The real world things that have screwed up your game

[homerwannabee]

Now this is not the game mechanics screwing your game.  This is the outside forces that have screwed up your game.  I'll start with a couple.
Allergies, allergies, allergies. Believe it or not I sneezed three times while typing that.  I'll be going good in a game while out of nowhere an allergy attack happens, and I get into a sneezing fit.  Because my allergies are bad I have had countless games lost this way.  I have persevered though, and still did well at times even with an allergy attack.
The infamous antivirus pop up.  With my old pre 2011 computer I had a pop up interrupt my game every 45 minutes.  It was so strong that it would lock me out playing the game until I clicked off the box.  It hindered my progress with Donkey Kong Junior.  Not surprisingly when I got a new computer my Donkey Kong Junior scores went way up.
So how about you?  What are some crazy real world distractions that interfere with your game play?

[homerwannabee]

I thought this was guaranteed to get tons of response.  So much for thinking.

[marky_d]

I've had outside influences "try" and screw up a big game before, but I can't recall a time that they actually ended a game. I have had equipment failure before during a gigantic-paced game of junior that ended the game, though.

[xelnia]

I thought this was guaranteed to get tons of response.  So much for thinking.

6 hours between your two posts. Relax.

[timhett]

My most common distraction is my own mind.  Running through events from the day, recalling conversations, obsessing about things.  The dogs also distract me if they are playing or getting into things.  Technical problems are usually either the fire button becoming unresponsive or colors dropping out due to bad edge connection.  If the colors drop I will go to the back of the machine (left open) and tweak it while the game is running.  Button problem I'll try to play through which never works well  .  No real interesting issues like sneezing fits or temporary blindness lol
 

[stella_blue]

There's one example that comes immediately to mind.  It happened about a year ago, before I reached my first (and only) killscreen.  I was fairly deep into a game (Level 15 or 16) with a man in reserve.  In the middle of a barrel board the screen suddenly went blank, and a popup with the following error message appeared:

"Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience."

I quickly tried to restore the game window by clicking the MAME icon on the taskbar.  One death had already occurred and I wanted to salvage my final life.  The game resumed for a split second before a second popup sealed my doom:

"Windows Explorer is restarting..."

I clicked the [Cancel] button, but it was too late.  A pair of deaths in less than 10 seconds.  Very frustrating.

For a period of several months, I experienced those Explorer crashes at least once daily.  Fortunately, no other game of DK was similarly sabotaged.  I haven't encountered the error in a long while, so I'm guessing that Microsoft finally decided to address the issue.

[DiggingInNY]

I've had games where I was several hours in when the joystick suddenly became unresponsive. I do the majority of my arcade gaming at Barcade and there are days where it is really crowded and you have people that are screaming and having extremely loud conversations right where I am playing and it breaks my concentration.

[Shnypz]

Once I was playing during a rain storm that quickly turned into a thunder storm. I was having a decent game so tried to play it out. After a huge lightning blast, the monitor quickly blipped in and out. The game didn't reset or anything but I decided to call it quits at that point and unplug it from the wall.

I generally play at night when my wife/kids go to bed so there are minimal distractions outside of "acts of god".

[Jonesy]

The only time I had a balls up was when I was 600k into a game of DK Junior, I had a man in reserve and my cell phone kept ringing and the doorbell was also lively. After about 10 minutes of this happening every minute or so, I lost concentration and lost a man so I went to see what was going on. Anyhow, it turns out to be my next door neighbour had locked herself out....WTF did she expect me to do about it?

I'm playing some DK......ok!!!!!???!! 

The cell phone now goes off and the doorbell ignored. The only person important enough to get my attention when playing is my mum, she knows to phone the home phone, as nobody else has my home number, she also knows if I don't pick up i'm playing and i'll phone her back as soon as i'm done, if it's urgent phone back and i'm there.

[D.B. Cooper]

Well, the wife has been known to kill a good game with the words "now would be a good time"