Hi, my name is Chris...and I'm addicted to Warcraft

That's right, you heard me. Warcraft. As in the strategy game that computer nerds play day in, day out, either against each other on the Internet, or by themselves on the computer (I'm one of the latter, since I'm anti-social :P ).

I started playing this winter break, when I decided to crack open a copy of Warcraft 3 that one of my friends lent to me. It began harmlessly enough: a game here, a game there. But the great graphics and decent plot line called to me in my sleep, and my games became more frequent, with the nights becoming later and later. Long story short: I became an addict (hence the title of my entry).

In my defence, who can blame me? With the twists and turns in the game, would Prince Arthas ever see the evil in his ways? Would Thrall ever convince Grom Hellscream that the way of the demons was the path to death and destruction? Could the humans and orcs ever put aside their differences and band together against a common foe? For those of you who have no idea what I was just talking about, it's because you're not addicted to Warcraft. But to me, these were questions that I needed to get answered! It was up to me to play this game in its entirety to find out what would happen.

Many hours/days/weeks later, I'm still trying to reach the end of the game. The more that I play, the more that I find out; but the more I find out, the more questions I have, and the more that I need to play. It's a vicious cycle, but I can't stop. =(

Alright, so maybe I'm not that bad. Although I enjoy Warcraft 3, I can still stop myself from playing too much, and my studies haven't suffered yet. But I just read an article in the paper talking about video game addiction, and it got me thinking about how sad it is how some people can get consumed by their addictions and how it can destroy their lives. I hope that if I ever get addicted to anything, my friends will stop me early on and drag me from the source, even if I must go down screaming and kicking.

For now, I can relish in the fact that I have two friends who are more obsessed about Warcraft than me, so they'll go down before I do, muwhahahah. *cough* until then, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my weekend with another round of Warcraft. =P

Curse? What curse?

I can now proudly announce that the curse is over.

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to My Oilers Curse. I know, I know, how is it possible for me to have that much influence over a game? Well, consider the following: every Oilers game that I have listened to/seen this season has resulted in them losing. Remember the 7-game losing streak that they went through at the beginning of the season? I listened to those games. Their last 6 losses? I listened/watched/went to 5 of them. And it doesn't have to be for a whole game...if I even watch or listen to the game for less than 10 minutes, they end up losing! How many winning games have I been witness to this season? A big whopping 0. =(

The curse ended today. Now mind you, when I started watching today's game against Anaheim, Edmonton was on their extremely long 2-man powerplay and had just finished scoring their 5th goal, making the score 5-3. If they had lost at that point, even in the presence of My Curse, I would have probably hunted each of the players down when they returned to Edmonton and pounded each one of them silly. The fact that they're all stronger/taller/heavier than me means nothing when you awaken the Sleeping Dragon (*cough* for those of you that didn't key in, the Sleeping Dragon, when awaken, is a super-macho verson of me). ;)

Anyways, I digress. The bottom line of today's story is that the Curse is gone...at least for now.

...of course, there's still my Edmonton Eskimos curse, but that's another story. =P

...and who thought med class was boring?

People getting engaged left, right and center...shoes getting thrown around...free stuff galore...who thought that we couldn't live life on the edge? ;)

I won't comment on the engagements, but I think seeing one of my friends huck another of my friend's shoes across the room before class started, hitting an overhead projector (it didn't break, thankfully) AND doing it right in front of one of our profs was the highlight of the day. Ah, how nice it is to see our future doctors in action. I think the real lesson, though, was that I should never anger this friend or egg her on, because she WILL follow through on a threat if pushed far enough!

I always worry that one day, I'll be tired of collecting free stuff from career fairs, but that day has yet to come, and I look forward to using my new super-insulated, fancy schmancy, pharmaceutically-endorsed lunch kit. Yup, it's nice to know that I am easily amused by the little things in life. =)

(oh, and for those of you who think it was impolite for me to directly ask for the lunch kit instead of trying to strike a conversation with the rep: next time there's a career fair, I hope you enjoy watching your life pass by as you try begging for a free gift, and I laugh at your futile attempts ;P )

The Grouch is in...first post!

*drum roll*

Welcome to my wonderful (or not so wonderful) blog. I anticipate all of one viewer (myself) to vist this place regularly, so it'll be quite a party. Yay me.

Like any blog, this will be about anything interesting that happens in my life...so the next meaningful update probably won't show up until, oh, 2 years or so.

Until then, enjoy my inane entries about how (as the name of this blog implies) I am a grouch. Although, to be honest, I'm really not a grouch, so I expect you will be quite disappointed. Anyways, I'm off to live my real 'life', if you can call it that. Is it sad when the highlight of my day was playing a fighting game with my cousins? Although, I guess it's even sadder that I couldn't even win against a 10 (or is he 11?)-year old...