3by9

PlayTyme

It’s the end of the year and the same thing happens every year. I want to chill out. The same thing happened in school as far back as I can remember. First couple of weeks I dive into the class. About half-way through I become bored. The last weeks of the class mentally I checked out and I’m ready for the next class. When I noticed this pattern I realized to survive I needed to make allowances for it. I tried to change but I found mitigating the pattern was a much easier route for me (ie. suits my personality better).

In school if I could get hold of the syllabus ahead of time I would and start chunking through it. See what assignments I could get done early. When my classes were six weeks in length within the first two weeks I had the majority of my assignments done. I only had to deal with team stuff and remember the attendance requirements. The advantage of having something done early was the ability to fix anything I might have wrong because I wasn’t rushing through it. The method worked for me because I did well in school when, technically, by the third week it would appear I was slacking.

Life isn’t as easy as a class and sure enough, November hit and I started the ImBoredOutofMyMindOMGIWant2Play blues. It doesn’t help that Wrath of the Lich King comes out next week. End game - the fact it comes out in November instead of December implies to me I’m supposed to chill. I have responsibilities and I can’t chill out the end of the year.

Bullshit. Of course I can, and I planned for it.

Whenever they announced Wrath’s release date I started budgeting (because I knew I was toast). I have November and December’s bill money taken care of so I don’t have to worry about anything until mid-January. My Vegas trip is paid for. Groceries, house stuff and the kids that always need something…check…done…taken care of. That freed up a lot of my time, didn’t it? Sure did. Also made sure all my clients were paid up, billing was done, etc. (if you have your own business you know what a PIA year end can be). For the most part, outside of small billing issues, my work (personal stuff) is done.

Yeah baby, that’s how I like it.

Next hurdle: we just closed a 9rules round. Wrath comes out next week. See my dilemma? I know, you’re thinking, “Tyme, that’s messed up…” but I’ve got it covered. I go through the list multiple times to check my accuracy. Freeing up my work time left me more time to go through the list. Meaning I will go through the list quicker. Meaning I will be done earlier. The pieces of the puzzle begin to fill in.

Next up: my 3by9 articles. Next week (before Wrath comes out) I will bust my butt to get all my articles pre-written. Eight articles. What I like about this is that they are done in advance but I can always change my mind if something else interests me more. I found when I pre-write articles I am more satisfied with them (whether they are better or not, who knows?).

There are three holidays in my “chill” period. Thanksgiving…yeah, I’m not cooking this year. No one else wants to solely cook either so we’ve decided to do what we did last year. A bunch of us get together and bring a dish or drink. We had a blast last year and I have no doubt this year will be fun times too. My freed-up time gives me more time to have fun with Christmas. I have weeks to plot out practical jokes on my kids and drive Monarch crazy. New Year’s I’ll be out of town, the kids will be partying it up with their friends, and Monarch will have private time to recoup from whatever huge ass prank I pull on her this year. However, my 3by9 is due on the 2nd. I won’t be here and between Christmas and New Year’s I’m rarely in the mood to write. See the beauty of pre-planning?

There are several other things needed to be done to pull this off but this year over the others I have a personal goal, that is very important to me, to achieve. With Wrath coming out I want to spend time in the game and get to level 80 ASAP. True, my other personal site revolves around the game but it is important to me to achieve this goal because it took me years (literally) to get a level 70 in the game. For reasons I can’t begin to describe, there IS no excuse for it. It’s pathetic the amount of alternate characters I had. I was fucking up, no excuse for it, and I’m not doing it this time. I was doing it in other areas (but ironically shined where it was most important - my health issues). I worked to fix those slacking areas. The game is the last one left (err - that I know of?). This time, I’m whooping the expansion’s ass.

When I know I’m fucking up I might wallow in it for a minute but it is completely against my nature to continue to fuck up. I can’t look in the mirror and be proud of what I see. When I start the new year, partying my ass off in Vegas (and hopefully celebrating my level 80), I can look back at 2008 and see where I’ve improved, changed, grown. The way I see it, I have a clean test bed for 2009 fuck ups.

I made my sacrifices during the year to have my fun time now. There were times when I passed on going to the club, cooked in instead of going out, passed on an impulse purchase, etc. so I have the freedom I have now. It slightly sucked at the time I was sacrificing but it feels very good now.

It’s PlayTyme.