My New Coworker

Ahh yes, work! That time where people tell me to send a list of all the games I'd like to review and then they pick the good ones for themselves and ask me to test Hello Kitty Online. Okay, that has only happened once in four years, but let's go with it for the sake of the joke. Then comes the fun part: Brib... errr communication! Yes, communication. Talking to the PR guys, getting free cash shop currency, premium mounts, special collector's editions, that sort of thing. And the actual play time, of course. Best part of the job. Plow through the levels, try all of the game's features, get some random guild ("I'm writing a review for XXX, pls halp!") to show me all the raid bosses and do all the work for me.

But then...
Writing.
Brrrr!

In the time it took to create this first paragraph I have fed our beardies, given the cats some water, baked and eaten a box of Tesco's Ultimate Chicken Nuggets and fixed Hugo's heating thingie, which had been unplugged by our stupid cats. I may have watched a cat video or two, that people put on my wall on Facebook. Or was that this morning? What day is it?
So yeah. Concentration problems.

They're fucking delicious.

People want me to be funny. They expect it. Maybe they don't and I'm just expecting myself to be funny. I want to be funny. And many truly funny people are spontaneous, which I'm absolutely jealous of. Watch a comedian in an interview or a talkshow and they're just funny, they come up with puns and witty stuff just like that, outta nowhere. Then there's me. I'm about as entertaining as a sock full of peanuts. This is why I hate and avoid podcasts.

See, I'm a bit of a random extra. Some of my friends are hosting a cast, one of their regulars can't make it, hey I know, let's grab Kitten! He doesn't know wtf he's talking about, but at least he's funny! Except I'm not. My bitching about cash shops and my sexy voice granted me the appreciation of my peers that time, but funny... nah. I need to plan my funny. I need to sit down and think and wait for ideas. Better still, I pace around the room like I'm receiving an imaginary phone call. I do get good ideas from that. I'm particularly proud of making up the term 'feckish'.

Alas, no amount of pacing cures my inability to focus or stops the lovely old granny in the house opposite to ours to get her ancient tits out. I don't know whether it's the heat, dementia or a blunt attempt at flirting with me, but holy fucking shit look at these wrinkly sacks of flesh! Damn carpet needs vacuuming. Was the ceiling always covered in cobwebs? God I love my sword. Cost me a fortune and my parents thought I was fucking insane, but look at how cool it is up there, just mounted to the wall above the fireplace. I wonder how many zombies I could take before they eat me.

Brain refuses to compute. Or computes too much, in too many directions. So I need a fetish, a talisman, a focus, some magical trinket that helps me keep my train of thoughts on track. In the past I relied on my old work mate here:

Luna and Olf.

Snakes wiggle around a lot, they try to get into your clothes (sleeves, collars, nothing is safe!) and I don't know shit about them, which makes me nervous. When an urgent article was due, I used to get the snake out (oh, shut up!) and pace around the room with it. And of course the snake would distract me. Gotta make sure it's not gonna slither off and fall on the floor or get stuck under my shirt or... oh god, it's looking at me, I bet it'll bite me any second!
So, how the fuck does distracting myself from distractions with another distraction help, you might ask. Simple.

See, grannytits, hyperactive cats, cobwebs, they all distract me as much as the snake does. But they're everywhere I look! Too much input. Too many stupid things happening all over the place. And multitasking only goes so far. I can brush my teeth and pee in the sink at the same time, but put a shaver in my other hand and stuff gets compl... okay, maybe that's not a good example. My point is, the snake is just one distraction, but one big enough to keep me away from all other distractions. I can focus on the critter and on my work and that's it. And the constant feeling of 'Ohshitohshitohshititsgonnabitemeeee!1' helps with the flow of adrenaline, which, in turn, helps with the creative process. I've never been bitten by our snakes, but that only makes me more paranoid, because I don't know what to expect when it happens. Like giving a cat a belly rub for the first time.


The problem with elderly snakes, and all things elderly, really, is their life expectancy. Or lack thereof. Long story short, we eventually went from snake to no snake. And then got a different snake to fill the position, but royal pythons, well...
"Royal python" sounds amazing. Majestic. Awe-inspiring. You know what else they call them? Ball pythons. Because when you touch them, they don't hiss, they don't bite, they just curl up into a little ball and hope for you to go away.
So yeah. Chokie is a nice snake and all, but she's not scary, she doesn't make me nervous and she doesn't really do enough to keep me focused. I don't know. We get along and all, but there's no chemistry. She's just not a good work snake.
I also tried Chompy, our dearly departed beardie, but she'd just run off and shit on the printer. Always. Not the kind of distraction I had hoped for.

So for the past few months I've been going through a bit of a difficult time, work-wise. Working from 9-5 (9 at night and 5 in the morning, that is), kept distractions to a minimum, but that's also when they run Mythbusters marathons. Not good for productivity.
But all is not lost. Not anymore! Meet Nomnom:

The happy one on the right.

She eats carrots.

She sits on my shoulder. That's it. Sometimes she eats a carrot. She goes soooooooo yellow. And orange. And red. When she's in the mood. I don't even know how the fuck that helps me focus on my work, but it does. Maybe she's a placebo. Placebo lizard. Maybe I should have named her Placebo.

I gotta do my part for a new magazine issue, soon. I think I'll hire Nomnom as a trainee for now. Put her on my shoulder. Pace around. See how the articles turn out. We'll go from there. I think I can afford paying her a carrot or two per article. See how we get along, if she grows into the job and all that. I have a good feeling about this. I may be getting ahead of myself, but I think I can sense a potential partnership here. Strictly work-based, of course. Most importantly, she does not shit on the equipment. That's always a plus. All your trainees need to be housebroken.

-Cat