Here's another one of those "Welcome to the Internet" type of articles. The University of Florida's Independent Florida Alligator has an article up about how Blizzard's World of Warcraft - surprise, surprise! - "kills time" and "offers gamers an escape."

Of course, every article like this has their own expert/s on hand to discuss the inner workings of the game. One of the article's resource people is Joe DiPietro, an educational technology graduate student, who according to the Alligator "researches various aspects of gaming, including the fine line between playing as a healthy hobby versus a dangerous addiction."

DiPietro said that "a small percentage of World of Warcraft players are actually addicted." The Alligator also notes that as the game's popularity grows along with the popularity of MMORPGs in general,  "symptoms of excessive play - the sacrifice of relationships, school, work and other responsibilities - will get worse."

It's nothing new, really, but it's a slow news day. Something that's noteworthy though is a comment from one of the people interviewed in the article. Michael Bobek, who plays the game almost every night, says "It's just what I do for fun. I played video games the whole time I was in high school, and I was valedictorian."

See? People can play World of Warcraft and still lead a pretty balanced life - academic-wise and otherwise. All it takes is a bit of time management.

You kids playing online games better be careful with the people you meet. In Jacksonville, Florida, a 26-year old man was arrested for luring a 15-year old girl to run away from home and meet him.

The suspect, Daniel Lenz, met the New Hampshire girl online playing World of Warcraft. Lenz's friend, Jason Dowling, 23, drove to Windham to pick up the unnamed girl so he can bring her to Lenz. They, however, never made it to Jacksonville as one of them called the girl's home and revealed where they were. The police found both Dowling and the girl in Manning, S.C.

Lenz, meanwhile, was arrested at his home on Tuesday night, where the police found a 12-gauge shotgun. Looking into Lenz's criminal record, it was found that he is a convicted felon with quite a string of offenses, including grand theft and sexual battery.

While it's fun to play with friends online, as well as meeting new people while playing your favorite games through the internet, do not let up your guard as you never know just who might be on the other end of the line.

WoW's turning two soon, and Blizzard's not about to let anybody forget that as they sponsor WoW's 2nd anniversary sweepstakes; and the prizes are looking very good indeed. The Sweepstakes begins October 29, 2006 at 12:01 AM Pacific Time (Hmm, we're two days late...sorry, our bad) and ends on November 26, 2006 at 11:59 PM PT. It will be divided into two specific categories:

• The WoW 2nd Anniversary main sweepstakes: For gamers with a registered WoW account as of October 29, 2006.
• The WoW 2nd Anniversary Legacy Player sweepstakes: for gamers with a  registered WoW account as of November 29, 2005.

Anybody with an account of good standing are automatically eligible for either sweepstakes, and only citizens living in U.S. states (exculding the states of Florida, Rhode Island, Puerto Rico), and players aged 18 or above are eligible.

Prizes at stake:
Winners will be chosen at random, and the following prizes will be given out depending on the week of the draws.

For the WoW 2nd anniversary main sweepstakes:

• 1st week (October 30  to November 5): Two winners will be chosen at random to win a Jinx Gift Certificate worth roughly $100.
• 2nd week (November 6 to  November 12): Two winners will win 1 Razer Copperhead Precision mouse, 1 Razer Mantis Control, Speed Mat and Barracuda HP-1 Headset with an approximate retail value of $250.00.
• 3rd week (November 13 to November 19): One winner will be chosen to win an Apple 80 GB iPod with Video Playback and  one $100.00 Jinx Gift Certificate with an approximate retail value of $500.
• 4th week  (November 20  to November): One winner will be chosen to win a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 7950 graphics card, and one $100.00 Jinx Gift Certificate with an approximate retail value of $1,000.00.

Legacy Player sweepstakes are eligible for the award in mentioned earlier, and are also eligible for a special 5th week luck draw, and one lucky winner receives an XPS Gaming Laptop, a $100.00 JINX Gift Certificate, and a two-year World of Warcraft subscription with an approximate retail value of $2,500.00.

Potential winners will be announced on the official website, worldofwarcraft.com. The player's most-played character name and resident server will be posted, and emails will be sent to the winning character. Only one prize is allowed per entrant. This is just the basic gist of the event - for the nitty-gritty details, we recommend you check out this article's source link. The next  few weeks could just be your lucky day!