What's keeping me busy....(Mar -May ' 09)

I've been keeping myself busy myself spending some time on social networking site (with some difference), watching the IPL matches (and yes Deccan Chargers win made me proud for I am very much a Hyderabadi) and last thing I am currently hooked to is a new found love for web-based browser game called Travian.
Geni.com

The Geni craze for me started in the month of March with an invite sent by my Wife's aunt and a bit of tinkering around in the application made be a big fan of this site. Geni is a social networking site intended to connect family members and fill the family tree. Launched in January 2007 by Web 2.0 company Geni, Inc with over thirty million profiles created in a span of one year.
I was hooked into this site for good 2-3 months fetching collecting data about the family members and putting up their photos personal information etc. I added more than 550+ profiles in this while inviting close to 50 profiles. It's been a good time collecting to know the faces of our wide family. An overall good time experience.

Travian

Travian in a web-browser based war-based strategy game. Created using PHP and Ajax this is the hottest game on the lines of Age of Empires (sans graphics and sound). This is completely an online game where players compete for domination in the virtual world. The game lasts for 300 days till from the date the game is initiated with multiple servers serving multiple players.

I ended up on this game from a banner which claimed this to be the best online-strategy based games. It wasn't before this curiosity changed to full fledged addiction. Its been over a month I have been playing this and am such an addict that I keep checking the status of my virtual city through my mobile Internet connection every 2 hours. I sleep late watching the troops and city grow and wake up early to check for any attacks from other co-players. Lots of literature study and lots of wiki and forum guides fill up my empty time between those long waits while my resource fields or infrastructure is being built or while waiting for my troops to return from a mission.

Secondly as per Alexia.com which is the premier internet traffic tracking site; Travian server is the 19th most popular side for 2 months running (April, May 2009) you can check them out yourself for India category. Was pretty surprised at this rating as none of the other popular countries (Arabia, Turkey, Italy,America, Germany - Top 5) have no Travian in the their top 20. Its one feat for Travian.

My girl curses the game heavily as its eating a bit too much beyond her fancy into her life as the game seemingly is getting more priority over her; which rightly pisses her off.

For me Travian has ensured that I was away from the stock market while I was actively trading and making money in the months of March and April; and the opportunity driven due to the election results was the biggest led down as I was busily researching my Travian guides, and storyboards and forums. Lets see how long this craze continues.

Travian ruins my personal life as I have hardly watched any movies, have not ventured out of my house for long hours nor currently planning given the future plans of my future empire.