Why? By Krishna's spandex bike pants...why?

I told myself not to buy it. I listened not...and now I must suffer the innumerable (yet to be numerated) consequences.

Life pales in comparison. Sure, being backstabbed while waiting for a bus on a regular basis might be a trifle inconvenient....and having a demi-lich coalesce with a menacing laugh from your conflakes every morning might become tiresome...but real life just doesn't cut it compared to the exciting lifestyle of my little virtual band.

My boss never says to me "So..we need to have that paper edited and resubmitted by the end of the month, with the analysis done as a regression instead of the MANOVA...

...and by the way, venture forth you must unto the 5th level of the Temple of Ghoulishly Dank Preoccupations, there to procure the Wardstone of Spectacularly Pendulous Mammaries. Beware the prying Paw of Chaos' Dread Chihuaha...and the perils of The Beast of Pesto. May our lord Dow of Jones hold you in his sacred wallet. All manner of richly deserved anonymity and token fiscal reward await your triumphant return. Take this wad of postit notes...they may aid you in your great quest!

None of my visitable friends have pet hamsters...nor are they particularly insanely zealous in regard to giving rectal beatings to the various manifestations of evil.

Staplers do not come in "+1", "+2", "flaming", or "vorpal" varieties.

When was the last time I put some holy smiting action on the smarmy face of absolute, yet strangely incompetent, evil!? Damn well never. I don't even know what *my* alignment is! "hahah..take that boss..I've cast Toaster's Globe of Busywork Immunity, and Inexplicable Drastic Pay Increase!".

I can't even convince my cat to let me pat it...let alone fight off hordes of slobbering monsters on my behalf.

Riding to work with three books in my backpack is a frickin' chore...let alone 7 suits of platemail, an ankheg corpse and 50,000 gold coins. The gym does not allow you to reroll for exceptional strength....unless you're into injectibles.

I've got no extra points to swap out of charisma and pile into constitution so that I can regenerate when I get shaving cuts.

I don't allways have three neatly pre-prepared responses or queries available for every conversation I may find myself party to.

...you get the picture. Reality is inadequate. Those little pixellated bastards do stuff damn it!! World shakin' damn stuff!! The protagonist is the freakin' kid of a god!!? What'd I get from genetics to compare to that apart from mundane physical and mental characteristics? Lucky little bastards.