Hope . . .

. . . it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

so sayeth the architect. never could a quote be truer fitted for someone like myself. my greatest hope, right now, is that the video game industry would implode for a single month. no longer, no less. as i sit here at work on a slow afternoon dreaming of the impending weekend, my thoughts wander to those things that will be vying for my time. Star Wars: Battlefront, Call of Duty: United Offensive, Doom 3, masturbation . . .

you get the point. We've reached the time of the year where sugar plums and presents, harley davidsons and boob-jobs, x-files and blue toilet bowl cleaners dance through a young man's head. the fall season is upon us and video game manufacturers are coming out of the woodwork with gifts to bestow upon us, like they've been promising us with for many months past. it's feast or famine. the summer months are a drought for gamers and come September, we are inundated with choices. and i, singley, am the person they are looking at. i am an advertiser's dream. show me a commercial with pizza and i'll instantly call for one. tell me that i'll get chicks with only 3 simple, 5 minute workouts a week and i'll trade in my car, tell me that this is the best game since pong and i'm buying new, $500 video cards to play it. my hope to fully maintain hapiness and serenity through a choice of 13 different weapons of destruction is my greatest weakness.

my biggest problem is my attention span. if i could be happy for longer than 37 seconds playing a game, i wouldn't be here today complaining. but my weakness for games, my ADHD and an affinity for kindbud all contribute to the need to play everything i read about. it started mid-summer with the purchase of Doom 3, which is a great game. it's a bit repetetive, but still thoroughly enjoyable. i'm probably 2 hours away from completing the game. i then moved on to SpellForce which is one of the best RTS/RPG games i've ever played. i actually played this for almost 3 weeks. Guiness was calling me. i broke down yesterday and picked up SW: Battlefront. esentially, it's Battlefield 1942 in the star wars arena. and it's fun. i fought with both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in one sitting. And i'll let you in on a little secret, they're related.... I've also got my eye on the expansion for Hidden & Dangerous, Silent Hill 4, Halo 2, HalfLife 2 and The Matrix Online.

So, hopefully, you are seeing my dilemma. I have a weakness for all of these games. The need to fulfill my hapiness. And as time moves on, I've gotten worse about actually finishing these games. And to complicate matters, i have to divvy my time between these "life ruiners" and my addiction to my bike (a complete other discussion), and my girlfriend, and my family, and sleep and the 19 other things i do every day. and we won't even begin the discussion of how many games i have sitting in my closet or next to a console that i've forgotten about. to numerous to discuss.

Whoever said "Hope springs eternal" hit it right on the nose. And they should be punched in theirs.