yes we can, has, cheesburgr, pizza

Yesterday I made cheeseburger pizzas. I took some cheap ass marguerita pizzas and plain hamburgers from the local supermarket. (Lidl ofcourse, I'm unemployed these days :P) Then came the genius part: I cut up the burgers in four pieces. I kinda reshaped them to look like mini-burgers, and then I just fried them like ordinairy burgrz.



After that came the real smart move: slicing the mini burgers in half like shown on the pic. The reasoning behind this elaborate slicing is because I figured that the original hamburgers were probably to thick to put on a pizza.

Spread the burgrz on the pizza, and add some cheese. Can't have pizza without adding cheese. Shove in the oven:




And enjoy!

The dust never settles

You'd think that after setting fire to your fathers' corpse and running around telling everybody the same story because there really is nothing else to say, stressing around work, home, kids, moms, funeral directors and bosses, that life would somehow balance shit out for a man and give a brother some R&R.

NO DICE.

My luxury position as the returned prodigal son at work was going down the drain faster than an eel on a vaseline trip (don't ask). I wasted the first six months of my contract and now I'm facing the tough challenge to produce some serious results before the end of this year, or I'll be looking for a new job.

Getting a new job is not an option. I chose to go back to where I am because I want to be there, not for the money or the happy faces or the comfort of having to cycle
40 fucking kilometers every goddamn day. I want to do this because I did it before and I can do better this time around.

So, uneasy times ahead. Good.

This weekend is unlikely to happen again

Last night, at around 23:45, I kissed my wife goodbye, shouldered my backpack and set off into the darkness. I used my bicycle to follow a well known route to a town some 20 kilometers away, to join my mother, my brother and his girlfriend, to watch my father die.

No death comes expected. No parting is ever easy. But as I held him, while he struggled with all the energy he had left just to swallow a painkiller, I figured that sometimes it's maybe just not worth it anymore. Sometimes a person has to admit that life is not life worth living, and that death is our kinder option. Maybe even a friend. A friend who scares us, since he does not share our common desires or fears, and discards them as irrelevant, for life is life and that is signified by a beginning and thus, by an ending as well. And that is what he is there for.

This morning around nine o'clock, that ending came for my father.


I wrote the above the evening of the my father died. Since then, we've been through quite an odd week. We managed to do well, as a family. The whole thing has come to pretty good ending, regarding the circumstances. No doubt I'll be feeling some grief and pain along the way, but that is just what life is about. Like my mother said: "pregnancy and birth, death and disease, those are things that make life unique."

Ashes to ashes, you know the drill.

Switch that Cruel Barb...

....To your main hand and whoomp up goes the damage. Daggers are bad, I have learned from reading some rogue tips, by some actual rogues.

Still at level 19, will do some levelling in the weekend probably. WoW is no longer the priority it once was and I'm glad. Right now, my daughters are the most important thing in my life, period. My dying father, man, what can I say? It sucks, it sucks harder than anything ever before but I can't do anything.

There are so many things I could worry about. But I've learned that worrying just drains energy, and it never solves anything. So I try not to and get on with things.

Holy Schmoly

So, to keep things short, Holy sucks. Leveling as holy sucks, alliance sucks etcetera. Good thing I have my horde alts. Went for the heirloom PvP shoulders, rolled a fresh belf rogue and I'm enjoying myself so far. There's a priest in the making too, maybe after four years I'm finally ready to roll something else than a paladin -.-

The name? Solidninja...

I just wanted to get started ok? It sucks, but it has some Metal Gear in it and it has ninja in it so it works out on a certain level. It probably impresses the kids too. Or the elderly.

I need a name change :(

Aw man, almost a month ago?

Since I updated my shit? Yes. Ok.

There's not much to say anyway. WoW-wise I'm thinking about quitting again, not because I'm addcited but because I'm bored. I simply do not want to make time to raid because it cuts into m,y time with my children. So I'm stuck farming heroics.

Retribution is getting rather stale too, I've been doing it too long. I bought the Prot spec and I've got some good gear for it, might try tanking for a while but to be honest my heart's not in it right now.

My last resort is my new project, Thulium. A fresh pallie that's going to level himself through heirlooms and BG's mostly. Strictly holy, since holy is the new ret.

Wraak's Pro Tip #1: passwords

using a password like:

fuckyoukeyloggingbastard

is probably the right thing to do.

Gone fishing

So there is a new expansion coming up. It's very early days, but the domain has been claimed by Blizzard, and that means a decision has been made. That means that part of the company is working on a new expansion.

Meanwhile, I got removed from a group that was going to farm some HC instances because my damage was too low. DPS and tank were all Ulduar level gear so that explains the gap I suppose. Too bad the idiot that wanted me out spent about half an hour coming to that decision and kept the rest of us waiting while we could have cleared another HC.

E-peening is all well and good, but true pros know when to swing that thing. It does sting though. Back when retribution was made of suck, in TBC, I prided myself on being able to keep with or even outdps equal-geared players, and when Wrath just launched I went all out to get the best pre-raid gear. I outdpsed (almost) anything back then, giving rogues a run for their money on single target fights.

And then I took a break, because the fanatic way I was playing was taking its toll on my private life. And when I came back, I had this level 71 to level up, while people were clearing Ulduar.

I'm not going to bother. Dragon Filet does 100 gold on the AH. I'm going fishing.

Whatever I seem to do...

...I can't do anything longer than a few minutes before the ugly truth hits me again. My father is dying. It's not something that will go away. He is ill, and he will get weaker and weaker and weaker until it's over. I would have preferred not to mention this on my blog, but real life is kinda forcing my hand since can't do shit without thinking about it. Hopefully, by writing I can clear my thoughts up a bit, because they are confused at best at the moment.

It's amazing how little you can actually do about it. I can take the kids and visit more often, and that's about it. As for myself, I have no clue about how to deal with this so I'm choosing not to do anything. There is nothing I can do anyway.

More than ever I have to watch my temper it seems. I was chasing a car this morning (on my bike, yes) just for cutting me off. I swear, I would have knocked him senseless had he pulled over. Good thing he didn't.

My apologies if this entry makes little sense, not much seems to make sense to me at the moment. I just hope that this relieves a bit of the pressure.

Moo.

Moo indeed. I am back in WoW, but that's not the reason I'm not keeping this blog up to date. My job is the reason. It's too much fun most of the time to just sacrifice and hour in order to come up with a random rant that isn't completely boring to plow through.

However, I have a holiday coming up next week, so right now I have some time to spare. Let's get up to speed with some stuff:

- Why am I back in WoW? Other games just didn't hold up. I'm spoilt by this game, and I fear I may never be able to enjoy another game as I enjoy Warcraft.

- What am I doing? Well, not much. I'm going for random achievements because it's nice to have a specific goal. I've done about four heroics since I got back, and one or two Naxx 10 runs. I also got the Chopper on Vandobben:



Yes, it's a nice ride, and having a passenger along is awesome, especially when you drive out of the Dalaran sewer tunnel into the air, and the druid that is along for the ride remembers to go into flight form just in time. Great stuff.

Vandobben...yes. Both Wraak and Vandy are now girls, and Vandy is ahead in terms of gear, having some naxx runs under her belt. However, Wraak is the character I enjoy playing most. But she's undercapped and undergeared for a DPS job, has no real prot gear for offspec, etc etc. There is loads more work involved into getting her to a playable status.

Work that I did put into Vandobben, and it was exactly that work that made me quit.

That is what's been keeping me busy: who do I go on with? Vandobben has a nice guild, that deserves more of my participation in raids, when I have time (which I don't, but that's another story)And then there is Kavash and Tecrin from Grinding Pains who I enjoy playing with. And who, incidentally, also helped me get my beautious Bronze Drake, or Poo, as I like to call him.

I'd like to focus on one character, at least, I think so. Suggestions are welcome, though it's always a possibility to just continue gearing them both, and see where it leads.(Vandobben needs to get sexchanged back though, female belfs just are too skinny, yech)

Summertime at the best company in the world

So, let me paint you a picture.

It's nearly thirty degrees celsius in our lovely three-story HQ. We just closed last month with reasonable succes, our number one advisor almost hit 40k, I got stuck at around 16k. That was allright, since I had had only two full weeks to get up to speed.

All in all, we are damn confident of the sales team we have now. I love this, pushing for more more and ever more.

MOAR!

because moar!

Oh and the boss buys us beers. Gotta love that!

Greener pastures, updates, and gaming needs/habits/illusions

I went back to my old job and I'm loving it. Working witn websites and internet all the time suits me way better than talking to creaky old sheet metal workers that can't even be bothered to wipe their arses after taking a shit. Yes, UK workers, I'm talking to you. Suck my dick with your continuous whining about money, taxes, travel, accomodation, flights, bookings, bags, everything. No more. I still savour every moment of not having to call another one of you crying babies. QQ moar, but not to me.

Glad to get that off my chest.

WoW-wise, it's under control.

/Flex, baby

Thanks Aveil!

...

They see me Cultivatin, they be hatin'

No more WAR means no more cultivation. Goodbye little ones :-(

Decisions

As you may have gathered from the last entry, I was quite enjoying myself in Warhammer. I love how the game feels like you are standing in the world of the boardgame and the way the PvE part (PQ's and such) is being handled. PvP-wise I was enjoying myself a lot more than with WoW. All in all, a thoroughly decent game. Which I'm not going to renew my subscription for.

Why not? Because it's another grind to a point where I'll end up not achieving the ingame goals I've set, simply because my life does not permit me to spend that much time on a game. I've tried to just go with the game's flow and run around like a noob, not caring what skills I used and whether I was "doing it right", just to get back that feeling I had when WoW was still fresh to me, and holy shock was my pull (lulz). But after a week I was scouring class forums and checking easily obtained high quality gear; adjusting my levelling path just to make sure I followed the "optimal" route.

I know where this is headed, and I'm not going there again. So once the sub runs out it's goodbye Warhammer. I will give EVE another shot, and that will probably be it, MMO-wise.

Meet Koud Bier

Meet my new pride and joy in the game of Warhammer Age of Reckoning: Koud, the Chaos chosen, champion of the northern wastelands and lover of heavy armor. Also a great fan of the colour yellow.



I've tried almost all classes in WAR up to around rank 8-10, but I think I'll stick with Koud for a while. He is rank 8 now, and I've devised a cunning plan to level him up. Instead of moving through the storyline, doing quests in a certain area and moving on to the adjacent one, I'm grinding Public Quests in all areas of my level (so that's the High vs Dark elves, Greenskins vs Dwarfs and Chaos vs Empire chapters)

Every chapter contains three Public Quests that drop Da Fat Lewtz, and usually I can solo one of them (the easy one, yeah) These PQ's also grant you influence, which kinda works like reputation in WoW, apart from the fact it takes three hours to max one out instead of three months. And no furbolgs are harmed (so far, anyway). These influence rewards are pretty good for their level as well.

So that's how Koud rolls. He also is a fanatical Cultivist, which is like an activist with plants. That's right, big and tough champion of Chaos cares for little plants. He nourishes them to full fruition and watches them grow, and flower. He makes sure the soil is perfect, that the moisture levels are juuust right and that all his little sprouts get the sunlight they need.

And then he rips them out of the ground to grind them up and make potions and dyes out of them. It's how he rolls. He has posters of Arthas in his bedroom as well.When he reaches level -I mean rank- 20, he will venture to the Inevitable City and purchase himself a last name, Bier. From then on, he shall be known as Koud Bier.

That is probably only funny for Dutch readers.

New header

Foshizzle, my wife photoshopped me a new header. I must be the only person on the interblags not to know how to photoshop stuff. The header is some Sisters of Battle looking religious and probably also serious. I'm not sure it is in anyway connected to the blog.

Reverse progress...

...Is not the same as, uhm, regress or degress? I digress. This weblog started out as a sort of report on how my cold-turkey WoW rehabilitation was going to develope. As it turned out, after two weeks of rather interesting entries, the addiction was gone, conquered, defeated. So much for that. I still have very little desire to come back to WoW, or it would have to be to troll the Shattered Halls forum.

So with Wow out of the way, things got boring rather quickly. I rekindled my interest in Oblivion and powered through the first 10-12 levels on two or three characters. I picked up Morrowind, one of my all-time favourites and added some flavour through mods. All nice enough, but something was missing.

Other people. As much as I like to sustain that I'd rather be a complete recluse, gaming online with other people is just...fun. Especially when it's pvp, and they are on the opposite side getting their faces smashed in. Maybe that's not so social. But it does require other people.

So there I sat, one afternoon, tired of Oblivion, lounging in front of my pc deciding what to do. I looked at any software I could delete, just to relieve the boredom. At the end of the list was this program called "Warhammer Age of Reckoning".

Hello. What's this?

I bought the game months ago for my birthday. I had played it too for a while and noticed the potential. But it was maybe a month after it was released, and it suffered from severe graphical glitches. My pc wasn't up to it, and the interference with the gameplay was just to much so I had let my sub run out and had left it at that. Just to see what was going on with the game, I went to the site, only to find out they were offering trial accounts.

What the hell, why not.

Real Life is Serious Business part 2

So, I will not tell you which game I'm playing at the moment. Let's just say that in the US, a mans best friend is a big dog. That should give those that are in the know a clue, albeit a cryptic one, to what I'm into. The real challenge is not the game ofcourse, it's the synergy between playing a time-consuming behemoth of an mmorpg and not losing track of real life. Because real life, as we all know, is SRS BSNS.

I'm going to try and compile a list of reasons and causes why mmorpg-ing takes up so much more time, and compells me to the screen so much more. You, dear reader, are of course welcome to join in and add reasons of your own, so that we may one day have a great compendium of how-to's and how-nots and watch-out-your-wife-is-going-to-leave-yous. Here we go then:

The big list of reasons why mmorpgs eat up my life whereas regular (offline) games do not:

1) Size: mmorpgs are big. Areas are big, compared to offline games. They need to be, since there are often more players around. That means that simply navigating the game world and gaining experience will take, on average, longer.

2) Realtime: I think this is an important difference. Mmorpgs do not have a pause button that you can quickly press. You either log out or you find a safe place, but those things both take more time than pressing a pause button. Don't believe me? Here is an example:

What you should do, is just drop what you are doing like in a normal game and focus on whatever RL issue/thing/monster is in need of your attention. But that could mean you die in-game. And dying in a game goes against the very fiber of the gamers' nature. Dying is for noobs. Dying is 2007. Dying is Not Done.

So you spent 5 minutes hiding your toon behind a tree, checking mob patrol paths and asking in chat if any hostile players have been seen recently. By the time you have "secured" your character, you can bet your subscription that whatever drew your attention has been dealt with, not by you, but by someone who might have had better things to do.

More to come.

Real Life is Serious Business (part 1)

A little billing issue with Blizzard reminded me of how long I haven't played World of Warcraft, three months, give or take a few days. Three months seems like a long time. But since I was going through my payment history anyway, I decided to dig up when my account was created.

June 2005.

Bloody hell. That's almost four years. So all of a sudden, three months doesn't mean that much anymore. Or does it? I'm afraid it does. I may be done with WoW, in fact, I'm pretty sure of that. But that doesn't mean that my love for the MMORPG genre is gone. To be completely straight, I HAD no love for MMORPGs until I picked up WoW. Before Warcraft, I lived my gaming life by this motto: "I play games to escape reality and all the retards in it, why the hell would I want to join the same retards in a game, and pay monthly for the privilege as well?" I now know the answer, because it's fun, there is no AI that could substitute the erratic human mind, and because most people are not, contrary to what I thought, retards. Barrens excluded, natch.

So while Warcraft is a closed chapter (well, book) the story of the MMORPG-fever in 4701s brain goes on. I tried several mmo-games during and after WoW; including Warhammer, EVE, Spellborn and even Istaria (get vista supported you cocks.)None of them appealed to me the way World of Warcraft did. Not back then, anyway. I was still caught up in the way WoW works, and there was little room in my head for something else. But I quit WoW, and the last lingering aromas of that sweet sweet game are fading. My mmo-nose can pick up other smells again, not just Blizzard-scented ones.

Which smell proved to be strongest, and whether it was strong enough to seduce me back to mmo-land is something for part 2...

Doodle 2

This is a new doodle, made during a very interesting business meeting.

Excuse the crappy editing, but the thing was made in the margin of a list. It was only one half before I scanned and mirrored it in paint (no photoshop on my work pc, what are people thinking?). I also decided to delete several company names using the airbrush tool, I know my responsibilities!

Oh, here's the original:

Sketchy situation

So today, I'm like totally going to talk about ME. I'm a hardcore Doodler. In fact, I've been Doodling all my life. In the margins of all my highschool paperwork, you will find sketches of fantasy creatures, space marines, trees, egg houses, birds, tanks, guns, mechs, techs, dooms, glooms and spacebumbles. My teachers thought this to be a sign of laziness, which is, of course, rubbish. The fact that I was able to finish school without a) doing a crap, b) get decent grades for the classes that interested me, and c) was able to keep on doodling all the way up to my exams just shows how good I was at multitasking.

Either that, or school just wasn't that hard. Hm.

Anyways, that was my first period of intense Doodling. My second period was a few years back at a Callcenter, which is the perfect environment for a Doodler. You have your hands free all the time, and nobody cares about what you do on paper, as long as your mouth is moving. Making a sale was the best part, it gave you an extra coffee break and some calls that you could just fuck up and keep Doodling, since you were ahead of the game anyway. I filled up an entire dummy in a years time with Doodles.

But after that great period, came the Doodle Depression! Yessah! Such a busy job, so much pressure, no time to Doodle at all! It was a disgrace, to be honest. But now the tides have turned. In my current job, I have found the perfect balance between online leisure and, well, work. So now, I proudly show you the results:



Everybody say awesome.

Breathing

I should probably breathe out more, and more slowly. Zen just isn't my thing though.

Food, delicious food, how I love thee

So, yesterday was a normal work day, with some normal emaling to and from the home front. When it came to dinner, we were both out of ideas, and Owlet mentioned she'd just take the ducklings out shopping and she would see if she ran into anything nice.

I figured, well ok, rice and some prefabricated sauce woudln't be my first choice, but I can live with it. Easily, I'm hungry as hell all the time anyway. But despite that, my expectations for the evening meal were not high.

Imagine how my jaw dropped when I came home that night. Owlet had gone all Pioneer Woman on me! Here's the goodness, and boy oh boy, it was goooood. Unfortunately, the lady Drummond does not allows us city slickers to abuse her imagery, so you will have to make do with the urls. It's no punishment to check her website anyway, so gogo!


Zucchini cakes

Ranch Chicken (garglegargleslurp; makes me swoon just thinking of it)

Onion Rings

and fresh Homemade Ranch Dip to top it all off.

It was so fucking good, I'm still feeling like I'm floating on a cloud. The saying goes that the way to a mans heart is through his stomach. Well, maybe it is. and not because men are gorging pigs, but because GOOD FOOD MATTERS, GODAMMIT. It brightens your day, it makes you get tiny orgasms in your head, it re-establishes family ties (if you manage to keep your kids at the table long enough) and , oh yeah, it keeps you alive too.

Snippets

Today, I decided to take the train, because outside it looks like rain. Yesterday I shaved my head, because lots of hair makes me look bad. I think brothers' new house is a go, I sure hope so. Owlet posted her "Facts of the day" I'm not sure what's she's trying to say. Last night I had salmon, pasta, peas and cream, it's way tastier than it might seem. Sometimes I still feel like playing WoW, it really was an addiction you know.

Maybe the best game ever is a bit to good

Since I quit WoW, I've never once checked BigRedKitty. I knew that his enthusiasm and light-hearted manner were just the sort of thing that would make me feel comfy about playing again, which is the last thing I need. Well guess what; he's quitting.

I'm not going into details, you can read what you need to know straight from the dwarfs' mouth here. If memory serves me right, Resto4life went through something similar a while back. Hell, I went through something like that a while back. Yeah for sure I did. Did you really think I woke up one morning and thought: "What a fecking great day, let's quit the best game ever."

No, it wasn't quite like that at all. I was in a deep deep dip at that time. I don't think Owlet ever got around to making plans to leave me, but she'd have had every right to do so back then. Back then...only two months ago. I'm not saying WoW could have wrecked my marriage. But I'm pretty sure I could have, if I hadn't been smart enough to see the writing on the wall:



Yes, WoW promises more cake than GlaDOS ever could, yet delivers even less.

Which leads me too defend the game more than crucify it. It's a work of such magnitude. In game terms, in programming terms and in terms of infrastructure. But above all, a victory for the gaming industry. I don't think any other product can boast to have so many people devoting so many hours to it. It's the cutting edge of user-milking, of carrot-on-a-stick tactics to keep the gamer interested, and frustrated, and NEARLY IN REACH of the ever-elusive Cake.

You can't win the race. But you don't have to run it.

Food for Thought

Here some things to keep your heads occupied:

Solvents

- Normally speaking, I would be slightly surprised to find out that my employers, a recruitment agency, keep a large jerrycan of turpentine in the kitchen at our office. Today however, I was merely thankful for that fact.

Why is that?

Hint: I rode my bike this morning, and it has gear shifting troubles

Justice

- It may be good to see justice served, but is it fun to watch a person you don't like and can't get along with no matter what you do claim her triumph over the other party, even if she had the truth on her side?

Do stupid people deserve the same justice I would want for myself?

Hint: stupid cow co-worker bitch has had "an argument" about working folk ravaging her floor*, apparantly she has won.

*) Her floor, yes. I'm guessing they wouldn't ravage her even if they'd been lost at sea for ten years. I wouldn't. I got sick even thinking of the possibility.

...

Fucking hell this day sucked. I wasted quite some muscles not riding bike for 4 months, and it'll take some time to build them up again. Which would be okay if I had the opportunity to come home and crash somewhere and be done with it. But I can't, because the Ducklings need me, and I can't refuse them. And now Owlet is ill, poor thing. So even if that does not put strain on me housekeeping-wise (I'm pretty sure it doesn't), it sure as hell FEELS that way.

No, she does not make feel that way, nor do the Ducklings. I do. I'll tell you more about my default state of thinking about myself, and why it can be different from what you youself are used to. Yeah, a whine is coming in and it's a biggy. You can still go back to Youtube, you know, or twitter something.

Though, to be honest, twittering is probably sadder than me whining about myself.

Okay enough emo-mode. Here's the deal. My default mode of thinking about myself, my self-esteem, if you will, is not very good. I tend to consider myself lazy and uncaring. I know for a fact that the opposite is untrue. I'm a damn good father and husband, not perfect, but much more than adequate. I take pride in that as well. But here's the thing: only when I remember to realize this.

Usually, I don't think about it and I just sort of slide into this numb-negativity-mode where everything is too hard, and nobody has any sense, and I'm a lazy fart. This usually leads to me acting like one too. But around the house, where sweet little Owlet* and the Ducklings live, I can't be like that. So I try to be better. For them. Because it's what you do, for your family. As it turns out, I can't tell when I've done enough when I feel like I'm a sack of shit anyway, so I try to keep busy, yet I don't feel better about it. I just feel worse and worse because I see my evening slipping away. So I end up here, blogging about it and hoping I will finally get it through my thick skull that while not perfect, I'm ALL RIGHT.

*) She's not little, actually. Normal length for a woman. But she's my little Owlet because, well, because. I don't need a reason, I love her.

I'm not stupid.

I fully realize how futile any weblog is.

I just happen to like ranting.

;-)

No, just no.

No entries for today. Reason? I finally made some good looking characters (okay, women) thanks to these videos. So enjoy, and I'm off for more Oblivion.

Wood Elf

and

Dark Elf

Morrowind diary part 1

I like the idea of RPG diaries, as long as it's either amusingly sarcastic ( I recall reading a morrowind diary where the writer couldn't stop talking about how all guards looked like Hugh Grant, can't find it anymore unfortunately.) or convincingly Roleplayed. Or both, naturally. In order to give you, my sweet reader, an idea of what I consider convincing roleplay, here are two examples, one of them is not convincing, the other one is.

" 'T is a foul land indeed. The mosquitos are buzzing angrily upon Seyda Neens stale harbor air. I feel unfriendly faces upon me. The locals do not seem to care much for what they call "Outlanders". My pockets are nigh on empty, bar the rags that have to pass for clothing and that ring I stumbled upon. Perhaps I will head on to the tradehouse that the guard mentioned and see if I can get some work there. Right now I would even steal, were it not for my honour code forbidding me to rob these poor peasants."

As opposed to:

" Hi, my name is Shelby and I'm a paladin. Weeelll, sort of anyway. I carry a big sword and I can cast some healing spells. I like to wear a nice mix of heavy and medium plate stuff, mostly for looks. Looks can't kill, but looking like I can kill prevents people from trying to kill me.

I suppose most paladins are bound by some sort of code, which is probably full of commandments like helping the poor and aiding the sick and not being a jerk. I don't really roll with that. Some poor sod needs a hand in a fight, sure, I'll help, and I won't even ask for payment. Just let me loot their corpses afterwards. Evil oppressor bothering ya? Just wait till I get twenty more levels and we'll talk. I like a level playing field, with me slightly above it.

Now that you know that about me, you will understand that the first few days I spent on this forsaken island were filled with gathering cash, gearing up and refining skooma with my buddy Caius...I meant discussing my orders. Skooma is bad, it makes you run fast. Anyway, unlike that turd Jiub, who did nothing back on the boat but hanging around asking for my name, I actually indulged in a fair bit of research. So upon arrival in this hellhole, I knew exactly what to do. Cleared my papers at the Census office and took a strider straight to Balmora*, checking in with skoomafa..Caius and getting a 100 g's on the go. Mages guild next, teleport to Caldera and on to Gorak Manor to get my free Orcish Armor. They keep a tame scamp in there, so you can basically take anything they have lying around cause they won't alert the law anyway. Imperial soldiers are a bitch when it comes to Daedra.

Honour code? Stealing from thieves and demon worshippers sounds fine to ME.

Fun thing, that scamp is rich, sell the armor to him and teleport to Ald'Ruhn. Strider to Maar Gan and into the hills to find some old Dunmer stronghold with a name I keep forgetting. Run around a bit, practise my weapon skills on unsuspecting thieves and rock turkeys, there we are! One dead Ordinator, carrying a full set of Indoril armor. Lug that shit back to Caldera and sell to Creeper, my best friend the scamp. I kep the shirt I found on him, free heals are good.

So that's around 23.000 gold made in half a day. God I'm so pro."

Guess which one I play?

*) AFTER solving the great mystery of the missing tax collector and watching a wood elf dressed like a girl fall from the sky. What an island!

Witching Hour

I just finished The Witcher demo, and I'm impressed. Not with the "mature" content, even though it's implemented better than in most mature games. People don't curse because they can, but because they are emotionally inclined to, fair maidens will give it up for coin (because they can), and guards are selfish little powermongers that will ask for a bribe just to not look at you in a funny way (because they can, and because of narrative causality.)

The protagonist makes a pleasant change too, being powerful, well-trained and overall decidedly un-wimpy. He also likes to shag maidens, which is good, because if I were a whitehaired, broad-chested, monster-slaying, contract killing, bounty huntin', gambling, drinking, bad-ass mother-fucker (named Geralt, sup with THAT) I'd demand some pussy to be thrown my way in exchange for liberating the countryside of strange green-glowing Dobermans.

Anyway, I'm going to see when the 360 version comes out, my pc is struggling at mediocre resolutions already and in my experience, retail gameplay is always jerkier than demo gameplay. Too bad, because this gem could fill the WoW-shaped* hole in my gaming heart, if it weren't for one slight snag: Over-The-Shoulder camera. If you've played the game, you will know what I'm talking about. You can choose either that or Diablo-o-vision, and I'll be DAMNED if I click-to-move in an action rpg**.

Over-Yer-Shoulder-Vision works, and it actually takes only a little while to get used to it. I had no real issues with getting stuck behind walls or fences or other local flora, it's just that I've been staring at a character in the middle of my screen for so long now, I have trouble accepting that another good game would want to relocate my avatar to somewhere else.

This can probably only be solved by spending insane amounts of time on The Witcher, I suppose. Sounds good!


* CBH-shape, to be honest. Nothing will ever compare to human females from WoW.
** Click-to-move is to direct movement what Apple computers are to Real Gaming Hardware.

Hear hear, or not

It's like this: Seeing as I usually have music on when I'm on the train, I don't think I'll have a lot of opportunities to record more fascinating train conversations. To be honest, I'm still reeling from the "tan conversation" I overheard recently. I honestly hope never to have to listen to such utter bullshit again.

Relapse

It's a good thing I deleted Warcraft from my HD, because the feelings I described in my last entry are still here. A bit stronger, too. I found myself fantasizing about how great it would be to roll an undead she-warrior (again, rofl) and to do the undead starting area again. Or to log my gorgeous paladin and head into Grizzly Hills, and maybe start some pugs at the end of next week...

Oh dear. It's a realapse!* Yes it feels like it. It makes sense, too. It has been a few weeks since my "victory" over the game, so the memory was bound to rear its ugly head again around now. That's just how the mind works. There's really not much I can do about it. I suppose trying to recreate dutch celebs with the Oblivion character generator and finishing the nipple comic will have to do as far as distractions go.

* as in "real relapse", har har.

Oh look it's WoW-related!

Funny old thing, the human mind. Just when I thought I was completely clear of any desire to get back to WoW, something happened that triggered something else, and now I'm not so sure anymore.

Well, not a 100 per cent sure. But last night, I went to bed at nine pm, and I slept and slept and slept, it was great. I must have slept at least 9 hours, which is a truckload by my standards. I usually hit the sack around midnight, and get up six hours later.

I always figured sleeping more wouldn't matter much, but it does. I felt quite refreshed this morning. In fact, I felt much better about myself. While I had made plans to start cycling to work again, I looked out the window and decided that the train would be much better today, without scolding myself for it. So there I sat, in the train, listening to music that has been on my mp3 for ages now. Instead of cursing myself for not updating the damn thing, I enjoyed my golden oldies and let it be. There was a pizza stain on my pants, and we have a tax audit today. Big deal!

Yeah I feel good.

But, uberpriest and brother in law Aveil came by last sunday, and we talked WoW automatically. A lot. He's in the no.1 guild on the server, and well, they raid three times a week at reasonable times, and, uhm, well. I thought: three times a week ain't much...

NO NO NO and NO. Just no.

Hell yeah

The second best thing about working in an office with this small group of people is that there is only one woman. The BEST thing about it is that she's not here today, which means we fellows can ditch our usual lunch and go a-snackin'! TEE MOTHERFUCKING HEE YO!

Seriously, snackday is ossum. I just ordered all the stuff and in an hour or so we'll be sitting down at that table, and the smell of professional frying fat and order-me-by-the-fucking-gallon-mayonaise will be on the air. Lovely. I like snacks.

Awesome.

I have exactly 1337 emails in my gmail. Don't email me any more.

Outblogging people

Sup dawgs. Blogging is tough!* I 'm sure I got stuff to say, but I feel like I've just been ranting away in any old direction I've felt like after my WoW-cravings ceased. Blogging about getting of the gryphon, or staying on the wagon, or whatever you would want to call it, was fun to do because I knew people were interested in how my rehab would go.

Too bad that it went so well, since I'm not so sure people will want to hear about the rest of my life. Besides, I wasn't planning on getting too personal here anyway. However, instead of being a weakling and giving in to lack of confidence in my own writings, I'm going to pretend everyone is still interested. Yes, I'm going to rant on about games, politics, stupid people on trains (that's 50 years worth of entries right there, people)games, kids, gaming with kids, food and umm, anything really.

I'm going to become a standard blogger! No novelties, no news value, just plain narcisism. Lovely. I feel better already.

* YEA I WENT THERE

Back to the muddiest RPG ever.

Did I trade in one addiction for another? I picked up Morrowind again recently, and damn it's fun. I made about 14k gold the first evening, thanks to all the little exploits I'd remembered. Yesterday I soloed Umbra at level 5, by standing on top of a rock with a crossbow, thousand steel bolts and a truckload of patience.

The patience bit was easy. It took me around ten minutes to take him down. I gues WoiW raiding makes you impervious to time consuming fights. Even in other games. I'd have liked to place a screenshot of my sexy redguard gal, but for some reason Morrowind thinks I should edit my .ini file first, adding some line allowing it to take screens isn the first place.

Bitches don't want to see me editing ini files, that's for sure.

Train Conversations 1

I overheard it yesterday on the train...

"So she says she got that tan from her holiday which is just SO not true! She must have tanned up at a studio or like, something, duh!!!"
"YEAH TOTALLY, she must be like, TANorexic, duh."
"Yeah she must be."
"Did you hear me say that? Tanorexic? That's what it's called you know, when you are addicted to sun studios? You know how I know that? It was in the Linda*! Don't you think that's funny? It's also funny that I know that!"

-.- , really.

* Linda is some sort of magazine, like most magazines, it's full of crap and the best part of it are probably the ads.

My Demands!

Yes indeed, my demands. I can be demanding, you see. This is a quick entry about a small issue I have with my guild. One of the members verbally abused another one, pretty damn harsh too. Not your regular THROWIT THROWIT THROWIT YOU COCKFAG!!1, but serious harrassment. Doesn't matter really.

Anyway, the thread came up on the guild foramz, started by the victim (the abusée, if you will) and the officers responded with the demand for an explanation at the abusers'
address. To my knowledge, the answer never came. At least, not on the foramz and certainly not in that thread.

When I asked a few days later what happened to the thread, I got a reply that it was deleted since the matter had been resolved. Well, it didn't look like that from here. I never got to read the accused guys version of the events as they transpired (DANG FUCK YEAH finally used "transpired"), and I sure as Maggy's cubes didn't see a short note by an officer wrappign the whole thing up.

I am strongly against deleting such threads. Not just because it's fun to read them, but also because a guild forum is a guild forum, not an officer forum. Guildies should be able to read a thread back and add their opinions etc etc. Deleting a thread gives the idea of a bunch of elite pricks that deal justice as they see fit, not bothering to inform regular members.

And then there is the other side. I quit, I left the game. Does that automatically mean I quit my guild? Does it mean I have no grounds on which to ask for an explanation on a matter that has my interest?

Stamina

It's the 25th. My account is still inactive. Let's do cake. Looking back it was only hard the first week. The game is gone from my harddrive as well. No, you can't have my account nor my stuff. It went down with me and i like it that way.

Now what? Should I keep blogging? Probably not, this blag has served its purpose and I always like to think in terms of moving on. But because I'm such a slow mover, I consider it wise to burn my bridges sooner rather than later, usually while standing on them. People who have been guilded with me will not raise eyebrows when reading this, they will probably nod in agreement.

I could also just keep going and keep people informed. Ok, here's the future for you:

- Morrowind stuff is under way, I still love this game. Rolled a few chars, need moar! Screenies anyone? Hell, I'll do a Morrwind diary soon.
- LEGO. Yes, check Brothers Brick for a zillion reasons why this stuff is still the number one toy ever.
- Umm, more fiction/fantasy/writing doodles? This is up to the readers really, I can't be arsed if no-one gives feedback. I write to improve my writing, so the more criticism, the better. (In fact; I could log all critism and give my readers a crit-rating. ahah..ahhahaha. hum.)

Oh, here's the big secret: My first online forum experience was with people I knew irl as well. I trolled and spammed like a motherfucker until I pissed off the admin. When my ban was lifted I decided to adopt my old postcount as my new nickname. 4701.

GOSH THAT WAS EXCITING.

Almost there

It's the 22nd today, which means I'm two more days away from being WoWless for one month. I'm certain that I won't log on that very same day and start playing again. How can I be so certain? Let me explain.

I downed the free Spellborn mmo-game yesterday. It looks like the offspring WoW and Fable would have had after a short but incredibly steamy one-night stand. Well, Fable would approach it that way, WoW would probably have been grinding its way towards that night at least one month in advance. Anyway, Spellborn looks nice and play decent enough. But when I was running through one of the starting areas' lovely forests, it dawned on me:

"Young Bears slain 1/10"

HANG ON. This is going to take ages. Again. Yes it'll feel epic when you enter a new zone, but whetehr you're killing bears or Laquan'Tcha-pa-kai worker drones, 10 bears is still ten bears. Or Laquan'Tcha-pa-kai Worker Drones. After playing some single player RPG's (old stuff, Morrowind and NWN2) the total lack of pace that characterizes an epic mmorpg (epic as in big, yo) became glaringly obvious. Now I'm no fool and I understand that the businessmodel of an mmorpg demands that progress is that slow (more time played=more monthly fees)but I doubt I am willing to spend that much time again.

My old Morrowind main had 86 hours played, and had finished the main quest and almost all guild stuff. My WoW main has liek what, 40 days played? The gap is sizeable. So no more mmo for this man.

PS: the fiction stuff I wrote last time was about what would happen in five years time here in holland if a certain fascist politician would be in charge.

Yes, ofcourse I know fear

I look up at the poster, it's high on the wall so no-one can reach it. I wish I could tear it down and stamp out that smug fat grin, and set fire to that blonde hair that has been his trademark for so long now. I clench my teeth as my stomach tightens, the familiar knot of tension growing and growing.

"Dad, you're squeezing my hand, ow!" My daughter looks up at me, accusingly. The wind blows through her blonde hair, getting in her eyes. Blue eyes, you'll be safe for a while, if they don't force you to join the "constitution police". Rage is welling up again. Calm down, you're just taking an afternoon stroll with your daughter, there are still plenty of things to enjoy. Focus. Relax.

"Sorry dear, I didn't mean to." I notice that I'm still gripping her hand too tightly. She smiles as I let go of her hand, her gaze lingers slightly to long for comfort. Ah dear daughter, you may only be seven years old but you know exactly how your dad feels, don't you? I'm an open book to her. All my doubts and my fears, she knows them.

I notice the van coming into our street. It's not black, as you might expect from these people, just some harmless looking factory colour. It pulls up to the apartment block before ours and the men get out. Constitution police. My hart falls into my stomach again. They make their way through the staircase up to the first floor. I can see them knocking on the door once, then immediately kicking it in. They don't need to hide it anymore, do they? Two of them go in and come out with two women and an old man. It doesn't take a genius to figure out their origins. As the group rushes back along the corridor my daughters' hand seeks out mine again, now she's squeezing. You don't have to be an adult to sense the wrongness here, to feel everything holding it's breath, waiting for this to just go away.

And it goes away, taking three innocent people with them. We breathe again, though part of me wishes I didn't have to. I look at my little girl. She's puzzled and still looking down the road where the van drove off, seconds ago. I can almost feel her brain working, coping with what she just saw. "Dad?" She says it quietly, still staring. "Yes?" "That was bad, what those men did, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it was." And inside me, I ask myself where the hell I was. What did I do today to stop this from happening. I got angry at a picture. Coward. Am I? This is bigger than what just happened. They would have taken me, had I tried to stop them. How would I care for my daughter then? Coward. Excuses. Coward.

Me and my big mouth

We had a bring-your-own-food-party last night, Owlet and me. She had spent 8-odd hours in the kitchen preparing all the dishes (we were asked to make one or two so she made four, /love). According to her own blog, she went all Nigella. It was a succes! You can read up on the dishes she made here. Did I prepare something? Nope, but despite the fact that I have a few really nice dishes up my sleave, I'm no match for Owlets raging cuisine. Her gift for cooking is...well you should taste it. It's undescribably good.

Regarding todays' title, only when leaving the party I realized I had been talking all evening. In fact, I think nobody else got a word in while I was there. For some reason I just keep going if I'm in the mood, and since thre was good food and alcohol, my mood was that good that some people probably didnt even say hello to each other until I had left.

Is it a bad thing? Let's just say I'm fine with it. I suppose some people like hearing me talk and joke since that are not naturally talkative, but having one person always doing the talking certainly swings the mood in one direction. Last night it was a good direction, so it's okay. I'll be a bit more quiet next time.

Oh, Erik, from Braindisorder, sent me this a while back. I've been wondering how to comment on this. It's WoW-related yes. Does it concern my rehab-programme? No. I did not quit WoW because I got into trouble with 14 year old girls every weekend.

Sex with minors. Don't, people will fuck your shit up if you do. Whether that's justified or not, I don't know. There is an OCEAN of difference between being abused by a paedophile and maturing slightly ahead of your years and falling in love with an internet loser. Having said that, you need be either really fucking stupid to:

- Believe that someone claiming to be a girl on the internet IS really a girl.
- Believe that someone tells the truth about their age.
- Meet someone IRL after four years of chatting and doing her straight away
- Get caught. Idiot.

Or you are just damn desperate. It would help if this sort of news could be brought with pictures of both the dude and the dudette involved. Just to make things more understandable. Or less, of course.

A week unlike any other, yet very much the same

So this week wasn't my best. I'd been anticipating the job interview I had last wednesday, and it went really well. I'd been gunning for a job way out of my league, partly out of cluelessness and partly just because I know I can make a difference in any company I work for. I generate customers, I reel em in, I bring in the cash, whatever you want to call it. I have some skills that are rare, and I work hard enough improving them. In that light, the invite* itself was an achievement. So now I have a few more days to set up a marketing/sales plan to attract some big fish for my possible future employer. Yes, that is quite a challenge. Therefore, it's fun.

Good thing, because the euphoria of quitting WoW is fading fast. What seemed like tons of spare time can easily turn into horrifying marriage-wrecking boredom. And studying html with two kids screaming their lungs out is not a great idea. Also, is it a good idea? Or should I just take up knitting? I would like to knit my own caps and cuddly toys I guess.

Or hey, spend more time with your kids! Well, I do already. I'm not such a bad parent as I make myself out to be., not even when I was still palying WoW. But I never feel like it's enough. Games are easy. Hitcap is 9%? Ok I'll get it. But what's the cap on a diaper? Does it have a cap? Is it Bind on Equip? Can I craft them? SHOULD I craft them?

Relax, those questions don't even apply. Parenting is 50% following your intuition and the other 50% is ignoring most well-meant advice and using your common sense.

*) Obcsure WoW reference**, naturally.
**) "He's got sales experience! Invite him to the guild!" ***
***) Asterisk tricks stolen from Mr. T Pratchett ****
****) That's enough, really.

Yesterday I said I'd talk about to-do lists. But blogging wasn't on my list for today.

Luxury issues

Second day at work without internets. It's getting to me. I feel like I'm sitting behind my pc with a blindfold over one eye. Usually, when I need to call a client I just go to their site and ask whoever answers for the person I'm looking for. It saves me keeping track of everybody's extensions and other crap. Also, the people picking up the phone are probably being paid to do so; so I'm helping them out as well since they look busier trying to connect me.

That's the professional side of it. When it comes to the private part of it, things are EVEN MORE COMPLICATED. I usually have my wife "with me" by means of msn. I don't IRC, that's for nerds :> We dicscuss what I should get for dinner, and what our kids are doing, and what total fucking retarded bitches some co-workers can be. She is my connection to the world, linking me interesting recipies and knitting patterns (I don't knit, yet. I intend to learn after I learned html)and more stuff.

Ofcourse, you don't realize how comforting all that stuff is until you are without it. Today it got to a point where I would open up my old msn-logs and read back old conversations I had with my wife, just to get my comfort zone up and running.I failed miserably because none of the links worked /sadpanda.

PS: I changed the template, this one is better because less is more. So there.

Tomorrow: to-do lists.

It's no big thing

I ordered Neverwinter Nights 2 a few days ago, to have some sort of rpg fix nearby. I just love creating characters and arsing around with them. I don't think I actually ever finished an rpg-game, come to think of it.

Morrowind, I finished that. But Eye of the beholder 2, Baldurs Gate, Lands of Lore 2, ummm stuff, never finished them. On the other hand, I did finish Knight of the old republic, both Light and Dark endings. Dark ending is great, so is the entire last planet.

I think that the only rpg's I never finished were bnased on the D&D system...

This should bode well for NWN 2 then. I have some trouble getting to grips with the entire D&D system, I never tabletopped or anything so I'm clueless to what matters. In WoW, intellect = caster stat. But my paladin in NWN2 needs charisma for his spells, apparently. I suppose the Wiki is a good start, but anyone that can offer a good starter guide for this game is welcome to do so.

We also had no internet today at work, otherwise this post would have been up sooner ^__^

Seconds to spare

This is going to be a hasty post. After all, we are due to grab the train to my parents' place. Now my way of preparing is completely different from how my wife prepares.

My plan is such as this:

Target time: 12:17 at station
subtract 2 minutes for if train is early: 12:15
subtract 5 minutes for ticket machine to try and piss me off: 12:10

So it's a 7.50 minute walk for me when I solo it, but now I have my wife with me. Children won't be slowing us down since we carry them with these handy cloth things, don't know the english for it.

Assuming my wife slows me down, which is dangerous to even think, let alone voice the thought, we should be there within 10 minutes. Assuming the hassle you always get when packing up kids I need five minutes at least to prepare. So we are at 11:55 now.

Which is assuming we have everything packed in that we need to pack in. Did we? We did.

So we have ten minutes to spare. make that five since we need to get our coats. Hell, gimme five minutes aswell for emergencies.

got to go.

"Because we are grownups now, and it's our turn to decide what that means."

Hi guise, xkcd is a brilliant webcomic, but the episode I posted above just stands out. It moves me everytime I read it because it's so simple and so pure in it's innocence. And that innocence is what makes this one so good. I've noticed that, as my life smoothly slipped from my restless twenties to my quieter thirties that, even if you know better, as a couple with kids you try to comply with this image that exists of how "things should be".

A clean (sterile is prefered!) house, well groomed children, a car, a house, a mortgage etcetera etcetera. It seems like an endless list of stuff I need to have or do. While in fact, the opposite is true. For example if I had risked everything to get a mortgage and buy my own house six months ago, I'd be out on the street by now.

The (my) truth is that the superimposed image of the perfect family is not a conspiracy by evil megacompanies or governements. Those parties just utilise that image to achieve their own goals. I think the image is present in all of us. I think we all have a certain image of how a certain state of phase in your life has to look.

The sooner you can let go of that image, and fill your room with playpen balls, the better.

Progress without raiding o_0

Yeah thats right bitchez. I'm making RL progress! So much that I couldn't be arsed to blog last night. Lots of stuff going ON though. My wife is getting ready to get back to studying and I'm quite busy lining up a new job. Anything to get out of this dump, to be honest.

Looking at last week, I started out with some SRS CRVNGS for teH WOWZ. But for some reason, I stuck to the promise I made myself; no WoW for at least a month. And it worked. Forza2 is turning out to be more fun than expected, and daughter dearest stole a police car yesterday. She also had some trouble getting to sleep last night and it did not stress me out. In fact, since I quit WoW hardly anything does.

It soooo bleh to say it, but I really feel better. The evenings just seem so much easier with no pressure for dailies or raids. Now you could say that you can play the game without bothering with that stuff, but I didn't buy a game to play half of it. I've never been able to plan in a raid schedule and that has always been bothersome for me, since I have had to skip parts of the game due to that. I'm not interested in undressing my game experience even more, just to keep playing.

Thanks to a few very understanding people in a couple of very nice guilds I've managed to raid some TBC and Wrath stuff. But to be honest, why the hell would I want to keep doing that? And where does it end? Ulduar is coming out soon... So what? I realize I stopped caring about it today. I'm really grabbing some distance this week, finally being able to put some neutral ground between me and Warcraft, and being able to look at the game and the time it would consume, and the things it would draw attention from.

I've come to the conclusion it's not worth it anymore. My first intention was to stay clean for a month, and then play for month, and then make up my mind, but I think I don't need to do that anymore. I think my decision is made.

/target everyone I've met in that crazy pixelfest
/bow
/thank
/farewell

Catch ya on the flipside, and remember:

MORE FUCKING DOTS!1

Might just as well...

...ponder my situation here, so I can put my thoughts in order.

The thing is, i don't like my current job much. I'm already out looking for new work and I have a couple of things that will probably require me to do an interview sooner or later. Current employer does not know of this, but the time that I'm going to have to tell them is approaching rapidly.

What to tell them? They want me to stay, they are glad to have me on the team, but i know that I'm never going to be part of the team. I don't like the way they work, professionally speaking as wel as socially. I don't see a future here, so I need to go.

Well that was easy :-D

Old habits

My brain is still wired for Warcraft it seems. Whenever I sit down behind the pc my mouse automatically moves to the launcher icon, and I keep checking forums that are warcraft related.

The longer I keep this up the more it dawns on me that a: I could come back, b: I probably will and c: It would be better if I didn't. Because if the wiring remains intact this month, then its very easy to fall into the trap of spending more time in Azeroth than is good for me.

And we had just determined I don't want that.

Holy sweeped floors Batman!

It's another peaceful evenig at the house of rehab! Fosheezy, as Big Red Kitty would say. I have exactly nothing to report. I drank less wine today but that isn't news. It's more like common sense. On the other hand, is drinking even less than two glasses common sense or just me becoming some sort of a wuss? I should make a poll!

Baby is chilling in her "crib" next to me "yo", while toddler is already well underway to dreamland. We played GTA4 together this weekend, it was fun watching her shoot up a whole street. She doesn't call it GTA but "The game wiv the wed car!" ("lode auto spewe!", for dutch readers) It's probably a real bad thing to let her do that but hey, I was bored, and so was she.

That's it for today.

Balance

Fuck. There was a time when I could down two bottles of wine and that would be just to get the party started. That's slightly exaggerated, but I wasn't exactly shy when it came to boozing. Those days seem to be over as well.

Today, I brought home a bottle of cheap (very cheap) wine and I had two or three glasses around dinnertime. I'm now sitting here wincing every time I look up at the screen and hoping the headache is going to fade soon. I'm getting old it seems. Or maybe just older.

When I would be asked to choose between the two I'd go for gaming over alcohol, so I might as well drop this forgotten habit now that I'm at it anyway. Speaking of gaming, why are other games to so fucking boring compared to WoW? I bought Forza 2 today, since racing games were always my big favourite but it could hardly hold my attention for more than thirty minutes.

WoW-wise, the cravings are pretty much gone. I miss looking at Wraaks big...umm...mace or Vandobben's sexay ass (male belflol ftw) from time to time but it's under control. I can do without the game and, like yesterday, I got more other stuff done. I swapped my Sons of Hodir for Cleaning the Kitty Litter, and I farmed the supermarket instead of the saronite.

Ok, it's not like I didn't go to the supermarket when I was still playing. But at least now I take the time, instead of squeezing it in while travelling between two flight points. That was kinda sick when I look back on it. In fact, it's amazing I almost always came back with the right stuff.

But now, it's saturday night, the kids are asleep and the house is cleaned up. NOW I'd love to log on and pug something, or grind some rep, or level some alt. I think I will, too, after this month is over. Maybe I should try a month with WoW after this month, keeping in mind to do all the RL stuff that's going so well at the moment before logging on.

This is getting scientific.

The storm settles

Hi guise, welcome to day 5 of the program. Today I want to address a number of things, each of about equal importance, depending on your point of view. See what I did there? Yes indeed, I didn't say shit. It's awesome to recover your higher brain functions after occupying them for years with just e-peen fantasies about engineering vehicles and ueber epix.

First thing I want to do is thank Sis/Radagaest of Turalyon EU for his mention of my blog somewhere on Serenity's guildforum. It's really cool to know that people read the stuff I wrote. Sis also deserves a mention for his bold statement that "Real men play female night elves." Even though his hunter is a fat dorf.

Sis says "sometimes wow feels like an addiction, that takes far too much time, but I always compare to people who watch the tv all evening, any morpg will beat that imo."

The key to this statement, for me, is not the comparison between tv and mmo-gaming, because I feel the same about that. Tv is overrated crap, best used to pacify my daughter. Mmo gaming is more social, more interactive and above all, it doesn't shut down your brain, it activates it.

The downside is that I can turn off the tv after watching two shows. I've hardly ever watched tv for more than three hours, and I'm pretty damn sure most of us have spent double, possibly triple that time (AV WEEKEND BITCHEZZ) playing WoW. Which brings me to the key of Sis' statement: the time spent on WoW. Somehow this game manages to convince you that you have time for just one more heroic, or one more daily, or one more try on that boss.

I'm going to be simpel about this: don't hate the game, hate the playa. Every human being is responsible for his/her own actions and, adults that we are, lolol, we should be able to manage our own time, right? I'm gonna leave it at this, love to pick it up later and have some other peoples' views on this.

Point two: after a week of not playing I can safely say that playing WoW has no influence whatsoever on domestic peace and quiet. I came home today and found one wife, up to her neck in dinner preparations, one baby wrapped closely around her, screaming her lungs out (the baby, not my wife), and one toddler trying to outdps the baby, volume-wise. So WoW or no WoW, kids will be kids and have their days. And, mor noticeably, their off-days.

What WAS different was my response. Instead of my usual sighs and self-pity (omg I've worked for hours why can't I come home to a NICE place blabla) I just came in, parked my bike, made my way to the kitchen, said hi to my woman, picked up the eldest and started playing with her, ending her assault on our senses in around five minutes. Booyah! I rock at parenting.

Not having the pressure of doing dailies or being online on time for a raid helps me when it comes to stuff like that, I think.

Point number three: I finally managed to memorize my new mobile phone number, that I have only had for like two years. Whether this is related to the aforementioned recovery of higher brain functions is open to debate.

I'd like to end this post with a honourable mention for my lovely wife. She has quit the game as well leaving behind two lovely shamans and a seriously hot dwarf hunter babe. No matter what I do, she has my back, and realizing that just makes so goddamn proud of all we've done together the last few years.

I'm off to enjoy my family, seeya!

GNGHHHHHGHHGGNNGHH

Ok voor alle nederlands lezenden; JAMMER JOH, ik ga verder in het engels want de cravings are getting worse and worse and fucking worse.

Yesterday I was like: "well ok I can sit this month out, there's plenty of time to make up my mind about whether I should get back to the game". But yesterdays comment kinda stuck. Best. Game. Ever. S'true, you know. It is. Not as in most innovative, nooo. But looking at the sheer size of the game and the amount of (repetitive) things to do, it's a goddamn behemoth of complete fucking epic size. This is Oblivion on viagra and you fucking know it.

One more interesting fact me and the missus found out over the years; the game's areas are so well designed that you know precisely where you are after a while, just by looking at your surroundings. And I don't mean in what area, I mean in what specific sub-area in that area. Non-believers will scoff at this statement or claim that other games do this too.

SURE

Name me one open world free roaming rpg that delivers the goods better. EVE? Hell no, looks the same everwhere and all that changes graphically is your dick - sorry spaceship. Same star systems over and over. And the fact that all interaction looks like a MOTHERFUCKING EXCEL FILE ain't helping either. Let the cocksuckers at SA / Goonswarm rub their peens against their massive titanium hulls, you're not impressing me.

So, let's have a look at fantasy based rivals. LOTRO? Never played it. Tell me why I should and I'll get back to you. I'll leave it open for now but the fact i couldnt be arsed to even trial it says something i guess.

CONAN? umm, they're merging servers as we speak. Word to the fucking wise:
JUST BECAUSE A BUNCH OF LOUD MOUTHED MORONS ON BLIZZARD FORAMZ SAY WOW SUCKS AND IS HALF BAKED DOESNT MAKE A GAME WITHOUT ENDGAME OR CHALLENGES A COMPETITOR TO THE NUMBER ONE.

WARHAMMER then. I played it, it's pretty good BUT.I needed a fatter pc to get some frames out of it and I dont want a fatter pc so i turned down the graphics and I got caught up in a sort of brown grey land of flakes and umm..stuff. The game itself was basically wow so that was good. RvR was a good addition to the game, so were the area objectives or whatever they where called; I even think the areas were phased like Blizz did in WotLK. Awesome game but no more so than the big W. And I have no time for one mmorpg, let alone two.

That means WoW wins. WoW is the game that took me by the balls and refuses to let go. It's the MMO rottweiler, if you will. I miss my toons, my auctions, the torchfire in IF or the mindless "Anal" spammage in /2. I miss boosting mates, pugging raids and hanging out in Ironforge/Shattrah/Dalaran talking shit to people I don't know.

Just 19 more days, and then I can get back to my second life.

Oh yeah I missed that one. Ok here goes:

SECOND LIFE

LOL

Baby come back

Als ik geen afspraak met mezelf had gemaakt was ik nu mijn Deathknight aan het levelen geweest. 4 dagen zijn pas verstreken en de nood is hoog. Maar goed, dit is ook nog geen onbekend terrein. Twee of drie keer eerder heb ik op dit punt de handdoek in de ring gegooid.

Ik ga nu door, in de wetenschap dat ik 24 februari, onherroepelijk, mijn account weer ga verlengen.

3 dagen verder

En het begint alweer te komen. Ik herken dit van vorige pauzes die ik heb genomen. De eerste dagen denk je; "ach wat leuk, nu kan ik weer eens aan de slag met GTA4 of iets dergelijks." Na een paar dagen begin je je characters te missen. Van Panzerbeaver tot Shelby tot Vandobben, het zijn allemaal toch een soort tamagochis, met hun eigen doeleinden ingame. Farmalts en bankalts, raiding mains met bankslots vol offspec gear, als je het optelt lijkt het net alsof je een heel leven weggooit.

Tbh, als je drie jaar bijna al je vrije tijd in hetzelfde steekt is dat misschien ook wel zo. Maar uiteindelijk is dat geen reden om te stoppen met stoppen met WoW. De teruggewonnen vrijheid uit zich nu vooral in verveling en films kijken. Dat levert wel resultaat op als het gaat om de sfeer thuis. We zijn toch wat ontspannener, bijna opgeluchter, alsof we eindelijk een alternatief hebben gevonden voor die zware baan.

Dat is belachelijk misschien, maar dingen groeien wel vake belachelijk. En ze zijn hoe ze zijn, niet hoe ze zouden moeten zijn. Dus als ik drie jaar teveel nadruk op Warcraft heb gelegd, jammer fucking dan.

Wat ik wel ga missen, als "gamer" zijnde, is het feit dat je echt leuke chicks kon maken in wow. Er is geen enkel spel dat ik ken dat dezelfde grafische heerlijkheid heeft. Dat is ook de reden waarom ik eerder terug ben gegaan, en waarom ik na deze maand misschien weer terug ga. Er is nog steeds niets beters.

De 24e Januari 2009

Afgelopen zaterdag, 24 januari 2009, verliep mijn ruim drie jaar oude World of Warcraft account. Ik wil het niet hebben over de hoeveelheid vrije tijd die ik nu heb, of hoe het toch kan dat een persoon zoveel tijd aan een spel kan besteden. Dat zijn zaken voor wetenschappers. Ik weet alleen dat ik sinds afgelopen Zaterdag het idee heb dat ik meer tijd heb, en veel minder moet. Dat kan nooit slecht zijn.

Dus heb ik de volgende afspraak met mezelf gemaakt:

minimaal 1 maand.

Eén maand lang speel ik geen WoW. Daarna zou het zomaar kunnen dat ik weer verder ga, maar een maand lang gebeurt er helemaal niets. Iedere dag houd ik hier de stand bij van het afkickproces. Gisterenavond wist ik het al zeker; ik zou nooit meer beginnen. Vanochtend twijfelde ik, en vanavond moet ik mijn arm er misschien vanaf bijten om te voorkomen dat ik in een van de spaarzame momenten dat Blizzards' Account management pagina niet offline is weer een betaling doe.

Ik moet deze maand volhouden. Ik moet weten hoe het was voor die tijd, want ik weet het echt niet meer. Ik was een jonge gozer met een nieuwe vriendin die al mijn dromen deed uitkomen, drie jaar later ben ik getrouwd en heb ik twee kinderen en is mijn inkomen verdubbeld.

(Als je het zo bekijkt kan ik misschien beter blijven doorspelen.)

Maar goed, hier gaat het dus de komende tijd gebeuren. En hier ga je ook, 24 februari, lezen wat de einduitslag is. Je kunt niet smsen, je kunt ook niet surfen naar een hippe site om daar je stem uit te brengen.

Het is helemaal aan mij. Hoe stoer.