Baby doodie duty

Credit: Penny Arcade

Though I'm married, I'm also a single father in a way. I work during the day and my wife works nights so from 4 PM until after midnight it's just me and my two boys, ages 4 years and 6 months. The 4 year old is easy enough to deal with - he has his toys and video games to keep him occupied, dinner is quick and easy to make, and we'll play a board game before he goes to bed. The baby, however, is insanely demanding. Over the last couple weeks, he has been sick and unable to sleep, so he's been doing a lot of screaming especially if he's not being held (ever try to clean the kitchen with one arm wrapped around a 15 pound human the whole time?).

I also have to be at work at 6 AM the next couple months so late nights are a thing of the past. I try to get some gaming in whenever I can though. Two nights ago I was playing MW3 while the 4 year old was still awake. He is interested in video games so he wanted to see. More specifically, he wanted to play - the debate over video game violence aside, he has a hard enough time with Disney Adventures, so MW3 is way out of his league. Even still, it was a blast playing with him next to me. One mission in the single player campaign involves racing around the streets of Paris in the back of a van with Humvees and tanks chasing you. He was laughing hysterically when the Humvees crashed into other cars and telling me where to shoot.

The internal debate now is for SWTOR. I absolutely want to play the game. I prefer PC over console gaming and the huge following is something I haven't seen in a PC game in quite some time. I fondly remember pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies, when Mos Eisley and Theed (Naboo) were always densely packed with players. The players were mostly cool too, even to newbs trying to adjust to the game's steep learning curve. The fun left when most of the players did, after Sony destroyed the game.

So I'm sitting on a Best Buy gift card from Christmas, tempted to purchase the game but knowing better. As it is, I only get a couple hours free time a week and I have a number of other projects that need to be completed - most notably my video production business, which still doesn't have a website after three months. I am having a tough time rationalizing paying for a subscription I'll use for only a couple hours a week.