As some of you may know, a major title in the gaming world was released on May 15th. Diablo 3 was officially released, and the dreams of many reminiscent gamers of the good ol' days of hack-and-slash grind fests were realized. Now, I realize many of you have no idea what that last sentence meant, and that is probably a good thing.

Activision Blizzard's Diablo 3

This game was pretty hotly anticipated and desired by many people in my group of friends. It is a great interruption in the boring, cyclical life of a WoW player. I, too, have had a preordered copy of the game since last September or October, and I shared in the excitement of the beta testing and the leaked spoilers and content.

Something has changed. Historically, I was up well past midnight for every game release in order to install it as fast as my new computer (which I had probably bought specifically for the game) would or could install and get onto the servers as fast as computerly possible. Then I would fight with the horrible disconnects and lag, random video-card crashes and burnouts, and so on . . . just to say that I did it. The game has been out two full days, and I haven't even logged on to install it—let alone to try to log on and play. It just isn't my top priority, or even remotely close to it.

Last night I was bouncing around on the couch, driving Ellie crazy while she was getting some editing done for work. All I wanted to do was go out for a run, or go to the gym, or just do something. She insisted I shut up and watch television, as it was the one real rest day that we would take until Saturday (and since I've been icing my foot after every run, a break was probably wise). I obliged, rather begrudgingly. It didn't even matter that I had the newest and best game available sitting there, waiting for me, I just didn't want to sit down at a computer. I wanted to get out and do something.

I will be playing the game eventually, mainly because I've already bought it and, to be honest, most of the sports teams I've been watching are done for their seasons. There are about 115 days left to the opening day of the NFL, and I can't run every single day between now and then. In an effort to make Ellie not go completely crazy, I suppose I will have to fill some of my spare time with playing games . . . but I can't promise I'll like it!

I guess to conclude (because for some reason I feel like I need to wrap this up),  there has been a fundamental shift in what I value as important . . . and gaming just isn't even close to the top anymore. Ellie and Audrey, random drop-ins by friends, ice cream cones at 11:00 p.m.,  and just about everything else is more important to me then sitting down at my computer and plugging in for the evening.