This morning at 7:15 the city was dark and covered in fog. The streets were quiet, what with it being a Saturday. I cycled past the water and thought to myself; in the movies these are the times joggers and unsuspecting cyclists such as myself spot dead bodies in the water.

I peered a little closer but I couldn't make out any.

Dreams

This morning I had to get up at 6:30. Apparently I was really aware of the fact I would get little sleep, since weird dreams ensued.

I dreamed I was right where I was, in bed, only in my dream the alarm went off, so I got up to get ready for work. I was sitting behind my PC for a bit, as I do every morning, when I looked at the clock and realized it was just 2 AM. So in my dream I reasoned I must have dreamed the alarm went off. In stead of going back to bed, however, I went across the hall to Marlene who was apparently awake, and she was about to head out to some exam she had 6 AM. Don't ask me why she wanted to be there three hours early, but my dream-self offered to cycle with her there since I was awake anyway. Okay so now if I wasn't already, I'm positive this was a dream cause I would certainly never ever give up my warm bed for ANYTHING in the middle of the night. Anyway I went with her, dropped her off and arrived back home around 3:30. It was awful. I was thinking, I have to get up in 3 hours! I will have had no sleep! But at this point I woke up to discover it was 4 AM and I was still in bed. And despite the fact that I really did have to get up early, which I hate, all was right with the world.

Ode to Amazon.de

Hey Blog,

I hadn't mentioned this yet, but about a week ago my earphones broke. Total loss pretty much. It was kind of a freak accident. I was walking out the door to head to work, when the wire that was hanging down from my ears to the player got caught on the door handle. So in comic-book-style my head got snapped back when the door started to swing closed. In this moment one of my earphones flew out of my ear and somehow managed to land exactly between the wall and the door as the door fell shut with a bang. (and it's a heavy door) I even had to pick up a piece of earphone off the floor, and I could see the wires sticking out.

Needless to say, I was in a pretty shitty mood after that. And I'm not that great at morning to begin with. Sixty euros down the drain.

When I got home and told Rakoo about what happened, he remembered I bought them from Amazon.de with his help like two years ago, so he wrote them an e-mail asking if there was any sort of refund possible. Now I must admit I did not have very high hopes, because seriously it was like two years ago and how would they know I didn't just stomp on them just so they would give me free new ones? To my utter surprise they sent us back an e-mail with instructions to sent in my 'product' so that they may return my money. And guess what, they did!

To make a long story short, I lost my old earphones yes, but with a full refund I now ordered new (better!) ones for only a few euros more! I ordered the new ones from Amazon.de again, of course, because obviously they rock.

Thank you Amazon :)

My two cents

So last weekend were the Dota 2 Starladder finals in Kiev. I didn't get to see quite as much of it as I wanted to, since it was a family weekend with the folks and siblings. However, Saturday night my sister and I found ourselves watching the Dota 2 girl finals live on stage, as they were apparently scheduled in between the regular matches.

So at first we were like, woo! Girls! Go girls! Cause everyone knows girls have a pretty hard (or one could argue, easy) time in the online world, what with most guys convinced they are somehow less skilled in gaming due to their gender. Yet here were some skilled Dota 2 playing girls, representing the much neglected female community within Dota 2. Exciting stuff. I was thinking this might finally prove to people that there is no need to be sexist towards girls in gaming, we can be skilled! We can own stuff! See? Gender makes no difference!

However, despite the decidedly girly play style that was being shown, and despite the abundance of pauses and the fact one girl even made a phone call excitedly relaying their rampage (yes we all saw what you did there!) what really blew my hopes out the window was this.

The whole idea about gender equality is to create an environment in which males and females are treated equally. For the gaming industry this mainly means guys stop flaming girls based on their gender, and stop the use of phrases like "Y U NO IN KITCHEN LOL". The thing is though, in order for girls to be taken seriously in the gaming scene, it is important that they conduct themselves professionally, or at least, as professional as the current guy pro teams. What they should definitely avoid, is using their gender to gain fame/popularity/sponsors. Which is exactly what's happening on above mentioned picture.

It does not make any sense to argue against sexism when this picture is obviously asking for it. I'm not saying these girls are against sexism, (obviously it appears they aren't) but one can hope.

So, to be honest, I am disappointed. Not only did the girls refuse to set a good example of female Dota 2 players, they in fact did the exact opposite. They basically showed the community that judging them by their looks is totally okay and even encouraged.

So to set the record straight, I'm pretty sure I speak for a bunch of girls out there that this is not the way we want to be perceived. The whole idea that the girl league should be kept separate is questionable to begin with, and trust me, there are girls out there who enjoy playing Dota 2 at a high level and DO consider half-naked photo shoots to be over the top ridiculous.

Dear Blog,

Life is good. With all my housemates stressing about term papers, deadlines and exams, I am well aware of how blissfully easy life can be when the end of a workday means the end of work, period. I'm massively enjoying my new found freedom along with my new earned money.

What I do come to miss though, is the writing. This is one of the reasons I decided to once again revive you, dear Blog.

About two weeks ago I finally succumbed to buying my first ever smartphone. It's a Samsung Galaxy S3. It's been just 14 days but I already can't imagine life without it. I am aware that this sounds kind of sad. But seriously, my whole family was always on Whatsapp without me, and now that I'm there I just don't want to leave. And then there is instagram. I would like to point out that no, I am not a hipster! But yes, yesterday night I did have to take a picture of the glorious 500gr T-bone steak I was about to consume.

And you gotta admit, totally worth it!

So you have a new cool shirt you really like? Here's some toothpaste that will create a stain that not even vanish oxy action can get out.

THANKS LIFE!

Dear Blog,

Last weekend was The International Dota 2 championships in Seattle. My sister got to go there, I was pretty jealous. I had to work at the auction house the whole weekend, so I didn't get to watch as much as I wanted to. Because of the time difference the grand finals were supposed to be played around 5 AM CET (sundaynight), and although I started out determined to stay up for this (since I was free on monday) I really didn't manage to keep my eyes open. I went to bed thinking I'd see who won in the morning, and then when in the morning I read IG beat Na`Vi I felt like maybe not watching had made my favorite team lose :(. (ridiculous I know)

Anyway, IG really deserved the win, and they looked so happy I really couldn't feel bad about Na'Vi's loss. They'd won once already anyhow.

I should be applying to a lot more jobs than I currently am. Somehow each time I apply I get my hopes up, and then when it doesn't work out I just feel disappointed. I should throw out a wider net to catch more fish.

Oh and one more thing, please help me remember the awesome dream I had a few days ago. I was in Minecraft but everything looked real, and I built an awesome forest intending on building a tree house later on. I asked the server owner, who was building a railroad I approved of, if he could please make me a horse. He then gave me a beautiful black Frisian on which I continued to explore our world. I discovered other people had already built tree houses, so I wanted to do something else.  I discovered the entrance to an abandoned castle, and had just decided to build my house here when a huge stone gollem showed up (he kinda looked like a huge tiny + aghanims from Dota 2 cause he was carrying a tree). I took off on my horse and he followed me so I led him to the group of people near the tree houses I had seen earlier and took off. Not one of my nicest moments, but then again it was just a dream.

Dear Blog,

Today I was at the beach with my parents. We are staying at our family's house on the beach, as we do for a week every summer. This year it's just me and them, as all my siblings are off doing more important stuff. The weather was nice and so we descended onto the beach armed with chairs, towels, and reading material.

A traditional past time for my family on the beach is shoveling. The most vivid memories I have of this place involve forts and dykes of all shapes and sizes, so it would come as no surprise to hear that I was also carrying a shovel, with the intent to dig something or other. When I was younger I remember being impressed with the large amounts of sand my dad, brother, and sisters were able to pile up using the 'adult' shovel. I normally carried around the kiddie shovel, feeling all important and with the steadfast belief that what I did helped tremendously, when in fact looking back I probably hardly did anything. We often built a dyke to keep water that was running back to sea from getting there, creating a pond of sorts on the beach. Other children would sometimes play in the ponds we built. Sometimes we did this over at the rows of poles dividing the beaches. I can still remember how we would resent the German tourists that considered our dyke a safe bridge to get across. Other times we would create a spiral which would run full of water as the tide came in, other people from the beach would come over to look at what we had made, because obviously it was awesome.

Nowadays when we go to the beach here, it has become a habit of mine to build a dyke surrounding "our" place on the beach. And today, as I set out to do just that I came to thinking about why it is that I like to create some sort of fence around our spot, making it more "ours".  I even wondered why I resented the little boy who was digging way too close to my dyke. I bet a therapist could answer this. What is it with humans and building fences around stuff, and walls and hedges and whatnot. I guess we just like our own space. Maybe back in the day we also wanted to have our own cave, cause it's easier to defend maybe? Who knows.

Anyway I built an awesome dyke.

Dear Blog,

After many years of hard work, I am now Master of Arts. This means I have to get a job. A real job.

Oh dear God help me I have become an adult.