The last three months, really, have been sort of a wash, points-wise. You’d think that, given three months off with no hard obligations, I would have gone totally achievement point loco and earned another 5-10k or something. But no. I blame a few things, really.
1) Call of Duty 4 - I maxxed out my level, prestiged, and got my way back up to level 40 or so. But there are no achievements for COD4’s online mode. The COD4 tapered off a bit when Rich Gallup, one of my early morning COD4 running crew, found a job. It tapered off more when posse member #2, animator and screenwriter Ben Coello, started caring more about playing ping pong with his neighbor than shooting dudes in their faces. And now that I’m working again, maybe COD4 will finally leave my 360 for good, as well.
Except that a map pack with three or four new maps in it is due out fairly soon. I’ll never truly escape.
2) Sleeping. Dude, I had forgotten what it was like to actually sleep and wake up rested. I probably lost the whole first month of my accidental vacation by sleeping in until at least noon most days.
3) Leaving the house. While I certainly had fun going out and rebuilding something that resembles a social life, I don’t recommend it, unless you like being there for your friends when they get into bar fights.
My leaderboard ranking has plummeted, as well. At one time, I was ranked #2 or #3 on the “celebrity” leaderboard over at mygamercard.net. Now, I’m all the way down at #7. Pathetic! Plus, I think Andrew Reiner over at Game Informer has like 60k, but he’s not even on this list.
So it’s time that I got in shape. Points shape, not health shape. Health shape will probably be my big Wii Fit experiment when that’s released. Anyway, between changing my gamertag and finally breaking the 55,000-point mark this afternoon with Rocketmen: Axis of Evil, I feel inspired to give it another go. What’s more, I have a copy of CSI sitting here next to me, which is a guaranteed 1,000 points if I just sink some time into it. We’ll see if I can get that fire back and become the points competitor that I once was.
“So,” he said in an obvious gesture to inspire reader feedback, “how about you, do you still care about points? Do you keep a close eye on the points totals of your friends? Or you totally over it no