My first blog entry - hello world


So. I've been thinking about starting to blog for a while already. People say my news posts are sometimes too dramatic and I don't always represent the opinions or views of the entire guild when I answer questions as a Paragon member. Now I'm happy, because with this new site, I'll be able to write about things under my own name. I can also exaggerate and be dramatic in peace - I guess I'm that kind of person after all.

 

Now then, here I'm thinking, what should I write about? I don't lack opinions and I'm not really afraid to give them out, but what should I start with. I decided I'll take the "boring" route and first tell people something about myself. Something more than that I play a shadow priest in Paragon. So here we go.

 

My name is xenophics, aka Raakel Hämäläinen, I'm 23 years old and I've been playin wow for 4 years now. I live in metropolitan area of Finland together with arx. When I started playing I lived with Kruf and other friends of mine in a commune - awesome times. I got 4 siblings and I hope at least some of them understand my passion towards gaming. 

 

 
 

A picture of me from Assembly Summer 2010

 

I've always been very involved with the things I focus on. When I was a kid I used to collect different kind of things (mostly toys). I guess today I'm collecting everything related to the thing I'm doing. The first thing I had was dancing (street and jazz), did that for almost 10 years and then started Karate. Reached green belt in two years and then came the Machine dance games (DDR, ITG). I played for around 3 years, and when I was almost done with my matriculation exam (A-levels) I got too curious about where Kruf, arx, and my other friends spent so much of their free time. One day when we were hanging out at Kamppi in Helsinki I finally gave in and bought wow from a gaming shop. The guy behind the encounter actually asked me if I'd start playing horde or alliance, and when I told him I'd play alliance he told me off for picking the "lesser" faction. What a nice way to start my wow career!

 

It was a few weeks before the big exams when I travelled back home from Helsinki and started playing. I remember spending nights at the draenei starting zone. I wasn't able to solo the last quest so arx came and boosted me with his level 70 warlock. Seeing the warlock mount for the first time was one of most awesome moments in my wow career. Long story short here I'm now in Paragon playing my priest but also taking care of the website and some of the contacts we have. When I started I never imagined I'd end up using 1,5 months of my time on daily playing. On the other hand, I always could have imagined me actually doing it. It's everything or nothing with most of the stuff I do.

 

What other stuff I do then? That's actually a hard question because I don't really have that much other stuff at the moment. Of course I study, but most of my freetime goes with sitting in front of my computer, reading about in the internet, watching series, and taking care of Paragon stuff. I'm not sure if raiding is freetime for me anymore, but then again when I used to dance I didn't consider my dancing lessons to be free time either!

 

I'm kind of lousy with getting out of the house, but when I do it's usually going to meet friends, going to movies or to a bar. I'm not that much into sitting still and drinking, but I love dancing. Too bad I don't have that many dance freaks living nearby. Also most of the people I know are male, and I'd go on and say that there are many who'd rather die than go to the dancefloor. There are exceptions of course.

 

My greatest ambitions, I'd say, is to organize things. I absolutely love taking responsibility and coming up with something fun for my friends. Last summer I organized a summer cottage trip to Paragon members, we spent good 3 days there relaxing and having fun together.

 

       
        

Just one word: chill

 

Right now I'm getting back to "normal life" schedule little by little. Gotta change my sleeping rythm so I could wake up earlier than 15:00. I already managed 13:45 today!

 

As some of you probably remember, I promised to write about our progress once it was over. I'll chew the whole ugly thing (see, dramatic) in a series of blog entries starting...soonish. When reading through those keep in mind that what kind of person I am, and you'll be able to spot the facts through my style of writing.

 

Over and out, untill next time.

xeno


Comments

Seeing your current wake up time I feel quite awesome about mine all of a sudden. Thanks for that Xeno! :)

Xeno eikös se ole ihan yleinen fakta, että 95% suomalaisista miehistä mieluummin kuolee kuin menee tanssilattialle heilumaan ;DD

Yeah, so it seems. I just wish I could somehow locate that 5% and get the party started!

lol good luck, and in that 5% he would have to be straight and not in a relationship. That is like ten guys. :P

Yeh and the more you go to north the smaller the number gets :D but really nice blog, that's quite an improvement going from goofing around as a draenai to being one badass priest in the best guild in the world.

I liked this blog, but it totally makes me jealous of you Finnish raiders. You have the ability to be close to one another where most of us US raiders don't. I mean I live in Seattle and the majority of my guild is East Coast. I would never be able to go out for beers with them after a first kill and I sure as hell can't talk about that stuff with my friends no matter how hard I try. It must help the gaming spirit being close to one another.

Yeah having a guild that is more than just a bunch of guys and girls going for success in WoW or any other game is worth a lot. My guild is split among Europe, but some of the people have played together for 12 years under that guild name and we have two meetings each year, a summer one somewhere in Europe where a member can host it and a winter one in Copenhagen in the appartment of out leader. It is awesome and it is this social spirit that will keep me with this guild hopefully forever.

afternoon wakeups ftw \o/

Guys, reporting in again. 15:00 today :/ and I'm supposed to have school tomorrow!

If it is after 15:00 you might be good ;)

After I got past the blindingly white legs in the shot of you guys at the summer cottage, I was so envious! Why don't all guilds arrange such things? Maybe that's the secret to being world first....

But seriously, thanks for sharing more about yourself. I've never found your posts 'dramatic' at all--just your particular take on things. :) I think it's natural to feel passionate about something we love doing, particularly when it takes up a lot of time. I also think it's in your nature to be fiercely protective of the people you care about. Even if a lot of raiders might not admit that, I think most have felt a strong emotional reaction to what's going on at least once in their raiding experience (whether it's excitement, frustration, sadness, irritation, happiness....).

And thanks for adding so much information on the site all the time.

I was trying to move my wake up time to be later in the day. I've no school so there's no point in waking up at 08:00 just to be tired during the raid. I'm at 10:30 now and it's much better.

Thanks for sharing some of your interests outside of WoW!
I must say I was impressed when you mentioned you played machine dance!! Do you got any videos of you playing? There's usually some Stepmania setups at DreamHack, I never saw you there Winter 2009!
It would awesome to see you play sometime, the next World Cup is in Finland next fall, you should come (unless there's a new Old God showing up to kill us all...)!!
Once again, thanks for a personal and interesting blog entry!

Atareon

I stopped playing so many years ago that I wouldn't be competitive any more. Also, I never did any videos, I preferred to beat myself and get better scores. I never even competed even when I organized numerous competitions.

Don't we have a video of arx playing at dreamhack, though?

Nice blog. Did you ever do groovestats or ddrecall for your scores when you still played?

I see that someone mentioned stepmania, if you liked that you should check out osu! It's like stepmania but you use your mouse.

Thanks for taking the time to write this.

Never monitored my score really, might have some old stats on my memory stick from ITG but the stick is probably lost.

I haven't really been interested in starting any new game after I started wow so haven't checked Osu out either. Many of my friends play it ho.

While xenophics might not have scores online, you can check how bad I am here...

Pssh, that isn't bad, had some nice scores in there Kruf

Before I could enter in all my scores, our machine was taken away and I just kinda stopped played. I still have a cobalt flux, but I haven't broke that out in a long time. Ahh the good old days, where did they go? :P

Hi Xeno!

It was fun reading your blog. Hope you and Arx are doing great.

Cheers!
/Blue and Roth in Shanghai :) And the little dude says hi also...

Oh, thanks! Have a super fun trip and enjoy yourselves. Maybe I and arx can tag along next time :) Send our love Blue and the little guy.

The lake in the second picture looks absolutely awesome.
Do you have some pictures of the lake without people in it that you could send me?It would make a great wallpaper :D.

I don't but Kruf might have some. He's the one that took that picture as well.