IKEAHackers Website - Awesome Way to Pimp Your Interior

I've just recently stumbled upon a website called IKEAhackers and I couldn't help but talk about it on here because I think it's just generally awesome. Why is it so awesome, you might ask? I'll tell you right now.

Everyone probably has the problem of furniture being too expensive for them to afford at least once in their life. It's a common problem, young people just need more than they can afford. That's the way the economy is right now. IKEA is a cheap alternative for expensive brands, but it's very limited as compared to the huge amount of personalities and lifestyles that require the perfect house interior.

Well, problem solved for those that can't find the perfect furniture at IKEA: there's an extremely large community of "IKEA Hackers" that modify IKEA furniture to fit their needs. The nice part of it is: you can read through all of their projects and potential inspiration on a website called IKEAhackers. Seriously, It's awesome.

It's all well-organized thanks to its creator still being dedicated to delivering the best user experience possible. You can even subscribe to a newsletter that will tell you about the website developer's favorite hacks so that you don't have to read through everything on the website to find only a couple of ideas that you truly find creative and well-made.

The website has had some problems regarding IKEA wanting it to either stop running ads or turn in their domain name, but those were resolved without any lawyers getting involved so the website isn't going anywhere. That honestly makes me happy. If they had sued IKEAHackers for its name I would have probably boycotted IKEA as it's a generally awesome website that everyone has to visit.

I personally found one very simple hack on the website that I'm planning on doing myself pretty soon: a very cheap headset holder. I've been looking for a cheap alternative for one of those things for quite a while now, and this thing will really help me make my desk more organized.

Apart from that, I think the intended use of IKEA's furniture will suffice for now as I haven't really ran into any major furniture problems in or around my rooms that can't be solved very cheap (or even for free) so far.

That's it for this post, I hope at least one of you can use this website to solve a frustrating problem in or around your house. It's truly awesome and the people on there are so creative that I think there's no way you can visit this website without getting some inspiration from it. Everyone needs furniture.

My Strange Addiction of RuneScape

RuneScape can't be considered a game you can play into the early hours, yet I still find myself enjoying the game more than I first thought I would. Here's my story of how I got into the game and why I think it's so addicting. 

This is all just my story, so those who want a full review of the game should wait for a while because with how much I play RuneScape I won't be able to hold back from making a review on it.

Years ago, when I was still very young (way too young to fully understand English), I saw my brother and his friends play RuneScape. This is in the true Old School times, the game had not even barely gotten as far as the 07 version that people consider "Old School" now. It just seemed so cool to me that they were all interacting with eachother on this game even though they weren't talking to eachother like they would on the playing grounds, for example. They all had a smile on their face as they were trading their items in front of the Lumbridge Castle.

The Lumbridge Castle as of 2007

I imeadiately wanted to know more about it. When we arrived at home, I asked my brother to make an account for me. The one think I remember in particular is me not liking the need to choose yet another password I'd have to remember, so I used "nietleuk" as a password (Dutch for "not fun"). All of a sudden, I found myself in this alternate reality. It wasn't like the real world, but it didn't have to be: it was a place where I was able to interact with people from all around the globe without the need of spending countless hours in your car (air plane tickets were too expensive for our family). It was almost even divine.

My story, further on, was kind of like that of all other long-time gamers: I got hooked on the stuff, I loved the people I interacted with most as much as I loved my friends in real life. My life at school was great, I was not any different from the other kids and I truly had the time of my life.

That was until I skipped a year of school because of my "extraordinary" intelligence. The other kids were so jealous of me that they all picked on me. I was the outsider, the one that was given an unfair advantage and they wanted to take that advantage away from me no matter what. Thus I was bullied for years and years.

Unlike most other "nerds" that shared this fate, I was able to interact with girls just fine. Honestly, I had more female friends than male friends and by the time I left high school, I had already had three pretty long relationships. They were all ended just as quickly as they had began: the first one had to move for her parents' jobs, the second one went to a school so far away from my village that it was impossible to stay in contact with her and the third one turned out to like me only for the fact that I was the one that stood up for her when she was bullied (and getting myself in an even worse position in the process) so she left me once the bullies lost interest in her. I still hate her for using me like that, but I guess everyone gets a major slap in the face every once in a while.

Why are they relevant? Because they gave me bragging rights on RuneScape and they made me look cool. Unlike some other scumbags I no longer needed to lie to my clanmates when talking about love and relationships as we often did (very awkward to do over the internet without knowing who you're talking to, I know). That made me proud.

Others got some ingame cash as a gift for their so-called "marriage" but were forced to admit their lies only a week later. Those guys tried to go after me a couple of times, trying to make me "snap" and tell them that I had been lying too. But I hadn't been lying, so I was safe and they decided to admit that only a year later and ended up handing in all of the gifts I had given them for their lies over the course of that year. I was rich, all of a sudden.

That gained me respect in the game. That made me from just a clanmate into the cool guy. the one everyone wanted to be. Yet all I really was was a nerd behind his desk, telling his online friends the worst jokes you could find on the internet and having a good time. And the guys at school noticed that I had to be doing something in my free time and that it sure wasn't sports or hanging out with my friends and causing some fuss over the most stupid of things, so I was an outsider in yet another aspect and they trived upon that.

Their increased bullying caused me to not do homework, made me hide in a shell where all that really mattered was me and RuneScape. And eventually also MineCraft, Tribal Wars and such. It made me grab for whatever made me feel good, and that was mostly fast food and candy. So I got pretty fat all because they pushed me into a state where the only reliable entertainment I had was my PC.

I'm currently still trying to get rid of that weight. I have so much to look forward to in the future, and a terrible physical condition would ruin most of that. So at the moment I'm doing my best to grab for some actual strawberries instead of strawberry icecream, for an apple instead of a cookie and so on. It's actually easier than I had first imagined: you don't have to completely give up everything you like in life just to become healthier. All you need to do is force yourself to actually do it. The rest just comes with that.

And this is where all of that brought me, writing about my life online. My friends, that I now actually have, would probably think that it's incredibly weird of me to talk about my life so openly online as compared to in real life. In person I hate talking about myself. I hate talking in general. I can type my thoughts faster than I can express them using my mouth. This is what I'm used to. This is my life, and I welcome you to it. Please ignore the mess that is my past, and the cloud that hides my future from me. I've gotten used to those by now.

Please don't see this as me trying to get compassion, I honestly don't care about wether or not people are actually reading this. It's just a way for me to feel like I've actually expressed myself for once, and I must say it feels very good.

That's it for today's post, it's a little bit of a long one but in order to tell you guys about how I got into RuneScape I had to tell you about a very large part of my life story. I'm sorry for those of you that want straight up information, this was just the way I felt most comfortable with sharing this.

First Ever Oral Exam

I've just had my first ever oral exam earlier today, and I wanted to tell you guys about how it went and what the whole experience felt like to me.

First of all, I want to thank my English teacher for making it that easy. I mean, seriously, I'm in my third year of high school and I get questions like "What do you think of our school" on my oral exam. That's just outrageous. The fact of the matter is, I'm pretty sure I've passed this exam.

It wasn't like your average oral exam where you basically have a monologue with only you and your teacher in the room, it was easier than that. We were divided in groups of three students and assigned a theme and some questions. Then we got one minute of preparation, even though I still think she only gave us half a minute, and had to start a natural conversation with eachother about the theme we were assigned including the answers to the questions we were posed.

Ofcourse, this wasn't hard at all and I was put in a group with a girl that's really good at English in my opinion (it isn't our native language) and a guy that wasn't as good at it but was really doing his best to do as good as possible.

It seemed so short, the conversation was stopped by the teacher in no time and we went home earlier than most others (we all had to arrive at the same time, but once you were done you were allowed to leave and we were one of the early groups). I left with a smile on my face as I just knew that I'd get excellent results for this oral exam.

That's it for this post, it's really just a small filler while I'm still doing exams as I don't have that much time to write any big articles yet. When I'm done, it'll be a long holiday and I'll be able to write loads of amazing articles for you guys to read. We'll get through these harsh times.

My switch from AZERTY to QWERTY

Just yesterday, I switched keyboards from AZERTY to QWERTY. This post is going to be a struggle to write as I'm not completely used to it yet, but I guess it's worth it as the QWERTY layout matches my needs most.

The first thing I did when I got into the QWERTY side of things was check out the differences in the layouts. The letters aren't that much of a struggle to get used to, apart from the letter M being in a completely different spot without any clear reason as to why.

Of course, there's some more advantages to this layout. You pretty much don't need the Alt Gr button, so you can use that one for keybinds in games (for example having to press both Alt Gr and a number to heal yourself in WoW).

I must say that my new keyboard feels extremely good compared to my old one. The button presses feel a lot smoother instead of constantly having that clicking noise. The space bar is pretty loud, but I guess every keyboard has its flaw and a loud spacebar isn't that much of a problem.

Also, a pretty big flaw (for people that live in Europe) is that it doesn't have the Euro sign on it so that could become a bit of a struggle in the future.

So far, I really like the experience of QWERTY compared to AZERTY. I'm probably going to run into some issues with the QWERTY layout pretty soon, so stay tuned for more keyboard layout madness.

My experience with G2A

G2A is a website where you can buy games under their actual retail value with over 99% customer satisfaction. I decided to check it out quite a while ago, and this is my opinion on the website.

First of all, I want to talk about their referal system. You can actually earn a little bit of money to spend on games by referring people to the website (if they actually buy something). That's really awesome, as they basically give you games for referring people to the website and the longer you've been referring people, the more you get out of it, I really like that.

Also, you don't have to spend that money on games on their website, you can also get it transferred to your Paypal account (but who wants cash when you can get games instead). Essentially you could make this a form of profit for your online business like a YouTube channel or blog if the ad revenue can't keep you going.

You don't notice any price changes if you've been referred to the site compared to people that found out on their own, they don't take the money from the people that you referred to the site (if they did, that'd be pretty messed up imo).

Their overall service is great. The website looks good, it functions exactly the way you'd expect it to and it's generally a good experience. I don't know about the customer service yet because I haven't actually needed that so far.

That's it for this review on G2A, I hope you all enjoyed.

My Opinion on the Story of Kael'thas Sunstrider (WoW Lore)

Nobbel87 just released a video about the full story of Kael'thas Sunstrider, and as I'm very interested in the lore of World of Warcraft and have watched many of Nobbel's videos before.

The story starts off when about how Sylvanas and the High Elves fought against Arthas and the Undead in the absense. It also talks about Quel'thalas, the Highborn, the Naga and many more big elements in the lore of World of Warcraft.

The city of Quel'thalas

I think Blizzard did a great job at this storyline and the beginning of it was so awesome that you wouldn't expect it to ever turn bad. Until he had to serve Grand Marshal Garithos. That guy is probably the most selfish (and honestly even dumb) leader in the history of World of Warcraft. He didn't even want to admit that Prince Kael'thas made a smart decision by working together with the "vile" Naga who also despised the "vile" Undead.

Lady Vashj

That was until Lady Vashj decided to bring him to Outland for him to serve the demon Illidan. This is where the storyline kind of stopped making sense for me: first he hesitated to even accept a gift from Lady Vashj because she was a servant of Illidan and then he just goes ahead and marches into Outland to serve Illidan along with her. Why? If the earlier part of the storyline was right, he was more than wise enough to know that taking the path of the demons was a lot less honorable of a decision than facing Garithos and perhaps dieing in the process. 

Illidan Stormrage

Taking the decision of staring death in the eyes was a decision only a strong leader could have made, and apparently his addiction to magic had driven him so mad that he saw no other way out than to side with the demon Illidan, who he had despised before he made this decision, and possibly allow the demon to force his people into slavery. That could've happened. You never know what's on a demon like Illidan's mind.

The demon promised him more magic than the elf could ever imagine, and immeadiately made the guy his right hand while that same elf had helped the people who damned him by forcing him into retreat on his mission to destroy the Lich King, forced the hatred of Kil'jaeden upon the demon and still Stormrage trusted Kael'thas that much. That sounsd kind of fishy, but I guess Illidan knew how desperate the elves were as he, too, turned to Fel magic to feed his addiction.

Fel Magic

The second fight against the Lich King, with Arthas defending the King and the elves helping the demon Illidan Stormrage, failed as well and they were forced into retreat once again. What a fail, even with the help of yet another race Illidan couldn't kill a single man. Why didn't the elves help the demon in his fight against the Lich King, and where were the Scourge? I guess they didn't think their cutscenes through...

Illidan and the Lich King facing off

Now, the humans came back in. They were helped by the Naaru this time, so you'd expect the humans to win easily. That's not the case, however. Tempest Keep, while easily being able to teleport away, ended up getting captured and the Naaru didn't even care about it. Wait... What? The Naaru didn't care about their own home getting invaded by an evil force? Almost everyone would be mad and imeadiately taking arms to reclaim what's theirs, but apparently these beings were so "Holy" that they didn't even care about it.

M'uru, the Naaru that stayed in Tempest Keep

The elves got more and more heavily addicted to this new Fel magic and they were corrupted (just like the Orcs were before them), even though Kael'thas told Vashj that "his people would never be that desperate". As they got corrupted, their eyes turned from blue to green. This is only minor compared to the Orcs fully turning green, but it's still a sign of their corruption.

Kael'thas teamed up with Kil'jaeden, so he was now the puppet of an even more powerful and evil being. Akama told Illidan about it and just like that, Illidan was now after his servant Kael'thas. He didn't kill the elf himself, though, we as players ended up killing the guy. But not actually killing him, he was reborn. Deformed yet alive. In World of Warcraft, an important character in the lore can't just be killed by killing them once: they always end up coming back (see the Lich King leaving Illidan for dead in Northrend, yet the demon getting saved by his servants and him actually returning). That's something pretty weird about the game and I think they made the decision because it's too hard to keep a game going with all-new characters every expansion so re-using characters was probably the smartest decision and it adds a sense of mystery to the lore.

His second version ended up getting killed too, but he had already set events in motion and the Burning Legion was coming to Azeroth. They ended up coming, but the invasion was stopped and the Legion was blocked out of our reality.

It's an extremely exciting storyline with a whole lot to talk about. Out of all storylines I know within the game, this one will really stay on my mind for the longest time. I've even rewatched the full thing just for the sake of hearing the tale once again. The fact you can actually do that, means Blizzard sure did an amazing job at making their lore interesting and exciting.

New Earphones & Exams Coming Soon

It's been a while since I last posted a life-update, so I decided that I should probably keep you guys updated with the latest news in my life.

I got new earphones as the ones I was prevously using weren't even mine and they weren't good enough for me. I know, I know, you should always be grateful about being able to lend something and I really was, but if earphones don't sound good they get annoying after some time so I decided to buy myself a new pair.

Ofcourse, I did some research on relatively cheap earphones with decent to good quality and I ended up finding some. Not much later, I got a package from China and my Xiaomi Piston III was wrapped in an enormous load of plastic protection and duct tape keeping it safe during its shipment. The earbuds themselves came in a box that looked like it could carry a thousand dollar watch (but the plastic reminded me that I bought a pair of €20 earphones and not a piece of jewelry) and they were in perfect shape. 

They don't feel like an expensive piece of art, but that's really not necessary when they look cool and sound as good as a €150 pair of earphones. They sound better than my €65 headset (not designed for gaming, gaming headsets generally sound worse than regular ones) even though I was extremely surprised to hear the amazing quality coming out of my headset back when I bought it.

The next topic I want to talk about really quickly is a whole lot less exciting than my new earphones. I have exams coming up, so I won't be able to spend as much time on blogging as I spend on it at the moment. Please note that I am still going to come back to my usual "schedule" once the exams are over and that I'd never forget about this blog in only a couple of weeks' time.

That's it for this life-update, I hope you all enjoyed it and if you have any advise on how to get the most out of my new earphones please comment on this post as I'll happily reply to any comments that I get on this blog.

Player Power Has Decided - Icthlarin vs. Amascut is Coming!

Image by Originally Famous (http://blogagamerslife.blogspot.be/)

If you're into RuneScape and check their website on a daily basis like I do, you probably know about this already. There was a poll about what Halloween Event they should add, and the idea of Icthlarin and Amascut facing off against eachother won with pride.

As you can see, there was the choice between Spectres of War, Icthlarin vs Amascut and a sequel to the Broken Home quest. A vast minority didn't mind what they added, the Broken Home sequel was only just a tiny bit more popular than not caring about it and Spectres of War was popular amongst a quarter of the people who voted. Almost half of the players wanted the Icthlarin vs Amascut event, so there's no doubt they're adding that one.

I'm personally really excited about this because I'm really into the Desert storylines and I'll definately check the event out once it's there.

This is, by the way, going to be a Mini World Event so it's going to be like Tuska but on a smaller scale and less impacting to the overall lore of the game. This will be a one-time event, so you can't expect to see Icthlarin and Amascut facing off against eachother for millenia.

RuneScape Behind The Scenes 151: June Updates Coming to RuneScape (My Opinion)

A new episode of RuneScape Behind The Scenes has been released. This one covers the June updates coming to RuneScape, so I was immeadiately eager to see what it featured.

First of all, Mod Mark talked about the Tuska World Event. I'm personally extremely hyped about this one and I've spent a lot of time damaging Tuska with that amazing-looking spear.

There's one problem about it for me though: there's no Spear override that suits the Cursed Reaver overrides so I ended up going with the weapon that came as a default with that set instead. I do have the Zamorak override unlocked just to be certain I have it whenever I decide to change up my appearance, though!

I did actually think he overdid his description of the world event as it's not as exciting as he tells us it is. I'm not saying the event isn't good, it's just not as action-packed as Mark claims.

Then, the Slayer Belt. It's extremely satisfying to see that they've added this thing as I've always hated that whenever I train Slayer I need to take all of these items with me in my inventory. They've made a seperate belt for it, which I think was unnecessary: just add an icon to the Toolbelt interface and make that into the so-called "Slayer Belt" and everyone is satisfied.

Dragonsseed did a good job at creating a list of all items he'd like to see added to this belt and I think that the Ninja team was probably extremely pleased to see so much of their work had been done for them by one of the players. The community clearly agreed with his idea, and it ended up getting added to the game.

Adamant and Runite Dragons seem extremely cool for the high levels too, in my opinion. It's just unfortunate that my Ironman account isn't even close to good enough to reaching those levels and quests so I don't see the point of getting hyped up about them just yet.

Also, the hero-turned-god V has returned to Relekka and you can meet him to fight the dragonkin in some awesome raids.

Finally, the Lumbridge Crater is going to be turned into a huge Beach Party where you can play through some cool Summer-styled minigames and gain quite a bit of XP (as Mod Mark promises). I'm definately going to check that one out and if it's worth covering I'll probably create a blog post about that event when it has been released and I've had enough time to cover it.

Apart from that, they added some new headpieces and other outfits to the game. This is interesting for those who are looking for a new appearance, but they'll be staying around anyways and I already have an outfit so I won't really get into them any time soon.

I am, ofcourse, still going to make an opinionated review on the Tuska World Event, so stay tuned for that one. I'll see you all later!