Of Wrath and Achievements

So, how are you doing in Wrath of the Lich King? Did you level your main character to 80 yet? Maybe you created a Death Knight? I had every intention of power-leveling my gnome mage Atoz to 80 right when the expansion came out, but it's been 17 days since Wrath was released and I'm only to level 73. Why? In a word: Achievements. One of the newest additions to World of Warcraft is the Achievements feature and it adds a whole new flavor to WoW. Some achievements are easy, like completing a specific number of quests or getting to a certain level. Some are extremely difficult to attain, like exploring all possible areas in the World of Warcraft or getting a rare pet. The Achievements system seems custom-made for obsessive types like..uh...me! Holding me back from leveling has been the ever-present, nagging urge to explore continents that I haven't gotten to yet and past areas that I somehow missed fully exploring. Or how about the Achievements involved with the professions? My god, don't get me started! I already fish more than most people would even care to think about doing. I spent almost an entire day fishing at a fountain (!?) in Dalaran just to complete four Achievements out of the twenty something that I need to get the rare "Salty" fishing title. So, this is another sign of how brilliant the designers at Blizzard are. They have created an expansion pack to an extremely popular game, and one that contains content that might even prevent you from accomplishing one of the main goals of the game! How amazing is that? Now excuse me, I'm going back to exploring an out of the way corner of the Eastern Kingdoms that is still fogged out. Did I say that I was going to get to level 74 today?