We’ve been living in city apartments for 20 years but we always had the idea to move to a house in the country. After 3 years of research, we finally found a house we could call home. Since January, we’ve been very busy purchasing the house and selling our apartment, hence the lack of posts on the blog. It’s been the busiest February of both our lives, and it’s only starting… There’s still an entire moving to organize.

Beside working on our relocation project, we’ve been playing Enshrouded and Grim Dawn. Two fantastic games without any subscription, cash shop or microtransactions, it feels good to be free! I will probably write a post (some day) about our growing hate for monetization.

I just found out about the Wayback Machine, an internet crawler that saved more than 916 billions web pages over time. They saved the pages of our old blog “Dark Heaven” from when we were fans of Goth stuff. Such a flashback!

I also found a thread on the Quake subreddit about mapping. I remember when I used to make maps a map for Quake 2, it was based on a train station converted to a concert/party place called The Soundstation. It took me 6 months and it was really fun. Internet was in full bloom, everybody thought that they were “cyber”, we used to live in movies in our heads and it was so cool.

I have the feeling that the world became much more serious than it used to be. Orrrr, I’m just surrounded by older folks who have lost their illusions and who live in a world that is much too real. Resist, folks! Play games and believe that there is more than jobs, bills and mortages.

Goodbye, 2024, you’ve been quite a ride,
But let’s be honest, we’re not teary-eyed.
The shows were bland, the movies fell flat,
And gaming? Well, let’s not dwell on that.

Too quiet, a bit of a bore,
We hoped for so much, but you gave us chores.
We’ll leave you behind without much regret,
And look to the future with hopes freshly set.

Here’s to a new year, fresh and bright,
2025, come make things right!

Soforah is busy cooking the delights that will light up our evening while Christmas movies are playing streaming (Hot frosty is actually quiet good)… In a few hours, we’ll be binging Rings of Power for two days while stuffing ourselves and opening our presents. It really is the best time of the year.

We wish you all a great Christmas Eve. May you all have a dreamy one!

And yes, I still say Christmas! Not that many people with offendable sensibilities read this blog, but I still like to make my point. Here, at Spacewocket, we will never stop to say Christmas!

As if turning 50 wouldn’t be hard enough, this year’s birthday was also the first time that I would celebrate my birthday without a beer or any alcoholic beverage. I have a problem with alcohol, but not what you would think…

On top of our allergies and intolerances, Inge and I are both very sensitive to histamine. Diamine oxydase (DAO) is the enzyme that helps the body get rid of histamine. Alcohol is very armful to DAO. Which means that when we drink alcohol, histamine isn’t properly eliminated and we get all sorts of reactions from rashes and flare ups to anxiety.

Throughout the years, we’ve tried to ignore it, we still drank beers on Fridays and celebrations. Even with a reduced quantity (2 or 3 beers), the consequences on our health worsen. We noticed how better we would feel without alcohol. For many years, we’ve tried to quit it entirely but there was always a good reason to make an exception.

But, that’s not all… While we were reducing our alcohol intake, we noticed that we were actually having a better time when we were keeping 100% alcohol free. We were more enthusiastic, more motivated and, generally, happier. The other day, Soforah asked me: “If your memory was a hard drive and you’d be reaching maximum capacity, which remembrances would you keep?”. Surprisingly, none of them would be a time when alcohol was present in my life.

I don’t say that it should be the case for everyone. I’m a big fan of letting the people choose whatever makes them happy and this isn’t an attempt at converting anyone. But, in my case, on top of my Histamine problem, I think that alcohol always took too much space. I’ve been drinking enough in my life to know exactly what my world looks like when I let that door open, and I don’t like it.

So, here I was, a few weeks before my 50th birthday, trying to come up with a plan for the celebration. I can tell you, it has been hell and I’m not sure I would have made it without the help of my sweet wife. Thanks to her amazing support, planning and cooking skills, we both had an amazing time. We visited the Christmas village, we went to a restaurant and we ended up eating the dessert at home while watching the movie Abigail. Everything happened fantastically and entirely without alcohol. The rest of December should be a breeze because Christmas and New Year are not really linked to alcohol for us, so no pressure… I hope to make another post like this in December ’25, celebrating a complete year without a drop.

Meanwhile, we both wish everyone an amazing holiday season!

In a few hours, we’ll be celebrating our favourite time of the year. As I’m writing this post, Soforah is cooking our traditional Pumpkin Pastas and a delicious Tiramisu to keep us going through our horror movie night. The apartment is decorated, the tree leaves have the right colour and The Headless Horseman is once more riding the skies of Azeroth, all is good… So here’s our program for this year’s celebration:

We’ll first be collecting as many Tricky Treats from the Candy Buckets of The Dragon Isles and Khaz Algar. Then we’ll be watching the Family Guy’s Halloween Special and the latest Simpson’s Tree house of Horror (from season 35, do you believe that?!) while the Gratin will be in the oven. During the dinner, we’ll watch the original Halloween movie then we’ll be stuffing ourselves with the dessert while watching Longlegs.

While coming back from groceries shopping this morning, I found this flyer in our mailbox and it made us incredibly happy to see that Halloween is still kicking, even in our neighbourhood.

If you wonder why I’m using this illustration of Brand New’s album cover for the Halloween post… Well, it’s because The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me is probably the most iconic album for this season. Since the day we first heard it at Caroline music (Liège) many years ago, this album has been the embodiment of all we love in this season, from the album cover to the excellent “You won’t know”.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this timeless gem from internet:

Happy Halloween!

Another hot summer week has come and gone. From people exhibiting their ugly flip-flop feet in the streets to the heat preventing me to game on my PC, this really isn’t my favourite season. We’ve almost watched five seasons of The Rookie in a few weeks and, while I really like Nathan Fillion, I could take a break from the LAPD and find back my life, which in normal times is absolutely great.

In other news, one of my Instagram accounts has been disabled. Not my main account, but a side one I was using to post World of Warcraft stuff. It’s not a great loss as there were only 5 posts but the way it happened confirms everything I always thought about social networks: you’re not controlling anything.

I woke up this morning to my account being deactivated with the possibility to appeal, which I directly did. After having provided many security codes and a video of my face tilting in every directions, I received a mail to tell me that, after review, my account was permanently disabled. My only way to get it back would be to go to court.

Apparently, the moderating AI identified my account as a bot and its decision is final, even after providing proofs that I’m a real human. I don’t really care since it was just an account to check other people’s World of Warcraft screenshots.

However, the way it happened makes me think that I shouldn’t put any effort in that platform anymore, since an account can be deleted without any form of appeal. Already being a social networks hater, this may be the final push to get me permanently disconnected.

So, starting today, instead of posting my pictures on my main Instagram account, I’ll post them here, as a blog post. Ultimately, after a few months, I’ll deactivate all my Instagram accounts and I’ll be entirely free from social networks. Long live blogging!

10 years ago, Soforah and I started Spacewocket but we’ve been blogging for much longer than that…

When we’ve met, 22 years ago, we started to write a blog called Darkheaven. However, after a few years, our enthusiasm for gothic culture faded. Since then, we’ve had all sorts of blogs but only Spacewocket lasted, probably because we’re very passionated about the main topics of the blog: playing WoW and watching horror movies.

10 years ago, we decided to move to Brussels to minimise the commute times. Despite our best efforts, we never managed to feel 100% in this place but Spacewocket was always there for us, our corner of the world.

So, here’s to a place on the internet, far from grey cities, electric scooters, autotune, hobos, drug addicts, alcohol, boring jobs, overheated summers, sunburns (don’t ask), soccer, sports on TV, politics, noisy neighbours, bad plumbing, contractors, internet dances, influencers, huge eyebrows, whitened teeth and photo filters. A place where people still believe that pizzas, video games and horror movies are the ingredients for a cool life.

Long live Spacewocket!

I’m getting dangerously close to turn 50. I remember when I was 17, people of that age looked boring and lame. I only hope to never become an old fart who only talks about football and adult stuff.

However, realising that nowadays 17 years-old kids were babies when The Burning Crusade was released makes me feel ancient.

And now, I’m going to rest a bit before the dinner…

2023 was definitely not a prolific year for Spacewocket. However, it is, by far, the year that we did the most in real life. Between the celebration of our 20th wedding anniversary in the Belgian Ardennes, our trip to New-York and the construction of our new gaming rigs we’ve been more busy this year than ever!

Since the big “house in the country move” was a bust, we decided to rain sparkles over our apartment city life. And, oh boy, NYC was perfect for that.

We’ve stayed 10 days and we had a blast from the first minute to the last. Visiting it in September is perfect, the autumn vibe is right around the corner but the temperatures are still very soft and there is left tourists than in summer.

My best advice, if you go to New-York, is to plan an entire day for Dumbo, Central Park and Coney Island. These are the places that we’ve loved most and I really think that they deserve an entire day.

Don’t listen to people saying that NYC is dirty, unsafe and filled with hobos, it’s absolutely not true. We felt safe the entire trip and New-York is one of the cleanest city I’ve seen so far. Another myth to debunk is that the food is bad. Of course, if you don’t get prepared and rely only on food trucks, you won’t have a great culinary time. However, there are great places to eat all over the city, you just have to make a little research before your trip because most of those places are hidden.

The best way to enjoy such a gigantic city is to make a list of all you wanna see and group everything by neighbourhoods, so you don’t spend your days travelling from one place to another. For example, you can take the ferry from Manhattan to Dumbo (4$) and spend the day walking around. When the evening comes, have a few beers at the Evil Twin Brewery, then eat a pizza at the infamous Juliana’s. After night fall, walk the Brooklyn Bridge toward the Manhattan skyline, most tourists will be gone.

The same goes for Central Park, you can end a good day hanging in the park with a good beer and a burger at the nearby Thompson’s. The place is hidden inside a super chique hotel, don’t be afraid to enter!

We’ll miss New-York as much we’ll miss having such a trip ahead of us. 2023 is definitely a special year, and it’s not over yet!

Some years are just perfect copies of each other, fast-forwarding you through time with a feeling that not much is happening. Then, some years are so different, you feel like you’ve just been spat out of a washing machine, and you can barely recognize the world around you. Well, 2023 feels like the latter. It’s not as if we’re powerless and the things that are happening are out of our control. I think that we both needed a change, and we created voluntary chaos around ourselves. Maybe we feel like this because this year marks our 20th wedding anniversary, or maybe we’ve spent too long sliding down the same quiet river… Maybe both. Time works in mysterious ways…

So, what’s changed? Well, not that much. However, it has only begun.

Living in Brussels

Nine years ago, we moved to Brussels to live closer to work. Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to enjoy this town. We’ve really tried, but it didn’t happen. So, for several months, we’ve been searching for a house around Liège, my hometown. Despite our best efforts, we didn’t find the right place… The apartment we purchased when we moved here is gorgeous, which made it even harder to find a house – we don’t want a downgrade! Also, searching for a house made us realize how convenient living in Brussels really is. Mobility is fantastic, and there’s always a grocery store within walking distance. Not depending on a car is amazing, especially for our budget. This may sound like our brains trying to rationalize the fact that we’ll have to stay in Brussels, and perhaps it is, but having searched for a house made us realize that we’re actually pretty good.

Dragonflight

Our end-of-the-year 2022 holidays were kinda underwhelming. The launch of Dragonflight was a flop, and we didn’t find a way to replace it. So we started the year not knowing which gaming direction to take.

We’ve tried several times to get back hooked to WoW, but the direction they took with the game is horrible. It’s almost as if they took all we disliked in the game and packed it into an expansion.

I could talk for hours about all I dislike in retail WoW. Forbidden Reach feels so dead, Dragonflying being mandatory, world quests that don’t reset fast enough, the lack of quest hubs, crappy events like the community feast or the great hunts, the professions that I don’t even feel like leveling anymore… Each expansion always had a thing or two that we disliked; it’s hard to please everyone. However, this is pure garbage.

The problem is not only that we hate the expansion, we hate the general direction of WoW’s development. If this is indeed the third phase of WoW, then the game is dead to us.

We’ve been playing that game for 17 years, so it takes some effort to get out of our routines, get used to new games and change our habits. That alone kept us very busy, finding new games isn’t as simple as it sounds. Luckily, Diablo 4 got released, but that will be part of a dedicated post.

20th wedding anniversary

On the 7th of June, we were married for 20 years. Soforah is the best partner that I could ever dream to have. She’s always there when I need her, she brightens each of my days, and I only wish that I had met her sooner because it feels as if I only started to live from the day I met her. So, Hon’, if you read this: thank you for everything. I hope to be the man you deserve!

We’ve been back and forth between a few ideas for our celebrations: a short trip to the Belgian Ardennes, a trip to the US, two new huge PCs. We finally decided to do it all; we’ll be celebrating the whole year. So far, we already traveled to the Ardennes, and it was great. Rochehaut is very beautiful, even if a bit difficult to reach by public transportation.

We ate really well, and it was great to be together, far from everything for a few days.

We almost drowned in the Jacuzzi. Believe it or not, but it was our first time enjoying a bubble bath together… Jeez, that thing made us sleepy. However, we survived. Only to be drowned once more by the most overwhelming shower I’ve ever had. I’m not sure if we’re really good candidates for spas.

We’re planning our trip to New York, which will be followed by building the most badass PCs we’ve ever owned.

Voilà, this post was long, but it covers pretty much the last 6 months of our lives.

TLDR: We spent a lot of time searching for a house, but we’ll stay in Brussels. WoW sucks, and we’ll be celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary for a full year.