Symptoms of Video Game Withdrawal

Not watching tv is the easy part - I only watch The Vampire Diaries anyway

Plus lot of shows are on Holiday break - until late January. Fine.

Because I had my office set up in the living room, I had to move my desktop upstairs so we can put the gigantic Christmas tree up where it was.

It's still there!

That's okay too. Because it's a huge tree and all.

So I lug every part of my gaming setup up the stairs, which takes half an hour or so. 

That's my desktop computer, whole desk, chair, headphones, speakers, Xbox controller, plus I carry my whole bedroom with me compartmentalized in my drawers, so that's an extra 50 lbs up a flight of twenty-five stairs.

So I set it all up, which takes another half-hour. I turn my computer on to game the stress away.

I launch Black Ops 3 Zombies, my favourite multiplayer game and find a match.

That only lasts twenty seconds, because I host and someone sent me a message different from the occasional "You're a girl??? AHHHH" or otherwise  messages I get. Actually this one was pretty bad. Thanks to the rest who are able to be mature about it.

"Jaden stop your por- (information redacted for inappropriate content) downloads"

What??? I send back.

I realize it's a joke and not one that I find funny. Especially if they drop out of the match one by one in the middle of the first round.

I realized earlier that their characters were lagging around the map, but I thought that was their connection, not mine.

I'm on high-speed, although I don't know what speed and that's clearly only in certain rooms of the house.

Then I get disconnected from the COD servers. 

I unplug my network card (USB don't worry, I don't mess around with my motherboard) and plug it back in. Then I try the usual disconnecting and reconnecting to Wi-Fi. 

First of all, true PC games use Ethernet. I know that. But if I keep the modem near my desk, I'll have a jumbled mess of cords around my porta-room. 

I can't stand a messy living space and I can't have VoIP telephones ringing while I'm voice chatting, recording or playing a horror game. It's the The Ring or something, haha the ring. Ok, I did promise several months ago to quit it.

So it a fit of rage, I unplug the modem - cutting off my mom's business line (alright, I'm going to get my monitor cable taken away for six months this time) and plug it back in - right before anyone disconnects from Netflix.

Over the next few days I try to join Black Ops 3. It's not like I don't have twenty plus Steam games I can beat or play offline, plus all my Origin titles.

But I want to play Black Ops! But I can't because I have no internet.

I feel like I'm in space or something. Although what they have is even more powerful than the internet, as they can relay messages back to central command just fine. What's central command? 

Frustrated I pull the plug on the whole thing, much like my mom does in the middle of my online games, when she gets mad at me (whoo for feeling like I'm four years old.)

So, that's why a video game addict is going cold turkey, three months strong.