Low Heat

So: I've played through starcraft and warcraft and final fantasy tactics and orion and some sims and various other strategy/empire building games.  However.  I suddenly realized that this "colors" how I look at buying a house.  Particularly the immediacy.

I've been telling myself (and the lender and agent) that we have all summer to look, that it's not a big deal, etc.  However, now that I'm looking at maps and comparing locations, budgeting, space, etc, I realize that (especially since all of this is web based) I'm falling into strategy-game mode.  This is, in some ways, kind of cool; I'm already used to balancing the limited resources that I have with the potential for expansion, striking distance to nearby targets, maintenance costs, and useful lifespan.  What's not cool about this is that it makes it <immediate>.  In strategy-game mode, you don't wait until you're double-dog sure that you can afford a new star-destroyer or factory-cathedral; you strike as soon as you can barely afford it you buy it, because that investment is a piece of leverage that you can use for future investments (and to get ahead of your foes!)  In the crazy Seattle house-buying market, this is actually a sort of useful instinct... except that I'm buying with two other people that have a small say in the matter.  (small = understatement).

Yet again, video-games have given me the necessary tools for quickly abstracting a process into a series of tasks leading toward an advantage position.  The only problem is that the first three times I play through a new game I generally discover three different ways to rapidly grind myself into the dust.  Rebooting a mortgage is not an option.