It's only a game

My first blog post about EvE-Online.

Finally.

I dont have a particular topic I want to write about just now. So i guess let me intro myself.

As a player, Im not what I expect would be called an average gamer. Early 30's, proud to be Australian, educated, love sci fi, read a lot, glasses, postgrad, currently single... yeah ok maybe I do fit the profile.

I am in that first generation of people who got into computers when games were played on them. First PC was an IBM XT 2.7mhz ...but the first machine, an old Wang. it was the size of a large table... because it WAS the table. It took 14" floppy disks, had barely 8kb of ram and no hard drive. Dont ask me the model number.. I dont remember anymore.

Ive had a vic-20, microbee, apple IIe... all the classics. I wrote a computer game in basic on that wang table-box that had moving graphics. Sadly there is no method of getting the code off the old 14" disk anymore. Love those propriatary formats...

Used to be a Systems Admin for a few years... now Im an academic in a totally different field doing postgrad. Ive got a really offbeat sense of humour which has gotten me into trouble many times.

I found out a couple of weeks ago I've got an IQ in the 158'ish area, but I dont actually think thats important. I love star wars, warhammer 40K, robotics, rocketry, wargaming, hardware, software, phjilosophy, mechanics, medicine, astronomy, and sci fi (to name a few). My geek credentials are fairly evident, if not exactly worn on my sleeve anymore.

Over the years Ive gone through a variety of handles, hut the one thats stuck is what im called now. "Smoke". Comes from smoke-and-mirrors. Lets just say I used to be a bit of a rogue.

And now I play Eve.

No longer an executive director in my alliance, Im just a lowly CEO in a corp I run with a few good friends. We run by the motto "RL first" and understand its only a game. Timezones are the bane of the corp, with people spread out across the globe - but thats also one of the joys. Used to be a hardcore industrialist, but now am shifting more to enbracing the world of PvP combat.

Wish id kept playing from my first character in 2004, but didnt have the money to at the time. I love pirates. They are so tasty with ketchup. I dont mind mining boring at all (not when you suck up 2K m3 a minute or more) and used to run a POS farm. Organised a 3 man op that netted 51 shipkills and 44 poddings last weekend... oh, and Ive killed a hostile vagabond with a badger mkII.

Maybe I'll meet you in space sometime? =)