Twice in my life, I've been a Sims addict. Twice now, I've tossed the game aside in a fury of self-loathing after arriving at exactly the same point. After I bought the game, and played it long enough, I had to say the Sims was pretty cool. Well, passably cool at least. But when, after about two months of nearly solid virtual-living, I looked up and realized what was going on. My Sim was rushing home from work, grabbing a snack, and then making a beeline for his uber-nice computer (which, on further reflection, was probably faster than my own. Eventually, I plan to give this paradox some further investigation -- Perhaps he was overclocking me?), in front of which he would sit until I ordered him to bed. Eerily, this seemed to be exactly what I was doing, with a daily-increasing frequency! So I tossed the game, and played Quake, instead.

Months later, a friend got me re-hooked. He showed me how to download new items into the game, all kinds of cool stuff. So I set up my new Sim in the ultimate bachelor pad. He had pr0n on the walls, a gameroom with a kick-ass pool table, and 7 chicks in an attached dormitory. What more could he want? Annoyingly, after about two weeks, the chicks had moved out, and Sim #2 was back at his computer, lonely, desperate, and once again, generally humiliating his creator by mere path of existence. So I tossed the game, and played Starcraft, instead.

I really like Quake. And Starcraft.