Wednesday, April 9, 2008

On Hiatus

Most of you have taken my lack of posting as an indicator of my complete and utter immersion in the new 2.4 content. Unfortunately, that isn't true. I'm taking time off from WoW for health reasons. No really, I'm serious - I have a bad back, and I'm not talking about "oooh I'm a little stiff after powerlifting a brace of tauren prot warriors". I'm talking about the kind of pain that destroys your life. It went bad back in January, and I've been writhing in pain, doing exercises, paying for scans, seeing specialists and ingesting fistfuls of painkillers ever since. The strangest thing about it all was that I would get steadily better, and then plunge back into the pit of pain. Eventually I started a pain diary, and noticed that things usually went bad first thing on Tuesday mornings. What was I doing Monday nights that was wrecking my recovery? Well, Monday is raid night... ohhhhhhh crap!

To cut a long story short, I stopped playing (uninstalled all my games, no need to feed temptation) and my back started getting better. Now let's be clear - it's not really WoW messing my back up - it's my crappy desk and chair setup. The ultimate solution is to create a lovely ergonomic gaming station, so that my dodgy back is coddled and pampered in the manner that it deserves. While I would give up WoW (and PC gaming entirely) if it was required, I'd like to avoid it if I can.

I recognize that it's a bit ridiculous posting on a WoW blog about taking a break from WoW, but I wanted to at least say something. Look after your backs too - spend a few dollars on a better than average gaming setup and your spine will thank you. See you later!