My advice? Do the responsible thing and stick it out until retirement or mortgage/kiddo's schooling is paid off, then take your walkabout.

You can also start looking for new opportunities but don't quit your day job until you have something solid lined up.

Are you tech skills solely limited to coding? Even if you can't get out of the IT field, you might try a different area. I retired from the Navy (I was an Electronic Technician) at age 39 and got a job as a Network Technician. I got my CCNA, which got my foot in the door. Within three years I'd been promoted to Network Engineer, and now, six years after retiring, I'm the Lead Site Engineer of a network with some 1200 devices and 15,000 users. It's still IT but it's very different from coding.

Not only is the cure worse than the disease, but the severity of the disease appears to be widely overstated:

http://esciencenews.com/articles/2011/12/14/wayne.state.study.shows.early.research.cellphone.conversations.likely.overestimated.crash.risk?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eScienceNews%2Fpopular+(e!+Science+News+-+Popular)&utm_content=Netvibes

Of course that isn't true, and screaming "But you have to think of the chil^H^H^H^H troops!!!" wasn't the point I was making. I pointed out one particular reason that I personally have been without access to an individual Internet connection for extended periods. There are many other reasons why people don't always have access to a permanent connection.

I suspect, but don't know, that part of the justification for this requirement is anti-piracy, although Blizzard appears not be making that claim publicly. What Blizzard actually thinks is likely either that the small loss of revenue will be worth the benefits provided by the requirements, or that the loss from users not buying the game due to the requirement will be equaled or exceeded by additional sales driven by the anti-piracy measures. If the requirement is indeed solely about protecting the online experience, I pointed out a simple solution to that issue. If it's about anti-piracy, then obviously that solution is irrelevant.

Because of the things blizzard is doing this move is needed to help stave of some serious issue that can arise with RMT. I think they are bold for doing this and it makes sense why they would. In this iteration of the series SP has taken a backseat, especially given the popularity of MP in D2.

No, it doesn't make sense. I can respect the desire to avoid cheating and to emphasize solid MP gameplay. But from a technical perspective, how hard would it be to give you a choice of local or server storage for your character at the beginning of a single player game? If you choose server storage, you need an Internet connection and you can use that character in online games. If you choose local storage, no connection required but that character can only be used for single-player games.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. It is not aimed at those who have trouble with the internet. Your troubles with the internet does not supersede the design and direction of the game.

Of course I have the option of not buying it. I also have the option of bitching about a stupid requirement to play a game. My bitching is not aimed at players who see no problem with the requirement. It's aimed at Blizzard, to let them know why I won't be a customer for this game. Your irritation with my bitching doesn't supersede my right to bitch or to let Blizzard know that they have potential customers who are not actual customers because of this decision. If you don't like my bitching, don't read/listen to it.

For what it's worth, my perspective is influenced by serving twenty years in the US Navy. When you're stuck for six months on a ship at sea with no personal Internet connection possible, games become a great way to pass the time. As more and more games make an Internet connection a requirement for playing even single player games, it'll soon get to the point where you aren't choosing to not purchase a particular game but are being forced to give up gaming entirely.

I see what you did there. If I had any mod points, I'd give one to you.

No, faith is a belief in something which is either not understandable or for which no evidence exists. Trust is, in part, a belief in something you don't understand. The two should not be confused - they are not synonymous.

I don't have faith in the scientific process; I trust it. I don't trust it to be infallible, but I do trust it to be self correcting and to trend towards generating increasingly accurate models of the issues under study.

I have known preachers and ministers whom I trusted. They were good people, earnest in their beliefs. I did not and do not share their faith in religion, but that doesn't stop me from trusting them as individuals.

No, it isn't. They're a government entity, not a private entity and courts, including the SCotUS, have already ruled that public employers have limits to what rules they can enforce.

http://www.workplacefairness.org/retaliationpublic

Banning "anything negative or embarrassing" would include many things that are of "public concern" and be over the legally established lines of what public employers may do.

A firewall is reasonable protection for most people, just as a dead bolt on the front door is reasonable protection for most homes. If you're the online equivalent of a jewelry store - that is, a high profile target - then obviously you need much more than that.

Link for the above DSA: http://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2010/msg00181.html