Thanks for an epic day! :)

You know me. I love to bitch about stuff. It's how I make my money. It's why certain publishers and PR people reeeeally want to be my friends when I'm about to review their stuff. It's how I met your mother. Don't laugh, I've probably met her and I've most certainly boned her. The ladies love the attitude. But really, my life is actually pretty fucking awesome. Did you know that the best three weeks of my childhood were actually the perfect script to an 80s movie?

You see, one reason why I love videogames so much is the escapism behind them. You can be the weirdest, palest, strangest kid in the neighbourhood, a loner, a total geek or anything else that would guarantee for a shit time in school, but games turn you into the hero. It worked that way even before online gaming, eSports, people getting paid obscene amounts of money by sponsors and what not. Arcade machine superstars. I was one of them. I was the biggest one of them all.

They had this ancient machine standing there. Fatal Fury. I think they came up with that when Capcom's Street Fighter II got so ridiculously popular and SNK jumped the bandwagon. The series later evolved into King of Fighters, which is going strong until this very day. But it all started with Fatal Fury. I'm not actually that old and the game was already a bit dusty back in the game, but it was the most popular one around. And I played it. All day long. I had crowds gathering behind me, watching, cheering and freaking out as I won fights nobody else has ever managed to win. Other kids paid me to see the final boss, because they didn't actually believe I could make it all the way to Geese Howard, the final bad guy, with just one life.

To be fair, there was nothing supernatural about it. My brother and I would spend up to 8 hours a day playing Street Fighter II against each other and there was also an ugly, pixellated, but surprisingly fun port of Fatal Fury on Sega's Game Gear. So of course I had the unfair advantage over all the other kids there, but Daniel LaRusso didn't just start winning tournaments without countless hours of practice with Mr. Miyagi, either. And while I'm already going there: His name is not fucking "Daniel Sun", you stupid, stupid idiots! I can't believe how many people out there actually think that!

Anyhow. I ruled at this game and people talked about me, whispered behind me when I fed the old machine a coin. "Dude, that's RED! He's gonna beat the game in one life!" Yeeeah... you see, old-school scoreboards kinda just register three letters, so I went with RED. They called me RED. People challenged me, cheered for me and I even got the girl in the end. Success is sexy, you see. There were no bullies in Fatal Fury. I could beat anyone. And I did. And then my first girlfriend to be, Sabrina, walked up to me, handed me a coke and gave me my first ever kiss. It tasted like warm, stale beer when you sip it out of a well-used ash tray. It was disgusting and I nearly creamed my pants. Happy days!

Like all legends, they've wiped mine out a week later when I was more interested in making out with Sabrina than playing video games. They had reset the entire machine, because people got frustrated when they couldn't beat my ridiculous high scores. It didn't matter. I won, I had somebody else to polish my joystick and I will treasure these days for the rest of my life. A friend of mine just gifted me the latest incarnation of King of Fighters on Steam. For my birthday. Which is bad, because I really, seriously need to work, but I guess it can't hurt to shake hands with Terry Bogard real quick, right? For old times' sake. I'm not sure you have any idea how happy I am to receive this gift. You're a true friend and I love you dearly.

The whole day was fucking fantastic. Cryptic's very own Mr. Andy Velasquez took the time to answer a few of my questions regarding the future of Neverwinter and while I'm not at liberty to share any details, I'm genuinely excited about some of the things that are coming to this game. Besides, how fucking cool is it that I even get to communicate with game devs like that? First the incredibly cool Mark Jacobs, the guy behind Dark Age of Camelot and Camelot Unchained, now Cryptic. I wonder who's next.

I've also received an insane amount of incredibly cool pictures, poems and greetings. This one has to be my absolute favourite:

Starfleet Academy remembered!

I know it's incredibly simple and cheesy, but I fucking love the idea. STO is flawed, often frustrating and full of evil means and ways to steal people's money, but it's still one of my favourite games out there. So this one is really cool! Of course half a dozen people also couldn't resist posting that incredibly annoying and overused grumpy cat. The fact there's a movie about him in the making makes me weep for humanity. But the way people have used the meme on my birthday really made me laugh. I think this one is my favourite:

People have also wondered whether I really exist and came up with interesting theories about me being an artificial intelligence like HAL 9000 or a whole group of writers posting as the mysterious Berserkerkitten. I guess that's one of the perks when you work with and for people, who have never actually met you in person. You guys really made my day! :D

Alas, it wasn't all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. When I woke up on my birthday, I had to realize that our dear old Bakara had not. I'm terribly sad she has passed away, but at the same time, I'm feeling a little less guilty about the whole thing after I've done some research. You see, one problem with exotic pets is that there isn't an awful lot of information about them and much of the stuff you read in books and on the internet is plain wrong. When we prepared to get our first ever bearded dragon, certain websites stated that beardies could easily live as long as your average housecat. Something we were happy to believe, because we've seen snakes well over two decades old and tortoises, who could tell us stories about World War I. Tiny lizard with a long life span? Sounded legit.

Well. It turns out their warranty runs out somewhere around the ten year mark. And then we started doing a little math. Bakara's previous owner had her for about three or four years. Bakara was already an adult when she got her, which adds at least another one or two years. And we had her for three. So she had something between eight and ten years on her counter, possibly more. She was incredibly near-sighted when we got her, didn't know how to hunt and needed to be hand-fed most of the time. Back then we just thought she was a little... you know, slow. Turns out she was a very old lady and no amount of critical care, vitamins, bathing, creaming and feeding will fix age. There is nothing we could have done. She simply ran out of time.

Nomnom's coming home

We kept our dear Nomnom at the shop for the time being, because we didn't know what's wrong with Bakara and we didn't want to take any risks. She can come home now, so there's some happy news in all of this. And come next spring, there's also the usual depressing amount of returned Xmas pets. Landlord doesn't allow it, wife is allergic, can't afford a bag of lettuce per week to feed 'em, the usual load of horseshit. So we might adopt another unwanted beardie or two if they can't be sold and the shop runs out of space.

The dog is getting bigger and bigger by the day. Look at this:

He's outgrown the cats now. Can't leave them unattended anymore. Hugo isn't really aggressive or anything, but he feels zero respect or tolerance for our cats. He's not chasing after them or anything, but there have been snacking attempts when they got in the way. He's the boss and he won't put up with their bullshit. And there's so much bullshit coming from my cat, I don't think she even knows how or where to sit.

Soon...

I'm a former arcade legend, I live with a whole bunch of crazy animals, I have the greatest job in the world and I'm surrounded by awesome, loving, caring friends. One of my friends told me to enjoy "being old". You know what? I think I do.

Sorry about the cheese. The next entry will be angry again.

-Cat