Addictions - Past and present

Ive been thinking over this subject for while. Earlier was going to write about brands, almost wrote a couple of paragraphs and then it didnt appeal to me so i deleted it.

So back to addiction.

Let me start with my recent addictions

POKER on Facebook
This is addictive to say the least. So whats it about poker. Is it about winning, about the money that you win or lose (even though its only ficticious), is it about the people you encounter while playing. Is it about the brain? I guess its a bit of thrill, suspense. Would it be foolish to say that, its proabably the closest ill get to playing BOND at Poker. Ah forget it. Its not making sense to me, how is it going to make sense to you. This addiction recently died on it own, SCRABULOUS took over, and its back again now. In bombay this diwali, watched the WORLD POKER CHAMPIONSHIPS on tv, made me understand how the big fish play. Experienced players (as my bro puts it) play only 20% of the hands. Actually this is the right platform to blame him or rather thank him for introducing me to POKER. It was on a flight back to Bombay from Udaipur, i had seen nitin play his PSP. When I tried the game on the way back - i was addicted in 30 mins. So anyone for a game of Poker?

SCRABULOUS on Facebook
It took HASBRO to sue the Agarwala bros to get me off Srab. (as i used to call it). I used to play a lot. day in and day out. I also made hell of a lot of friends at scrab. What amazed me is the number of people from Pakistan who played the game and were bloody good at it.

XBOX - Burnout paradise
I just got the Xbox bout3 months back - the thrill of playing it on a 47" LCD with full home theatre surround sound is just awsome. This game is a revelation. This defies all the theories set by earlier car games. In the earlier ones - driving well, within the roads not banging your car was of prime importance. This game is bout pure speed, thrill, off road antics and much more. Nothing is more thrilling than a take down race - lemme explain - Ur supposed to drive as fast as you can and your given a target of taking down say 10 cars or sometimes 18 cars. What take down means is that - while driving fast - really fast - other cars are on the road - youve gotta squeeze them and make them bang up against the walls or sides or anything that you can. At times while driving in real, if some other driver irritates me, ive felt like taking that car down (hope you get the point). Im addicted to this as well.

Age of Empires
Another game - another addiction. This was a while back, maybe 2003 or so. This game was new and first time something like this was launched. We (its not I) spent hours playing this game. Each game could go on for 3 - 4 hrs. We really got hammered by our spouses for this. We includes me and my uncle and sometimes a family friend. It was all about strategy. How to setup towns, buildings, forts, army etc. There were choices on what kind of armour you had to develop, so it involved lots of thinking power. (or so id like to think). Id love playing that game again.

Does this post sound like a gaming magazine. I hope not. Anyone wants to share - addictions - past, present and future?