Exam period is once again ravaging my mind (although, this time, my meta-algorithm seemed to go a lot better than last time). I havn’t gotten the grade yet, but I’m quite certain it’s near the top. Should be revealed in a week or so. On top of that, I’m in the middle of an intensive 3 weeks programming-project, which is quite entertaining, taking the hard work into consideration, as we just finished the “introduction”-week, and got to know the details of our main project, which is to be finished by the 25th.

World of Warcraft-wise, I had my first 1 month anniversary as a Wowhead Moderator. Some might have seen it in my Tweet-feed, but I thought I’d mention here as well, for good measure, as it has indeed affected how I spend my online-time. It feels great to be able to give something back to the community, by ensuring that the Forums are a nice place to discuss various stuff – and it has so far indeed been a pleasant experience to be a part of the team, and getting the experience in moderating.

On top of that, I’ve begun conquoring the heroic content of Icecrown Citadel 25-man raiding, which is steadily progressing. I’ll probably also look a bit more into how the Shamans are looking for Cataclysm, when more information is showing itself. For now, my previous post still seems up to date, which can be combined with the newly released official talent calculator preview.

Lastly, I feel like reminding everyone that R.A.G.E wasn’t just an empty idea – I just don’t really get that many random ideas for crazy stuff to write nowadays, or the most immediate thoughts are published as Tweets, as they’re simply too short to deserve a post of their own (although I might do more of those semi-short ones). I do however want to get back to look more closely at the Diablo-universe, and continuing my theorizing about it, in different shapes or forms.

In essence, Rebirth isn’t really a fitting title, Reawakening probably covers it better – unless I’m mistaken for a phoenix made of lightning instead of fire… and not be a phoenix after all, but a gnu instead.

So far, I have quite a few things set in stone. The main setting is done, with various details about environment and descriptions of where different points in the “world” is according to each other. The background story is done, which sets a pretty good “general mood” for a story to be told. I have found a protagonist, an antagonist and “that third person”, and so far given them some very basic features in terms of background, personalities and aims in the storyline. I have defined various “laws”, in terms of magic/technology, and explanations of how and why they’re functioning as they are and how they fit into it all. Furthermore, I have even sketched down how the story starts out for each of the three characters described before, and how they’ll end up interacting with each other.

So far, it sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Probably way more detailed that some writers have it when they start a story. However, that is a matter of how you prefer to work. I, as you might have guessed, like to plan before I start, and not having to make too big decisions halfway through. In case that happens, I would have to go back and change various things. And while revising is good, it’s not really the same thing.

Why do I write then? While it may sound cryptic, it’s not to write. I could most likely have started writing it ages ago, but that would mean the result – in my eyes – wouldn’t have been as good as it could be. And why settle with a compromise, when you can do it properly?

Maybe, I’m just scared that the project I spend so much time on doesn’t end up being good. Maybe, I simply like the research and plotting part too much compared to the actual writing process. Maybe – which I think is the most overshadowing fact of these three at the moment – I’m a bit too much of a perfectionist to attempt starting without knowing for certain that I’d have the proper amount of time to finish (or get close to there), without getting “disturbed” by a longer process of something else, be that studies, work or something third.

No matter what, there’s no chance that I’ll abandon it. At all.

As you know, a laptop’s keyboard is rather integrated into the computer itself, and spilling liquid on this will, without doubt, prove rather fatal very quickly. I had a cup of warm tea besides my good old trusty laptop, and – as fate has it – accidentally struck it with one of my arms, causing the almost boiling-hot tea (with honey, mind you) to spill all over the laptops keyboard. 2 seconds later, the computer shut itself off.

This should, without doubt, cause panic of epic proportions to most people, and I admit that I was very close to yelling a lot of very bad words out loud. Luckily enough, I realized that there wasn’t any immediate smoke and sparks flying, and got my hopes up a bit. Disconnected the power supply, wiped as much as I could off the keyboard, got my girlfriends hairdryer, and started going berserk with the getting sure that there wasn’t a single drop of tea to be found anywhere in, or on, the laptop. After that, I left it to cool down for a few hours … and tried what would eventually be needed to check if everything was ok.

It booted fine, but made my heart skip a beat, when an error-message almost instantly popped up:

The computer was shut down for safery-measures, because of over-heating. Check the (…)

Insanely enough, the heat from the hot tea had caused the computer to shut itself down before the liquid had any chance to damage it. Lucky? Quite.

So, did my computer survive without a scratch? Not really. The keys on the left side of the keyboard (where the primary “splash” had hit) are crunching quite a bit when pushing them, most likely a result of the honey in the tea drying. I might have to clean it completely eventually, when it starts to annoy me enough. For now, I’m just happy that the laptop still lives.

I have a lovely plant (a Peperomia Acuminata, I think it’s called), which I’ve had for around 1,5 year at this point. Having “green fingers” isn’t exactly a natural feat of a guy in his middle twenties, so I have somehow become rather attached to the thing. My own power plant, if you will (pun intended naturally), as it has grown quite a bit since then.

Not too long ago, I walked by it, and thought it looked a bit thirsty, and thus watered it a bit – as you do for thirsty plants. One of the countless things I learned through this long period of professional gardening (self-irony also intended). The strange thing was, that after that, I almost instantly got thirsty, and went out to drink around 1L of water.

Having never really thought of thirst as a contagious feeling, this was a rather strange moment. Not only that, but it came from a plant. I must repeat this: a plant. I guess Boston puts it the best, because it certainly must’ve been. That, or it was a coincidence.

… but what are the odds of that?