Saturday, I had a leisurely lunch with Eric, got to talking about things, including the only game that he plays seriously these days, World of Warcraft. Then suddenly, the afternoon sun was slanting down and Eric said, "I gotta get ready, I have a raid at 5 PM." "Can I watch?"

I'd been avoiding the game as if it were heroin because I knew, I knew what would happen if I let myself install and play. I knew that I didn't leave the house for a week during Dark Age of Camelot. I can't go back to that.

So, I watched Eric log in, meet up with teammates. They were doing a really tough raid that day, the same instance they hadn't been able to finish the week before. There were some new people, too, players who hadn't ever done the raid before, who needed to be walked through the details of the rather complicated strategy. There was tension. There was a lot of planning. Team leaders were in place, and positions assigned. No one was allowed to countermand orders in the instance. Once the battle began, it was over with everyone dead in about ten minutes.

"Hm," I said, and drew my chair up closer. Then it happened again, and again - the third time, the team lasted longer. They were learning from their mistakes, that was sure. It was incredibly compelling. After two hours I was desperately rooting for the team, watching all the life bars on screen ge chipped away little by little. "Come on, come on," I muttered to myself while Eric tried to outrun the dragon-things.

That night I installed my copy of the game and spent a few hours getting to level 8. I told Derek about it today and he said, "It seems like a random time to start." It does, and it is - but that's the way so many things happen to start, don't you think?