Chore Wars - The Good Fight on the Homefront

As I have mentioned before, two of bf's cousins are coming in, this Thursday night in fact. Bf already took the Thursday off to get some last minute things done. Actually that means EVERYTHING, minus ALL the stuff I have already done. There's really not too much left to do, most of the cleaning I have done, much to my discontent. I am not bitter that I had to do it, I am annoyed by the bf & roommate's procrastination to wait until the absolute last minute.

This past Sunday when I found out from roommate the exact date the cousins were coming, I was a bit miffed because aside from the work bf did with me on the long weekend, neither of them had lifted a finger. I said to roommate, "Great! That means I'm doing everything!" At that point, roommate reassured me that there was still time and he would get lots done on his day off yesterday. I didn't really believe it but was pleasantly surprised on Monday night when he asked me specifically for a list of to-dos. I gave him a manageable list to which he kept insisting on more so I would not have to do it but I did not say more, it would've been enough if he did all of it. Here's the list, a * indicates what he actually accomplished:

1) move drumset & plywood out of living room
2) return beer bottles
3) remove his own extra shoes from front hall
4) break down all the cardboard boxes lying around in the living room
5) clear boxes, steamer & ironing board in spare bedroom (I've already stacked the boxes together) *
6) vacuum & deodorize couch of doggy stank *
7) sweep & mop main floor (he mopped bathrooms upstairs too) *
8) bf added this because this is SOOOO important: clear dead weeds from driveway cracks *

Okay so that's a fairly big list but a lot of these did not have to wait for his day off. Granted he did a great job of what he did do but he was rushing to finish mopping the floor still when I got home at 8pm. You figure in an 8 hour day assuming he slept in that late, a person promising to do chores so that I "didn't have to end up doing it all" would have accomplished more. Then he went out to his mom's and said he would break down all the boxes when he came home. To which I said, no it's okay I can do it coz you did a lot. At that point I assumed more work had been done. He still insisted he would do them when he came back. In the end, I don't think he came home until 12:30am. At which point, bf asked him about moving the extra cupboard sitting in the living room, they both agreed they would. It still sat there by the time I went to sleep at 4 am (because I could not fall asleep).

When he came home, I showed him 2 notes I wrote on the fridge for him and bf to see. 1 is a list titled Don't tell me any of these are unneccesary, just DO IT! of 11 chores I want done by the time the cousins are here, I will contribute to these. The other was a detailed list of everything I had done since I got off work that day. Here's how it went:

"5:30 pm - Get off work
6:00 pm - Walmart to get extra bed sheets & pillowcases for spareroom
6:30 pm - Weekly grocery shopping
7:45 pm - arrive home, put away groceries
8:00 pm - Chill out on computer
9 - 11 pm - wash & dry new sheets & dog bedding
- move 2 mattresses & make beds in spare room
- clean bathroom (minus shower), main floor washroom, toilet & mirror in roommate's bathroom
- break down all cardboard boxes in living room
- put plywood in living room back into garage
- move & organize junk lying around basement laundry area
- sweep used areas in basement
11:00 pm - made dinner
This is what I did today after work. What did you do with your "spare" time? The point is not that you have to do all that much, but do something. FIND something!"

I don't think I am being unfair. I've told bf to look at the list on the fridge too but he insists there is time. Neither of their behavior is excusable but it's not my role to force them to work. All I can do is put on some pressure and that's it. I know if I pressure roommate too much he will just resent it but you know what? I am definitely not wrong in this case and I'm not being particularly bitchy either so there's really nothing either of them could say that would be justified.

There is a real Chore Wars by the way, a chore distributing RPG game that allows party members to share chore "quests" and "gain experience" the more they do. I am not making this up.

Life with World of Warcraft

Since I have been working a regular 9-5 job, my day after work is scheduled flexibly in neat packets of time for chores, cooking and leisure. After adjusting to this new way of regulated life a few months ago, I needed a hobby. Something enjoyable to fill up my leisure time. For the first 2 months, I joined in on the wildly popular MMORPG adventures of Blizzard's World of Warcraft with my boyfriend and roommate. I enjoyed the gameplay and the entire concept of the game very much but the addictive nature of it kept messing up my schedule.

This is especially problematic since my work schedule is off-sync with the people I lived with because they work afternoons to nights. When they come home at 11pm, they would play for hours non-stop until the early morn, levelling, gaining XP. My progression in the game was always a few levels behind, which would make my character weaker and less effective when I played with them. They tried to close the gap for me by playing my character while I was at work but that only frustrated me because new skills and spells were learned without me actually experiencing the change. In short, I could not fulfill the potentials of my character.

So they continued on without me and at first I solo'd my quests but alas, the game is designed to be played with other players to enhance the gaming experience. It was simply too difficult in many cases to go it alone, especially on PVP servers. After that my WOW life just stopped. My character, forever frozen at level 29 or 30, who can remember. Since I quit, my boyfriend and roommate have gone to to a different server with their guild, started fresh at zero. In approximately 3 months, they are in their 60's. There's never a night when WOW is not running on a computer at home. The soundtrack to my homelife are the clashing sounds of epic weapons, the sound of spell effects and the muffled cursing and yelling over Teamspeak, all overlaying the looping BG music of the World of Warcraft.

I wonder what the total # of subscriptions of active WOW accounts there are in the world. Since the inception of the game, how many waking hours have these players dedicated to playing the game? How much time to they spend looking up information about the game, such as tips, secrets, strategies, etc.? What percentage of their leisure time is strictly for WOW? What percentage of players joined and quit? After how long? How many returned to the game after quitting? I think it would be a very interesting study on gamers' behavior with many implications.