Gamer Widowhood?

I have been ruminating on the events of this video for a few days now, a video I'm pretty sure some if not all of you may have seen by now.

Let me say up front, I don't play WoW. I tried to get into Star Trek online, and I just don't have the temperament for MMORPGs. However, I have on occasion poured innumerable hours into a project and while I cannot speak for gamers as whole, I can speak based on both my experience as a geek and as a girl...

Here's the video-




First, I hope that was his apartment they were in and I hope he threw her on her ass then and there.

Second, that was a truly despicable thing for her to do. I understand the "gamer widowhood" syndrome that some ladies feel they are a victim of. Their husband/boyfriend spends too much time playing video games and not enough time with them. I get it, really I do. But ladies, I have a secret for you...

No one is making you stay with that guy.

How he spends his time is his own damn business and if he isn't fulfilling your needs, find someone else who will. You don't like that he plays World of Warcraft all the time? There are millions of guys out there that think WoW is a seventies cover band.

What you don't do is be a passive-aggressive bitch about it and undo countless hours of his hard work. It doesn't matter that it was in a game, he assigned value to it which makes it valuable. Your perceived notion that it is not valuable has no bearing on this situation.

I feel so much pain for that guy and I hope he walked into the other and room and said two words to her, "Get out."

Tauren Cat Cake

Oh-Em-Gee. That was both easier and significantly more difficult than I thought it was going to be. And the final product? Lordy, he’s cute.

(For the back story and Stumpy head thataways.)

To start with on Tuesday morning I made my own buttercream icing but since I’m never going to do that again you get no pictures. Okay, here, you can have one.

This was way more trouble than it’s worth as I used two sticks of butter, a pound of powdered sugar, half and half, and a lot of time to get half the amount you can buy from Betty Crocker for a buck fifty. I’m all for homemade, but seriously, where’s the sense in expending a lot more effort, time and money to get half the product? None, that’s what I say.

The shaping of the Tauren-Cat was actually pretty easy. Even though you can’t see it, the bottom layer actually came out of the pan in about three pieces. But it’s the bottom layer so plbbt! Who’s going to know?

Here’s what Tauren-Cat looked like all shaped up. Notice the clever use of cupcakes to fill in at his neck and to make his tail. Go ahead, notice.

Dear Lord, isn’t he cute? That round little nose is going to be my undoing. When we start eating him, I’m going for the snout.

I had to protect him overnight on Tuesday since I wasn’t going to put on the fondant until Wednesday (today?). There was nothing for the cling film to stick to so I held it down with virtually my entire spice collection. If you ever wondered what my spice cabinet had in it, here’s your chance.

And this was what was left.

From forty cakes to four. Jeez.

Next morning came time to ice. I had bought three containers of buttercream icing, and they covered approximately 85% of the cake.

Of course, I had to do what I was trying so hard not to through very careful planning. I had to go out and get more. I bought two more containers of frosting but only ended up using half of one. The other is spare, I’m sure I’ll use it eventually for something or other.

And here he is all iced up and super-cute.

Next, came fondant. I’d show you how I colored it but I wasn’t about to go picking up my camera with food coloring all over my hands. Just imagine the most strenuous kneading process you can imagine and go with that. But with color. Next, you roll out the fondant. I’d heard to use cornstarch to keep the fondant from sticking, but I used powdered sugar which worked fine and was yummier.

They sell a special rolling pin for this, but I used this one I got a buck at Christmas. As long as there’s no seam on it, it’ll be fine.

Also, I broke the cardinal rule of cake decorating. I covered him in pieces. Ordinarily, you should roll out one big sheet and lay it over the cake, then trim off any excess. But look at him, He’s all funny shaped. So I did the head, legs and tail separate.

There were some flaws mainly around the neck, but I knew no one would see the neck area so I didn’t sweat it too much.

Then came more coloring, so no intermediary pictures again (Sorry!), but the mane was made by starting halfway down his back and gluing down triangles of brown fondant. To ‘glue’ down fondant, just mix up a little bit of gumpaste in some water and the stuff will stick like you were using super-glue.

And here is he 98% complete. (He still needs his horns)

Hey! We haven’t heard from Stumpy in a while, let’s check in shall we?

In the last few days, Stumpy has gotten some detail work done. His loincloth is snazzier and he can see now, so that’s good.

But what you really want to see isn’t Stumpy, it’s the final Tauren-Cat. I’ll finish off with the picture but I want to say this, if I had a better eye for detail and wasn’t so prone to losing my patience the cake would have been a piece of… well… cake. I’d totally do it again, and I learned things.

1. Own a paintbrush to use in the kitchen. This is for dusting powdered sugar off of fondant, or any number of other uses, but that one springs to mind.

2. Fondant is not so difficult to work with as one might think. Seriously, once I got the hang of rolling it, it was a cinch.

3. I am the coolest friend ever. We all already knew that, but I totally am.

Remember what we started with? Let’s do a before and after like they do on reality shows.

Before:

After:

Update: R liked his cake, although I forgot he was on a diet so probably not so much with the eating. The SO was very impressed, thus not a total wash. Also, Stumpy's arm fell off as we were leaving the house. Also also, I got a job offer for a pastry chef position from someone at the restaurant. But with very little pay and very early hours so that's a no. Yet very cool.

Deep Breaths

Over the course of the next couple of days I will be attempting to turn this...


Into one of these...


Those of you who are of a religious inclination, pray for me.

(I will be posting about the process, but probably in stages as Holy *Shark* this is going to be interesting)

Creating Life

My skills tend to be somewhat less than I believe they are. I over-estimate my baking prowess. While I can make a decent cake / cookie / pie, when it comes to gussying it up I fall flat.

So why am I cursing at a package of gumpaste at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night?

Because I’m a good friend, and a friend’s birthday is fast approaching. I had originally planned on cookies and the thought was to make World of Warcraft the theme. This was before the Valentine’s Day cookie debacle (of which there were no survivors). Since it turns out I can’t decorate a heart, I almost immediately had second thoughts about an army of edible Taurens and Night Elves. But R is a good friend and he needed something awesome. And something awesome is what he shall have.

It was time to make my creative side for a road test.

I knew what I wanted to do for the cake (more on that later), but I also wanted something supercool as a side decoration. To distract from the cake if necessary. Something the likes of which the world has never seen. Something like… an edible version of R’s World of Warcraft character.

Let’s take a sidetrip here for a second – R’s character is called a Tauren. It’s a little like a minotaur and looks something like this.

R’s specifically looks like this.

Don’t say I’m not ambitious.

Has anyone ever heard of gumpaste? It’s about twice as appetising as it sounds (which is admittedly not much) and if you’ve ever been to a wedding chances are at least part of the cake’s decorations were made of the stuff. It’s rather like edible modelling clay (parents take note!). You can dye it to whatever colour you like, although you’ll get carpal-tunnel trying to knead in a dark colour. And I don’t care how many times I’m told you can create a decent brown using other colours, invest in a bottle of the stuff. Much like having black on hand – this will save you heartbreak down the line. Gumpaste looks like this out of the package.

And then it looked like this.



It's alive. Alive!

Since it was midnight before I got the hang of this and nearly one before I finished I have no intermediary pictures. My bad. But this is what it looks like 75% done – 75% because next week I’m going to break out the food pens and and give him so minor details. Like eyes.

Gumpaste is a little tough to work with at first but becomes much easier as you knead and work with it. Almost too easy. The poor Tauren’s legs shortened quite a bit as I tried to stand him up to dry out. I think I’ll call you Stumpy.

He’s missing something though…
Got it, every Tauren worth his horns needs an axe.

And tell me that nose ring doesn't rock your socks.