The Social Aspects of World of Warcraft (or not?)

My hubby has a couple of level 80 characters. He plays Horde, and belongs to a guild of over 30 people. He did used to go every other weekend down to the hobby store and play Warhammer 40K with a bunch of other folks (mostly men, the odd woman would play). Right now he is beta testing Cataclysm, and showing our ten year old son how to get the most out of his own character. Have I tried 40K? yeah I have, but it never really grabbed me.
Hubby says to me - how come you aren't a hard core gamer like you used to be? I am like well yeah I do play games - but my most favourite games are on our Nintendo Wii, and oh boy, I am really hanging for the new Goldeneye to come out. We would play that until the small hours of the morning. I remember hanging out with my friends, playing Doom way back in the days of DOS, before Windows 95. (Wow I know I must be old cause I used DOS LOL).
Anyway I am getting sidetracked. I don't know if I would consider myself a WOW widow, but I have checked out some of those support group sites for people whose partners regular participate in the raids and get a whole bunch of characters up to level 80.
I maybe considered hubby like a hard core dude with WOW, until I heard of another man with Aspergers playing Call of Duty for 28 hours straight. Hmmm - hubby never done that - but he has sat on a raid and gone at it from about 4 pm, eats his dinner in front of the computer and funnily enough, I never really see him get up to go to the men's room .... hmmm must have a superman bladder =)
I head off to bed, then I guess maybe I get up at about 1.30, two am? to go to the toilet, and sure enough he is still hard core at it.
There is one great player who sometimes gets called away, cause he is in the rural fire brigade (bless his heart). But hubby has been chosen up amongst the high ranks of his guild to run the raids and chair meetings on this Ventrilo thingamajig (I installed it and configured it LOL).
Anyway, so I was never much for "group activities" ... I was never really well co-ordinated at school - I would throw the ball to the wrong team, miss the ball when it was thrown to me, and could never bat a t-ball off the post, let alone a softball. And as far as netball goes, I was like the fourth reserve for the B-level team, so I never got to go on the court. Sigh. So I never really learned to participate and enjoy the aspect of working in a team to achieve something competitively (that is not to say that I can't learn to participate in a team with other people to get something achieved, but I need a really good leader who delegates stuff properly and ensure equal participation - actually I have done some training myself in group facilitation *its good stuff). So hubby has been encouraging me to go onto his account, and build up a dark elf character. Have I done it? nope.
I guess the most annoying part of hubby playing World of Warcraft, is that his computer is in the kitchen, and well, yeah - it can get quite annoying when the bad guys they are trying to kill in the dungeon are setting off the alarms - like Professor Putricide, and that awful alarm noise, or that thing that screams all the time "run away little girl, run away!" while I am stirring the pasta sauce or grating cheese. And hubby, he is fully into it - telling all his subordinates where to go, commanding the DPS dudes, the healers, the tanks etc etc ... lol I didn't think I knew all these terminologies, but I guess you pick them up while you are in the kitchen listening to all the conundrum of the raid. Anyway - hubby has great leadership skills. His raids are successful, and the guild leaders have promoted him to the high ranks of the guild, and he has all these guild privileges, like getting more stuff out of the guild bank. So for him, he really gets a kick out of it. He is able to command his team well, and they are attempting week after week different things in ICC or something. I think they are still trying to get to the Lych King or something like that, which I am pretty sure will be sooner rather than later. So he socialises with all these folks online, but doesn't tend to socialise face to face with people like he used to when he played Warhammer on the weekends. He is at home more, sure, but his mental attention is elsewhere ... so I guess that is life in the 21st Century - socialising online with people's avatars - representatives of themselves, or something like that. I think as a person with Aspergers though, whilst socialising with people online is certainly less mentally challenging (I don't have to multiprocess body language, tone, voice, speech, context and all the other things at once that are related to face to face communication) and I have more time to consider what somebody says in an email, I still think it is important to socialise with others face to face. Having friends, even if a person only has a few, and being able to wave to the neighbours, is a healthy thing to do.
At the moment, a friend and I are in the process of setting up a local support network for people with Aspergers. Our first meeting will be a face to face meeting - so I guess I will keep you posted =) - meanwhile I am waiting for my new Pokemon Game in the mail (lol I still am a gamer at heart)

Bargain Entertainment

I have a whole bunch of gamers in my home - we like to play Wii, Playstation 3, Xbox and Nintendo DS. I also like to read books - lots of them. I love music as well. I also enjoy movies. Unfortunately (well actually really quite fortunately) - my weekly cash allowance doesn't stretch to cater to buying everything on a fancy whim and desire.
So what is a hard core book reader, gamer and movie buff to do? You can scour ebay for great second hand deals on games and books, is one way to satiate your appetite. The local library is also a wonderful source of music, movies, and books galore. I walk out of the library with my two bags fully loaded and ready to go.
There is definitely a bonus in using my local library!!! I get vouchers on there like two for one coffee deals, so my friend and I can get a $2 cappucino and catch up every other week. (Thanks for that my local library!!!) The library is also a great place to go and chill out, grab the latest of my favourite magazines, and then I can leave, not having spent a cent, but having enjoyed all the latest articles.
What about things I can't hire from the library - like games and a larger collection of movie DVDs? Well, for Australians, there are things like Bigpond movies http://dvd.bigpondmovies.com/ to check it out - if you want you can do a free trial. There is also now Red Room DVD http://www.redroomdvd.com/home.php where you can rent movies from a box in the local mall. Just go to google, and do a search for DVD rentals, and voila - you can rent movies, and send them back without having made a huge financial commitment. The other thing that I have picked up on now is game rental - you can check out your local video store, or there are also online options - for Australians - such as http://www.rentagame.com.au/ - Rentagame or there are plenty others. There is also the option of trading in some of your games towards the purchase of a new one towards that new game that you want. It also pays to wait a couple of weeks after the release of the game, when the people who bought it first have played it out, then traded it in. For rentals, trades and all of that other stuff make sure you check out all their terms and conditions for yourself, and I am not necessarily recommending one or the other, just letting you know that these options are available. I recommend you do an independent search on the internet to see what you can come up with yourself :-) - and don't forget, there is always probably the trusty old video store in your local area where you can hire a game or a movie - just don't forget to take it back on time, so you can avoid the late fees!!! * I also advise, that if you are going to download movies, please do so legally - if you download pirated films you are taking away from future investment in the industry and taking away people's jobs!!! Please follow all the applicable copyright laws in your country.