There’s been a lot of talk lately about Blizzard’s Real ID initiative.

Basically, you’re going to have to register your real name when you create a Battle.net account.  And that real name is what people will see when you’re posting on forums and whatnot.

Blizzard claims this is  good thing.  It’ll make it easier for you to locate friends and family that you want to play with.  And the lack of anonymity will discourage forum trolls.

Frankly, I think it’s a lousy idea.

One of the first things any netizen is told is not to give out personal information.  It’s a good way to open yourself up to phishing attacks, or stalking, or harassment, or just more spam.  You aren’t supposed to give out any personal information unless you have to.  And now everyone is going to have their real name plastered all over the Blizzard forums.

I’m also not sure I want my real name attached to every comment I make about a video game.  I’m not a professional game reviewer.  When somebody googles my name, I don’t really want the first hit to be a whine about the upcoming warlock changes.  I’d rather they be steered towards the stuff that I’ve intentionally posted under my real name over the years – stuff that’s largely relevant to who I am and how I live my life, and not just relevant to a specific character in a specific game.

I may be a little behind the times in this…  But I’m generally playing a game to escape from reality.  I want, to a certain degree, to stop being me.  I want to put away the stresses of my job, my house, my family, whatever…  I want to pretend to be a dwarf carving out a mountain fortress, or an elite space pirate, or a mighty human warrior.  I want to, at least for a while, exist in a fantasy land.

I usually try to come up with some sort of backstory rationale for my characters.  I usually have some idea of what their personality would be like.  I frequently adopt certain mannerisms and quirks when playing various characters.  It’s all part of the escapism provided by a game.

When I’m playing Half-Life, I’m Gordon Freeman – research scientist turned pan-dimensional freedom fighter.

When I’m playing World of Warcraft, I’m Olvyl – warlock of the alliance and fearsome foe of all things daemonic.

I don’t really want to have to be myself in every single game I play.

One of the big reasons that I don’t enjoy voice communication in games is that it really shatters the fourth wall for me.

I’m not really talking about guys who play female characters…  And you assume they’re female, until you hear them talking, and they turn out to be male.  Honestly, in most games, I don’t really associate a gender with anyone.  Your avatar is generally just something cool to look at.  It’s a virtual world…  Until game mechanics allow us to procreate, we’re all essentially genderless.

I’m talking about playing with a mighty dwarven paladin who fearlessly leads us into battle.  Directing us safely though the terrors of various raid dungeons.  Keeping calm through the worst of it.  Giving sage advice in moments of doubt.  A grizzled veteran of many wars.

…and then he gets on Vent, and all I can hear is some squeeky kid with his mom yelling for him to take out the trash in the background.

Obviously the kid still knows what he’s doing.  He still managed to lead a lot of successful raids.  But the illusion that we’re being led by a grizzled dwarven paladin in an epic battle against the forces of darkness is just plain gone. We’re back to sitting in our basements playing video games.

I guess I’m probably in the minority here…  Facebook is insanely popular, and that’s got all sorts of personal information all over it.  And voice coms are pretty much standard these days.  But it still feels like a step in the wrong direction.

We’ve recently started watching 30 Days.  It’s a series where they take somebody out of their normal environment and have them live a fairly different life for 30 days.  The few episodes I’ve seen have been very interesting.

The episode we watched last night (I have no idea when it originally aired, we just had it on the DVR) took a practicing Christian man and placed him in a Muslim community for 30 days.  He lived with a Muslim family, studied the Qur’an, attended services at the mosque, grew a beard, covered his head…  Pretty much everything he felt he could do without violating his Christian beliefs.

It was interesting to see how people reacted to him.

For his trip out to the Muslim community, they put him in a white shirt, covered his head, and gave him a planet ticket.  He didn’t have a beard, didn’t really look Middle Eastern, wasn’t wearing a turban or anything obvious like that…  And they were treating him like a leper.  Folks were looking at him funny…  He got taken aside for additional security screening…

Just a day earlier this guy was a generic, white, American, Christian.  Nothing wrong with him.  Any of these people would have happily sat down to have a beer with him.  But now that he’s covering his head and wearing natural fibers he’s a potential terrorist.

I was also amazed when they explained to him that Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all worshiping the same god.  That isn’t news to me…  They all share the same Old Testament.  But this “practicing Christian” seemed absolutely shocked.  He did not realize that all three were based on the same foundations.

I didn’t think that was some big secret.  I thought it was fairly common knowledge.  And I’m not even a “practicing Christian”.

How can you show up to church every week and worship a god when you don’t even know the roots of your own religion?

Am I really that much better informed than the average American?  Are there really that many people who are oblivious to what they’re worshiping?  Is it actually that big a secret?

The last month or so has been just plain odd.

Work has, in general, been insanely dull.  Yeah, there’s been occasional busy moments…  Things seem to all happen at the same time…  But, for the most part, there’s been very little to do.

And then there was the opening for my new job.  I had to apply, and interview, and take a physical.  Lots of driving back and forth, lots of waiting, lots of agonizing.

And after I found out that I’d gotten the new job, I had to wrap everything up at my old job.  Make sure my replacement was up to speed…  Update documentation…  Reassure my clients…

With all the stress and weirdness and pressure at work, I’ve hardly wanted to touch a computer when I got home.  So I haven’t played a game in weeks.  I finished up Dragon Age a while back, and just didn’t start anything new.  I’ve been logging in to EVE to queue up new skills, but that’s about it.

Instead, I’ve been coming home in the evening and just crashing.  I’ve been reading, and watching TV, and going to bed fairly early.

The weather has been strange as well…  One day it’ll be cold enough to freeze – with frost all over everything and snow in the air.  And then the next day it’ll be in the 50′s and raining.  We’ve experienced just about every kind of precipitation in the last few weeks…  And today it’s in the 70′s.

I had a three-day weekend and honestly did not know what to do with myself.

Friday simply felt bizarre.  It felt like I should be at work…  And yet I was no longer even employed at the same place.  I’d never have to go back there ever again.  So it also felt like I was on some kind of permanent vacation.

Saturday felt more like a Sunday, since I’d already had a day off.  And it felt sort of like I better enjoy myself while I could, because I’d have to go back to work the next day…  And also amazingly free because I never had to go back to work at that place again…

Today feels almost like Christmas eve.  I start my new job tomorrow, and I’m painfully excited.

Obviously I’ll come up with annoyances and frustrations soon enough.  It is, after all, a job – not a vacation.  But for the moment it sounds like paradise.  And at the very worst, at least it won’t be my old employer.  At least I’ll be getting paid a reasonable amount, and I won’t suddenly find myself driving out to Syracuse to set up a VPN.

Since my new job is going to require me to commute roughly 30 miles to work every day, we’ve been looking at getting a second car.  Initially we thought we’d pick up something used and cheap…  But my father wanted us to get something solidly reliable.  So he’s giving us a chunk of cash to help pay for a new car.

I’m not real familiar with the whole “shopping for a new car” process…  We’ve only ever owned used cars and we’ve never had to do much bargaining or financing.  So I was kind of surprised.

We looked at a number of cars that claimed to “start at” $14,000 or so…  But once you’d added automatic transmission, cruise control, and air conditioning they were closer to $18,000.  And then we’d talk with a salesman and discover that the price on the manufacturer’s website was not what they were being sold for.

Very confusing.

Eventually we settled on the Kia Soul.  It’s got decent gas mileage, good safety rating, a couple consumer awards…  It comes with cruise control and power windows and all that good stuff…  It looks nice…  And it’s right around $16,000.

So then we started trying to make a purchase, and things got a little weird.  I didn’t realize just how quickly a dealer would sell you something that costs that much.  It seems to me that there should be more deliberation or something…

But they just took my information over the phone, ran some numbers, gave me a price, and they’re driving it over to me as I type this.  I should be signing papers and taking possession of our new car in just a couple hours.

So weird…

The last week or so of work has been very weird.

It’s so strange showing up to work every day…  But not really feeling very committed to the job.

I’ve been trying not to get too involved in anything.  Anything significant that comes in just gets forwarded to my co-workers.  So I’m back to doing the simple calls…  Quick fixes, cleaning viruses, things like that.

I’m wrapping up a few projects here and there…  Putting together some documentation…

But, really, I don’t have all that much to do with myself.

And I’m not feeling any pressure to keep busy either.  I normally try to find work to do if I run out of projects.  I don’t like to be bored.  I like to feel like I’m being productive.  And I’m always worried about keeping my job.

But the last week or so I just haven’t cared.  I’ve been content to sit and surf the web when I’ve run out of things to do.  And I’m certainly not stressing about getting fired.

It’s just truly bizarre…