[Ungodly Cravings] #2: World of Warcraft

This is the second installment in my Ungodly Cravings series, and it will reveal a few aspects of my life that I had originally intended to keep quiet about when I started this blog. In any case, something I will admit I was addicted to for a year was the ridiculously popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft.

The release of the Cataclysm expansion pushed back my scheduled quit date.

I started playing in January 2010 after I obtained my BA in Journalism that past December. I had impulsively decided to pursue a second BA and was taking only two classes that semester, so I was bored and found some interest in WoW when my boyfriend left his character screen pulled up on his laptop while he was in class.

At the time, nearly everyone in my circle of friends played WoW and went on raids in the same guild. My roommate (the one I mentioned in my 4th of July post) had also just gotten lured into the game, and she and I ended up starting characters together. We played the Alliance side (although I also played Horde) and had a lot of fun questing and leveling while the guys continued to trespass Ice Crown Citadel in repeated attempts to kill the Lich King. (Arthas should have just filed a restraining order against them).

Something I've gotten used to seeing is real life males playing female characters. My friends are all guys who played female toons, including my boyfriend. To counter that, I decided that my main character would be a male Night Elf Druid named Orifiel.

Here is a picture of Orifiel when he was level 80, circa spring of 2010:

"Ah, yes, my photo op by the Dalaran fountain in my outdated Tier 9 gear."

My boyfriend played a transsexual Draenei Shaman. Named Orchead. (Orchead used to be a male Orc with apparent aspirations to become pretty). Ironically, my friends couldn't fathom why I would play a male character, so I told them it was the same reason they all played female characters. But to this day, I honestly think they still don't get it. Bloody double standards.

So I went around masquerading as a guy in-game, and no one other than my friends had any inkling that I was a girl. I tend to communicate in a gender-neutral fashion online, which got Orifiel hit on several times by other female gamers. Awkward.

I picked the Druid class because I wanted to try out the tank, DPS, and healer positions without having to create another character. I soon discovered that I panic too much to be a decent healer, and my tanking skills were roughly equivalent to a 9-year-old dragging his face across the keyboard. Feral DPS it was.

Once I hit level 80, I joined my boyfriend's guild, where everyone referred to us as the gender-confused couple. I liked to make snarky comments in Guild Chat about being the one who wore the pants in the relationship. Even though my character's Tier 9 wardrobe included a skirt.

Here is a loving photo of my big, beefy Night Elf (in full Druid skirt ensemble) with my boyfriend's curvaceous, sexy Draenei (wearing the Tier 10 moose skull--er, Shaman helm), circa summer of 2010:

"Our love defies the boundaries of gender!"

By fall of 2010, nearly everyone in our group had graduated college and/or stopped playing WoW. My boyfriend and I were the only ones left, and while he remained loyal to the guild, I was in the middle of transferring to a PVE server since I had been ganked enough times to despise PVP. It got to the point where it just wasn't much fun playing on a server by myself, so I prepared to quit, too.

However, once Cataclysm came out, I stuck around to create a Worgen character and played it from level 1-85 in a month. She eventually became my main. My final character roster includes an 85 Worgen Balance/Restoration Druid, an 80 Night Elf Holy/Shadow Priest, an 80 Night Elf Feral DPS/Feral Tank Druid (Orifiel), and an assortment of lesser regarded alts.

And then I stopped playing in January 2011.

I really didn't have any inclination to play again until these past few weeks when I started watching The Guild. If you're not an MMO player, you probably won't understand it very much, but it's a comedy web series about a group of people who play an MMO together and how their gaming affects their lives and relationships.

This is a music video the cast released during the third season:

So now I'm having strong urges to start my WoW subscription again, especially since my boyfriend finally left our old, dying server and has joined a new guild on a lively one. I've managed to hold back, though, mainly because I haven't had a desktop computer set up since we moved to Destin. I don't even have a desk anymore to set it up on.

This is probably a good thing since I should be partaking in more productive activities, such as working on my writing career, continuing the impossible job search, and stalking my undergraduate professors for grad school recommendation letters. And I get distracted enough as it is by Xbox games (Fable III held my attention for nearly two weeks straight).

In conclusion, I'm proud to announce that this is one craving I haven't given into.

For now.

-J. S. Blancarte

RELATED POST(S):

• [Ungodly Cravings] #1: Instant ramen
  

[Ungodly Cravings] #1: Instant ramen

Okay, so I bloody lied about how soon Whiskey Tea Cafe would debut. My apologies. It wasn't intentional. I've been sick with some sort of stomach ailment for the past two weeks, and my only symptom is a persisting tight clenching in my upper abdomen. Which, you know, could be anything from a stomach virus to the bubonic plague.

I've stubbornly refused to see a doctor just to prove that I can take care of myself even after my health insurance runs out, although some friends have told me how absolutely retarded that logic is ("Get medical attention while you can, moron!"). I decided to compromise: I will go to the hospital in the event that this problem reaches the one month mark.

So what have I been doing all this time? I spent it watching the entire anime series of Naruto since I was rendered immobile in the fetal position on my couch for hours at a time, and Netflix was the only source of entertainment that didn't require much movement from my torso.

But to get to the point of this post, this is the first in my Ungodly Cravings series, discussing horrible foods or unproductive activities a health-inclined individual like me sometimes craves. Today's topic is instant ramen.

After witnessing Naruto stuff his face with ramen in several episodes, I decided out of the blue that I wanted to eat ramen, too. I was on a bland diet, anyway, and soup-type foods had become my primary entree. Unfortunately, the only ramen available to me was a pack of ostracized Maruchan instant ramen shoved into one corner of my pantry.

I know how awful this stuff is, but I was under a temporary Naruto-obsessed trance and was convinced that eating ramen would get me that much closer to becoming a ninja. Or something.

Needless to say, I gave into the craving, but not without some improvisation to buffer against Maruchan's sadistic plot. First off, I chucked the flavor packet directly into the trash. If I wanted that much sodium and crap in my soup, I would just go to the beach and slurp from the ocean.

Next, I pre-boiled the noodles in one pot and used another pot to set up the base of the soup.

Recipe: Improved instant ramen

Once the noodles are cooked, drain and set aside. Bring 3 cups of water to a boil in the main pot. Add the napa cabbage, ginger root, and bouillon cube and boil, covered, for 5 minutes. Add the noodles, shallots, basil leaves, and chicken. Turn off the heat and season with salt and pepper to taste.

These extra ingredients will add to the volume of the ramen and provide the meal with nutrients. So even if you're used to eating a full pack of ramen in one sitting (which I've been able to do only at the height of my physical fitness when I was in Air Force ROTC), the added volume will help split it into two servings.

My pot turned out to be five servings since I couldn't stomach more than half a bowl at a time. Tragic, I know.

Well, hopefully my digestive system isn't completely screwed.

-J. S. Blancarte