Morning folks,
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Wow, did I ever make it into work early this morning. Typically I'm in around 9am due to having to drop the kids off at school for 8:30, but today I'm in before 8. I have a nice hot coffee in my hands, nobody around to bug me and I've already packed up my desk for the move. Things are starting to get better.
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Of course my day didn't start like this. Oh no, the day started with a ringing sound as my Black Berry screamed for me to awake and pick it up. Like a screaming baby just wanting attention, my Black Berry was ringing because someone, somewhere, decided they wanted to talk to me. Unfortunately for me, this person was a co-worker and there was a major issue at work that required my attention. This was 4 hours ago.
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Of course by the time I logged in one of my team (ex-team?) members was already on the job and failing critical services over to another host. The day was saved, but the damage was done; I was now awake. I looked at my clock and saw that it was now 5:30am and I know my alarm clock is programmed to go off at 6:30am. This knowledge is a major burden when you're trying to get some sleep. Knowing you're just going to be woken up again in an hour (less than an hour since you've sat there thinking about it 10 minutes) it almost doesn't seem worth even putting your head on the pillow. Regardless, I went upstairs, climbed into bed and turned the TV on to see if that would ease my mind somewhat. Well, it didn't. I ended up falling asleep (almost) as the alarm was going off. This is where I decided to trick myself :) I hit the snooze button, turned off the TV and rolled over. In that 9 minute span I had such a great sleep it was amazing. Of course the scream of the alarm clock (no wait, that was Faith Hill on the radio) brought me back and I groaned as my eyes (which are clearly puffy and red) opened. I hit the snooze button at least 2 more times after that and finally dragged my ass out of bed and into the shower. After it was all said and done, I was out of the house by 7:30 and at work before 8. All is well, so far.
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Today holds many unknowns for me. Part of me is excited about this new position and I can't wait until I can finally get started, the other part of me is expecting a phone call from my boss asking me if we can hold off the move (again) for a few days/weeks. I think if the later of those two happens, I'll be looking for work outside of this company. I've had it happen one too many times now.
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I want to touch on a subject that has been bugging me for the past month or so; I want to talk quickly about virtual property. What is virtual property? Well to simplify, it is nothing and you own it; it is like owning Nothing. To own something virtual means to virtually own something. Confusing isn't it?
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Let me give you an example of virtual property and let's see if it makes more sense. I play a video game (actually I play many, but we'll use one for an example) called Lord of the Rings Online. This game has characters in it that you can control (aka Avatars). You move around in a virtual world doing quests, killing enemies and meeting other people... err.. avatars controlled by people. You gain items when you kill enemies as well as obtain wealth in the form of copper, silver and gold pieces. You work through levels and gain more powers, better items and more wealth. Well, some would consider the items and wealth you've obtained in a game like this, virtual property. It is yours, you worked for it, you collected it and you have it stored on your character. You can become proud of it, you can covet it and you can display it for others to see. The only thing you can't do with it is bring it to the real world and make it real; it is a virtual object which is nothing more than a few lines of code and a database entry somewhere. It is virtually nothing.
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A lot of people put great stock in these virtual items and virtual property they have gathered. I played World of Warcraft for 3 years and accomplished many things and gathered many items. The net worth of all my characters in WoW is estimated around 20k gold (conservative guess) yet in the real world, the account MAY be worth a few hundred bucks. I can't take that really nice bow and hang it on the wall of my house, I can't take that gold I've collected and buy milk with it; everything is virtual even the game.
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So where do we draw the line? People will spend real world cash to buy virtual items. If you look at it from a high level, it seems like you're just giving money away. However, sometimes these virtual items/currency can bring a certain joy or happiness. Does that still mean you've wasted your money? One could argue that spending your money on beer, or candy, or (insert pleasure food/drink here) is a waste of money as well since you only get a quick "pick me up" or "happiness" from it and then it is gone. Same with virtual items I guess :)
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Anyway, don't want to delve too deep into that so I'll leave it with you to ponder over today. For now, I need to run and get some work done (been 30 minutes so far).
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Cheers,
Al
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