I didn't bring many souvenirs home from China, but among those I did acquire was some kind of microbial hithhikers who decided that it would be fun to completely knock me on my ass for a week as soon as I got home.  Jet lag from a tweleve hour time difference is bad enough. Add to that an apalling chest cold, fever, and intestinal distress brought on by something I ate on the plane home, and it is an egregious understatement to say I have been under the weather.  About the only good thing about five days of forced bed rest is that I had ample opportunity to try forgetting my troubles by losing myself in Skyrim for a while.  I both love and hate games like this.  I love them for the immersiveness, the beauty of the graphics, the depth of the mythology behind the setting, the quirky characters, and the ability to righteously vent the frustrations of my life on various evil beasts and NPCs who have a good beheading coming. What I hate is the fact that its possible to sit down just to try and clear a couple of minor quests only to look up shortly thereafter and find that six hours have passed.  I get obsessed about achievements as well - for whatever reason, the fantasy version of me is some kind of maniacal type-A personality who won't rest until he owns three houses, multiple horses, and a hoard the envy of Midas.  The problem is that pursuit of same has a tendency to sap time away from real world projects, and I have in the past occasionally had to forcibly remove certain games from my life when I found myself focusing on them more than was healthy.  To this day I will not touch an MMO for love or money (knowing you have a problem is the first step).

It hasn't quite gotten that bad with Skyrim yet, so I won't get out the disc shredder this weekend.  Besides, my kids are old enough to want to play it with me now, which means that at least I'm not neglecting my family while slaying dragons in the Reach, right?

 If you're going to Paizocon 2012, I plan on being there this year, both enjoying the festivities as an atendee and doing my best to promote The Very Last Book About Mounted Combat .  As always, I urge you to check it out if you play Pathfinder or other D20 RPGs.