Wrath of the Lich King: say goodbye to real life

Waiting for the WoW expansion pack...

Wrath of the Lich King launched today. Or at least it will. You see, I'm writing this on Tuesday because I have had my copy of the second expansion to World of Warcraft on pre-order for nine months and, assuming that it drops through the letter box on Thursday morning, there is

way I am going to be wasting time with blog posts. I'm a freelancer; I don't have a boss to justify my day off to. I don't need to pull a

surreptitious sickie

or swap shifts with my co-workers. I have planned my writing deadlines around this release for the last month and a half. Because I have a busy day ahead:

07:00 Wake up exhausted after 3 hours sleep, having stayed up late to run Karazhan for the last time pre-expansion
07:15 Boot up computer, still in my jim-jams with a cup of coffee and check the official website while I wait for the post to arrive
07:30 After mashing the refresh button non-stop, the website finally loads with an error page to say that it is down due to heavy traffic.
07:35 Try curse-gaming and WoWACE to update all my 107 add-ons. These sites are also down
09:20 Finally manage to find working torrent sites with the add-ons. Download and install these
9:30 Quick shower and more coffee
9:35 Still no sign of the postman
9:50 Pointlessly click on the 'Where's my stuff' link in Amazon to get an ETA on my package. It is showing as 'dispatched'
10:30 Read various WoW blogs that have updated in the last few hours. All from people waiting for their pre-orders to arrive
11:45 Post finally arrives. Rip open box. Pause to savour the packaging within
11:46 Stick the DVD in and install
11:54 Savour the intro cinematic, previously only seen in low res on YouTube
11:59 Attempt to upgrade my account with the serial number from the box
12:00 Account management web page is down
12:05 Still down
12:20 Still down
13.15 Still down
14:03 Finally in. WoW launcher pops up. Click 'Play'
14:04 Downloading patch: 13 bytes downloaded. 1.2Gb remaining
16:30 250K downloaded 1.175Gb remaining
19:22 Download complete. Enter World
20:45 You are in a queue for server [Kilrog]. You are currently in position 984.
23:58 You are currently in position 982.