anything? #8

online gaming. i had no idea that i would get totally sucked in. i've been playing world of warcraft for about 3 years and have recently started playing on xbox live. it's actually a fun way to make friends (you obviously have something in common, since you're all playing the same game) and a great way to keep in touch with your real life friends. i haven't looked at second life yet, but i imagine it's the same sense of community without the actual game part. world of warcraft (or WoW) is a MMORPG -- massively multiplayer online role playing game -- set in a fantasy world. there are millions of people (official number was 11.5 million in december) all over the world who are playing this game. right now there're doing a promo with mountain dew, they've made it onto south park, and i've heard it referenced on a few tv shows. you can chat in-game or privately, group together for quests, keep a friends list of players you want to keep in touch with, and an ignore list as well for those you don't, mailboxes, holiday events, you can even sell your gear in an auction house that's just like ebay! warcraft is really a whole world of its own. xbox live isn't quite the same thing, but what they have in common is that you can talk to your friends when you're connected and play games together no matter where they are. i have a friend who moved to las vegas who i only ever talk to when we're both gaming, and another friend said just last night that she hadn't talked to her sister because neither of them had been playing WoW lately -- and they both live in ct! i made friends with a woman who was living in germany while her husband was in iraq, a guy who works nights at a hotel in ohio, a stay home mom with two kids, a college student, a music teacher... you name it. it took me awhile to learn all the chat abbreviations, like "afk" (away from keyboard) or "omw" (on my way), but luckily i had friends who were old pros to explain it all to me without making me look like a pathetic n00b. it's fun and it makes distances irrelevant (kind of like online shopping) and it really brings people together although you'd think just the opposite, since everyone is doing it from home... weird huh?