For the last nine months, I have considered myself a non-gamer. Not a reformed gamer, mind you, but someone who just hasn’t had the time to dedicate to playing games or keeping up with the industry. Once again I felt forced to contemplate my new lifestyle and how I could somehow re-insert my beloved hobby into a busy schedule. A good friend and I started talking about how this was possible now that we were parents. Eventually the topic of World of Warcraft came up. When I quit last year, I thought it was for good. I stopped writing because of that game, as I was too preoccupied with spending Talent points and obsessively trying to keep up with guild mates. It wasn’t healthy. And yet there was still something strangely appealing about the thought of playing again, in the context of a social activity for two new dads struggling to find ways to grasp hold of a hobby that would have otherwise slipped away. What better way to get back into gaming than playing something we already knew? My latest article at the Cultural Gutter describes the reactivation of my World of Warcraft account with a friend and fellow gamer, and how at this point in our lives, this really is the game for us.