Sexbear

Imagine somebody who works all night, every night, including weekends. And that somebody gets woken up after 4 or so hours of sleep by an unwanted visitor, who hammers against the bedroom window, demanding to inspect the place, because they have reason to believe the ambushed sleeper is causing damage to the property. And the poor guy can't really get out of bed, because he always sleeps in the nude and the angry lady outside won't stop staring inside through the goddamn window. Some may call that the start of a really lousy sitcom. I call it Tuesday.

You may still remember how half of my father's side of the family died over the last few months, how I had to book flights, pile up some dough for funeral expenses, then the staff at the game magazine I used to work for was reduced to 3 or so editors and now I have to do whatever shitty little writing jobs I can find in order to pay the bills.
It's not all bad, mind you. Working on some of the story and missions for an online game is probably the coolest thing I've ever done and while I'm not allowed to share any of the stuff I came up with, it's amazing to see some of it come to life in the actual game. I have created what I can only describe as a sexbear. In story form, anyway. They actually accepted my idea and the artist made it a real thing, which can be encountered by the players in the game. I wish they had allowed me to share it, because just looking at it filled me with equal amounts of pride, fear, disgust, surprise and laughter.

The problem with this whole doing a bit of everything all day, every day dealie is how it drains you, sucks out all creativity and... well, just look at this blog and the amount and quality of my writing since my work has more or less tripled at pretty much no extra pay. All I feel like doing after I'm done working, shopping for shitty, processed, inexpensive groceries and cooking them into some kind of meal is fire up Warframe or Everquest and play till bedtime. I'm too tired to crack any funnies, I'm out of ideas and this all work and no play thing can be a real drag. And yes, Claire is working Saturdays and the occasional Sunday and we've been neglecting housework, because we're lazy, tired fuckers.

Long story short, the place DID look like shit, the letting agency decided to show up for a surprise inspection at the worst possible moment and it turns out the old brain doesn't work so well when you're burned out, naked, confused and tired. So instead of telling them to come back next week or whatever, the day only got more humiliating from there. There was also a bit of physical comedy when I tried to clean the bathroom a little while later, slipped on the wet tiles, fell into the tub and slammed face-first into the wall before more or less coughing my lungs out, because I had just treated the entire room with mould spray. Yaaay!

They said we can arrange a new inspection appointment at a more convenient time but never got back to us, so I'm gonna have to ring them tomorrow to show some good will and to stop them from getting any stupid ideas about our pets or whatever. I'm paying 350 Quid a month for a place with rotting, single-glazed windows, a broken doorbell which we've been complaining about and which hasn't been fixed in the half decade we've been living here and a back door made of untreaded, non-painted wood, which is all bent and warped, because that's what wood will do after a while if it's constantly getting wet. Turns out all things outdoor get wet A LOT when you live in England. They never fix anything and tomorrow I'm gonna have to call them so they can make sure we didn't damage the property. Bleh.

On a happier note - animals. You may have watched some of my videos where our monitor lizard climbs onto the couch to sit in Claire's lap and where he appears to be enjoying some cuddles and physical contact. One can never be really sure whether they're really into that kind of stuff or whether they're just begging for food or seeking warmth, of course, but if nothing else, some reptiles look like they enjoy some petting here and there.

Apparently there's a similar thing going on with toroises. Alas, they don't purr or wag their tails, so who can really say whether they like it or just tolerate your shit? But the below video is still pretty fascinating to watch and I like how these guys say more or less the same thing about their reptiles that I've been rambling about in this blog for so long:

On a slightly related note, here's a fascinating Cracked article about some of the crazy shit animals do. If you're at least somewhat interested in animals, you'll probably know a lot of the things shown in there, but there's still some really exciting stuff involving roast marshmallows.

And yes, now that I don't really have to play certain games for work anymore, I'm still spending most of my spare time on Everquest 2. With that said, I think I might know a certain magazine who might be interested in an article about this game, especially now that SOE have turned into Daybreak Game Studio and things like Everquest Next might finally become more than just a bunch of powerpoint presentations and fancy ideas. It's Free2Play, people may want to know more about what it's all about and most of us change our MMO of choice like underwear. You know, have a bit of a change every three or four weeks.

2am. Gotta take care of news coverage tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. I need to create a major questline from scratch till Monday. Got more housework to do before the next inspection, which I'll have to arrange for tomorrow. Being your own boss is great, but sometimes I miss the joys of paid vacation.

-Cat

Shadowrunning and Dinosaurs

Born to troll.

I love to hate Kickstarter and everything "early access". Because it's easy to hate paying for the idea of a product, which may or may not ever be finished at some point in the future. And even if the product does get finished, it may end up lacking a whole lot of promised features when the developer runs out of money or it turns out that some concepts are great on paper, but prove too difficult to actually implement. With all that in mind, I still shouldn't hate Kickstarter, because I happen to enjoy the kind of video games which aren't usually made with a massive audience in mind.

I grew up playing RPGs like Baldur's Gate, Might & Magic, Wizardry, all things D&D and SSI. Games which put you in charge of a whole party of adventurers with unique strengths and weaknesses. You need guys who can fight and take a few hits, somebody to spot and disarm traps, a guy who can identify the value and properties of all your fat loot and so on and so forth. A huge part of the fun with these games is to create a group of adventurers and see whether or not they all work out as a team. See how they mangage their first battle, their first dungeon, find out if there's any potential or if you should go back to the planning stage.

I also like turn-based strategy games, whether it's Shining Force or Jagged Alliance (the original, not the steaming pile of shit hosted by Gamigo). Long story short, I like the kind of stuff which is difficult to decorate with explosions and flashy special effects, tons of scripted dialogue and cutscenes and the occasional quicktime event. Because games today have to appeal to as many people as somehow possible and that usually means they have to look good, even if they contain mechanics and gameplay simple enough to be understood by a five year old. Look, I get it, everyone is a "gamer" these days and some people don't want to master a game and get good at it before they play. They just wanna relax and have a little fun. But I like to crunch numbers sometimes, I like to use my brain and, for as crazy as it may sound, I like having the possibility to fuck up so bad that I may have to start over. You know, all of the things most modern games try to avoid at any cost.

Since Average Joe doesn't enjoy having his limited cognitive abilities challenged too much, AAA-publishers won't be releasing an awful lot of traditional RPGs anytime soon. So Kickstarter is actually kind of a blessing. Wasteland 2 turned out to be a decent (if buggy) old-school RPG, Pillars of Eternity is 'round the corner and already getting hyped as the next Baldur's Gate, Harebrained Schemes are working on their third Shadowrun game and Divinity: Original Sin is the closest thing to a modern Ultima VII you're ever going to see. While it's still easy to make fun of the fact that people donated tens of thousands of Dollars for potato salad and how some games get funded and still never see a proper release or any of the promised backer rewards, one can't deny that without crowdfunding we would have missed out on some really great games.

I'm keeping an eye on two Early Access titles right now: Darkest Dungeon and Shadowrun Online. The former is an incredibly cool roguelike RPG with a fantastic art style, a narrator I can actually stand and a whole lot of super creepy dungeon-crawling. It still lacks some content, but apparently it's already highly playable and is getting high praise from the Steam community.
Things aren't quite as dandy in Shadowrun Online, but I do have a tendency to favour unpopular games. Okay, "unpopular" might be a bit harsh, buuut the game is receiving mixed reactions so far. You see, early access started about a year late when one of their investors jumped ship, followed by one of their artists. Then their engine didn't work out and they had to start over from scratch, so the whole thing has been a bit messy, so far.

Developer Cliffhanger Productions also follows a bit of an unusual early access philosophy - they only implement features as soon as they're polished and bug-free. Right now, shooting things works, basic skilltrees and gear management work, basic coop multiplayer and basic missions work aaaand that's about it. You couldn't even customize a character until a recent patch, let alone look for new gear and jobs, because there was no hub, no race selection... yeah, you get the idea.
The latest update added some new stuff to the seamless, classless character development, you can finally play trolls and other such fun metahumans and specialise in all kinds of weapons and skills. It looks a little something like this:

As you can see, it's still very basic. At this stage in the game it doesn't really seem to matter whether you're flinging spells, using a deck or shooting a gun - it all does more or less the same stuff. I also question a skill system, which forces me to choose from either a utility skill such as lockpicking or demolition or a combat skill like a double-barreled shotgun blast, but won't let me pick both. I'm not familiar with the newer iterations of the PnP ruleset, but the way they're doing it in Shadowrun Online seems a bit awkward for now.

As for their scheduled Q1 release this year - don't get your hopes up, it's never gonna happen. But the whole thing is starting to look and feel more and lore like a real game. I highly doubt their writing and story will ever manage to reach Dragonfall levels, but online online multiplayer and customizable squads are still hugely appealing to me, so I can't wait to see how this one works out in the end. I'm excited!

Oh hey, any of you guys remember watching this family when you were kids?

uhhh... The Cosby Show?

We've been watching this show again for our dinner entertainment and we never realized how serious and adult some of the topics on there really were. Dinosaurs an in the early 90s and much of the stuff they're bringing up on there is all over my Facebook feed today. How you need a license for fishing or driving, but any idiot is allowed to become a parent. War and media manipulation - there's a battle for resources (nuts, of all things) going on and the news inform people that the dinos on the other side of the continent threaten everyone's way of life and cause nuts to become more expensive, staged footage about how they're winning the war and all such fun propaganda. There's also an episode about the eldest son in the family getting curious about vegetables until he gets caught by his father when he makes friends with a herbivore. Which is unthinkable, because it's not normal. And probably less difficult to handle in a dino sitcom than making that character gay, though it's fairly obvious what they're getting at.

It's not super moving or insightful, but it's still interesting to see a new angle on some 20 year old show, which I didn't understand when I was a kid.

Right then, time for dinner. :P

-Cat

Crapocalypse

Ahh, young love! Remember those first few dates where you used to suck in your gut, hold back your farts and tried to cover up all those flaws and weaknesses which proved you're a filthy, disgusting human being like the rest of us? But if all goes well you end up moving in together, washing each other's laundry, sharing the same bathroom and not only does it become more difficult to hide all the nastiness - you probably start feeling a little more comfortable around your significant other, so you don't get embarrassed as much. Like those mornings where you oversleep, you both need to get ready for work ASAP and one of you takes a piss in the bath tub while the toilet is occupied in order to save time.

Some girls have developed some amazing talents that way. (Raven's Cry screenshot)

This is also usually the time where you find out whether or not you're gonna make it as a couple for the long haul. It's easy to find somebody attractive if they get a lot of time to dress up and apply several layers of war-paint and deodorant before you get to see them. Things can get a little more challenging once you realize that your significant other occasionally converts plant and animal matter to poop.

Claire and I are pretty cool about bodily stuff in our relationship. Being raised by ex hippies, nudity has never been a big deal to me, anyway, and we hang around the bathroom at the same time a lot without drama. Showering together is fun and saves time and if one of us needs to go pee while the other one is brushing their teeth, go right ahead. We're just not big on having an audience whilst taking a dump, because ew. We talk about it (jokingly), because it's fun to freak people out with it and maybe we've reached a point in our relationship where it's no longer weird (enough) to ask, "Did you have a good shit?" Just don't watch me while I'm doing it.

And then there's that point where you've seen so much disgusting stuff that if you're still in love, you know nothing's gonna break you up from there on out. I think I had that point last week when our shitter was clogged.
We're seriously crazy about harmony, up to a point where our innards seem to synchronize in some weird way. Or maybe it was just coincidence, but the other night we both needed the bathroom at the same time and I let Claire go first, because that's just how nice I am.
But how did she thank me for my kindness? By blocking the crapper!

She spent the rest of the night trying to fix the problem with chemical drain cleaner, a plunger, the brush and a coathanger while I started to worry about having to take a shit in the litterbox - though the cats were probably more worried about that than I was. And I was stupid enough to walk in there to see how bad it really was. For my own sanity I pretended that she was up to her elbow in a huge bowl of chunky Guinness. Now don't get me wrong. I'm not making fun here and this can happen to anyone - in fact, it happens so much, apparently some people fix that sort of problem for a living. And she saved us a lot of money by fixing the problem, herself, so that's commendable and pretty impressive. And I don't know about you, but frankly, calling and paying a stranger to have him shove your shit through a clogged pipe or however plumbing works doesn't sound like the much more attractive option.

It was a night both of us would really like to forget about. It wasn't pretty. But we still sleep in the same bed together. And you wouldn't believe how much you can learn to appreciate being able to flush your damn crapper. Mild bondage and a bit of spanking? Ask Mister Grey how sexy he's gonna find you after one of you breaks the shitter with a turd the size of a human baby.

-Cat