Well, first off, I’m back home. Home, sweet, home. I wish to apologize to a lot of people starting from fans, Nethaera, Blizzard in general, and other fansite folks who I met at Paris. Some of them knew what was going on. Others may not know the extent of it. On Wednesday night, a light tooth pain started kicking in.
This was less than 24 hours before taking the flight. Everyone knows how hard it is to get a dentist appointment within that timeframe, and specially with no current medical plan – being unemployed and all that. I had to choose between cancelling the trip, or going as I was. I had no idea how much of a problem that light pain would turn out to be.
Pain started to kick in really hard half the way to Paris, and luckily I had brought 500mg Extra Strength Acetaminophen (pain killers) with me. Didn’t sleep anything in the flight though, which meant by Friday 10am (Paris Time) the odyssey started staying awake till late night (with a full swing tooth pain causing headache spikes more intense than the tooth pain itself. Imagine a nonstop drill into your brain).
During the fansites dinner, everyone noticed something wasn’t right with me. Well, couldn’t even concentrate to understand english. All I was hearing was background noise (chit chat) instead of words. I would stand up to go to the bathroom to cool off my head with cold water—trying to lower my temperature knowing I could get a fever anytime. I had not sleept for 36 hours now, and barely got a few hours sleep that night. Next day on Saturday, the pain killers were not doing the complete effect. Thankfully, they would alleviate and shut down the drilling headaches, but the tooth pain would remain. I could live with that. At times the pain killers would keep it controlled for 3-4 hours, then kick in again. I met the edge of insanity and it is a horrible mind state. It is 12:20am now, early Tuesday. Passed out as soon as I arrived. The headaches had gone to a stop, and the tooth pain felt distant throughout the flight. At least had a better day. Woke up with the headache a few ago. I feel better now after three 500mg Extra Strength tablets.
At Paris, I could barely take notes. I merely wrote what was written on the powerpoint presentation, and recorded audio. Tried not to miss the lore panels, but at times I missed some. People would approach me: “Hey, Medievaldragon! I love the work you have done at Blizzplanet all this time, I visit your site everyday…”, and such. I tried to give my best face and pretend I didn’t have a drill screwing my brains. It was really cool to have met some of this fans, as well as the fansites reporters such as LordofAscension (SLegacy), Aldorian (WoW Stratics), Starcraft2.hu, Starcraft-ESP, Curse, The Escapist.
I met Paul Younger and Elly from WorldofWar/Diabloii.net—who I have been in contact a few times in the past. Nice folks. Sorry, if I hesitated during our conversation guys—you know now why. I tried to keep my composture as much as I could without fainting. At times I felt I would lose consciousness right there and then. I’m surprised none of that happened. I was up and kicking by sheer will pretending the pain wasn’t there.
I gotta start working on getting a medical plan today, and hopefully I can get a temporary medical plan card to use at a dentist. This looks like it is going to be around for a while. I have a better brand of pain killers now, since the ones at Paris weren’t doing much. Hopefully, I can keep the pain under control until then. All in all, I enjoyed the Blizzard Worldwide Invitationals. Fulfilled a few of my “I WISH TO MEET” goals: Nethaera, Drysc, Karune, Mike Morhaime, Paul Sams, Rob Pardo and Samwise.
I recorded Rob Pardo briefly when I approached him in private about the Ghost unit in Starcraft 2 and the novel and manga. I will post the wav file soon. I was active asking questions to Samwise about both Starcraft 2 and Wrath of the Lich King.
It felt so great to hear Paul Sams thank me for all the support. That wasn’t expected. A mere handshake and having them face to face and bringing me to the Blizzard Worldwide Invitationals was reward enough. I want to thank Nethaera for all her work over the months to get me there, and sincerely apologize. She and Drysc kept tabs on me and my condition a lot.
There were a lot of Blizzard folks who helped me with other matters throughout the days I was there. I wish to thank you. One of them provided me with the Media CD – which I hope to work with during next days to update Blizzplanet. A bit late, but sure bet. Kazo went through many technical issues too, and I apologized to him. I want to thank him for all what he did. Just so you know, he brought his camera and all its stuff in a bag I couldn’t lift with one arm. He uploaded some material into the server, which I will work with.
As for internet access, at the hotel, they had slow connection. And one hour free—which I consumed. Afterwards, I couldn’t get internet access from the hotel. I did get charged 40 Euros—not sure where that came from since I couldn’t get any access to the internet after that free hour.
At WWI, Blizzard gave the press a WiFi card number—that was awesome. Very strong connection, and high-speed. Reliable. However, one of the technical issues I ran through was that I didn’t have the converter for the macbook to recharge the three batteries provided by Tekserve. It consumed a lot of energy, so I had to be wise how to spend them. I would check out the forums from time to time to pick some questions live from the panel. I would read some of the comments, then turn off the macbook to save power. Sorry if I didn’t reply back all the tons of PM, and email. I managed to answer a few though.
All in all, I enjoyed the Blizzard Worldwide Invitationals. Who would know you could feel joy at the edge of insanity. I was there, and thankfully still alive.
