People are prejudiced against Wow players.

It's amazing. If I tell people that I was up until 4AM last night playing Orbiter and landing a virtual spaceship on the moon after docking with Mir, they just roll their eyes at me for being so eccentric.

If I tell people that I spent 4 hours playing a game of Go with my girlfriend, people might be impressed at our focus on such a well respected game.

But if I tell people that I played Wow with my girlfriend last night, starting the game at midnight and playing until 4, people start to make worrying sounds and concern themselves about my personal state of mental health.

It's fascinating. I was actually having an IM conversation with someone and they were being a bit unresponsive in places. When they apologized for their lack of responsiveness, I said that I was playing Wow and didn't mind. They immediately got flummoxed and logged off IM.

I think this stems from the fact that so many people have lost their lives to the game. You've got this person that socializes and does stuff with their life. And then, all of the sudden, they're never around. They don't seem interested in their career or their lives. They don't seem to hang out with real people anymore. They're just hanging out with the virtual people in their little virtual world.

If you run in geek circles, I'm sure you've seen this kind of person. They can't make it to dinner with you because they've got to go "raiding." Or perhaps they come to visit, but have to leave early because their guild has a raid that night. Or whatever.

It's actually a serious condition and a serious issue. One that is right up there with addictions to gambling and stuff like that. There are groups for people trying to stay "sober" from things like Wow. Self-help meetings and all that jazz. It's no laughing matter.

So I get it. I get why people get a little freaked out every time the WOW thing comes up. I get why people overreact about things. But really people, it can get annoying. Sure, if my life was full of nothing but playing Wow for exorbitant amounts of time with people I've never met, I'd say your worry was founded in reality.

But for Pete's sake, in the last 7 days alone, I've written a talk on transgender people, gotten it reviewed, and edited it for content. I've added javadocs and proper documentation to my entire gjset software project, designed the multiplayer interaction for it, mocked up the basic UI, and researched Remote Method Invocation as a possible alternative to a text based protocol. I prepared for my upcoming D&D campaign by creating a wiki, researching material, and writing plots. I spent an entire night doing nothing but dying hair. I went hiking in the Santa Cruz mountains. I went to the city to get laser hair removal treatments. I socialized with friends by biking and skating around with them. I wrote an article on how to teach beginners to play Go. And I helped throw a 15 person party dedicated to Go. All while holding down a full-time job, maintaining a relationship with two girlfriends, and still having time to eat and sleep... Okay I skimped on eating and sleeping a bit. But the point is that the percentage of things in my life that are World of Warcraft is tiny.

So seriously people, back the fuck off and deal with whatever issues you seem to have with the game, okay? I appreciate the concern, but seriously get a reality check. I've done more shit in this week than most people do in a month.

If I've got issues with maintaining appointments or taking care of myself, it's because I've filled my life up with too much damned stuff, not because of a stupid game.

Rant time!

( LJ-cut to spare the weak. :P )

That's the end of the rant on that one. I may send this person an email summary of some of this.