World of Warcraft

In and Out

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I’d asked Mom if she wanted to go to Bedum with me yesterday for groceries and Action. She said yes so we headed there yesterday morning. We decided on groceries first. When we got there I noticed that the shoe store in the same building was having a sale where, if you bought two sale items, the cheapest would be €1. We’re always in for sales, so we checked it out.

Mom didn’t find anything, either for her or for Dad, but I did. First I found a nice pair of black ankle-high sneakers. I had some trouble finding a second item to take advantage of the sale. Not that it was terribly necessary, the sneakers were cheap enough to buy as is, but I kept looking around for a wee bit longer. Which was just my luck as I found a nice pair of grey sporty looking loafers. I’d been wanting a new pair of those for when I just want to slip on something easy, plus these look nice enough to wear as dress shoes, too.

Only then did we go for the actual groceries. I didn’t need much, and neither did Mom, so we were done quite fast. Which brought us back to the car and on our way to the Action a few streets over.

My main reason for wanting to go there, this time, was Warcraft lego, again 😀 I needed only two more sets to have one of every set the Action had available. And Elune was with me, as the Night Elves say, for they had the sets I was missing. I’m now the proud owner of a Spectral Tiger and a Dragon Turtle to complete my Warcraft Lego shelf in the bookcase. I also bought a couple mandala colouring pads and a new mesh cup to hold pens.

Here, have a crappy iPad evening shot to show my WoW Lego shelf 😀

From left to right: a piece of Stormwind with a human warlock, a Worgen on a Gryffin, a Gnome in a helicopter, a Night Elf on the Spectral Tiger, a Pandaren on the Dragon Turtle, a Goblin on a trike, a Tauren on a Wyvern, and a demolisher with a Blood Elf wanting to break down the walls of Stormwind. Behind them is a row of solitary figurines: Gnome, Worgen, Human, Night Elf, Tauren, Pandaren, Orc.

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When we got back, I stayed over at the parents for lunch (nom, fries), built my new Lego sets, and left a while later to go home and put away the groceries and such. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing WoW, inspired and all 🙂

The evening was quickly designated movie night, although we ended up going back to memory lane by watching the first couple episodes of Charmed instead of a movie. All accompanied by copious amounts of popcorn and some cocktail shizzle 😀

This morning I slept in, played some iPad games and finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and didn’t get dressed and downstairs until near noon. Only then did I realise I was going to go to Pilates… Fail.

Had some lunch, then read some more, this time Tuf Voyaging. I had started it a while ago but then had to put it away after just a handful of pages so I just started over today. I really like it so far, although I wouldn’t so much classify it as a novel, but more as a collection of short stories/novellas as there is no over arching plot between the “chapters”. Each is a self contained, episode I’d say, in the saga of Tuf and his voyages. Tuf is a fun character, stoic, honest, and prone to taking things too literal. Plus he loves cats.

Around two I had enough of sitting around, and since Nienke went upstairs to study, I dove into the garage to tackle the mess there. It took me about four hours, but it looks so much better now. Just two or so garbage bin pick-ups to get rid of all the crap, a trip to the paper recycle container and the county recycle center to drop off a few boxes of old paper and an old TV.

That only leaves the old kitchen chairs, but they get to stay for now. I’m thinking of turning one into a flower bin with the left over planks from the garden privacy fence. And who knows what I can do with the rest 😀

Then I wokked some veggies in sweet chili sauce, hung out in front of the TV, played on the computer for a bit and put away the dry laundry. And now I’ve been spending the past hour or so typing this up. It would go faster on the computer, but the iPad is more convenient for typing in bed 😀

Night, night, folks!

Movies Galore! Also Lego! And Theater!

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Did a bunch of movies this week, by myself and with others. Monday after work I went to see Edge of Tomorrow. It was a much better movie than I was expecting. I really like Full Metal Bitch and I didn’t even mind Tom Cruise in the movie 🙂

I also ordered tickets to go see War Horse with Mom. We’re going January 14!

Tuesday I finally went to see The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared. The movie is hilarious! It’s been a long time since I laughed out loud at a movie that much. It’s been compared to Forest Gump, but it’s better than that. The titular character, Allan, gets put in a home when he blows up his hen house. Then on the day of his 100th birthday he decides to escape the coming party and attention and climbs out the window and walks off. As he goes to buy a bus ticket at the station, he gets asked to watch a suitcase for a minute and decides to walk off with it. It turns out the case is full of money. Criminal money. Cue an awesome road trip where he meets all kinds of people while being tracked and followed by the criminals that want their money back, interspersed with flashbacks to Allan’s long life where he experienced important events and met important people all the while being mostly oblivious to the importance of it.

Wednesday I had my shot again. Had it done in my arm because I still had some movies planned. Am never doing that again, though. My arm hurts like hell now still, and it’s Sunday. A quick Google has taught me that arm muscle is just not big enough. The way T. shots work is that the fluid bubble sits in your muscle and is slowly absorbed over the three weeks until the next shot. A leg muscle (or your ass 😀 ) is big enough to stretch around the fluid bubble, but arm just isn’t.

I also went to Bedum and Uithuizen with Mom to check for World of Warcraft Lego (Megabloks technically) at the Action10173768_10152193319638155_281758145161566397_n. Nico had seen it there, they had a big Stormwind Demolisher Set, a smaller Goblin Shredder (which I already have), about six or seven mounts+riders and eight single character figures with a small piece of scenery. They didn’t have all of them anymore, but I got a fair bunch

At the end of the afternoon I headed for the city to meet Gert. First we saw Grace of Monaco. It took me a while to get into but that’s mostly because I had the wrong idea and expectation beforehand. I’d seen trailers of the movie before, and that gave me the idea it was more a biopic of her life from marriage on and further. Until her death basically. But instead, it focuses on a specific period (early sixties) and shows how it was difficult for her to get used to life as Princess, torn between acting (Hitchcock offers her the lead in Marnie) and her family and duties, and how she could influence people, both behind the scenes, as well as the general populace. Once I figured that, the movie fell into place and things like pacing made sense.

Afterwards I had planned to go home, but we sat and talked for a while and decided on a whim to also see A Million Ways to Die in the West. I won’t dignify that movie with too many words. Suffice it to say that it is a stereotypical American comedy that runs on sex and poop jokes. The basic plot is fun, and there are occasional good, clever, jokes. So if it had been more of that, it would not have been so bad.

Thursday I also had the day off since I had to work yesterday. Nico was off early, so we decided to go see X-Men: Days of Future Past. It’s a good movie, I really liked that we got to see the merging of the old trilogy and these new films. Even though the timeline of the old trilogy is fairly effectively wiped by the events of this film, I like that they didn’t just go fingers-in-your-ears-it-doesn’t-exist-la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you 😀

Back home, I finally ordered my theater tickets. As I said on Facebook, it cost me three organs and some change. But I have seven shows (in addition to the earlier mentioned War Horse) to go see in the new season two of which Mom will join me for.

  •  Chamber Choir of St. Petersburg: Vespers of Rachmaninoff ( 25-09-2014)
  • Toneelgroep Amsterdam & Toneelhuis: Maria Stuart (10-12-2014)
  • Musictheater Transparant & Claron McFadden: Lilith (05-02-2015)
  • Sara Kroos: Van Jewelste (25-03-2014) with Mom
  • Toneelgroep Amsterdam: Koningin Lear (03-04-2015)
  • Various Comedians: Onceuponatimethegodfatherflewoverthecuckoosnest (29-05-2015) with Mom
  • Marrugeku: Gudirr Gudirr (dance performance) (06-06-2015)

Friday, after work, I spent the evening reading and avoiding football. Not very lucky with that as I sat in my bedroom with the window open so I could hear the whole street erupting every time we scored. And we scored a lot.

Then, yesterday. I had a late shift, which I can normally do at home. But I realised this too late and since Kim was also working, I came to Groningen. Got a message from Gert half way through, he was at the Action, did I need any more Lego? I was indeed missing some, so I had him take a picture and saw they had ones I didn’t have yet. He was so kind as to buy them and bring them to work for me. I took my break and met him at Starbucks. I had just enough time to get a drink and chat briefly, before having to head back.

Today I slept in, and just as I was gonna go to the Parents for Father’s Day, Mom rang the bell. Dad was out cycling, so she came to ask if I wanted to take a walk with her. I joined her, and then after went back to their place for coffee and merriment 🙂

Ascension Day Market + Choppers

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As per our tradition, Ingrid came today to go to the annual Ascension Day Market in Eenrum with me and Nienke. And this year, we added Kim to the mix. We had tea first, and then drove  to Eenrum. And since my aunt and uncle still live there, we had the luxury of parking the car in their driveway which saved us walking all the way from the designated parking area.

I succeeded in my goal, which was to find a mat for the downstairs toilet. It is a lovely dark purple and goes well with the colour scheme I have going on in there 🙂

Other than that, we saw Mellien and Bas, bought candy and I indulged in buying sausages.

When we got back we played some games. Ingrid and I played a couple games of Fluxx, and then we did Therapy with the four of us.

In between, I cast my vote for the Horde bike in the Azeroth Choppers bike build. I am a dedicated Alliance player ( I have a few Horde characters, but no higher level than 20), but the Alliance bike is just too low in the back for me. The winning bike will be put in the game for free, but I have no doubt the other one will be made available in some way as well. There will be too much of a shitstorm if they don’t.

Azeroth Choppers

Horde Bike

Horde Bike

 

Alliance Bike

Alliance Bike

 

Everything is Awesome!

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1896772_10151991815823155_1701450211_n1897667_10151991838918155_1913042448_nWe have a new kitchen cabinet! It is awesome and glorious! Nienke’s parents had it in their hallway, where it stood in the way for years. So they offered it to us since we were looking for a better cabinet. We went to pick it up Tuesday. So thanks to Nienke’s Parents for parting with it, and Dad for driving us there to pick it up. We ended up putting it against the side wall (left of where it is in the picture) because that fit better, and also allowed us to rearrange some other cabinetry. Bottom is for large(r) tools and random crap, top for plates. And on top of it…

Wednesday Gert and I went to the movies, double feature time 😀 We started with an early afternoon Vampire Academy, which is a very uneven movie. Disjointed story, jumpy cuts, and it doesn’t know whether it wants to be a high school dramedy or a supernatural vampire movie. I did like the girl playing Rose and the dude playing Dimitri, though. In between we walked around the city and ate at La Place before going back to see The Lego Movie. I had low expectations of it, but it was definitely awesome!

Thursday I got the day off, which gives me a glorious four day weekend! Played lots of Warcraft these last few days. Also stopped at Bruna yesterday and picked up some comics. Today I got fresh bread stuff from the bakery for breakfast, made a giant pan of soup, stopped at the Blokker and got a lantern for the window sill and read my comics 😀

Also ordered tickets to two shows that are coming up at the Stadschouwburg. On April 8 there’s a play/music theater version of Gone With the Wind which seemed interesting so I got two tickets for that, we’ll see who wants to go with 😀 On June 2, Daniel Lohues is performing so I got two tickets for that as well to go there with Mom.

Where’d You Go, Chair?

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So I did start Where’d You Go Bernadette on Thursday. And finished it, as well. It’s an easy read, and captivating enough that I wanted to keep going. It took a while to really get a feel for the book, but I was intrigued enough about Bernadette’s past, and I liked the narrator voice (her daughter, Bee) to keep at it. Because of the format of the book (short bits written by multiple characters (notes, letters, texts) narrated by one person) you get insights in all characters and shows that there’s always something behind everything. And most of the ‘bad guys’ are only trying to get through life just as everyone else. Everyone makes mistakes, so you might as well own up to it and try and fix it. Plus the ending is a hoot.

Also went to the thrift store on Thursday to find me a new dining chair. We’re getting rid of the rush seated ones cause the cats keep using it as a scratching post. Particularly Monkey, which leaves a mess on the floor. But, the other chairs, that actually go with the table I find terribly uncomfortable and wobbly, so I wanted a different one for me. Didn’t find any traditional ones, but found a glorious fabric upholstered one on wheels 😀 So I bought it and it now sits at the head of the table 😀

Saturday I went to the mall with the parents again. We had lunch at Hema and I bought some stuff for the house and for crafting. Sunday Ingrid came by. We watched movies (Frozen, Tangled) and played games. After she left, I ended the evening watching Frozen again and playing Warcraft.

Today at work, I assisted the Webcare people since they have workload and we don’t. I don’t mind at all, it can only be good for me in light of the job application. Playing more Warcraft tonight, working on leveling Aranthar to be my third level 90 and trying my best to level his main professions along with it, so I don’t have to keep going back.

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Achievement Unlocked: Succesfully Avoided (3) Excercise Demons

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Managed to skip going to the gym for the entire week, bad me. On Monday I skipped because I realised I didn’t really like the one half of the class I was going to, and to just do the other half isn’t long enough. Plus the instructor always manages to guilt trip me into staying for that second half anyway and I don’t like that. Tuesday I skipped because there’s too much time between getting home from work and going to the gym. By the time I have to go get ready, I’ve settled in and really don’t want to go anymore. Today I slept in and missed Pilates, which is a shame because I do like it.

Wednesday I went over to Gert to, couple months late, exchange birthday prezzies. I got him the NL variant of Ticket to Ride and he got me Machiavelli. We played Ticket to Ride a couple times and then watched some Doctor Who and Attack on Titan. I’d never seen that before but I really like it. Was also nice to just hang out and chat and stuff. Usually we go to the movies and then there’s less catching up time 😀

At work the buzz is that the workflow they took is coming back in week 8, so yay!

Yesterday and today I played a lot of Warcraft. Decided to try out my solo abilities on Cataclysm Dungeons. I face roll Burning Crusade stuff, but never really tried soloing Wrath instances since I was guilded back then and did all that with them. Managed to do Stonecore, Voretx Pinnacle, Blackrock Caverns and Grim Batol, all on normal. It wasn’t face roll easy, but it was very well doable. I wonder once I get some more Timeless Isle pieces, if I can try my hand at heroic versions. I need that to finally get my Ramkahen rep to exalted. I want my camel 😀

I also finished Cycle of Hatred earlier this week, good book.

And, I finally managed to write three letters to some people in my pen pal group, yay me. I’ll be mailing them out tomorrow, together with the traveling notebook.

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Grand Adventures

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Had a check-up at the hopsital this morning to test hormone levels and such. Check up was a breeze. Bit of small talk with the doctor about how I was (splendid!) and did I have any questions (nope). Then it was on to the Needle Folk to take a couple vials of blood. Results in two weeks.

Then went to the mall with mom. Bought a book about Groningen between 1780 and 1850. Then we picked up Nienke after her exam and headed for the Hema for breakfast. Then we went to Ikea to look for new sofas.

We sat on many and finally decided to go for Ektorp after all. I decided we should get two three-seaters, since our living room is so huge, as well as the comfy chair that goes with it. I also bought a night stand and a chest of drawers for my socks and stuff like that.

With that being done, we headed for the check out and made an appointment for delivery of all the stuff. We got lucky, they could come and deliver the next morning! Afterwards we headed back home. I took a little nap and then got ready for the team outing. We went for dinner at Pappa Joe, then bowling. I had a great time, and even managed a couple strikes and spares. After our time was up, we headed out to go drink some more. I tagged along, but since that is really not my thing, I left pretty soon after together with two other colleagues. Halfway to the station I realised… I had no key. Nienke had a key. I contemplated going back, but figured I could stop by the Parent’s place and get their key, it wasn’t that late. So I went on towards home, and stopped at the Parents. Where I spent 40 minutes ringing the bell and calling them before mom woke up… She hadn’t heard anything. It turned out Dad had, but thought it was the phone and doorbell of the neighbours……….

After all that time I was rather pissed and freezing so I took the key and went along home to go to bed. Only to get up fairly early the next day because…

Sofa delivery day!

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That is indeed ten packages. The  two big ones are the sofas, the smaller big one is the chair. The three on top are the sofa and chair covers. The long one on the floor is Nienke’s new Billy and the two flat ones below that, the doors for said Billy. Finally, the bigger flat one below the doors is my chest with drawers. Of course I know that Ikea is king of modular furniture and that this would also apply to sofas. But somehow I hadn’t actually thought of the fact that I would be getting lots of boxes instead of ready furniture 😀

Nienke hadn’t come home until the early morning and was still very hung over when the sofas came. So I just left her be and started building, while occasionally sending her a photo. I started with the chair, on the premise that it’s the smallest piece so probably the easiest. And that it was, indeed. The back and the seating are attached so they just folded open. Then it was only a matter of putting some screws in to attach the arms to the frame and the feet to the bottom. Then all it needed was its cover, and done. Monkey approved 😀

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The sofas had the same process, but it took a little longer because of size. Monkey approved of this, also.

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We stuffed the old sofas in the garage and then I spent the rest of the evening building the chest of drawers while re-watching Star Trek: Into Darkness. Then today I skipped Pilates, and built the night stand after which I hit relax mode for the rest of the day to finish Last of the Guardians.

Like a Baby

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The new bed? It sleeps fantastically! 😀

Yesterday in the morning, after sleeping in and doing some laundry I put the closet back. That left the bed, and the sidetable I use as altar space.

In the afternoon, we celebrated Uncle Tammo’s birthday. Had a great time, nice to catch up with the cousins as I don’t see them as often. As expected Uncle Louw was also there, so I asked him if he would come home with me for a sec to help with the bed. I tried with Nienke earlier in the week, but that didn’t go very well. With Uncle Louw, it went much better and we got the thing upstairs in one piece 😀

In the evening, I put the bed together, and returned the Altar and rest of the things.

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And! It started snowing! So this morning, I woke up gloriously on my new bed, and was greeted with a beautiful white world outside my window.

Was a bit tricky to get through to get to Pilates, but I made it. After coming home again, I dug a path from the front door to the road.

Spent most of the day playing WoW and watching stuff on Netflix, which I reactivated yesterday. Now with an iPad, and the improved offerings, the cost-benefit analysis was much more postive 😀

Blog About Me [19/52] Five Favourite Video Games

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My most favourite video game is World of Warcraft. I’ve been playing since april 2009 when I decided to try it out with the free trial. Within two days I was hooked and bought the game. I’ve been playing ever since. Occasionally there’s a month or two I don’t play, but I always come back to it. I am a casual solo player, I don’t raid and since I do whatever I can by myself, I tackle a lot of content after it’s no longer current. Reputations, various achievements, collecting battle pets and mounts, leveling profession-alts and finding whatever quests I missed on my main character.

Another game, or game series, I love is Age of Empires. I’ve been playing that since the first one back in my teens. I love building the civilizations and I would ignore the AI enemy for as long as I could 😀 I also always used to play custom maps where I would put the enemy in a corner, build a wall of theirs around that, and then a wall of mine around that. This way, they wouldn’t attack the wall to get out, and my guys wouldn’t attack it to get in. And I had all the time to build the perfect town and civilization.

I also really like Skyrim and Fable III, they both offer endless opportunities to wander around, explore, make things, and kill things, too.

My final choice for this post is an old platform game I used to play. I had a whole collection of classic 2D side-scrolling platform games in my teens. A lot of Apogee titles (Duke Nukem, Crystal Caves, Agent something), Commander Keen (of which I can’t remember if it was Apogee) and also Hocus Pocus. That was by far my favourite of the bunch featuring amyoung wizard trying to save his realm. The graphics were smoother than with the other titles and the levels were beautiful. Hmmm, maybe I should see if I can get it to work on a Windows 8 box…

Some More Dreams

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December 17, 2010

I was in Icecrown (World of Warcraft), standing on a promontory of the citadel, looking out over the chasm in between to another promontory in the distance. Over on that promontory, Eva’s horse Yngvar was running back and forth. There was also a medieval style camp on the other side. The band Omnia, among others, lived there. I knew this, even though I couldn’t see them, and they weren’t there at the moment.

Suddenly I was on the other promontory, because now I was near the camp. The camp was large, and authentic with tents to live in, and people making things, and generally living live. Only exception was an Omnia merchandise stand. No-one seemed to really notice though, all the people just lived around it, as if they didn’t really notice it didn’t match the rest. Maybe they didn’t even see it.

I stood there with a former high school classmate, and we were looking at a stick in the ground. She apparently lived there too, as she was wearing appropriate clothing, including an apron with a huge pocket on it. The pocket was filled with freshly baked bread rolls and balls. She started piling them up along the base of the stick and explained that this was a new religion.

She handed me a half-eaten bread roll from her apron pocket and continued to explain. The point was that one of those rolls would keep you warm and well fed for a whole day. I took a bite, and indeed a warm glow spread through my body as I listened to the sounds around me and looked out at the camp and Yngvar still running back and forth in a paddock behind the camp. Zador was with Yngvar in this paddock, I knew this, but I couldn’t see him either.

 

July 28, 2008

I was outside somewhere with Willow, Xander and Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Something dramatic had happened leaving Buffy dead, and Xander injured. Willow was angry with Xander, who was lying on a bench apologising. Willow snarled at him that he should have been the one to die, and that he was the vampire and Buffy the hero. Willow put her hands near Buffy’s head and Buffy started glowing. Willow was trying to transfer Buffy’s soul to Xander.

Then a fade to black cut scene and I was inside, in an institution. I was seated on a bench along a wall covered in posters. There was a doctor sitting on a straight backed chair about 3 yards across from me. I wasn’t looking at the doctor, instead just glancing at the side. He wanted me to talk about it. He didn’t specify what that ‘it’ was supposed to be, but I knew he meant the stuff with Buffy, Willow and Xander. I also knew he didn’t believe me, he thought it was just in my head. But I knew it was real.

 

May 4, 2008

I was with a group of people. We had agreed to meet up to make music. There was a guy there who normally played the violin, but today he would play syringe. He looked like he should have been a member of the Dubliners, he was fat, had a big, long beard and wore suspenders over a plaid lumberjack shirt. He’d brought this tiny little syringe,(without needle) and on it was written ‘Rhinoceros Girl’ and ‘Songbird’ or ‘Songbook’. He told me he was a participating musician on that album…

After that we went to make music, except I wasn’t playing anything. And what other instruments there were I couldn’t tell. It was not visible to me, and the music blended together so well I couldn’t identify the individual instruments. The man started moving the syringe and a beautiful moaning sound came out, a combination almost between a violin and an accordion.