OK, short one before leaving for school. Just suddenly had this intense feeling .. miss all my friends on Diablo 2! Really wonder how they are doing now. These are people who have been really kind to me in a virtual world even if we were half a globe apart. And they were great listeners ... It's like having a good Kilkenny ale and talking your heart out to someone who's really concerned but you know you'll never, ever get to see in your entire life. And therefore there's no inhibition at all; no embarrassment, no qualms about sharing the most private thoughts. They shared back as well, and there's really nothing to match the exposure you get. Unfortunately, most of us belong to a small, select group. Whether you like it or not, you get to meet those same Sec/JC friends again and again during your journey through academia. It has been eye-opening to have someone share true-life stories, getting drunk and spouting angry words about divorce, work politics and scammers on Diablo2.

I quit that game for a few months already, but it's not the game that addicts - it's the friends. Here's a tribute to you guys, if you ever come across my blog. There's Brett of course, he's like the little bro I never had. Aaron, whom I'll never forget as the one who gave me a Tal Rasha's armor for Christmas last year (when Tal's were still so hard to come by in the game) ... he disappeared for months on end. There's Trevor, who also disappeared for some time while he was finishing his psychology major, and Jim who disappeared for a while when he relocated to Florida. Strangely enough, my best pals were those I met in normal mode - those hardcore mode friends I had were great as well, but we never connected like this.

Decided to make a trip back to this virtual realm during my short 1 week break, and hopefully I'll be able to see some of them. Perhaps if Brett is still playing I'll give him the rest of my uber equipment since chances of me playing much at all are so slim. He'd find better use for my Chains of Honor, Beast and Doom runewords. The nights I spent working hard to trade for these equipment and the runes needed ... sigh. Good times! Come to think of it, it's really a bad mistake to make friends there. I appreciate friendship, and it's a wrench to think that I'll never get to meet them again and everyone has to part at some time or another.

Oh well, what a bitter-sweet, lavender-grey way of starting a Saturday morning.