Living with Monsters

The mighty predator is stalking his prey in our living room: An unsuspecting shoe. He's gonna bite it, drag it into a corner and then he'll chew around on it for five minutes. I gotta keep an eye on him, because he's just waiting for me to stop looking, so he can sneak off into the kitchen and steal the cat food. He tolerates the cats, though, food envy aside. He's visiting my cat inside her little cardboard box, but I don't think they speak the same language. He's a bit hyper. Been a while since his last walk.

Hard to believe Hugo Bosc looked like that just a year ago:

Now he's a 4ft monster, which is still growing. And will be, for the rest of his life. Which may well be another two or three decades. And he fascinates me more and more each day. Look at this:

It's hard to describe how excited I am about this guy living with us, without sounding like a complete lunatic. What you can see here is a completely tame, friendly and extremely curious reptile. He stands up on his tail and hind legs and even climbs on his bag of soil to have a better look at what's going on in his tank, he plays with his shoe and he walks up to me to have a drink and say hello. Hugo rests and warms up in his tank, but other than that, he spends a lot of time walking around the house. It felt weird and I was a bit paranoid the first couple of times, because I didn't know what to expect.

I knew nothing about monitor lizards when we got him, the usual guides and manuals about proper care and feeding aside. The idea of having him roam around the place seemed stupid at best - he'd probably get stuck under some furniture and crap everywhere! But as it turned out, I didn't give the big guy enough credit.
Claire started "training" him for this sort of thing when he was still a baby. She'd hold him by the tail and follow him around the place as he explored everything. He wasn't even half the size of our cats back then, so if anything scared him or or he tried to run away, Claire would be right there. Nowadays he shares the place with our cats, he's fully housebroken and completely clean and he's utterly fun to watch. Sadly, what you can't see on the video is how he climbed up her leg at one point. That was pretty surprising, although he was probably just looking for food.

I'm amazed by this for two reasons. First of all, it's incredibly exciting to live with an intelligent, exotic animal like him. I've always had cats, my parents had a dog, but how much cooler is it to share the couch with a big freakin' lizard? Well... unless you're totally disgusted by lizards, I suppose. How many of you can say that they watch tv, cuddle and play with a lizard? And I'm not talking about something that just puts up with you like a bearded dragon. I love beardies, but let's face it - they just put up with it. You pick 'em up, place them on your shoulder or in your lap and most of the time they just stay there, because they have nowhere else to go and they do very little aside from eating and sleeping. Having a 4 foot monster play tug of war with you is an entirely different story. Yes, tug of war:

April 2013

The other reason I'm so in awe of our monster is how monitor lizards are still so completely new as pets. Humans have owned dogs and cats have owned humans for as long as any of them existed. But while Mr. John Caveman took care of his domestic, furry sabretooth animals, he probably didn't care much for gimp dinosaurs. Especially since proper UV lighting and heating arrangements were incredibly hard to afford back in the stone age.

Big lizards aren't very well-documented. Self-proclaimed experts, reptile enthusiasts and pet owners argue about the perfect set-up, ideal food and substrate, as well as pet behaviour, intelligence and personality. Monitor lizards aren't as well-explored as more common pets and most pet monitors aren't tame and rarely ever leave their tanks. Having Hugo run around the place along with our other animals and getting him used to them, spending a fair amount of time playing with him and keeping him active every day - the whole thing isn't just new to us; it's new full stop. The fact that he could be so friendly and playful and have such an inquisitive nature is completely unexpected and utterly fascinating.

We'd fully expect this kind of behaviour from a cat or a dog, but associating these things with a cold-blooded reptile, a creature most of us would expect to be boring, aggressive and slimy, is forever changing the way I look at these guys. I dare not say how much of this is just natural, territorial behaviour and looking for food, but to be fair, when my cat comes sucking up to me, it's usually just about food, as well. We still love and appreciate them for that, so why not give a little credit to Hugo, who will play with you and climb up your leg, ulteriour motive or not?

- Cat

Techno-Slave

The other day, I've spent a whole paragraph whining about people, who can't leave the house without checking Facebook every two minutes on their smartphones, giving me an excuse not to own one. One that sounds cooler than, "Can't afford it." Well, now I'm at home, Facebook is having issues and I can't post any status updates and there is a million completely redundant things I want to share in status updates. How utterly pathetic!

Stuff about dragons, for one. I'm playing Dragon's Prophet, playing with Poundland rubber dragons, playing Dragon Age: Origins, hoping to get in the right mood for Dragon Age 3, which I can't seem to care about very much right now. I've finished Origins the week it came out and forgotten about most of the story, so I'm having a lot of fun on my current playthrough, which is nearing its end, unfortunately. There were some big surprises, both good and bad.
For instance, I couldn't believe it when I realized the game was only released in 2009. In many aspects, it feels so old, ancient, awkward, eldritch even. Always wanted to use that word in my blog.

My character remains silent throughout the entire game and just blankly stares into the scenery while everyone else gets kickass voice acting and okay-ish facial expressions and gestures. I completely forgot about that! Switching to the tactical top-down perspective in dungeons causes the focused toon to walk right out of the screen most of the time, with the camera not following the action. Setting up AI tactics is annoying and complicated and makes characters like shape-shifting Morrigan completely useless if left to the AI. You just can't tell the AI when and how to use spells or change shape into animals, what animals to change into and what animal abilities to use. You gotta play her by hand or leave her out of the party. And the visuals... man, the game wasn't much to look at back in 2009!

Though with the right settings and mods...

...it still looks decent.

But this game is so, sooo damn good! Specialising the three basic classes, turning a rogue into a sneaky assassin or a ranger, who summons animal companions to her side, teaching your squishy healer to become an arcane warrior and seeing how it all plays out on the battlefield is utterly satisfying. And I love the setting, because it isn't all happy happy joy joy, it's dark, it's depressing and everybody is just a little bit fucked. All templars are addicted to Lyrium and eventually lose their marbles, mages have a tendency to turn into vegetables or abominations and the oh so heroic Grey Wardens force you to drink the blood of your enemies (which is likely to kill you) and stab you in the face if you try to walk out. And then you're haunted by nightmares for the rest of your life - on the plus side, said rest is relatively short, because the Darkspawn blood causes people to go insane over time.

The whole thing is full of rape, murder, treason and plot. Sure, the story itself isn't the most original thing of all times and I'm nowhere near the edge of my seat, dying to find out how it all ends. But the characters are the most lovable and exciting bunch this side of Mass Effect.

I just hope I can get myself to finish Dragon Age 2 when I'm done with Origins. I tried it once and gave up after just a few hours. Character management was dumbed down, I didn't like the new party members very much and the interiours of caves, buildings, everything just fucking repeated over and over again. Turns out that higher resolution textures and faster-paced combat isn't everything. Oh well. Back then I was all hyped up and got disappointed. Now I fully expect DA2 to suck, so maybe I'm in for a pleasant surprise. Fat chance, right?

In other news, Blizzard won their lawsuit against the developers of Shadow Bot and Pocket Gnome. I love this bit in Ceiling Fan Software's official statement:

"[...]pursue our right to operate and our customer’s right to play WoW as they choose". Their right. Their right to use bots, to cheat, gain an unfair advantage over other players and to break the rules. Nice. They've also added a link to their paypal account in case you're interested in donating to help these assholes cover their legal fees.

The real fun started when I translated this article and posted it on my employer's website. Comments section. On top of the usual "Yay! Go Blizzard! Fuck bots!" and the teenage renegade "bots aren't so bad, I also buy gold on ebay ololol" bullcrap, another bot developer had taken the opportunity to advertise his own product underneath the article. The best part was when he shared stories about alleged thank you letters, which he supposedly received from a disabled player, who could now finally experience World of Warcraft by having a bot play for him. How touching.

What really fascinates me is how some users actually suck up to this asshole. Let's face the facts for a moment: This guy is one of the reasons why every BG in WoW is populated by bots, which walk in a straight line, spam auto attacks and are generally a waste of space and potentially lose the whole damn thing for your side whenever you get stuck with them. And the people using them get their gear in their sleep. This isn't fair, it takes the fun out of the game, it's against the rules and the guy selling this software doesn't give a shit, because he's sitting on a soft, comfy pile of money. And he's blatantly advertising his crap, because "it helps people with disabilities enjoy WoW". Yes, I'm sure that's what he had in mind when he decided to offer his bot for money. He's an asshole. He's the very definition of asshole. If you look up "asshole" in a dictionary, you'll probably see a picture of David Cameron, but this guy is close.

And then you get people, who ask the guy about his "motivation" to sell his bot, aside from money. "Certainly, it can't be your goal to upset the player base with your product or to annoy a huge amount of people. So what are you trying to achieve, what are your expectations?" Almost funny if it wasn't so messed up. He's SELLING a program that PLAYS THE GODDAMN GAME FOR YOU, what the fuck do you THINK his "motivation" is? He's exploiting lazy fuckers with more money than common sense, he doesn't give a shit about the community or how it affects the game. And he sure as fuck didn't have the well-being of sentient, limbless torsos in mind, who crave to play WoW, or else he wouldn't take money for the damn thing. Why the FUCK would you treat scum like that with any respect, let alone pretend they gave two shits about how their bots take a good amount of fun out of the damn game? What is this, Stockholm Syndrome 2.0?

Ah fuck it, I'm gonna go take a ragedump.

-Cat

Anniversary Fun

Claire checked Facebook yesterday and noticed a relationship status message. "Oh shit, it's our six year anniversary!" Thanks, Facebook! It's great how social media reminds us of all the important events in our lives from birthdays to anniversaries, making women a little more obsolete in the process. Of course there are certain disadvantages to these automatic reminders, as well. It's a bit awkward when one of your contacts has died and still receives dozens of birthday messages. You gotta keep that stuff in mind when you post on people's walls. "If you're still alive - happy birthday! Otherwise, please ignore this message." Problem solved.

I even have friends, who deliberately put up false birth dates on their FB to see who their "real friends" are, i.e. people, who remember the correct birthday. You incredible dickheads, you! Anyhow - as far as we know, Facebook knows our proper anniversary date, so we had to go out to town. I'm applying the finishing touches to my final ever Neverwinter class guide this very moment to cover our expenses. And we didn't go all nuts, either. Just the fancy burger place again. And damn, did we feel like a bunch of weirdos!

The Gourmet Burger Kitchen is incredibly hip. Or trendy. Or some shit term kids use these days to describe a stylish, modern eatery that attracts young folk. Young, beautiful people in fashionable outfits at every table. It was like a tiny, alternate universe, which exists in the middle of a city, where people go to the supermarket in their pyjamas. You can go to Nottingham any day of the week and run into people dressed up as cowboys. Or a fucking Borg from Star Trek, with an unsatiable appetite for dry spaghetti, straight out of the packet.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not making fun or anything. I'm a guy who plays video games for a living. I look like a guy who plays video games for a living. A country where absolutely no one gives a shit about personal appearance is a huge plus to me. Which only makes it scarier when you enter a restaurant and the first thing you think is: "Okay, we're the ugliest people around." Claire shaved my head a few weeks ago and it has grown back to the point where it looks like this:

AAAAAAAAH!

You know, the perfect length to stand up in all directions, but still too short to be styled into anything useful. Claire was having a great hair day, but she was also soaking wet. She's a sweat factory. I don't know how she does it. Must be a glandular problem or something.
Okay. Ugly hair dude and sweaty girl looking at the menu. And the waitress babbled on and on and on about their "loyalty app". Apparently that's a thing now. Scan a qr code every time you get there, get rewards or some shit, I don't know. She wouldn't shut up about it. I tried to get a word in, failed twice, finally gave up and blatantly interrupted her: "We don't have a smartphone."

Silence. Absolute silence. If you had walked into the restaurant at that exact moment, you would have thought I had said something among the lines of, "Hitler was right." She just stared at me in disbelief. I wasn't sure whether she was gonna start crying, whether I was about to be stabbed with a fork or whether she was just going to quietly point at the door.

"Oh...", she said. Yeah. Oh. "Do... um... do you just want to look at the menu?" She quietly teleported away, not looking us in the eyes. It was surreal. Like telling a vegan you start every day by devouring one live baby cow. Whole.
Yes, I know. My job functions entirely through the internet, it's all about gaming and then I don't even have a fucking smartphone. Well - what for? It takes about ten seconds to get from my bed to my work place and there is no bus stop in the corridor. I get new jobs, feedback, all kinds of work-related stuff strictly by email. All my friends are in Germany. I'm not gonna call them on a fucking mobile when I go out.

Besides - believe it or not - I don't want to check on work-related stuff, Facebook or people's stupid Instagram photos of their stupid sandwiches when I go out!
Look... you've probably experienced this, yourself: You're having a conversation with somebody and they check their fucking phone. While you're talking to them. They don't look at you - they look at their damn smartphones! It's annoying enough when I get work-related phone calls and I can hear the guy on the other end typing away on his keyboard going, "mhm... hm... mhm..." and it couldn't be any more obvious that they don't give a shit about anything I have to say. I don't need that kind of crap when I go out. When I go out, I wanna have a good time, I wanna talk or, call me crazy, just enjoy the food and the moment without any god damn talking at all!

Oh well. The wild boar burger was off the menu and the "chargrilled" chicken burger was thoroughly burned. The rosemary fries were pretty awesome. It was fun, I don't regret it, but there was that lingering feeling of, "I could have cooked that myself, it would have cost 25% of what we just paid and it would have been better". I usually get that when eating in a pub, but not a place with "Gourmet" in the name. Still. Anniversary lunch and all that. And we still had a 50% off voucher from Domino's!

A much more exciting thing we've done to celebrate our anniversary was a trip to Poundland. Damn you, Stuart Ashen! I've never been to Poundland before. You know, one of those places where everything costs a pound. I've always imagined the place to look like some kind of indoor yard sale. All kinds of random crap piled up and lots of people rummaging through it. But actually, Poundland looks more like a supermarket. A really shitty supermarket. They had highly unpleasant Haribo halloween cupcakes, canned "food", screwdrivers, razor blades and, most importantly, toys. Tron Legacy action figures. Incredibly cheap wrestling action figures with faces, which didn't look remotely human. And blind bags with dinosaurs and dragons in them. You know, you just get a little bag with some dragons printed on it and you rip it open and there's some cheap lump of rubber inside, which is roughly molded into the shape of a flying lizard.

We bought ten of these bags. And fully expected to pay ten Quid for them, but they only charged us 7,50. Yay! And the dragons were actually quite nifty, though I usually avoid stuff that has 'Ubisoft' written on it. Apparently, they were toys that go along with some Nintendo DS game:

The dragons were okay for cheap Poundland toys, though their wings were strangely dented and out of shape and resembled... I dunno, bat labia, I guess. Nothing we can't fix with some hot water or an electric hair dryer. Except for one poor little cripple, whose wings came off when we looked at them for too long. Fortunately for him, I always keep a tube of superglue around the house for when I get bored and feel the urge to glue my elbows to the desk and my nuts to the chair. Let this be a warning to you, children: If you're naked and/or extremely hairy, don't operate with superglue!

We've spent the rest of the night sitting in Market Square, where dozens of people played XXL Laser Space Invaders and Asteroids. There were fat, ugly people who had programming jokes on their sweaters. Much less intimidating than the beautiful burger people. Obese, ugly, greasy people with no concept of personal hygiene. Cliché on fat, short, hairy legs. Claire dropped her coat and showed off her N7 hoodie with pride. A female gamer, among all these nerds. With girl boobs. And she was with me. Perfect! We need to go to these events more often and enjoy this kind of stuff until they finally come up with lovebots, who are more attractive and flexible than human females. What a great age we live in!

-Cat

Dealing with Death

This may sound cheesy, but the saddest day of my life was when my cat died. I've always had pets. Fish, a tiny lobster, snakes, lizards and a whole lot of cats. But this one cat in particular was special. When I went to work in the morning, the cat would follow me to the bus stop. She'd be there and pick me up when I got home from work. She followed me into the store when I spent my humble wages on tuna. Sometimes she'd sit on my shoulder when I walked around town. She was tiny. Didn't wanna grow up. Just sat there.

One day she got ill, sat in the corner all day, didn't want to eat, didn't want anyone near her. It all happened very fast. I was seriously depressed when she was gone. Something was instantly missing - nobody to walk me to work and back, nobody to go buy tuna with me. And of coursed they asked about it at the shop - hey, where's your cat? My companion was missing and things would never be the same again. It's hard to describe the whole thing in a way that doesn't sound utterly ridiculous. It's just a stupid cat, right? But at that point I had never lost any loved ones before and the cat's death was pretty hard to ignore. We've spent considerable amounts of time with each other every day and all of that had changed from one cruel moment to another. Life-changing. The realisation that my pet is gone for good and would never come back.

My grandfather has died this morning.
I'm not sure how I feel. I mean, I know what to feel, but the whole thing just seems entirely unreal. We had the stereotypical grandfather-grandson-relationship. You know, me not calling him enough, because it's always so awkward. Him not calling me enough, because he doesn't want to bother me. And on those rare occasions when we do talk, it's about traffic, the weather... I remember sitting in his lap when I was six years old, not a care in the world. Now I'm in my thirties, he doesn't really know me anymore, so what is there to say? Of course it's a bit awkward when we try and communicate. Scary and depressing, too. He'd always talk about close friends and relatives, who were his age and suddenly just died. I don't think I could put myself in his potition if I tried. Like I said, nobody really close to me had ever died, aside from my cat. There's no way I could imagine what it's like when most of the people you've known and loved are dead, you kinda know you're gonna be next and you're afraid to call your younger, remaining family, because you don't want to be a burden. Sounds like a pretty shit way to spend your final days to me.

Funny how all the useful things you could say always come to mind when it's too late, isn't it? I'm grateful for all the time I got to spend with him as a kid, for every thrown frisbee, for every holiday I got to spend with him in the country. I'll always remember the happy days I had with him and I believe that, thanks to him, my life has been better. I'm not sure if he died knowing all that. He knew all about the weather in Nottingham and about the busy traffic over here, though. Man...

I don't know what's gonna happen next. Well yeah, a funeral, but that's not what I mean. I had friends who told me they didn't feel anything, when their loved ones died. Well, they all seemed to feel guilt for not feeling anything, for not crying. And they all said it happened much, much later, after the funeral, after the loss finally became real. When they finally understood that the dearly departed was gone for good and wouldn't come back. I really don't know what I feel. There's too much on my mind right now to feel anything.
Like the funeral. I don't believe in god, heaven, a soul or anything of that sort. I told Claire to take me to an animal preparator when I die and put me up in the front yard in a scary pose. I don't give a fuck about what happens to me when I'm dead. Burn me, feed me to the lizards, donate me to science, I'll be dead, I won't care.

Thing is, just because I don't give a shit about my own funeral or funerals in general, I can't really expect anyone to understand my attitude towards the whole thing. It'll seem disrespectful. On the other hand, I live in a different country now, I cannot afford a flight there and back and frankly, nobody even bothered to fucking tell me. Except for my brother, who first contacted me yesterday, after my granddad had already been in hospital for nearly two weeks. I don't know what I'll do. Never been in a situation like this before. I need to think.

-Cat

Hitting Town Like a Manager Over Other Employees

Finally! We finally fucking did it! We went out! And we didn't just go out to look at all the things we cannot afford and go back home - we went out to have lunch. And dinner, too!

As I've mentioned before, I just had my busiest two months of all times and now that the money is finally there, we decided to treat ourselves to a little something. Now, before I go into the details, allow me to pacify those among you, who were (rightfully) sick and tired of my whining about how we couldn't pay our bills: It's fine. We could afford it this once, we've calculated it ten times over, all the bills are paid and we've put the rest in the bank, allowing us to pay the rent for another three months to come. I'm not even kidding, these last jobs paid so well, we're financially secure for months to come and we could afford to go out. It's all good. Plenty more work coming my way, as well. Life is good.

We didn't really have anything planned when we got up this morning at 2pm (no work today, wheeee!). There were some Tesco Daily Value chicken tits defrosting in the sink (the watery, bony ones that taste of nothing, mmm-mmm!) and we still had some Tesco Daily Value 3rd grade canned mushrooms and some Tesco Daily Value 29p penne to go with all that stuff. Yup, we live like kings around here! But for some reason we just didn't feel like eating any of that, let alone cooking it first. And it was such a nice cold, grey, rainy day outside, that we ended up hopping on the next bus instead. Originally, we were going to hop in front of the bus, but then we checked my bank account and didn't have to.

It was around 4pm when we arrived in town and we decided to start our trip with a fight. I wanted to go to Pizza Hut, because they're offering this right now:

So disgusting, yet so tempting.

Claire wanted to go to Burger King. Nevermind the fact that the above picture fucking contains burgers, nooo, it had to be the real thing. But on our way there we came across the Gourmet Burger Kitchen. You know, posh burgers. With buffalo, lamb, wild fucking boar! Claire didn't wanna go. Too fancy. Too expensive. Not our world. That kinda thing.

So we stood outside Burger King. Place was exploding with people and the only empty table was in front of the restrooms. We've made that mistake once, many moons ago. Turns out it's incredibly difficult to enjoy your Whopper when you're completely surrounded by a strong smell of piss. Okay, maybe there were more empty tables upstairs or we could have taken our food outside to market square or something, but there were at least 50,000 people waiting in line to order their food. So I tucked Claire under my arm and ran off, back to the Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

It was a bit scary at first. You see, we've never actually been to a restaurant over here. If you're somewhat familiar with the circumstances that brought us here, you'll know that we came with pretty much nothing (to the UK, not Burger King) and have been trying to make ends meet ever since. In four years time, we've been to McDonald's about six times, Burger King twice and KFC once. I'm not counting crap like a takeout tray of chips or anything, but only places where we actually sat down to eat. Just the two of us. So yeah, that's it. The most exciting place we've been to so far was KFC.

"Why scary?" you might ask. Well, imaginary reader, who doesn't understand where I'm going with this. We don't know how English restaurants work. We've been out a few times back in Germany. You pick a table, sit down and somebody throws delicious things at you, more or less. Then people pretend they can't see you, so you can't order any more drinks and you have to stay for two weeks before you're allowed to pay. And it's common courtesy to tip 10-15 per cent while you're at it. Things are a bit different in the UK, though.

We sat down, they gave us menus, then I had to memorize everything and order our food at the counter. And pay up front. Weird. Makes sense, though. I mean, in Germany you can eat before they even know whether or not you can pay for your meal. Over here they want to see your money before you get anything. So I went there, paid up like a good boy and in return I was brought this:

And she wanted to go to fucking Burger King!

Best burger I had all my life. Which isn't very difficult, given the fact I usually eat at McDonald's, but damn, was that worth it! We also got free peanuts for the wait. Fresh ones, not those canned, salty ones that contain the urine of a dozen different people, who touch them before washing their hands. You know, like that:

Cracking them open helps pass the time till lunch is ready!

And a chocolate milk shake that had little bits of chocolate in it. Mmmmm! Also had some amazing coleslaw and skinny fries, which were really long and about as thick as an ant turd. Never seen anything like it. We tried taking a picture, but... well, let's just say we don't have a smartphone or a good camera and Claire's mobile is about ten years old, so... brace yourselves.

It looked so much better IRL!

That image really doesn't do the food justice. The fries also look a lot bigger on that shot than they really were. They were more like fried spaghetti made of potatoes. o_O

The place was really nice. Cozy, nice view at all the shops outside and strange music, which I can really just describe as "background music". Ever been to a pub or some restaurant that played music you really can't stand? Or stuff that simply doesn't feel like dinner music? I remember a birthday dinner at a pub where I tried eating some chicken whilst Freddie Mercury was looking for somebody to love. Don't get me wrong, I love his music and everything, but it was too loud, it wasn't good eating music and it only went downhill from there when they whipped out their best of 70s-80s collection.

The music at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen was more like ambient music. No singing, no particular style, just soft, soothing, barely audible electronic tunes. Mass Effect citadel music. It was just there, it wasn't annoying, nothing intense or memorable, but created a nice chillout atmosphere. We just wanted to stay and eat all the burgers they could cook for us. And looking at how dark and stormy it was outside, the great outdoors really didn't seem that attractive.
Oh, we also noticed some tip jars at the counter, so when we finally decided to leave after all, we just left a few coins in there. Tip jars are awesome! You can be as generous or as cheap as you want and nobody will know. And seeing how absolutely nobody tipped while we were there, I think we were pretty damn generous.

We went for a nice, long walk around the city and sat down at the market square, where everything began almost exactly six years ago. It's where we held hands for the first time and also held a few other things I shall not mention in great detail, because certain parents might end up reading this.

And because of all the fountains, we've also developed a serious watersports fetish.

We stayed there until it got dark, then went to the Wetherspoon Pub. I wanted to go there, because they have a few nice tables upstairs, from where you can look all over market square. Claire ordered a sirloin steak, which was absolutely amazing and a lot better than this shitty picture suggests:

The steak was very blurry, but it was late and I had a lot to drink.

I was an idiot and ordered the Aberdeen Angus steak, mostly because it's the size of my face. Problem is, my "medium rare" steak was well done and as tough as old boots. Also, all the lights went out for a minute and we fully expected to be presented with a dead body when they came back on, along with a goofy inspector, telling people to stay until the murderer was identified. But instead of the Scotland Yard we just had annoying, flickering lights for the rest of the night, the place was drafty and there was a bunch of drunk, noisy kids on the table next to ours, so... well.

I'd say it was shit. It was cold, loud, the food was overpriced and not very good and the flickering light was insanely irritating. But guess what? I don't even care. I had fun. We had a fantastic night out, we finally had some time to ourselves and we could afford to eat something that didn't come out of a can or the freezer and had been cooked by somebody else. We wanted to do something fun, we wanted steak and we got all that. Sure - perhaps we'll never go to that particular place again, but that's beside the point. We've been wanting to do this kind of thing for years and we finally could. I couldn't be happier.

There was also a bit of exra money for two Hardened Editions of Call of Duty Ghosts. We're planning to set up our own dedicated server with friends and can't wait to get started! It should be a fun, smooth experience, thanks to the Radeon 7950 HD in Claire's AMD machine, kindly donated by the publisher of one of the games we've reviewed, and the new GeForce GTX 770 4GB edition I've ordered for my Intel/Nvidia setup. They're replacing hardware, which is currently being wrapped up and prepared for a trip to friends in Germany. All of our friends have been incredibly helpful and supportive when our situation was so awful, it's only fair that we return the love.

The rest of the money is in the bank and that's where it stays. Though we're gonna review our habits when it comes to weekly grocery shopping. Maybe we should have two or three cheap sandwich days a week, so we can save up a little something and make regular trips to town. It was nice to go out and I don't mind saving our money to repeat this a little more regularly.

-Cat

5 Things that can make self-employment seriously awful

That whole freelance games critic thing is the best job I ever had in life. I do something I absolutely love doing and, occasionally, I even get paid a little something. Not remotely enough, but it's a job for the kind of person who craves attention more than worldly possessions and I've come to terms with that. For the most part. And when I complain about the sucky side of things, my friends tend to tell me off. "You're your own boss, you can sleep in every day, you work from home and you're still whining. If you really hated it so much, you'd go find yourself a new job!"
Funny thing is, if I really could get employed as a writer, rather than being a crappy freelancer, I wouldn't hesitate to do so. But I suppose my friends are referring to other, less exciting regular office jobs. Fair enough. If I hated being a freelancer so much, I'd probably get one of those jobs. Everything has its ups and downs. So, if you've ever considered self-employment, be sure you can deal with this stuff:

5. Distractions

Resisting the urge to take part in this week's poop throwing contest, Bob did all he could to meet his deadlines.

Working at home has its obvious perks. My cat is here. I'm not wearing pants. Nobody gives me any weird looks when I have the occasional wank break. The cat's kinda used to it by now. And I don't have to worry about my boss magically appearing behind me the moment I check Facebook. Have you ever felt the temptation to check on your Farmville account, play a quick round of Angry Birds or waste your company's valuable time some other way while you're supposed to do your job? Imagine having full access to your Steam account, a bazillion brand new games and nobody to ask you why the fuck you're not working when you spend eight hours grinding levels in Pandaria. Unless you get paid to do exactly that, of course.

Sleeping in can be another problem. Sure, I don't have to actually "get to the office", unless you wanna count the way from the bedroom to the living room. Shower and shave? Meh, no one is gonna look at me all day. But getting up late means you'll miss important emails and phone calls, people get pissed off because you're not reliable and chances are, you'll end up working all night, meaning you'll get up even later the next day. And work piles up all the time, usually when you least expect it. The other week I was supposed to write a class guide on some MMO, but the publisher failed to provide the necessary characters, so I had to level them up from scratch. At the same time, another publisher contacted me and demanded an explanation about why I was so harsh when I rated their game. Then they told me about the "factual mistakes" I've made while they're reading my article in Google Translate, because they don't actually speak the language the article is written in. So I had to spend the next hour explaining to them what I actually said and why their translation is wrong. I don't get paid to do this, but it needs to be done. Also, if the publisher in question happens to read this, I still love you and I don't mean to point fingers.

So I'm explaining my review on one game, leveling some characters on another, then I'm getting a call from the office, asking me how many dungeons there are in a third game, which I've reviewed three weeks ago. Because they need that detail for the article. Fuck if I know. And that's when one of our pets got sick and refused to eat, so in between calls, emails, level-grinding and typing stuff, I'm bathing, creaming and force-feeding a lizard. And when one customer wasn't satisfied with the quality of some gameplay footage I had recorded for them, I had to spend the rest of the night re-recording and re-uploading everything, meaning my business night ended sometime around 6:30am. But I get to sleep in, because I'm such a lucky bastard! And strict deadlines lead us right to the next problem...

4. Deadlines

I got a call one night when it turned out that a publisher was going to re-use some of my magazine reviews from one or two years ago. Which, of course, were grossly outdated by then, but they were gonna sell them off as brand new. "Can you update these reviews and make sure all the facts are still correct? Amount of dungeons, races and classes, pricing and so forth. We need this by tomorrow." While this certainly doesn't happen all the time, these things do happen. It's the kind of stuff you have to be ready for when you're self-employed. Emergencies. And I really, really like that particular magazine, I didn't wanna let them down, so of course I went and spent the rest of the night fixing this mess. At no charge. Because I'm a nice guy, I scratch your back, you scratch mine, that kinda thing.

Unfortunately, you cannot expect the same kind of courtesy when it comes down to getting paid for your work. About a month ago, I've sent an invoice to a customer and when there was no payment after two weeks, I went and contacted them. And I was told that people were on sick leave or on vacation, so there had been a slight delay and the invoice would be paid this week. And there was no money for another week, so I contacted them again. And they responded with the exact same message. Sick leave, vacation, money goes out this week. Bit weird. Do they really mean it this time? Am I gonna get my money this week? I don't fucking know.

"So, how's freelance games journalism working for ya?"
- "Shut the fuck up and put another magazine in the fire!"

You see, I never know that I won't be paid on time until it's too late. The guys who sign my invoices just pass them on to accounting, where they'll sit around until somebody gets in the mood to take care of them. Whole department is on vacation? Somebody called in sick? Computer problem? Cosmic rays? Doesn't fucking matter. If they don't pay up for whatever reason, I won't know until I check my bank account, then I ask the guys who sign my invoices, they ask in accounting and they say that nobody was there to pay, but they'll probably take care of it sometime this week. If I'm lucky.

So what am I supposed to do? Charge them late fees? What am I gonna do if they refuse to pay them, hire a lawyer? Like I could afford that! And they know I can't. I could go on strike, refuse to post any new articles on their websites, put all guides and level ups on halt until the money gets there, but that hurts me more than it'll hurt them. Because eventually, I will have to pick up the slack and any delay in my work means further delay for my pay.

I couldn't pay the rent last month. I would have been able to pay, had my employers paid me on time. They didn't. So the transaction to my landlord didn't get through and my bank has, in its infinite wisdom and glory, charged extra fees for the failed transaction. Because banks care and the customer is always right and if some automated process fails and I don't have enough money to pay the rent, it makes perfect sense to punish me by taking even more of my money away from me. Look at those tv ads where smiling, happy people go to their local bank and everyone is happy and there are smiles and handshakes. It's all liiiiiiiiies!

3. Lack of Safety

We tried it that way, but I'm too big.

Everybody can be replaced. I could piss off a publisher who fails to pay up on time. They'll remember that. Maybe they'll be more careful next time. Maybe they'll just give the next job to somebody less bitchy. Being self-employed means you probably don't have any binding contracts with the people you work for and if they no longer require your services for any reason, well... they don't even have to fire you.

This is especially tricky with games journalism. They give me work, because I'm fast, reliable, relatively well-known and I'm simply good. And not too expensive - great value for money and all that. Problem is, there are countless people willing to do my job for less than what I get. They may not be as reliable, they may not be very talented, but they'll be so happy about the proverbial 15 minutes of fame, they wouldn't dare dream to complain, cause trouble or charge a humane amount of money for their work. So, not only can I be "laid off" at any time without so much as an explanation, they can instantly hire a new guy to do my job for less.

And with the rather modest amount of money I get for the job, which may or may not be paid within a reasonable amount of time, I can't really put anything into a "rainy day fund". Should the magazines I write for - god forbid - cease to exist or no longer require my services for any reason, I'll be fucked harder than your younglings when you ask Josef Fritzl to babysit.

2. Stress

I have this one recurring nightmare: I'm late for work. I get stuck in traffic, I miss the train, I'm out of gas, I oversleep, my brain comes up with all kinds of reasons for me to be late and when I finally make it to the office, everyone's kinda pissed off at me and I worry about losing my job.
I haven't worked in an office for more than a half decade and I have never met any of the people I work with in person.

Tight deadlines stress me out. I had to finish three reviews the other week, two of which were about games I haven't had the chance to play yet. One of the games crashed my computer, because it was an unstable beta. Hour-long server maintenance stopped me from playing. And I ran out of goddamn time. And that causes insomnia. When I finally go to bed between 4 and 6 in the morning, I'm dog-tired, but I can't fucking sleep. My brain is in "work-mode". I go through my recent articles. What did I write again? Did I mention that new class, the pvp issues and the problems with the item shop? Did I remember to upload those screenshots?

The next step is terror shits. Okay, it's really just diarrhea or all kinds of stress-related stomach cramps, but that doesn't sound as awesome. And over the past two or so weeks, which have been unusually stressful, even by my standards, I've developed a whole new symptom: Tinnitus. My left ear is ringing and it won't fucking stop. Never had this for as long as I've lived. Started just recently and went away when all my work was finished. Now I didn't get paid for anything, I can't pay my bills, my fridge is empty and my fucking ear started ringing again.

"Maybe I should call the boss and tell him I'm s... aw fuck!"

Of course this isn't the only problem. When you get sick, you can't just stay at home for a day instead of going to the office. Your office is at home. And you can either grit your teeth and do your job no matter how shit you feel or you can leave it, miss your deadlines and screw up your chances at getting more work in the future. And the fun doesn't stop there in my case - with most of these symptoms being caused by stress, actually asking for an extension of my deadlines will only cause more stress, because it makes me look bad. Hurray!

1. Maintaining a Relationship

"Remember when we still had the time and money to go out?"
"No."
"Me neither. HAHAHA!"

When my partner comes from from her underpaid day job, she wants to talk. She wants to have dinner, talk about work, have some quality time with me. And I gotta record video footage, write previews and grind levels like there's no tomorrow. And I'm stressed out. I can't focus on what she's saying, I don't have time for her, I get aggressive and she feels rightfully neglected.

Sex? I'm way too fucking exhausted and I won't be able to come to bed before 4am. Hit the town this weekend, go to a nice restaurant and make up for the time we're not getting with each other? Fat chance, there's no money on the account! We should go on vacation when this month's magazine issue is finished and there won't be as much to do. Oh wait, the money thing again...

Working at home and sharing your home with a spouse means you won't get your "office" to yourself all the time. You could put up the "do not disturb" sign and avoid all contact, so you can finish your job on time, which will harm your relationship in the long run. You could take a break, listen to your partner, talk about their day, spend two hours having dinner and watching a movie together. Which makes going back to work even more difficult and may potentially hurt your career in the long run. It doesn't matter what you do - you're always screwed.

My partner and I have started to share my job as much as we can, so we can be together while I work. When I'm supposed to write class guides, she'll level one character, I'll level the other. When I'm supposed to review a game, she plays it with me, so I can get a second opinion and she can check out features like crafting or housing and pets while I look into raids and pvp. I'm incredibly lucky that she's so understanding and loves games as much as I do. Problem is, you can't expect your partner to be into your job as much as you are. You can't expect them to understand when you get pissed off at them when they try to talk to you after a long day at work, while you're still in the middle of it. Having a loved one at your work place may sound like a cool idea, but in most cases, you'll end up hating each other.

-Cat

Waiting for a game I've already bought four times before

One of the things about getting older is that I should be getting a little wiser, more experienced, I'm supposed to learn stuff. But year after year, I've been the perfect retarded customer the gaming industry wants. A new Call of Duty gets released and I go buy it. Three days later (literally), some website announces that Activision registers a new website, trademark or some other shit, announcing an upcoming new CoD title for next year. And just like that, my new game becomes 50% less awesome. Because I'm playing something, which is bound to become outdated in about twelve months time. Something I've only just installed.

Don't get me wrong. Of course they're releasing a fucking new CoD in a year. There's a stupid new CoD every fucking November. But they don't have to rub my nose in it. "Haha, you moron! We've got you all hyped up about our game, now we have your money and we're gonna start the hype machine for a whole new version!" What really bothers me, though, is how I always fall for that shit, even though the game never really changes. Yes, every new CoD comes with a brand new singleplayer campaign, which I really don't care about. The multiplayer part, however, has been the exact same thing since Modern Warfare, just with new maps and some new weapons here and there.

The games are so similar to each other in multiplayer, for the most part they just feel like map packs and minor balance patches. One game comes with "pro" perks, which are more difficult to unlock than regular perks, the next game removes pro perks again, the one after that slightly nerfs perks, the next one buffs them a bit and so forth. One game makes killstreak rewards more powerful, another one removes the most powerful killstreak rewards, yet another one adds even more killstreak rewards and lets you customize them.

You know, there used to be a time where people could just set up their own damn servers and adjust all of these settings by hand. They didn't have to buy the game again and again every year and just accept those relatively minor tweaks here and there.
With the upcoming release of CoD Ghosts I couldn't help but cringe at their shows and presentations around the game. Why the fuck did Jimmy Fallon feature that stupid game in his show? And then there was this:

Erm...
So Ghosts has exactly one new, slightly unique feature (I'll get to that in a bit) and other than that, it's the exact same game. Again. So how do you market that shit? Add an Eminem title song and a 10 seconds clip of him talking about the game. Invite some RL marines to have them slaughtered by a bunch of nerds in a multiplayer session, live on stage. I can't help but feel that they've run out of ideas a while ago and now they're pulling off weird shit like that, since there really isn't anything left to talk about when it comes to a "new" CoD.

That's especially the case when Mr. Rubin talks about how they've looked at every single aspect of the game in order to find stuff to change. You know, telling people they wanted to make every component of the game even better. But to me it sounded more like, "We had a really hard time slightly changing stuff around a bit that hasn't already been changed back and forth a hundred times, anyway." Think about it. Quickscoping, no quickscoping. Nuke killstreak, no nuke killstreak, nuke killstreak again. And so forth. They add stuff, nerf stuff, remove stuff, add it again, buff it again, going in circles. They're not improving anything, they're just adjusting the rules a little bit each year and that's it.

And they keep talking "next generation". Next generation this, next generation that, next generation my fucking ass. Look at multiplayer videos from any CoD game from Modern Warfare 2 to Ghosts and you can't even tell they're all supposed to be different games. Okay, so you can blow up a gas station on one map, nuke a bus off a cliff on another and turn one map into a blazing ruin when you nuke it, that's new. And that's fun the first three or so times you see it. I don't see anything groundbreaking, innovative or next-generation there, but hey, an actual change, whoop de do.

The one really new thing, and the reason why those bastards are getting me again, lies within the new squad system. I didn't even look at Ghosts. I didn't care. I didn't want to buy this game again. But I'm a sucker for this whole squad thing. Create and customize a bunch of soldiers, pick all their gear and perks, set up the perfect team and fight the squads of your friends. It's really just a glorified bot match and I doubt that a lot of people will care for it much, but I'm actually looking forward to squad matches with Claire. We're into that whole customization and optimization stuff.

Fighting a bunch of 14 year olds on the 'net, the whining, insults and bitching, all of that is gonna be fun for the usual 3 or 4 weeks. But fighting the Bear, squad vs squad or teaming up with her to fight the squads of our friends, at our own pace, "offline", whilst unlocking new stuff and leveling up... yeah, I'm up for that. That's probably the most casual way I've ever played CoD and I don't even mind. If that part of the game turns out to be as fun as it sounds, if it's well-executed and enjoyable, then I'll stick with just that. And then I won't give a shit about them releasing yet another CoD a year later, which will probably get rid of squads again to "offer the classic prestige experience our veterans have been asking for" or some shit. Nah, they'll probably find some other hook and get me hyped enough to buy it again. I'm an idiot. -_-

Oh well. One more month to go until the game comes out. I think I'm gonna practice a bit by playing some of the earlier titles of the Franchise. Modern Warfare 2 was always entertaining. Akimbo SMGs. Incredibly stupid, but so much fun! Got a few days off after all my hard work, so I may as well give it a try. Let's see how that'll go...

-Cat

Nightmares

I'm playing a fun little game called "reload your online bank account every ten seconds" right now. Yes, a nightmare-themed blog. And we're having a bit of a money-related nightmare right now. You see, one problem I have to face with my self-employment is that there's no regular paycheck and I depend on my employers to pay up on time. Which they usually do, but right now I'm waiting for three transactions, which have been delayed a bit. The first one got buried under a ton of mail in a very busy office and they didn't notice my invoice to them until I reminded them. Honest mistake, shit happens. As for the second one, well... "Yeah, should have gone out as far as I know." Well, so far it hasn't. And the third one got delayed because of vacation and sick leave.

These things happen. If you can't deal with this kind of stuff, then self-employment isn't for you. However, it gets a bit problematic when things get delayed by a week or two and you can't pay your bills (I should have paid the rent on last month's 25th but couldn't) and you can't go out, buy stuff, have fun, that kind of thing. You see, it was the Bear's birthday this week, we wanted to go out today, have dinner in town, maybe do a little shopping, we wanted to order 2 copies of the upcoming CoD Ghosts and just enjoy a kickass weekend. Problem is, the money ain't there yet. Might arrive any minute, might arrive in an hour or two. Might not arrive until Monday. Sigh.

It's ironic. I'm waiting for the biggest amount of money I have ever made in this job within a single month. I've never had so much work before, but in the end I've met all my deadlines, finished all my stuff and I'm looking forward to receiving a pile of money, which will financially secure us for the rest of the year - unless we spend it all on pizza. Yet I'm unable to pay the rent or celebrate Claire's birthday right now, because the money isn't there yet. Right now I don't know when we can finally go out and celebrate - or if we can go out at all. What's worse is the paranoia that goes along with this. What if the money won't be there all day? What if there's not gonna be any money on Monday? Yesterday was a public holiday in Germany, which may have delayed all payments and transactions a little further. I miss having a predictable, monthly paycheck.

But let's move from RL nightmares to traditional, dreamy ones. I think I've just dreamed up an entire episode of Outer Limits or Twilight Zone or something. The whole thing was in the near future, Claire and I were finally married, we even had a baby (WTF?! We HATE babies!) and for some stupid reason we decided to buy a car. One of those really massive ones. A Range Rover or a Hummer or some shit. So we bought one of those monstrosities, went back home and it didn't take long for Claire to show some really erratic behaviour. You see, since it was the future, it was possible (and perfectly normal) for certain companies to put commercials and advertisements right into people's minds and dreams. And apparently, Claire got stuck in a Range Rover commercial. She was logged on to an online game and I noticed how her avatar was getting torn to shreds by monsters, but she didn't even care, because she was busy looking at maps and routes and stuff on the internet. This isn't like her at all. You see, she takes her gaming very seriously and the life of her avatars is top priority. I told her that she was getting her ass kicked on her game. "That's not important right now. I'm planning a trip with our brand new Range Rover!" I shook her, shouted at her, asked what the heck was going on with her and for a moment, she went back to normal. She seemed tired and confused and we decided she should get some rest.

Something wasn't right. I picked up the phone to call a doctor or 999 or something. I'm not entirely sure, it was a dream and they never make perfect sense. But the guy on the phone just tried to sell me cheap insurance. I tried asking family and neighbours for help, but they were all just advertising stupid products. I was trapped in my own, personal Truman Show and everyone around me had turned into some kind of commerical zombie. I figured I was the only one still sane because of my willpower and intelligence (ahem!) and the fact I'm just not into having a lot of expensive stuff. I went to the bedroom to check on Claire, but she wouldn't even wake up. I squeezed her, kissed her as though to wake her up from some grotesque fairytale sleep, showed her our baby, wanted her to come back to me. It looks a bit stupid when I'm writing it down like this, but imagine you dream up some weird shit like that and you're convinced that the one person you love the most will never come back to you. Not fun.
That's when she opened her eyes. She smiled at me. Had no idea why I was so desperate and freaked out. "Everything is fine, love. Don't worry", she said. Words couldn't describe the relief I felt when I finally had her back. "Why don't we go on that trip in our new Range Rover?"

You know, that's a pretty good ending right there. A real kick in the teeth. But it didn't end there. I got out of the bedroom. And our house was empty. Abandoned. And I was a lonely old man. Claire had left me and moved on a long time ago. Because it wasn't her and everyone else around me who turned into some kind of dream-advertisement zombies with zero sense of reality. It was me. I had slept my entire life away, living some bizzare tv ad fantasy as though it was real. When I finally woke up, my whole life was over.

Now that's some weird shit to wake up to. And my subconscious has ripped off quite the nice amount of sci-fi and mindfuck shows and novels to entertain me over night.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not freaked out or shaken or anything and this isn't gonna haunt me. I didn't write about it in this blog because I have to unload or "talk about it". I wanted to write it down before I forget all about it. Because I'm fascinated with how complex and surprising the whole thing was. Most of my dreams tend to be random garbage, which rarely makes any sense, but this one told a whole story. Not a brand new or original one, but it was still very interesting, as far as dreams go.

Oh well. Back to the real nightmare: Reloading the banking website and not finding a single penny in my account. Reload, reload, reload....


-Cat