I've gone and done it again. I know it's a mistake, but I've done it again.

"What?" you ask? What did I do again that I know's a mistake? Drinking heavily? Investing in tech startups? Getting married?

No, something way, way worse than any of that: I started another Hardcore character in Diablo II.

If you play or have played Diablo II, I don't need to say anything else. For those of you who haven't played it, let me explain. If your character is "Hardcore," that means that if you die once, the game is over. I'm playing an RPG where I can't die. That means after putting 50 hours into the game, if you walk into a boss battle you're not ready for, you're fucked, and all that time just went down the drain.

Even more frustrating, you get killed by lag. (I play on the Battle.net US East ladder. All my character data is saved on Blizzard's server, so even when I'm just playing by myself, I'm actually playing online.)You'll be walking along, just fine, then your screen will freeze up for 20 seconds, and then you're greeted by a smiling screen that says, "You were killed by a dung beetle. Haha!" This has happened to two Hardcore characters of mine, and both times I uninstalled Diablo II and swore never to play again.

I really, really do not get why Diablo II lags. This game came out when a lot, if not most people were still using modems. Why the hell does a game designed to run on dialup lag when run on broadband? I don't understand it. I can play shooters, which demand response times measured in tenths of seconds, lag-free. On the other hand, I have an RPG that frequently lags several seconds behind, and once every couple hours, will kick me out of a game. It's fucking bullshit.

In other news, I'm really sick. Klingon swine flu, I'm gessing. I'm in bed with 50 blankets playing my Hardcore character. If over the next week, you see a Thought of the Day: Gaming that's just a torrent of profanity, then you'll know I died in the game. If over the next week, you see no Thought of the Day: Gamings, you'll know that my illness, when combined with the stress of being killed by lag has finally done in 'ole Palantas.