Tales of My Return Have Been Greatly Exagerated

Please be forewarned that I am channeling my inner geek for this post. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I'm letting it run wild.

As some of you may know, I was a pretty avid World of Warcraft (Wow) player for over two years. I took some breaks along the way, but the game consumed a large portion of my leisure time. In October of 2007, I called it quits. The game was just consuming too much of my time, and there were other things that I wanted to do besides slaying digital dragons.

My decision was also heavily influenced by the fact that since I was no longer working, I had the luxury of free time. It would just be too easy to spend many more hours than I planned playing the game. There were so many times when "just five more minutes" turned into hours.

So I deleted my characters, uninstalled the game and canceled my account. I really didn't miss the game a whole lot. Sure, I did miss playing with my friends, some of whom I knew before I started playing, and others who I met along the way. Still, I never really thought much about playing until recently.

Over the last six or so weeks, I started playing the Facebook game Mafia Wars. As the name implies, its a crime family themed game, where you play the role of a mobster doing "jobs" for money and experience, and fight other mobsters. You also recruit other mobsters to be part of your family. The larger your family, the better. Its a pretty simple game, but was fun for a while. Its not really a game requiring a lot of skill. Actually, the most important thing is to recruit a lot of people in your Mafia. I created a second Facebook account for my Mafia Wars toon so I could recruit a bigger family.

Eventually, I got bored with Mafia Wars. I thought about playing Wow again. My thought was to play a few hours a day, three or four days a week. I would just play with some friends and have some fun. I didn't see any problem replacing the Mafia Wars time with Wow.

I had some of my old disks, so I began installing Wow. After I finished my disk installation, I had to downloaded many patches. I probably downloaded 5 gb or so of updated game content. I contacted Blizzard (makers of Wow), who reinstated my deleted characters. After renewing my monthly subscription, I upgraded my account so that I could play the latest content (Wrath of the Lich King).

I logged on in the evening here, and within five minutes ran into a few people that I used to raid with in the past. Both were rogues in group that I raided with for quite a while. Its a small virtual world after all.

After that quick jaunt down memory lane, I played my rogue Spurlock a bit. After about an hour or so, I had to quit because I was feeling a bit sick. I felt a bit nauseous.

This morning I played for about an hour and started to feel the same way. I think that in part it was straining my eyes. I laid down for a while and felt better. Later in the day, I made some adjustments to my monitor and tried to see if it happened again. It wasn't as bad, but only a little uncomfortable is not exactly a good reason to play the game.

Before I logged off, I wanted to do something quickly in the game. The problem was that I needed my character to go from one place to another, and to do so required me to literally wait for five minutes to start the journey (catch a zeplin). Then I had to wait for another five minutes (zeplin ride).

At that point I made up my mind that, as Sawyer (from Lost) aptly put, "what's done is done", and I was done playing Wow. So, I uninstalled and canceled again.

Travel's of Paul

I know a lot of my blog is about my adventures in Thailand, but I also want to share some other stories that I think are interesting from other parts of my life.

Prior to my junior year of high school, I attended the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership seminar for Kentucky students. It was a 3 or so day enrichment program that was a lot of fun.

One of the speakers was a member of the Kentucky State legislature. When he spoke, he opened his remarks with a story. Unfortunately, I cannot remember his name, and I am far from certain that he is the origin of this story. In any case, its one I enjoy very much, so I will repeat the story he told as best I remember it.

During my last semester at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, I had a huge course load. I had eighteen hours of high level courses in my major, and needed another three credit hours to graduate. I decided to enroll in New Testament Studies. The reason for my choice was that this was widely regarded as the easiest class in school. The entire course grade was determine by the final exam. Every year, without fail, the final exam question was a single question asking the examinee to discuss the travels of the prophet Paul.

I devoted myself the entire semester to the classes in my major. I only attended the New Testament class on the first day to get the syllabus and find out the day of the final exam.

A week before the exam in my New Testament class, I threw myself into studying the life and travels of Paul. By the morning of the exam, I knew Paul's travels almost as well as did he.
As I sat for the exam, I was extremely confident. The professor passed out the exam books. As it I turned the exam over, it was as I expected, a single question. I read it to myself, "Critically discuss the Sermon on the Mount."

Now not only did I receive an "A" on the exam, but they framed and hung my exam in the sacred halls of Xavier. Here is the first sentence of my response:

Let those who will criticise the world of the Lord, I shall discuss the travels of Paul.

Even after twenty plus years, that story makes me smile.

Thailand Number Two

Traditional bathrooms in Thailand are quite different from those to which Western tourists and residents are accustomed. Although they continue to grow in popularity, the traditional porcelain throne and toilet paper that grace American restrooms are not traditional staples in Thai bathrooms.

A "traditional" Thai bathroom stall has a porcelain bowl that rises several inches from the floor. The bowl is oval, and the sides are wider and grooved. Instead of sitting on the bowl, the "user" places their feet on the sides of the bowl and squats.

After vacating their bowels, users traditionally did not clean themselves with toilet paper. Each bathroom would have a bucket of water. Bathroom patrons would clean themselves using the water and their hands.

One challenge for novice porcelain bowl users like me is learning the proper squatting technique. The first time I tried squatting, I actually kept my feet in front of the bowl. I quickly found that my legs grew tired.

My other concern was ensuring that the contents of my bowels ended up in the bowl and not my underwear. As I have not yet mastered the squat, I have sometimes taken off my underwear and shorts and held them while I perform my duty. An issue with this is that Thai bathroom floors are often very wet, so you have to be very careful avoid getting your pants wet.
Certainly Thai bathrooms present more of a challenge for women. A friend of mine from the states explained to me the difficulty in peeing into a porcelain bowl without splashing one's shoes and ankles. My wife, however, explained to me that there is an aiming technique to avoid this undesirable result. I did not ask her for a demonstration, but as I have never noticed her to have wet ankles, I can only assume that she is correct.

Fortunately, I have never had to clean myself without the benefit of toilet paper. Perhaps this Thai tradition of cleaning oneself with water and a hand is related to the fact that they wai instead of shaking hands. I certainly wouldn't want to shake hands with a person who recently used his hand to wipe himself. And while I understand that traditionally one would wipe with one's left hand, if you've ever seen a child's basketball game, you know that some people just can't go to their left.

Interestingly, some bathrooms in Thailand that do have toilet paper do not have it in the individual stalls. Instead, there is a large roll of toilet paper as you enter the restroom. You take what you need before entering the stall. The issue that this presents is that if you are not used to that arrangement, that you might forget and not realize it until you've made your deposit. That is certainly not an enviable position.

Another thing I've noticed about Thai bathrooms is that most don't have paper towels. Some have the electronic dryers, while some don't have anything to dry with except the common toilet paper roll. Personally, I find drying my hands with toilet paper a bad option, as it tends to dissolve when wet. In a pinch, I am wont to use the inside of my pockets to dry my hands.
So what do you do when you come and visit Thailand and the "spirit moves you"? First, don't panic. Western style bathrooms are growing more and more popular, and are found in most tourist places. There is a very good chance that you won't have any issues. The more “touristy” an area, the more likely you will find a porcelain seat. Secondly, before entering any stall, make sure it has toilet paper in it. If not, be sure to look outside the stall to see if you can find any there. Thirdly, unless you yearn for that Thai experience of cleaning with water, bring a small pack of tissues with you when you go out. The packs are small and can fit easily in a pocket or purse.

My final tip is more of a preventative measure. I would advise you to be careful what you eat. You should certainly enjoy the wide variety of food while you are here. There are things that you can taste here that you won't get in the states, some of which is very delicious. However, if you know that your stomach reacts harshly to spicy food, or dairy goes right through you, you might not want to pig out on the spiciest of curries or drink a milkshake fifteen minutes before going out. Learning to squat while incurring Montezuma's wrath might make your trip memorable, but probably not in a pleasant way.