Day 11: I must admit, Joshua has unpleasantly surprised me with his progress in trying to beat me in our WoW competition. I’m finding it rather hard to keep ahead of him, as he is giving me competition I did not expect. And while I’m at it, I will also admit, he hit 60 about twenty minutes before I did, winning the unofficial bronze trophy in our race. I am now ahead of him again, but for a short period of time he managed to sneak past me in level… and I’m the rogue! So now I am finding I need to rely on my pure gamer instincts to get me ahead in this race. In my moments of weakness, however, I started to lose sight and think about all of the reasons Josh may actually win the race to 80. Here are five of them.
1. I’m rolling a rogue, he’s a paladin.
Let me set up a typical combat scenario for you. I see a Scarlet Commander 
pacing back and fourth, and so-and-so from Tarren Mill tells me to kill them. About fifteen yards away I go into stealth mode and very slowly walk up to them to engage. Before the actual battle though, I sap them, pickpocket them, and then once I have the proper amount of energy, ambush them from behind. Let me set up a typical combat scenario for Joshua’s paladin. He sees the same Scarlet Commander, only he runs up to the enemy and carelessly smacks the dude with his hammer. Now you tell me, which fight takes longer/more thought? Secondly: I have to work on a skill called “lockpicking”, and rogues are the only class in the game to get this ability (teehee). This alone takes forever because you can only practice this skill a few different ways, all of which are annoying and time consuming. Thirdly: I have to do quests for the Ravenholdt tribe, a group of thieves and assassins in the hills of Alterac Valley. Reputation and finishing quests for them is very essential to my gaining certain fabulous pieces of rogue armor and the detect traps ability.
2. I am actively trying to level my professions, he is not.
My rogue is a level 283 leatherworker, a level 311 skinner, a level 276 chef and has reached level 300 with first aid (since, you know, I can’t heal myself). Any profession is going to take quite a bit of time, money and grinding to have it finally pay off, and although it’s starting to for me, what is not paying off is the fact that Joshua isn’t wasting time with professions and instead is using that time to quest and try to get ahead of me. This means I should have more money, right? Wrong. He already had a couple of characters on our new realm, so he freely transfers gold to his paladin whenever he needs it. He has the home field advantage here.
3. He’s made more time!
I don’t know how, but he has actually found more time to play than I have. When I am nannying I obviously can’t play WoW until she’s asleep, and of course that is Joshua’s prime time for power leveling and questing. Also, it figures that the one work day I have time to play before work is the same day Blizzard performs their weekly maintenance check-ups and updates, meaning I can’t play until 2:00 PM, the time I go in to work. That’s just bad luck.
4. I value sleep- he does not.
I’m a big fan of waking up completely rested on my own and not by an alarm. Unfortunately this means that those of us (Joshua) who can wake up after three hours of sleep without a problem are going to get ahead when they see the opportunity. There have been a few occasions now where I have been sound asleep, and then once I finally wake up and walk into the office, I find Joshua sitting at his desk with a cup of coffee and a determined look on his face. This has obviously taken a toll on us irl. 
5. He cheats.
There, I said it. He has a bot do the work for him during the day! 
He’s innovative and has the know-how to do this to me, but the worst part is he’s lying about it. How do I know? There have been numerous accounts of me whispering, saying, or emoticon-ing to him, and his character completely ignores it. My character has even stood next to his and I’ve jumped up and down next to him and he still doesn’t acknowledge me. Also, his pally is constantly moving from one place to another. You’d think if you were human you’d have to take a bio or lunch break or something, right? Not the WoW glider! Even more disturbing however, is the fact that he gets into my account and steals my gold. Sometimes if I get up to use the bathroom or get a drink, when I come back there will only be 20 silver in my bag. And there he is, cracking up laughing at my misfortune. Unbelievable.
So ladies and gents, here are five reasons that Joshua might claim the gold trophy that is level 80. It’s unlikely, but I just wanted to get my excuses in order before this event potentially happened.
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