Below are the 8 most recent journal entries recorded in Anna's LiveJournal:

Sunday, June 1st, 2003
2:39 pm	Everquest Widows I have joined the Everquest Widows discussion forum and read several postings. One of them specifically caught my eye. It was posting from Jim (42) whom had an online relationship with Candy whom he met and married in EQ. Their long distance relationship lasted almost 3 years. I have read his post and then got interested enough to read his entire website which he dedicated to explaining how his relationship with Candy started as well as how it ended when he found out that Candy was a man. He did an amazing job of tracking down, sometimes day by day, sometimes week by week how their relationship evolved, what kind of conversations they had, what gifts they exchanged….what they did in the game…etc… His tone was very sad and it was easy to understand how crushed he must have been when he found out that he was deceived all this time. I think that this is worth to read so I am going to include link to his website in my post: http://www.geocities.com/jbrig86/Everquest_Lost.html if anyone is interested. On the end his EQ addiction consumed almost 200 days and he got seriously hurt!!!! It was a sad story and it seems that EQ Widows might be a good place to start his recovery. He kept asking whether a human being has the right to mess with another human being to this extend. He seemed to understand that he kind of put himself out there but still, 3 years of pretending to be a woman and agreeing to common future…that’s pretty sick… Another posting from Sharon made me little sad since she is on the verge of leaving her husband because of his EQ addiction…apparently there is nothing left for her…Couple people responded to that with advice. Be patient they tell her….withdraw yourself…This made me think about what is the right medicine for this type of addiction? I don’t’ think that being distant, withdrawing herself from him at this time is exactly what she should do. If he really does not pay any attention to her anymore, and she is hungry for some, withdrawing would be almost impossible.….I think that at this point professional help is the only chance for her….I didn’t suggest that since I have no idea how well this advice would be accepted. I don’t want to make anyone mad… This made me doubt the power of this group to actually help people….I saw some other postings, sort of flames from someone who felt is being misunderstood, misquoted,…to whose post other responded, but wanted to MOVE ON. He was not very happy with that and suggested that this discussion board is not helping him…, apparently he was not ready to move on, but felt shut up… He suggested that if this would be an AA meeting people would treat his problem with greater respect and compassion. This made me wonder of the effectiveness of this forum…maybe addiction coping is best done through face to face support groups…on a more personal level? The impact of EQ addiction on relationships seems to be deathly! However there are other people that have no problems…with their partners playing EQ…I think that this is like addiction to alcohol…in a way that not all people necessary get addicted to alcohol, but those who do get addicted are in serious trouble and need help, so do often their life partners. Joining AA would be one way of dealing with addiction to alcohol and then again not everybody who drinks needs to join AA. I have posted my survey about EQ and relationships on other sites and from the data I collected is not obvious that playing EQ equals being addicted to it which in turn ruins your relationship, not at all. Most of my data does not support that at all, on the other hand I am sure that I would get a lot of negative feedback if I would to post my survey in this discussion forum…almost all would tell me that their relationship was somewhat negatively impacted by playing EQ. I believe that there is addiction associated with playing EQ that may be very harmful to relationships, I also believe that even though it is nice to have someone to talk to about this, it is probably a good idea to seek professional, more personal help. I don’t think that Sony or Verant should be held responsible for distributing an addictive product if cigarettes and alcohol are still legal. Or the men are still out there kicking the hacky-sack instead of paying attention to their wifes. :) Just kidding? (Comment on this)
Monday, May 19th, 2003
2:03 pm	eXistenZ This was the second time I have seen eXistenZ and I must admit that some things made more sense the second time around. I finally realized why did several of the characters suggest that the gun was brought to them by their dog. I am not sure if my interpretation of this is correct, but it seems to me that it was the subconscious of the two young assassins whom played Ted Pikul, and Allegra Geller in the new game featured by some big name game company whose dog brought the gun that has killed the best game developer in the world. Or were they still playing? One thing that I still don’t get is the play on the capital letters….I am still not sure why eXistenZ and not ExiStenz…or if it means anything…. Some aspects of the game itself were very similar to Everquest, like the NPC characters that reacted only to game dialogue, or the Newbie (Ted Pikul) feeling of awkwardness, inadequacy that comes with not knowing how to play the game. Or even the out of character and in-character chats that Ted and Allegra had with each other and with others in the game, much like when you choose to role play in EQ, it is not really you who is liking someone else’s’ bioport.  Some of the most appealing aspects of the game, such as the uncertainty of knowing whether this is reality or the game can also be induced by heavy playing of EQ, I personally had such experience while walking in the UW campus. I have been walking towards 15th to catch my bus through the park and everything was green, like in Misty Thicket and I haven’t seen any people around, just for a moment I thought that I should see a giant rat or spider sooner or later…I have been looking out though the EQ interface just for a moment. The people who tried to kill Allegra were the “realists” whom I imagined were part of the movement for keeping reality, not distorting it, not confusing it with fiction and fantasy, however not only people who wanted to protect their reality wanted to kill Allegra, also people whom enjoyed her game very much, such as the gas attendant. He talked of his real world as of the most primitive level of reality and enjoyed his eXistenZ world where he was the God, of course! Or people affiliated with game-developers competitors of eXistenZ. The bioport idea was the one that bothered me the most. I admired Ted’s wisdom in resisting what to me seemed an utter madness – installing the bioport into your lower back risking paralyses. On the other hand, I liked how Allegra painted a picture of licensed bioport shop located at a mall, much like piercing…I was glad that the game designers didn’t resort to bioport as the only option of fantasy simulation as shown on the very end of the movie. The testers were wearing some kind of head gear, much more friendlier than bioports. (Comment on this)
Thursday, May 1st, 2003
10:16 pm	I finally got armor! I had great time playing Wednesday night. However I definitely stayed on much longer than desirable. I had really hard time waking up this morning. But I am on again! I have to,I mean I finally got my armor! I can thank to Nappfoot who basically "hooked me up" with sweet protection wear. He didn't pay for all of it, I had 35 plat, but he ended up picking it all out and sponsoring a big chunk, I am sure. I was so tired that I was feeling like passing out, but despite that I was patiently waiting to get all this armor, so I can be stronger and better warrior, and also I really liked how I looked after I was all dressed. Also I had some bonding time out there in the field. I mean the group was just amazing. I really felt like I am part of it...we even took some group photographs. You know you can take a sreen shot of the action by pressing the "minus" key. So I had my friends all siting on one log by the lumber jack camp as well jumping up at the same time. A "Kodac moment" as Gepp commented. :) Weeeeh it was really fun. Tonight I am hoping to reach level seven. I am pretty close. (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 27th, 2003
4:13 pm	Can't make it to Misty Thicket with a level 3 Troll...nope I have not made it to Misty Thicket with my troll character Gazgazu. I have also realized that me being in Misty Thicket with a troll did not make much sense. I could not buy the spells I needed in Rivervale, and I would be constantly attacked by guards because I am an “evil” character. I was kind of ticked off because I was a female troll with a really friendly smile with no intentions to cause any trouble. I just wanted to go see my friends in Misty Thicket! Another character back in Neriak offered to travel with me to Rivervale. It was a dark elf and he was level 7. However the entire party got killed somewhere between Winters deep lake and Misty Thicket. An angry Halfling guard immediately perceived me as a trouble maker and killed all of us, including the level 7 dark elf. After I have respond back in Neriak, I didn’t want to give up on this adventure so I tried to go again, but got disoriented and ended up in Lavastorm Mountains instead. UFFF. Pretty hot around there, got killed by some kind of fire monster. It seems that I have to be at least level 8 troll before I would be able to freely move between the regions and even then, I would probably not be very welcome in Rivervale. Oh, well such is the world that we live in…. I will be visiting Misty Thicket with my Halfling character Annasnek…I have notice that I like the Troll character much better though! I guess it seemed more powerful and more I guess animal-like…. (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 26th, 2003
12:11 am	I am having a hard time keeping up with my journals. I have started a new character. I am a lady troll. My name is GazGazu. I have been having a hard time getting a name registered with the server. I could not get any of my own names registered, so I have clicked "get name" but even that didn't work right away. So I ended up with Gazgazu. I have entered Neriak and I am trying to get to Misty Thicket which is right next to Neriak, as I checked on the map. I hope to meet up with someone from 480 there. Also the spell memorization is lightning fast, did they fix it? I have met some troll in Neriak who has hooked me up with money, bags, and showed me around, and stayed around for couple of killings to bring me back to life. Really sweet! I wish they would let me do more emotions than just dance, and wave, I wanted to give him hug, but there is no animation for it :( soo it is kind of lame when it just says Gazgazu gave you a hug.... O.K so I will be trying to get over to Misty Thicket..right now. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 18th, 2003
9:45 am	I have played for several hours last night and got almost to level 4. I don’t' like how I have to memorize each spell before I go out and attack the EQ creatures. It takes away too much time. At one point a RF (real friend, a hardcore AC player,) came over to my house and watch me and my husband play. He commented: “Wow you have been really playing like 5 minutes out of the 30 I have been watching you.” So most of the time we were either meditating or memorizing spells. Right when it was getting pretty frustrating and way past the bed time Ezzum (a human I have never seen before) gave me whole bunch of money and 3 bags. Yeaah! That was sweet; my goal was to level up that night, but I didn’t. (Comment on this)
Monday, April 14th, 2003
9:19 pm	Hi I am participating in COM 408 virtually so you will not see me in classroom. My name is Anna and my character name is “Annasnek” pretty creative huh?  I am from the Czech Republic which could explain the “snek” part which means snail in Czech. I am having Fun in EQ and I am looking forward to meet you all. On Sunday I had a chance to meet Shuship and Geppwineth. I am playing with my husband Curious, so if you see him say hi: he knows about us I am a beginner and still having some problems coordinating my attacking moves, such as pressing F8 and F1 to heal myself and then again F8 to target the enemy and be careful so I don’t heal it, instead of myself and so on. Today Curious and I joined the “destroyers of the realms guild” and those folks had all kinds of superior weaponry and one: Citidell, he is the guild leader, gave me 12 platinum to spend on new spells. So if you see him ask him for some money he may give you some. Note to myself: Time flies on EQ, watch out! (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 9th, 2003
2:05 pm	Ahoj!!! Hi, My name is Anna and this is my journal :) (Comment on this)