On Losing the Last Two Months of My Life

I recently realized that I had been rather lax about getting a new blog post up and decided to slowly get myself ready to start writing again. For some reason I thought I would get inspired by checking and seeing when it was that I started this blog. May 16th 2012 was the date I "published" my first post, and the fact that my one year blogiversary is a month and a half away was not the first thing that I noticed. When I saw that the last post that I "published" was January 29th I almost swore outloud. (I was at work at the time, and thought it would be inappropriate... I cannot even type that with a straight face. The people who sit near me are some of the sickest, most twisted and generally inappropriate people I have ever met... and I love them for it! )

I knew I did not post anything in March, but had no idea that I had missed February as well. Now you may be asking yourself, "How could he have not realized that he hadn't written anything in two months? Was he sick? Did he hit a rough patch in his life? Drugs? Alcohol? Did he get really busy?" I truly wish I could say yes to any of these, but the reality of the situation can be summed up in three little words: World of Warcraft.

Yep, an online video game derailed my creativity and took over my life for the last couple of months. I wish I could say I was done with it, but alas, I will be fighting an ongoing battle to balance my time between writing and gaming for the foreseeable future. The problem was that Blizzard, the makers of WoW, came out with a new expansion for the game. At first the price point was beyond my meager finances, but after months of ignoring it, the price dropped down to a mere twenty dollars and I couldn't say no. Then it began.

I become obsessive when it comes to video games -- it is a problem I have always had. I would get a new game and do little else until I beat it. Once I got into a game I would lose hours of my life. I can remember one time my ex-wife commented that she went to bed and woke up the next morning and I was in the same exact position. It was true: I had played straight through the night, saying to myself "Once I get to this point I will stop." I would get there and say "Just a little bit more," and the next thing I knew it was the next morning. (It was one of the Zelda games, if you were wondering.)

This is not a new condition for me and I am not the only person in my family that suffers from it. I remember as a child, my family always seemed to have a video game system. We started with a pong game, moved on to an Intellivision, then to the Atari, and finally the Nintendo. My mother would play just as much as us kids. She used to tell me that she would get the high score in a game, and then my brother and I would play like crazy to beat her score. It was also the first time I ever heard my mother swear. She was playing a game and I kept hearing "shit!" and "damn it!"

This obsessive personality is one of the main reasons I avoid video games now. I have a Wii and a couple of Game Cubes for the kids, but I really don't touch them. It is too easy to get sucked into games -- at least for me it is. Especially since the graphics are a million times better than the best video games of my youth. I mean, I remember the handheld football games that were popular in the 80's. Just a little dot, with up, down, left and right buttons (plus a pass and punt button). The only games I do play now, except for WoW, are the Rock Band/Guitar Hero games, but I will talk more about my love of music and my desires to be rock star in another post.

I have basically committed myself to playing just one video game. That is how I am trying to handle my gaming addiction. Unfortunately, the one game I have chosen is an unending MMORPG. World of Warcraft goes on and on and on, and just when you think you have done everything that you want to do in the game, they come out with a patch full of new content. These patches are designed to keep you happy and playing until the next big expansion comes out. When an expansion is released, you go crazy working to get your character to the next maximum level, raising all of your character's skills to the new maximum level, and then you can start going after all sorts of achievements. Aaaaahhhh. Too much to do. I am getting all twitchy and wanting to switch over right now, but I won't. I am going to finish this blog post tonight, and if I have time maybe I'll jump on to WoW for a little bit.

One of the things I find funny, and a bit sad, is that the game added farming to the things you can do in the game (which already includes First Aid, Fishing and Cooking) with the newest expansion. I log on every day to plant new crops and harvest the ones that are ready to be picked. I also run/fly (not only can my character turn into a bird, but I also have a good collection of flying mounts) around and fish, to get the ingredients I need to increase my cooking skill. I will spend hours fishing and farming in the game, two tasks you couldn't pay me to do in real life.

I don't exactly know where this post is going -- it was supposed to be a way of explaining my absence from blogging, and was going to contain an apology for those who have been reading faithfully, that I left high and dry. I am truly sorry! But if it is any consolations, my main character is at level 90, First Aid, Fishing, Cooking, Skinning and Leather Working are all at 600. I just got my reputation to 'exalted' with the Tillers and I am about to work on the Anglers, and sorry, I am sorry, I will stop now. I'm geeking out big time again. (I'm Lemykins on Quel'dorei server, find me!)

Notice the giant vegetables I have planted... help me!!!

P.S. You will also notice this post is shorter than my usual one, but hey, I did say I would jump on the game after I finished blogging....

How I Got the Beetus, part 3: My Caramel Coloring Addiction

Hello, my name is John... and I am a sodaholic. I have already talked about my love of cake and candy. Now it is time to talk about one of the biggest reasons I ended up with type 2 diabetes: soda. Carbornated beverages have always been my crack. They are cheap, easy to get, and terrible for me.

I believe, like most issues I have, my addiction is all my parents' fault. I am just kidding, of course, but let me explain why I even brought my parents into this. When I was young, my siblings and I were not allowed to have soda. We could drink it at parties and other special occasions, but not as an everyday beverage. My father drank soda like it was water (which it basically is -- just carbonated -- but I digress...) and I would watch him. It hardly seemed fair, while I guzzled glass after glass of milk, he partook of the sweet dark brown nectar known as soda. It was no wonder that once I grew up and got out on my own, soda became my beverage of choice.

As usual, I will sidetrack here. Before I get into a discussion about my unhealthy obsession with soda, let me tell you a little bit about my addictive personality. I have always been afraid that I was predisposed to addiction and have always avoided alcohol and drugs like the plague.

If anyone has ever watched the show Taxi, you will surely remember Christopher Lloyd's character, Reverend Jim Ignitowski. He was your basic lovable burnout that did waaaay too many drugs in his life. There was an episode where they showed Jim's life before he got into drugs: he was a preppy college student who didn't want anything to do with drugs, until a girl (his girlfriend?) pressured him to try a pot brownie. In this episode, he delivers this wonderful line, saying that it has been proven that some people have a highly addictive personality and you never know, he may be one of them. He takes a bite of the brownie and his face distorts, going back to the same facial expression the later, drug-addled Jim would possess. He tells the girl to run ahead and when he's alone he grabs a bunch more brownies.

I always thought that was something that could happen to me and thought the best way to combat it would to be to avoid drugs and alcohol. I can't even stop picking my nose--I can only imagine what would happen if I got hooked on something that was truly addictive. I still have never tried drugs, but I did break my rule on alcohol. Not that I drink, but I have sampled many, many different alcoholic drinks. Usually it was to humor someone who was convinced that you could not taste the alcohol in a particular drink. I always could. I never aquired a taste for alcohol, therefore never learned to like it.

That all being said, I truly believe I am addicted to soda. Maybe it is just that this is my primary source of caffeine, but whatever the reason, I am hooked. Well, I think I have isolated my addiction to caramel coloring, because I only drink the dark-colored sodas. Cola is my first choice and when it comes to it, I am not particular. I will drink Coke or Pepsi (I favor Pepsi, but that is primarily because that is the one that seems to go on sale the most around here). I usually drink Sam's Club (generic WalMart cola) because it is still only 84 cents (or is it 87?) for a 2-liter bottle, and with the amount I drink, cost is the most important factor.

I will drink Dr. Pepper and Root Beer, but tend to avoid the Sprites, Ginger Ales, Mountain Dews, Oranges and other non-dark brown carbonated beverages. I will drink them in a pinch but only if I have to. God forbid I should drink water! I also don't care what time of day it is -- I will drink Soda at breakfast, lunch or dinner, and often imbibe at all three times of day.

Food does have some effect on when I drink soda: if I am having pancakes or eggs, soda is okay, but if I am eating a bowl of cereal, absolutely not. Cola and milk do not mix--sorry Ms. Defazzio. There are some foods, like Pizza, that I have trouble eating without my favorite beverage. This seems to confirm that I do have an addiction, because you often hear stories of how certain activities, or places will make smokers want to smoke. As soon as I am in front of a pizza, I just have to have a nice tall glass of whatever cola is available.

Not to steal material from comedian Lewis Black, but has anyone ever gone to a restaurant and decided not to eat there because they served Pepsi and not Coke, or vice versa? Do people actually refuse to drink Pepsi if the restaurant doesn't serve Coke? Some people must be beverage-loyal, because why do waitresses always ask you if Coke is okay when you ask for Pepsi, or if Pepsi is okay when you ask for Coke? Anyway, I'm drifting away from my topic, once again.

Before my diagnosis, I would drink straight-up Cola. Do you have any idea how much sugar is in a 2-liter bottle of soda? I would often drink at least a bottle a day. Who am I kidding? I could drink a bottle at a single meal. I used to buy a 2-liter bottle from the local convenience store and drink it straight out of the bottle throughout the day at work--every day. I sometimes could make a 2-liter last for two days, but most of the time it was done by the end of the work day. What do you think I drank when I got home? Yep, more (sugar) soda. So after years and years of pouring sugar down my throat, it is no surprise that I have the beetus.

Well now that I am actually making an effort to slow the progress of my disease, I have made the transition to diet cola. I have greatly reduced the amount of cola I consume, and at work I drink mostly water, with a cup or two of tea to get the caffeine my body needs. When I am at home, however, soda is the beverage of choice. At some level I have just traded filling my body with sugar with filling it with chemicals that are probably going to do as much damage, but I seem unwilling or unable to stop.

I know I should give up the soda, or at least try to cut back even more, but until scientists come out and say that each 20-ounce bottle is taking 6 months off of my life or something similar, I will keep drinking it. To think, all those years ago, my parents weren't being stingy, they were just trying to help me from getting hooked, like them. If only I had listened!