PC Games

Wisdom

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I’ve been afraid of the dentist ever since I was about, seven, eight years old. Before, I never had any issues, but then, when my adult canines came through, my baby teeth didn’t budge. So when I went to the dentist for my normal check-up he hmm’d some, and yanked them out. It broke whatever trust I had in him, and I never got it back. I was forced to see this dentist until I turned 18 after which I promptly registered with another dentist, went once and then stopped. In the intervening years, I’d never had any problems with my teeth, so I wasn’t really worried.

About two, three years ago, one of my wisdom teeth came through. It took some time, my jaw isn’t very big so there wasn’t a lot of room for it to enter. It was also hard to reach with a toothbrush but I figured it’d be okay. About a year ago I hit the side of that tooth with my finger while pulling something, piece of popcorn probably, from between the te18eth before it, and I felt a sharp edge.

Over the next year I occasionally felt with my tongue and it kept being there. I knew it had to be a cavity, and that it would probably be best to get it out. So last month, I finally gathered up my courage and registered at the dentist here in town. I went in for a check-up, discussing my fears before hand (loss of control, not knowing what’s going on, not so much pain). So for that first appointment, my dentist just looked and poked a bit and x-rayed my teeth. Turned out my teeth in general are in good shape. I have tartar, but that can be removed. The wisdom tooth, on the other hand, had three cavities. So it had to come out, what I had already been expecting. Fortunately, the x-ray also indicated I have short roots, so it should not be a problem to do so.

This morning, I went in for the extraction. I was actually surprised how calm I was, but I’d been telling myself for weeks now that it was necessary and it wouldn’t be that bad, especially with the roots being short. I sat down in the chair, and had the dentist tell me briefly what she was going to do. Then she injected the numbing agent, once on the inside and once on the outside. This was okay, since I’m used to needles both for injections and blood draws. I didn’t even feel them.

After waiting half a minute or so, she poked my gums to see if it was numb, which it was. Then she started working around the tooth. The pulling and pressure was a bit scary, but since I didn’t feel any pain, I just clenched my hands and managed. Then she clamped the tooth, said I might hear some creaking since it was so close to my ear and then it was out.

Some suction, and clamping down on a gauze, later I could sit up and everything was done 🙂  I had a bit of the shakes as a release from tension, but once I was outside and back on my bicycle that, too, went away.

I rode to the Parents, since it was my free day. I had to clamp down on the gauze for half an hour, so I couldn’t talk very well, but it went okay 😀 I’d been given an extra gauze in case it was still bleeding after half an hour, but that wasn’t even necessary. Once I was gauze-less again, Mom and I went for a wee bit of grocery shopping and then I joined them for lunch.

The rest of the afternoon I rewarded myself with glorious Warcraft (Stable Master achievement, woohoo), and a quick stint of vacuuming 😛

Baaistemaart

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20141013_101337Since I now live in this town, and am free on the day, I figured I should attend the Baaistemaart (lit. Animal Market). It’s a fairly regular annual market, but it specialises in animals. The main street was set apart for the horses, both bigger ponies as well as this collection of Shetlands. Beyond that were normal stands with the usual market stuff both edible and not. On the town square was a tent displaying livestock (sheep, goats, alpacas, rabbits, various forms of guinea pigs, and a collection of birds) and having stands of various organisations, the local vet clinic and so on.

20141013_132654I went with Kim, at first, and later did another round with Mom.

Once home from that, I transported myself to Azeroth for some WoW’ing. With the coming 6.0 patch, Aggem Thorncurse will be replaced as boss in Razorfen Kraul. Which also means that it is no longer possible to tame his boar spirit (which he summons during the fight) that has a unique skin.

I have a lowbie hunter toon that was about level for this dungeon. But not quite enough to be able to do it by himself. And since I’m a stubborn and unsociable bastard, I don’t like doing content with others. So I’ve been leveling him the past few days to get him powerful enough so he and Bokito (his current pet) could get it done. The first time did’t work. I managed to kill Aggem, but the boar only stays up for so long after Aggem dies so after I had healed myself and started the taming, it despawned when I was done and it failed. So I reran the dungeon and this time around started taming right after defeating Aggem and caught it.

Yahnto with Thorncurse

Yahnto with Thorncurse

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

 

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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Some Random Photos, Just Because

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January 2012: Monkey loves scritchies.

January 2012: I bought a laser pointer, Milo loves it (it’s between his front paws). Sadly, I seem to have misplaced it at the moment…

January 2012: Hello human!

January 2012: Went to Eva & Jarig’s for a game night with them and Ingrid. We played Scrabble.

January 2012: Because finding a more comfortable spot is so hard…

January 2012: New slippers, they look nice, and they’re warm. They were also dirt cheap so will probably not last very long.

February 2012: Milo was very interested in the key chain ducks that I keep on my World of Warcraft authenticator.

February 2012: I think this is the closest the two of them have been so far. Occasionally they get closer as they sit on the window sill together for a couple seconds or they walk past each other, but for a prolonged period of time, this is as close as it gets.

July

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Right, in July I bought a pool 😀 A 276×169 cm blow-up pool (with electric pump ’cause I’m not insane enough to blow it up myself or with a handpump).

Also, per July I got a regular contract at work (versus via a temp agency), so that’s a nice change.

I bought a new collage photo frame, ordered prints of a bunch of 2010 photos and used them to fill said frame, as well as the photo curtainy-thing I have on my loo door.

Picked the Sims 3 back up after almost two years. Brought on by Nienke and I building an imaginary mansion where we would live I decided to try and build it in the Sims. It’s 2/3 finished and looking pretty good. I’ve identified some problem areas so will probably rebuild in a while.

I Went out for pizza with Eva at Napoli. As per usual, the pizza was great, the seating rather cramped. We sat next to each other for most of the meal since there was no space to sit on the other side of the table. On itself not a problem, but it’s nice to be able to look at the person you’re talking to. After we had mostly finished our pizza the people on the table next to ours left, so I could switch places and we hung around for a while longer chatting eye-to-eye.

When we left, Eva suggested we go for ice cream, so went across the street to get a McFlurry at the McDonalds there. They still had their outside seating there, so we lounged on that while enjoying the icey-chocolatey-caramely goodness of McFlurry-with-mixed-in-candybar.

Talked some more about life, the universe and everything from small talk to future plans. When eventually the McD’s personnel started putting the tables and such back inside we stuck around until we were the only table left 😀

We then slowly made our way back to the train station, walking along the water and the pretty trees that look the best in evening light. Once back at the train station we were thirsty and hit the Burger King for a coke to finish in that last half hour before my train would leave. Some fifteen minutes later, mid-sentence, Eva spotted Mellien, so we called her over to wait for the train with us. After some more chatting, we parted ways: Eva returning home, and Mellien and I headed for the train to our respective homes.

On the 19th I went to the hair dresser. I walked in with the remnants of my Spike-blond hair, and came out with a purple mohawk.

The 24th saw me and Nienke go to a Derek Ogilvie show. Both of us have been wanting to for while now. We’re intrigued but sceptical, so going to a show gave us a chance to see beyond what he shows on camera. Fortunately, he’s quite like on TV during his shows. He’s quite hyper while he’s communicating, making jokes with the audience and such to bridge the moments where the spirits are talking to him and he has no message to give yet. There’s a very energetic and relaxed vibe coming from him. It’s obvious from watching him that he believes fully. I remain sceptic. I’d love to believe this is real, but there were just a tad too many things that can be attributed to cold reading techniques*. In the end, though, the five or so people that got a reading, I think it did help them. And I’d go again if he comes back to Groningen.

*I know it’s the primary cause of death, but it’s funny to notice how many spirits die of heart disease. And how many women have had miscarriages, even one the woman in question didn’t know about… And when he starts to call out the confirmation things it’s a lot of pains here, pains there. Most of these are pretty generic, back pain, pain in leg, stomach/bowelpain. The things he mentions, though, after he found the person the spirit wants to talk to… there’s really specific stuff in there.

Starbucks on Groningen Central Station is opening August 5th and they we’re doing a trial run last week to train the staff. You could go in and order whatever you wanted for free. I had a lovely White Mocha. I’ll be ordering from them more in the future (although not too often, that shit’s expensive).

I also got my first batch of GetGlue stickers. GetGlue is a website where you can check in to various things that you’re doing/watching/listening to/reading etc.. While mostly focused on Media, it also has topics so you can conceivably check in on anything.

By checking in, and liking things, you earn virtual stickers. Once you have enough stickers (minimum of 20), you can have them sent to you, via mail, for free. My first batch took about 5 or 6 weeks to arrive I think. So far I’m enjoying it a lot. I check in to what I actually watch (I check in to TV or movies mostly) and have that posted on Twitter and Facebook. And besides that I actively hunt stickers, checking into and liking things for the sake of getting a sticker, even if I’m not actually watching that at the moment. I think I’ve collected close to 300 stickers now. Too bad they only send 20 at a time, and you can only request a new batch once a month…

Onwards to the End! Wait, Stop! We Missed It!

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Oh my, I have way too many things to post about to all fit in one post. Not just because it would be a mega Too Long; Don’t Read kinda thing, but also because some things are intro-type posts that work best on their own. So I’m spreading them out a bit, posting some of it now, and the rest tomorrow.

I mentioned my Christmas Day shenanigans, which were few and low-key, and the second day of Christmas wasn’t much different. I spent the day with my parents, just hanging out. Played a lot of Warcraft, and had a lovely dinner.  Spent the night at theirs too, and went to work the next day from there.

On Old Year’s Day (as we Dutchies call it), I had to work till about six, and went over to the parents again after that. I’m not too fond of New Year’s Eve, I dislike fireworks and can’t stand the incessant noises they make. Plus, for me the new year, seasonally speaking, starts at Yule. I’d brought my laptop to Parentville so I spent the evening backing up my files (which was way overdue, thank Gods there were no crashes or whatnots in between), and installing the Humble Indie Bundle I bought the other day. At midnight there was the standard well wishing and then I went on to play Warcraft, while keeping the dog calm as the neighbours went nuts with fireworks.

Tessa behaved quite nicely. She was still terrified, but there was less of the hiding in corners and such as she did last year. I think some of the things I picked up from watching Cesar Milan, in staying calm and assertive and getting her out of her heightened state when it was nearing the overboard level, worked quite well.

Hit the sack not too late and slept in this morning, absolute heaven! I don’t get to sleep in a lot at home. During the week I usually have to get up early for work, and on my days off, or when I have a late shift, the cat tends to wake me up. After hanging around the house, stopping by at home to feed and check up on Monkey, and having lunch, I finally showered. Shortly after ‘t was time for the traditional New Year’s Day meet up of my mom’s side of the family at my uncle’s house. We were there for most of the day, and it was great fun 🙂

I don’t do resolutions, but I do have my big 101 list, so I’ll be posting an update on that in a bit, along with the things on that list that are planned for this year. (note to self: comma’s are your friends, but don’t ignore periods…)

Other posts to come along shortly: final booklist, book club intro post thingy (I might combine those, probably easier), a little 2010 overview thing, the weekly four tomorrow and an intro for my 2011 Picture-a-Day thing.

The World Heaves With My Torment

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Pain… Agony…
My hatred burns through the cavernous deeps.
The World heaves with my torment.
Its wretched kingdoms quake beneath my rage.
But at last, the whole of Azeroth will break.
And all will burn beneath the shadow of my wings.
~Deathwing

The Shattering has been a week now, so I figured I jot down my thoughts so far. I’ve been questing with Asraelion (80) as well as Yathra (47) and both are enjoying the new 1-60 questlines/zones. Asra, obviously, is racing through it what with his level, but unlike when I was doing Loremaster and scrounging for those last quests, I’m taking the time to read the quests and really enjoy the stories. With a lot of those random kill x of that, collect y of that quests removed, every thing you do in a quest line feels relevant to the story.

Asra has been questing in Stranglethorn, Westfall, Redridge and Duskwood. In Stranglethorn I’m really fond of the quests that basically serve as an intro to Zul’Gurub. Very nicely done how you find an egg along the way which hatches a little t-rex who runs along with you as you keep questing until it suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, finds something and such leading to another quest. It feels very natural. Plus the epic conclusion of that particular quest line! Trying to escape Zul’Gurub as the t-rex, it was heart-stopping on occasion, I got pulled in that much. It also took some good thinking and patience, very nice to not be done with a quest in 5 minutes 😀

In Westfall, the whole CSI: Miami quest line. One word: Awesome! Assisting Lieutenant Horatio Laine (with trademark sun glasses and bad puns) solving the murder of Blanchy the Cow and uncovering the identity of the Shadowy Figure who’s trying to resurrect the Defias.

Redridge, while the questing experience is much improved, and following a story line, felt less epic to me though, although that is probably because I did it with Asra, and some of the assistance provided by the quest objects was unneeded for him so he raced through it. I did love the tank ride though 😀

Duskwood feels much, much better. There’s some real Worgen story going on there, so it’s nice to get a preview of Worgen background before next week. By now I’m already honored with Gilneas and the faction isn’t even fully in play yet 😀

Yathra, on the other hand, since I’m kinda trying to level her pretty quick, is doing stuff her level. She’s not done a whole lot of quests, but she has been running around for flight paths. I love (although maybe slightly overdone) the myriad of flight paths in Eastern Plaguelands. She has been questing in Western Plaguelands, and the quests and stories do a very nice job of showing how the Alliance reclaims the land from the Scourge. Andorhal is partly reclaimed, and it, plus Sorrow Hill, look great and green again.

The Badlands, where she has also done questing, is awesome. It’s kinda tricky getting there as Deathwing left a huge gash between Loch Modan and the Badlands, but if you look closely, there’s a path across. In the middle of the Badlands is a gash where Deathwing burned and tore through the earth. The canyon-like feature is filled with Earth Elementals, and an unlikely threesome of friends in the middle.

Three quest givers stand on a peak in the middle and each of them tells you about the day Deathwing came, and how they killed him… It’s part cinematic, part quest where you play the part of the quest giver. And since all three tell rather tall tales, the quests are hilarious! Plus in the foreseeable future this will be the only way you’ll ever get to kill dear Deathwing 😀

There’s only one week left until Cataclysm (and I so hope Bol will actually deliver my pre-ordered Collector’s Edition on the day itself) and then my Worgen will be created. I’m not sure yet what he or she will be in terms of class, but I’m looking forward to it very much. And in the mean time I amuse myself with thinking up potential names and seeing if they’re taken (which, unfortunately, most I like already are 🙁 ).

What One Does While Sick

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Besides those <-, I’m working on more reputation things. Spent some time in Zul’Gurub grinding Zandalar rep. Together with a couple extra coins and bijous bought on the AH that got me to halfway through friendly in a few hours. Should be able to get that to exalted over the next two months I’d think 😀

Als grinding Kurenai, not just for the individual achievement, but also for the Diplomat title that comes with getting Timbermaw, Sporeggar and Kurenai exalted. Should also be done in the next week or so, together with Oracles as I’m halfway through revered with both of them. And pocketing those two reps will also get me to 20 reputations at Exalted.

Almost 26

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Me sleeping, at maybe two weeks old or so, in October 1984

As I type this it’s 22 minutes to midnight, 22 minutes until my birthday. And if you really wanna fuck ants* to use a Dutchism, it’ll be another bunch of hours and minutes until the actual moment I age, as I wasn’t born until 17:54 or 17:56, I keep forgetting. I think it’s 17:54.

I celebrated this upcoming occasion past weekend, on Saturday with friends, and on Sunday with family. I tend to split them up as I live in a tiny house that can hold my friends, but not my family. I have a lot of them. 😀

Ingrid was the first to arrive on Saturday, and after chatting and having a drink (and Caek!) we went to play board games. Starting out with some trivial pursuit she brought. It was a topical edition about popular music, so I expected to loose. Ingrid’s a walking pop encyclopedia… However, luck and factoids were with me, and by the time Nienke barged in, I was well ahead. Yay!

Koehandel

With addition of Nienke, we were with enough to play Koehandel (Cow Trading), a game I bought quite a while ago, but never played yet as it needs a minimum of 3 people, and I normally can’t get Nienke to play along. This time I forced her, proclaiming that, since it was my birthday, she had no choice 😀

(If you’re not interested in games you might wanna speed through the next bit as I review the games we played.)

The game was fun, but not one of my favourites. The point is to get as many sets of animals. It starts with an auction each round, with one player being the auctioneer and the other two bidding. The winner then pays the auctioneer and gets the animal. The auctioneer can choose to excercise his right of sale by paying the highest bidder the amount they bid.

After a while, there will be people who have the same animal, and at that point they can barter for it. The one who wants to barter makes a blind offer, and the other chooses to accept or counter-offer. The addition of bluff cards (with a zero value) makes this a strategic part as you never really know what the offer is. If the other counter-offers, he too makes a blind offer and both players give their offer to the other. The one who then paid most gets the animal of the other. Nienke won this game.

Therapy

Then we went on with Therapy. We don’t play this often as it’s best with five or six and it gets out of hand, time-wise, very quickly. The game part of it is a bit long winded, but the conversations this leads to are awesome.

For the game you move around a board with psychiatric sofas trying to be the first one to get the six coloured pins in it. This would make the bed a bed of nails, so I don’t know if it would be very comfortable for a therapy session though…

To move you roll two dice, and then go forward, the square you land on tells you what to do next. This can be a question, and a right answer gets you a pin. Or it can be a question/wait square where you pick whether you want a question or stop your turn. Careful with picking the question here though, if you answer wrong you end up with a psychosis.

Other options are fantasy, where you have to answer a question about a Rörschach test kinda picture, or therapy. Depending on the number of players, this is group therapy or single therapy. If you land on a square in the same colour as one of the player sofas, you go into therapy with that player. If it is an unused colour, you go into therapy with all the other players. The therapist then asks a question (all questions are about the player) from the therapy cards, and the player writes down their answer. The therapist then says what he thinks the player answered, with reasoning. In Group therapy, all the therapists declare what they think the player answered and then come to a mutual answer. If the therapist was right, he wins a pin.

The therapy is the part I love most about the game, it leads to very interesting conversations about how you see each other, how others see themselves and what everyone would and wouldn’t do.

(Reviewy bit is over 😀)

This is what we did for the rest of the evening really, interspersed with more general chatting and eating and drinking and some picture taking.I got awesome presents as well. Ingrid gave me the Boyzone CD Brother. I was a major fan of them in my teens, and even though it has mellowed, I still like their music. They’re special to me because they were quite important to me then, so I do always want the physical CDs they release instead of just downloading it.

Mellien gave me a children’s book I wanted, a favourite I read many times as a kid. Eva gave me something from her and Juut together, a set of iron cutlery, made by Juut himself! It’s totally awesome! It’ll come in handy when we go re-enacting again 🙂 Pictures of this, and other birthday stuff to come along later, btw.

Ingrid stayed over and after Nienke had gone home too we got to talking about (among other things) Warcraft, so I showed her some things about the game, and explained stuff. She ended up with a better idea of what I do when I play and what I like about it. It was nice to share something that I like a lot, with one of my friends who’s not normally into that kind of thing.

Sunday morning I got up ridiculously early at 8:30 (not smart when you go to bed around 02:00…) cause I told my dad to pick me up around 9:00. This so there’d be more than enough time, once we got to the parents’ place, to prep for the family coming that afternoon and evening. I was gonna make a cake (hmmmm cheesecake), but decided against it as mom had an extra cake and we would’ve had too much. This meant I had extra time, and I could’ve (really should’ve) gone to bed for an hour or two longer. But I didn’t. I left Ingrid at Nienke’s for a cuppa while me and all my crap headed over to Parentville.

Had some time in the morning and early afternoon to play some WoW and mess with the Blog (I played with the layout and contents of the 101 list at the top) before the first people showed up. After that it was mostly very busy, very gezellig and very fun.I got two book gift cards, some money, very pretty and lovely scented shower gel and a drawing and a written piece by my two young second cousins 🙂

From my parents I got a book, in two parts, about the excavations in Midlaren, where I was working the second half of 2004. During the summer with the actual excavation, and from August to December with the washing, drawing and cataloging of the finds.

After the last ones left, I basically rolled into bed exhausted. All my energy was gone (that’s what lots of people for a prolonged period does to me, I’m a major introvert). It’s not back yet either. It didn’t help very much I had to work today, which, by necessity, has more people too 😀

Bought some candy to treat my teammates at work with, and made it through the day without too much trouble. Although I did start to notice, half way through the day, that the cold I’ve been seeing at the horizon for a few days has hit home. My nose is stuffed and my energy regeneration is down to half strength 🙁

Scheduled for a full work day tomorrow, but gonna see if I can get off early. Need to sleep some more, and a half day off tomorrow along with Wednesdays usual freedom it should see me through the worst of it.

It’s 00:42 now, it’s my birthday 😀 Got the first congratulatory text message, from Gert, at 00:04, nice timing 😀

And with that I will say goodbye, and good night.

*Mierenneuken as we say means fucking ants, literally. It can also be said as mierenneuker which is to a person, as it means antfucker. It’s English counterpart would be nitpicking.