Kate asked me a while ago if Eric ever worked, because he is constantly taking vacations and doing other things. He also posted recently about getting new ping pong paddles or something at work which he predicted would result in no work being done that day. So for your enlightenment: The sham of software engineering.
http://plover.net/~bonds/software.html

I was looking at a strategy gaming blog, and found an entertaining review of that old computer game: Black & White. I've never played the game myself. I remember Justin Cohen once tried to talk to me about the game because he played it for a bit freshman year, but by then I had already learned to not talk to him.
You can learn a lot about yourself from videogames. A while ago I was playing some Master of Orion 2 and discover that, if pushed far enough, I will order a genocide. An alien species that I was allied with was spying on me and repeatedly stealing my technology. This infuriated me to no end, and when I confronted their ambassador he would arrogantly lie to my face. Finally I took great pleasure in synchronizing the arrival of a few of my battleships to each of the species' planets, erradicating them from the galaxy before the two-faced ambassador could protest or beg or even transmit a declaration of war. Sort of an Order 66 of my own design. It was delicious.
http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/11/17/decade-feature-2001-black-white/

(from a review of Ender's Game)
Geek wish-fulfillment is not the only fetish on display in Ender's Game: the other is self-pity, the lonely self-pity of the truly gifted and persecuted. Ender, you see, doesn't want to keep beating and humiliating and killing people. He is always forced into these actions, against his will, by the school governors who keep pushing him to succeed, and by his victims themselves, who just won't accept that he is the best. "Why wouldn't he leave me alone?" he wonders as he kills another bully.