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