Freud would probably be able to sum up my affliction with a few simple sentences. Something tragic happened to me while I was in my oral stage of development (let's not make the obvious joke now, mm?) and I spend my entire life insatiated, only appeased by excess, if even that.

People often crinkle their nose when I tell them I've seen The Princess Bride well over a hundred times. Unbelievable, but I know it's true, because as a child I kept a tally of every time I watched it, and stopped counting around eighty-five, when I was twelve, more than half my life ago. On the other side of that tally sheet were hundreds of scribbled passwords to Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the NES, which I played for months on end, in the span of time between finishing my homework and being sent to bed. As I got older, and nobody was setting a bedtime for me, I have found it quite easy to challenge the limits of physical excess, particularly in gaming. I have previously mentioned my 23 hour stint with Tomb Raider II, but I have since matched and surpassed that time limit many times over.

In Counter-Strike, for example, I played six or seven hours a day on weekdays and eighteen hours a day at least on weekends while maintaining a boyfriend and a full time job. Dark Age of Camelot was easier because the boyfriend was playing with me, so I didn't really have to set aside any time for him. During both those games, I would kind of blink a little bit and look around and realize that a whole day had passed and I hadn't really done anything. I think this is the point where I'm supposed to confess what a tragedy it was, but I don't see it any differently than if I had read books on molecular physics or gone "outside", which is this mythical place where all your sins of the indoors are absolved, and light supposedly comes from the sky. Pssssh.

Of course, I've heard the horror stories from video gaming, the depressed teenager, the horribly absent-minded mother, but I've never neglected my actual real-world tasks for video games. Sure, I've said no to a party or two. I've definitely called in sick to work a few times (one of the down sides when I worked in the game industry was that you couldn't call in sick on big game release days, because you weren't foolin' nobody) I had some eye problems when I was at my worst with CS, but that was from staring at the computer for both work and pleasure, and getting vey little sleep. I'm definitely neither tan nor in top physical shape, but I just need to get back into DDR a little, and play a little more Boktai and I'll be fine.

I bring this up because I've been playing WoW quite a bit. And by quite a bit, I mean a whole hell of a lot. There's a part of me that says "hrmmm maybe I shouldn't sit down and play this game for ten straight hours" and then there's the part of me that just sits down and does it. I suppose at some point I'm supposed to "grow out of it" or realize the errors of my ways. But for the time being, I'm happy, I'm socially adjusted, and I'm totally fine.

Since the very end of my very last final, I have spent a ridiculous time with my two WoW characters, and there's no sign of slowing down in the near future. My affection for the screenshot button must have derived somehow from my mother's obsession with the camera. I can see myself in these games, as I always saw her everywhere I went in life, running around trying to get the best angle, moving people out of the way, fiddling with everything so that I can keep this moment forever in digital form.

One of WoW's very strongest points (of which there are many) is the absolute fabulous scenery. That's such an understatement. The game is jaw-droppingly beautiful many times over. Many, many times over. Take a look at my week in pictures.

The Good











Beauvoir is a sex-pot paladin whose physical proportions would probably make her namesake turn over in her grave. I'm sorry Mme, the game gave me no choice! Dagny is an undead priestess who is also pretty sexy considering that bones jut out of her every angle...oh wait, that is the definition of sexy nowadays.

The Bad










That shadow on the ground is another GS forumite, with whom I'm trying to interact, but required me logging out and back in for him to pop into sight, given the lagginess of the city at that moment. Lagginess also strikes on a trip to Orgrimmar. I took this picture to prove that on my screen he wasn't actually following me, but running into the wall. Sometimes the screenshot button helps prove that you aren't crazy.

The Silly





















There's nothing more fun than yelling at your AFK partner, except maybe when he's at the keyboard and running around doing silly antics. The last picture's silliness would make sense to people who play the game only, a human and an orc should NOT be associating. It's like dogs and cats living together! Only, this level 40+ killed me once and then jumped around with me a little bit, even though we couldn't communicate with each other.

The Trip


















Killjoi took me on a particularly beautiful gryphon flight a few days ago, and his latest journal entry does more justice to it than anything I could impart on the subject. If you do anything in WoW, figure out a way to take this route, it's absolutely amazing.

The Movie Quotes










Anyone who doesn't think Gattaca is the best movie ever has NO SOUL. It gave me special joy that everyone on that zeppelin got my "NO TICKET" joke, even if I had totally and accidentally swiped it from mindcavity.

The End

May your stockings be full of November releases, and may annoying family rituals not impede too much on your WoW time.

Honestly though, there's nothing like having people who love you, so go AFK for a bit and think about that. And if nobody loves you, just remember that Momma Dagny does.

Finals are over! Papers are done! Grades are set in stone, although possibly to be argued for next semester if necessary! The longest, most arduous finals process I have ever endured occurred right in the middle of the most hardcore senior slump you can possibly imagine.

A new semester has begun, the winter semester of catch-up. I will spend one whole day with my beloved MGS3 and then possibly a whole 'nother. I promise that I will reply to everyone's messages in Halo. I might unwrap Prince of Persia in the near future, unless the baditude gets to me first. I will find that damn save point in Metroid. I will meet someone who plays Ratchet and Clank multiplayer and I will school them. I'm SO excited. I will level up both characters in WoW and I will get myself a horsey!

Now if only I didn't have work all day and night today. That's kind of a buzzkill.

Also if you haven't seen the GS dubious awards yet, for the love of everything that is funny, you must watch glowy chickens.

Hey little journal, long time no see. What have I been up to? Why coughing and sneezing and term papers and finals and ignoring a whole pile of lovely new video games that have been stacked up in the corner. It's the early winter, you see, and that means that I've got to spend hours upon hours rehashing useless information in subjects that won't mean anything to me in three years to teachers whose names I will forget in five.

I'm not entirely jaded, of course. My set theory teacher actually approved of the conversation we had last week, just before class, the one where I explained how I don't study for classes with multiple choice exams because you can figure out what answer the teacher wants by the way he/she phrases the question. I've also got an interesting paper on Chomsky right around the corner that's lined up to be my senior thesis if the slump doesn't hit me too hard next semester.

So I don't have a lot of time to be around here or in World of Warcraft. I hope everyone is enjoying some video games by the fireplace, and the next time you're in WoW, say hi to my little priestess for me.

I picked up WoW yesterday and played for about nine hours straight with mindcavity and without even blinking. WHOOOOOSH! My main (this character) is Dagny, an undead Priest on Mannoroth East PVP server.

However because there are so many lovely people around here playing this game on the West Coast, I made a second character this morning, a human Paladin on Ner'zhul West PVP server named Beauvoir. If you're on either server, add me to your friend's list and PL me lots because I'm as cute as a human/undead can possibly be.

The project for Artificial Intelligence is an interesting one, not only because of what it means for the capabilities of machines in the future, but also what it reveals about ourselves, more specifically the nature and limitations of language and intelligence.

This always inevitably leads me to thinking about the relationships I have on the internet. Incidentally, I'm a big fan of internet relationships (of all kinds), at least in theory, because I think it's important to focus on someone's ideas above everything else. But dialogue heavy relationships are Janus-faced in some respects, while you've got your focus in the right place (at least for me), that much concentration likely distorts the actual meaning. I'm still human, I still fill out your avatar with a full person. In fact, in all the places that you're lacking, I supplant my own perfect version of you.

Last night I spoke to a Turing program for a little over an hour, and to be honest, it was more well behaved than most of the people I run into in System Wars. At least the program tries to sound like a human being, some of the SW types, well I'm not so sure. At one point the Turing machine came onto me (a result of a thought experiment gone awry) and then told me exactly how it "liked it." The fact that I blushed, I think speaks well for the AI project. Even if there is nothing in that machine other than programmed text, that it can possibly evoke even the silliest most trivial emotion in me, makes me wonder about the power of mere programming.

PessimismHere is my text to you, and I'm not necessarily more real than a well-programed Turing test. What is your proof that I'm real, that my ideas are unique, that I'm genuine? Hello. My name is Carrie. Welcome to my digital world. Take off your coat. If I made a typo, wuold I be more real to you then? What if I told you about my youth, my feelings, the people I've loved? How would you know that I am honest or even human?

OptimismA few months ago, patrolling the forums, I ran into a clever boy by the name of mindcavity. I loved his posts and wrote him a silly-I'd-like-to-be-your-friend-style PM. To say that he's one of the most important people in the world to me now, sounds ridiculous, but it's true. He's only words on the screen and yet he's some of the most comforting words on the screen I've ever met. Can a machine be programmed to be that thoughtful, funny, and supportive?

But what does this mean for video gaming?

So much that I don't know where to begin. The Metal Gear Solid games are artistically sculpted by Kojima-san as layers upon layers of intelligence. Finite-state math in programming language, which is used to both display and be AI, with a splash of real-world ethical morality all over it. MGS and other video games might not be able to hold up a conversation realistically, but the more they simulate life experiences, and teach us things about the world and ourselves, the more we're going to see the possibility of AI. That's why I think it's important to create everything with a purpose, internet relationships, video games, conversations with Turing machines. You never know what you're going to get out of it.

It's evident that when I hit about forty-five, I'm going to be buying a Porsche and spending all my time at Chippendales clubs. I know this because a few days before my 25th birthday, I bought a second, greener Xbox.

I don't need a second Xbox, the boyfriend and I share the first one just fine, and we don't have the setup (or means) to be playing multiplayer games via system link. I don't need a silly stupid green Xbox, but I bought one because I'm turning 25 (in five minutes) and I need to hold onto my life in this world through material goods.

Even though I know this purchase is silly, one thing is painfully clear. I'm old. But I don't feel any deference to this younger generation of gaming. My reflexes are just as fast and my game knowledge is supreme. I grew up with all of the great systems, and watched the whole game industry unfold before my eyes. I have watched Nintendo rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall. I was around when Magnavox was a major contendor in the game industry. I remember when Atari and Sega were making game systems. I used to subscribe to Nintendo Power and I loved it. I was gaming prior to Al Gore inventing the internet, before you could figure out how to cheat in a game before the game was even released. If I was stuck in a game, I figured it out myself. I may be here, arguing on internet forums with people half my age (or a little older if none of you are violating the TOS), but I have tenure kids, and I'm here to stay.

...oh wait, wrong thanks. Well actually, let me go ahead and thank the academy right now for my future best actress Oscar portraying Dagny Taggart in Peter Jackson's rendition of Atlas Shrugged. That's probably the most frequent of my daydreams, that or the jello eating competition where Johnny Depp and I are finalists. Mmmm Jello.

Today is Thanksgiving and I'm thankful for a lot of things, although I tend to get annoyed at my family when they come right out and say so. Anyway I'm thankful for them and all of their weirdnesses. I'm thankful that I've stopped stressing out about this semester and whether or not I make the stupid Dean's List again. That way I can spend more time this weekend eating and working and less time throwing Chomsky's books around the room. They are rather aerodynamic though. I'm thankful to be out of financial trouble, and I'm thankful that my boyfriend didn't kill me when I brought home a second Xbox yesterday. That wasn't as easy to sneak into the house as the DS.

I'm also thankful for GameSpot. I've met some very cool people at and through this site, learned a lot about video games, and been given great opportunities. I'm glad this place exists, and that there are enough people around with dignity and fortitude to both run it and visit it (Certain forums nonwithstanding).

Now, let's eat.

It's possible, quite possible, that I will spend the next month gushing about MGS3.


One thing that I haven't mentioned, when going on and on about how great the game is, is the way the surgery system works. I hadn't read much about the game beforehand, so when I hear over the Codec that I'm going to have to "apply syptic, stitch myself up, put pressure on, get a splint, bandage, etc.", I fully expected it to happen all within a cutscene. Next thing I know, I'm staring at a representation of Snake with little blinking pain circles.

"Hrmmmm..."

I'm not terribly far into this game, so I'm not sure how well this will work in the long run. In some ways I'm glad that it tells me what's wrong and what I have to do to fix it. Once you use one remedy, then it's removed from your laundry list. But in other ways it's kind of tedious. All the supplies are given to me, I can't get up until I've figured out how to repair every part of my body, so it's just busywork. Granted, it's interesting busywork, but I think I'd rather be sitting in the underbrush holding my breath just the same.