If a man has a wife or girlfriend, she will remind him of what to do in the house. If you are a Sim, your player will click on you and tell you what to do.  But what do you do if you are a supposedly real man and supposedly all alone in the supposedly real world?  Read and find out!

I had gone to bed early (lack of sleep last night) and was listening to LifeFlow 3 again, before drifting off to sleep.  Then suddenly the Invisible Hand clicked on me and put “take out garbage” in my action queue.  Well, something like that.  Somehow I suddenly remembered that it was Wednesday with an even week number. Thursday mornings on those weeks are the only times the garbage truck passes here.

What’s more, this is – if all goes well – the second to last time this happens while I live here.  Actually, if I don’t get the Swine Flu, I will start moving things over to the Mothhouse very soon.  Not sure if I am up to it tomorrow, given how I have felt today.  But as soon as I can.  And by then it will surely be obvious to me that there are more things I can throw away.  The garbage can will surely be full the next time.  Well, it was not quite full this time, but nearly so.  I took out some stuff that had been lying around for months.  Including the European version of Dark Age of Camelot and expansion packs.  It is not like I am ever going to play it again. I don’t even remember the account password, so I can’t sell it even if anyone would still buy it.  Still, it feels a bit strange.  There are probably many other games I could throw away, even after I threw away all I thought I could last time I moved.

Anyway, one more time to take out the trash.  One more time.  I am really moving. The end is near.  Hopefully only here in Nodeland!  But still.  It is for real now.

And a thank-you to the Invisible Hand / Voice in my Head for reminding me. I am not a very organized person, to say the least.  I rely on the Invisible Hand a lot.  This requires a little explanation if you are not an avid Sims player.  When you play these games (The Sims, The Sims 2 or The Sims 3) the little computer people have free will if you let them.  But they don’t always know what is best for them – they tend to take a pretty short perspective on things – so you have to click on them and give them orders to do things.  Some of them will compulsively take out the trash if there is any and they have a little time off, while others won’t do it unless you click on them.  Some wander off while the food is cooking and won’t return until the house is on fire unless you click on them.  That’s what I mean by the Invisible Hand in this case.  This seems to happen a lot to me. I wander off doing my own things and suddenly I am reminded to do something.  Like stop playing games and go get the pasta before it burns.  Or get up and take out the trash. Stuff like that.

That reminds me.  A few weeks ago I had recently started playing Itland the were-porcupine in City of Heroes, on the Virtue server.  He was still in Kings Row, the second zone for most of us.  Anyway, he was just coming out of a sewer and zoning into the Kings Row zone proper, when suddenly I had a weird feeling or experience.  As if my character was real, and I was really there, in Paragon City. But at the same time, I was aware of being my player, sitting in front of the computer in Nodeland.  But at the same time, I was aware of being yet another person, but only vaguely, as if an echo. The person who was playing Magnus Itland, but not on a computer (at least as we know them).  The one whose incarnation I am in this world.  But as I tried to put it into words or at least concepts, it faded, and I was only one of me again.

Itlandsen the Paladin of Camelot has taken his helmet off for the last time and logged out. But I’m still here.  Who will I be when I lay down my helmet and log off for the last time?  Who am I really without this flesh and these memories?  The truth is, I am in no hurry to find out.   Life is short enough as it is.

Some people find the game too tough,
And there are those who’ve simply had enough,
But I’m still here and I’m not giving up,
I’m going the distance;

Whatever it takes … I have to fight,
To build a better world … and make it right,
And when I am alone … it’s late at night,
I reach out and you’re right here by my side.

Chris de Burgh, By my Side