I share an office with the other ex-pat teachers, who are all gamers to some degree. Sometimes one of us stumbles into work late, mumbling something about defeating the Parthian invasion or playing "just one more hand" until the sun came up. There's a lot of ALT-TABing when the students come into the office.

Right now, I'm beta testing a new game (more on that later) and rediscovering my Puzzle Pirates addiction. I starting playing a buggy beta of PP in 2003, when I was in college. My friends and I would call each other up and meet on the high seas. In fact, when my girlfriend Allison called me to say she was engaged, she totally ruined my drinking puzzle. Unfortunately, when PP became a pay site, my limited student budget went to other things, like Neverwinter Nights and alcohol.

I was looking for a short game to play between classes when I loaded Puzzle Pirates, and I'm embarrassed to admit how much I like it. You can pirate-ize swears, which makes even the most annoying chatspam pretty funny. I'd totally forgotten about the addiction factor, until I got a non-gamer co-worker playing.

You'd think this would be a good thing, until the phone rings in the office.

"Can you get it? I've got two queens and I'm so sure this guy is bluffing!" my boss shouts from his side of the office.

"What? My ship's going to sink if I don't bilge!" my game-virgin colleague shouts back.

"Don't look at me! I'm still not Master of Orion!"

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