I'm afraid of myself. I'm ashamed of myself, as well. I sat at a truck stop all weekend playing Everquest. I could have run this load out and dropped it somewhere late Friday night or very early Saturday morning. But I didn't.

I have a valid excuse for sitting (in that I was almost run down by that England driver), but at the same time I'd be kidding myself if I claimed I couldn't have driven while in pain. I had a shot at a good week and I just let it it go. And for what? EQ?

Well, I feel like I have to state here that it isn't simply an addiction to an online game. Everquest is a way to be close with Mara while I'm on the road. If we're not directly playing together we're at least on the same system together and can send messages to one another. Thanks to TeamSpeak I can have her voice here in the truck with me. So there's more involved here than just the game addiction.

But last weekend scared me all the same. How much of our lives have we invested in these games? And if the bill isn't paid every month, all that work is just gone? That huge investment of time and energy was all for nothing? My God. What have we become? What have *I* become? This has to end. Or at least be brought under control. When I die and people are going over what I was and what I did while I was alive, I doubt anyone is going to list as one of my accomplishments the fact that I had a level 31 monk in Everquest.