I Can't Believe it's Not Butter!

A Look at Gaming Food

By: Kiara

Word association time. When you think of gaming, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Snacking of course! Games, whether on the computer or pen and paper, require food and drink. There are certain staples that grace the computer desks of gamer geeks everywhere. There are also some slightly odder preferences too. What you eat when you game says a lot about you. Okay, probably not, but it sure sounded good in my head.

Drinks

Beverages are very important! Gaming is thirsty work and you must always be well hydrated. I mean after all, you can't have your healer parched and unable to scream out into TeamSpeak that "Hey there are like four mobs bashing on me can you please for the love of GOD find your frelling taunt button already?!?!?!" Because, ya know, she'll die before she can get it out if her throat is all dry and stuff from no drinkage. * nod *

Now, the big question here is: What to drink? Water is always good, and it doesn't make your keyboard sticky when someone says something funny and makes you spit it out all over the place. Soda, in whatever form you choose (but not pepsi cause it's like totally eww and stuff) is also good, but beware drinking too much of it. Excessive sugar and caffiene make for a hyper little dark elf who runs off after shinies when she should be healing. Not that I've ever done such a thing. * adjusts halo *

Of course, there are other schools of thought. These include the amped up energy drinks that make you vibrate til all of your molecules separate and you can pass through solid objects. The problem here of course is when you fall through your chair and everyone asks what that thump was because you have an open mic and ever one in TeamSpeak can hear EVERYTHING you do.

Then there are the occasional guild drinking nights... These lead to such antics as I previously covered in the "Let's see how many times we can kill Kiara" article. Yeah. Repairs are still expensive, by the way. It should also be noted that it leads to mooing. And mooing... well it's just always a hoot and we don't all die from it.

Food

Also a vital part of gaming. Fortification for long hours camping that stupid lion in the Commonlands, or trying for the umpteenth time to get up the stupid chain without falling off, or trying to unload your stolen Alliance cargo... err sorry, wrong show. As I was saying.

Choice of food is very important. So naturally food will fall into a few catagories.

In this corner, we've got your real food. Prepared on the stove, actually cooked and requiring proper plates and flateware and junk to consume. This isn't the kind of food you want when you need to be quick on the draw and it's always a gamble when you have it precariously balanced twixt keyboard and edge of computer desk. Fortunately I got the stains out. Spaghetti and white carpet? Yeah. Bad mix there. * nod *

And in this corner, weighing in at a whopping artery clogging one million calories a serving and chock full of cholesterol and fat and all that other stuff that makes food taste good, are your various microwavables. This can include everything from Hot Pockets to the herb crusted grilled chicken with baby carrots, dilled new potatoes, and wild rice but don't worry it's that new healthy diet junk from Lean Cuisine. Always nuked in under ten minutes, often not even requiring a fork, this is the manna of the gaming diet. Heaven sent and always tastey in that cardboardy, not even the chocolately tasting icing can quite disguise that the dessert is the same thing as the salisbury steak kind of way.

Then you've got your snack foods. Cookies, candy, beef jerky, finger foods of various sorts, and in the case of certain pink pants dwarven clerics, jelly beans. A whole buttload of food falls into this category. Some of it's actually good for you, but most of us ignore those, cause oh my god when in the hell did gamers get all healthy and junk? Anyone who knows a pink pantsededed (oops... sorry got a little carried away there, snickers bar fingers and all) dwarven cleric knows that butter popcorn and coconut jelly beans are the best gaming snack food ever. Not for the one eating them really, just for the people on TeamSpeak who get to hear the cries of "OMG NOOOO (insert certain choice expletives here)!!"

Obviously, I didn't hit every possible consumable, and I think I'm profoundly grateful for this fact. I'm beyond certain that the things some folks put in their mouths would horrify me past all capacity for human endurance (read: any form of bug eating). You should always have sustenance on hand, though. Just remember when choosing your nourishment that the easier it is to get out of your keyboard the better! Cause ya know, you just haven't lived til you've tried to clean stuff like soup, or fried rice, or honey (yes, honey... just don't ask, it was a highlight moment I swear to god) out of your keyboard. Did you know those little keys all come off and are hard as heck to put back together again... I had typos out the wazoo for days til I figured out where they went!)