Hell, Space, China, Heaven

Being a parent is hard. My son has found my youtube channel and subscribed to it. And there's a certain amount of swearing and (virtual) decapitation and dismemberment happening in many of my videos. I was about nine years old when I played Doom for the first time and I don't think that footage of Warframe or Space Marines will induce nightmares in kids. I also don't believe in censorship and I like to swear. And let's face it - no matter how many times we tell our kids not to cuss and swear like pirates, they're gonna do it among their friends, anyway. I know I did. And once you reach a certain age you just stop giving a fuck, so why make such a big deal out of it? Swearing is a big and important part of my job, it makes my column what it is and pays my bills, so I shouldn't be too worried when my kid hears me swearing about stuff on Youtube, right? Then again, I'm not sure his mother would agree with me here - or his teachers, for that matter. I never gave much of a fuck about these things (I've interviewed the lead producer of Star Trek Online about tribble urethras), but things change when you're supposed to be a role model. Swearing and not worrying about how people react to it works for me, but maybe it isn't such a good idea to pass on this kind of attitude. I find it fun and strangely liberating, but... hm, complicated stuff, really.

I'm beating tier 30 rifts in Diablo 3 now.

Custom build, no FotM, holy shotgun, stampede spam, or any of that crap everyone is using right now. I'm quite pleased with the success you can have on there even when you ignore the most popular builds and just do your own thing. Just a few days ago this would have put me into the European top 1000 list of crusaders, but now I'm about 3 levels behind and my dick just doesn't feel small enough to make me want to prove anything.

The thing is, I know I can dedicate another two or three days to grinding paragon-levels, optimizing enchantments and getting those extra levels out of my build to play among Europe's finest, but so what? You get nothing for it, they just keep on grinding and leveling on and on and on and the placement on the leaderboard would only exist for a few hours and my life isn't that sad and empty enough for that. I could do it if I wanted to, I'm already way ahead of all of my friends and that's good enough for me. I want Diablo 3 to be something I do for fun, not for life. I'm no longer 16 years old and I don't need to compare myself to random strangers on the internet to boost my ego. Or prevent it from deflating.

So, instead of spending another 20+ hours on Diablo this weekend, I've gone and watched some TV for women. Since, you know, people are oh so fucking crazy about Orange is the new Black. Things I've noticed during the first season of that show:
- There are about five minutes of orange prison wear. Tan is the new black. White is the new black. Maybe grey. There's no fucking orange.
- All men are evil, despicable assholes. All women, even murderers, are warm, caring and lovable if you give them a chance.
- "Based on a true story" where a sadistic (male, duh) prison guard threatens, molests and insults the inmates and (literally) pisses on their dinner. Try that in a real prison. I fucking dare you.
- Women know absolutely nothing about their vaginas.
- Lots of tits everywhere, but only if the actress is young, slim and attractive. Meth zombie hillbillies can go naked in flashback sequences where they're still pleasant to look at.

Criticism aside, the show is watchable and gives me something to do whilst waiting for more Vikings and Game of Thrones.
Regarding my interview with the lead dev guy on Star Trek Online, I'm actually pretty fucking thrilled they'd let me even talk to guys like that, get some fun new details on upcoming content and features, but I can't help but feel a little sad that it could have been Jeri Ryan instead. I've told the publisher that I was interested in previewing the new expansion and they offered interviews with some of the actors from Voyager, who have lent their voices to their respective characters in the game. So of course I was hoping to interview Seven of Nine.

In the end, it turned out none of the actors were really available and they might have baited me a bit. Of course it makes a lot more sense for the article to interview the guys who actually create the game, but man... an interview with Jeri Ryan would have been the coolest thing I've ever done in this job. Oh well, maybe next time. Apparently, Robert Picardo is a pretty funny guy, too. He's been with buffed before, if you want to check out the outtakes (20:58) and listen to him sing in German. That's one of those rare moments where I regret being a Freelancer, who doesn't actually get to sit in their editing office.

Oh well. A long, stressful day full of news posts (Blizzard's Titan has been declared dead just now and I'm still not sure if it really ever was a thing) and PR-chat comes to an end, there's some Chinese food on the table and the stupid cats are locked up in the kitchen, so we can eat in peace.
My cat has picked up the habit of bringing me all her toys. Plastic mice, toy balls, little plushie fish and frogs - she comes running with that stuff, sits in front of me with these items stuck in her face and meows her head off. And I have no idea what she wants from me. I thought maybe she wants to play fetch, but she doesn't seem too happy when I throw away whatever toy she brings me. Piling them up doesn't make her happy, either. She just meows in frustration. Maybe she just thinks I'm really shit at being a cat and I need to display my hunting and killing skills on her toys or something. Maybe she just likes to meow at me with toys stuck to her face. Who knows.

-Cat

Fuck you, internet!

It has finally happened. I'm officially old. I never tried to fit in, I never did what everyone else did for the sake of fitting in. Never gave a fuck about that. But now I've reached a point where I'm so out of touch with the world, I just don't understand it anymore. Seriously.

Posting gaming-related news is part of my job. And writing about games is something that should be more on the funny side, right? Entertainment. I mean, I grew up reading gaming magazines full of comics and puns and all that sort of thing. So I posted an article about the impending pet buff on Diablo 3, saying that the life expectancy of these ingame pets on the higher difficulty levels is anout as slim as that of a chocolate cake in a camp for fat kids. Wich is fairly accurate, mind.

What followed was this wave of outrage, because how dare I make fun of poor (completely made-up) kids, who are trying so hard to fight their disease? Yes, a fat ass is now officially a disease and apparently you now deserve pity for stuffing your face with junk food until your ass grows its own zipcode.

You poor, misunderstood, precious little flower.

I have never been slim in my life. I know the fat jokes, the insults and all the crap that goes with it, but I can look at the joke I made up there without starting to cry or feeling personally insulted. I don't feel like I'm suffering from some kind of disease, like I'm a victim. I'm fat because I like to eat. But people posted their life stories, talking about how it's their parents' fault they're fat, how their childhood sucked because they grew up as little fatties and apparently it's no longer okay in these day and age to joke about chocolate cake and fat kids. I didn't name and shame anyone, it was an innocent joke and people still lost their shit. All of it.

And to the surprise of absolutely no one, the same thing happened when I compared Ragnarok Online 2 to ebola in the comments section. I said if I had to choose between catching ebola and having to play Ragnarok, I'd need a few minutes to think. And people freaked out, because how dare I make fun of ebola, a disease, which kills more than 90% of all the people suffering from it?

Idiots. How the fuck am I making fun of ebola when I compare a shitty Korean MMO to that deadly disease? If anything, I'm making fun of the stupid game! I know I was being a bit harsh on ebola there when I put it on the same level as Ragnarok Online 2, but I stand by what I said. 

I'll just stop having fun at work and only post dead-serious articles from now on. Maybe add a few bible quotes or talk about how vegans are better people. 

Speaking of stupid internet shit I feel too old to put up with: dear leaders of MMO guilds - please stop making Teamspeak fucking mandatory! Yes, I can see how playing difficult, complex content becomes easier when you can communicate with your team mates via voice chat. I'd be an idiot to deny that. But when we're not actually playing together, stop trying to force me into your goddam voice chat!

I don't give a shit about anything you have to say.

I actually enjoy listening to the ingame audio in my games. Sometimes I like to play loud music. Sometimes I like to sit and chat with my girlfriend, because I've moved out of my mother's basement and and I don't wanna sit on my ass blabbing into a fucking headset all night long while my partner is sitting in the exact same room. And sometimes I'm just not in the mood to listen to your personal life stories, about what happened to you in school or what the fuck ever is happening in your life. Just because you come to my blog to read about my stupid life for some inexplicable reason doesn't mean I give a crap about anything you have to say. And if I do, you can tell me in text chat.

Diablo 3, a game, which genuinely put me to sleep not too long ago, is now taking up most of my spare time these days. Torment VI no longer poses a challenge, so it's greater rifts from here. I'm uploading a happy fun casual T VI farming video on my youtube channel right now. The game is a lot of fun right now and I can't stop playing it, which means Borderlands, Divinity and all the rest are gonna have to wait a bit longer.

In other news, our pets are assholes. Well, most of them. Not this one:

Coolest snake I've ever known.

The cats and the lizard are playing hide and seek in the living room all day. The lizard would hide under the sofa, wait for the cats to come close, then poke his head out. And sometimes he'll try to eat them.

It sounds like it's all fun and games, but it usually ends with one of the cats climbing up the curtains (and fucking them up in the process), the lizard disconnecting various game consoles and the tv box and when stuff gets too boring, my cat will go and steal random shit out of the trashcan or from one of the tables. Candy wrappers, hairbands, she'll steal whatever she can find. Apparently, it's a strange trait shared by many Birman cats.

The real fun time begins when I'm trying to cook dinner. Put anything in a pan that remotely resembles chicken, bacon or cheese and the hordes start invading. And the daily war around the food bowls is stressful enough as it is.

I wanna see Gordon Ramsey handle this shit.

Pets are fun, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't get rid of ours no matter how much they get on my nuts at times. But if you ever consider starting your own home office or a personal zoo, go for one of the two, not both.

-Cat

...and Diablo

All's fair in love and war. And last time I checked, this wasn't  fucking Lovehammer.

Ah crap. I've spent waaaaaay too much time on Star Trek Online over the last few days, bought too many new ships and upgrades and weapons and ALL THE THINGS. Destroyed noobs, made videos, happy stuff. The fleet is still fun and it's obvious that Star Trek Online attracts a pretty unusual crowd of players. Well, nerds, trekkies, that kinda stuff, obviously. And the atmosphere in fleet chat is always very fun, friendly and everyone is surprisingly helpful and supportive whenever somebody needs a hand with a mission or is a few credits short of a new item. I haven't seen anything quite like it since Final Fantasy XI - and that one had a lot more drama among players than STO does.

You still get the usual bunch of weirdos, of course. Captain SOULGOTH aboard the USS SOULDEVOURER of the Fleet Angels Apocalypse. Yeeeeah... that's totally Star Trek, alright. There's also a "Star Mistress Dragoon Raven" and I'm not entirely sure whether that player is just trying super hard to look cool or whether they typed out random words because they couldn't think of a real name.

The next expansion, Delta Rising, is on the horizon and will potentially turn every high level player's gear into shit, which is frustrating, because most of that stuff required countless hours and/or a mountain of real money to obtain. I'm not sure how to feel about that. On the one hand, it'll be annoying going from best of the best to utter crap in one update, on the other hand, there's my motivation to play. You know, do stuff. Work towards new items. 

Meanwhile, it's still fun to be #1

My friends are going a bit insane over patch 2.1 for Diablo 3 right now. It adds a handful of new features, most of which only entertained me for a few hours, but I'll admit it's a pretty epic time killer when you wanna switch your brain off and just hack your way through thousands of zombies and demons. A semi-educated chimp could successfully play the game, which is probably why today's Blizzard games are so hugely popular. And to be fair, I'm pretty sure our hypothetical chimp would enjoy himself during the experiment. I know I did.

What's making the game so much fun is how an expression like "build diversity" isn't just some kind of fancy buzzword, which many game developers throw around, but they're actually offering various fun, interesting setups and play styles for each class. And they do that by changing the way certain core abilities work through legendary items. Rather than just adding higher and higher damage stats and attribute bonuses or yet another proc, many legendary items make your character's abilities more powerful and more fun to use. A skill that summons a bunch of guys to fight for you might suddenly summon twice as many guys. A spell that fires a powerful projectile might suddenly fire three projectiles instead. A powerful special attack might suddenly come without a cooldown or it might no longer cost any resources to cast. And then you start building your character around these items and the abilities they enhance. 

I'm fighting rather comfortably on Torment IV right now and I'm now receiving Level 23 rift keystones, which are somewhere between Torment V and VI in difficulty. And I'm handling them okay. You can see a video of it right here:

This is a whole new situation. I usually focus on only one or two games at a time and play them till they bore the crap out of me, but right now I want to play at least four or five titles simultaneously. I'm having fun on STO, Diablo 3 is nice in short sessions, I still have to finish the story on Borderlands 2, Warframe is getting some fun new content and then there's Divinity and our co-op playthrough on Baldur's Gate. And friends are trying to drag me into Hazard Ops, which appears to be another fun, cooperative shooter, which is basically Gears of War 3 on PC. And then there's a new Dragon Age on the horizon...
I'm used to being frustrated, because I have a million games and nothing seems fun. Right now, however, way too many of them seem fun. Argh!

-Cat

Not Enough Boredom

Fuck.

Great. I've done it again. Against all reason and logic, I've gone and installed Star Trek Online again, because I was tempted by the upcoming expansion, Delta Rising, its new tier of ships, new abilities, new missions in the Delta quadrant (which I don't even care about), featuring former Voyager crew members, voice-acted by their original actors (which I care even less about), increased level cap, yada, yada, yada.

This game is my personal World of Warcraft. Erm... I should probably explain that. I have friends and family, who have started playing WoW at some point and they just can't stop until this very day. They have phases where they don't log on very much for a month or two (or fucking 14, because there's no new content), but they never unsubscribe, they never let go and no matter how many other MMOs and online games we show to them, their one true love will always be WoW.

I'm an MMO-whore. I had them all, been with them all for the occasional quickie, but I never get serious. Brief encounters are alright, but then I get bored. And for some fucking reason, I always end up coming back to STO. And I don't just play that shit. I don't just go and look at all 20 or so minutes worth of new content they release every year. I play that shit to the max.

And things just started looking so great with Warframe. Sure, it only took me about 20 minutes to complete the new "week-long" event, but we were having such a great run!

And then there's my sweet, sweet Borderlands. Claire and I had finally arrived in the year 2012, we've gone and purchased every last bit of DLC and we've enjoyed a massive coop-session with a friend just the other night. The massive amount of stupidity and sheer incompetence each and everyone of us has brought to the team is beyond words and we had a really great time on there.

I remember Claire soloing a raider outpost, while I sat in the car with our driver Haggy, who tried to ram his way through the barricades around the outpost - which didn't work, but that didn't stop him from slamming our truck in there again and again for the next 20 minutes. To be fair, that was our second truck. I destroyed the first one, when he told me to drive all the way around the camp and attack it from the other side, which turned out to be a stupid idea, because the outpost was all the way up on a cliff and we ended up inside a pit of giant monster worms. And they started eating the car, so I got out to shoot them and let Haggy do the driving. Problem is, he never noticed that I left the car, so he kept telling me to drive, because the truck was getting eaten. And when I tried to get back in, my character would mount the cannon and avoid the driver's seat. Sure, I could have switched seat with the right hotkey, but I was a noob and very nervous, so that didn't end too well.

I also can't help but notice the fine layer of dust on our Pathfinder tabletop box and I'll admit that this stings a little. I'm hoping to come up with a fun little campaign, but between work during the day, every day, including weekends, and switching my brain off whilst gaming at night, it's difficult to find the time for decent game mastering. And as if all of that wasn't enough for now, I just had to take another look at this black hole of an MMO.

Crap.

I had a long break from STO, because some of the changes and additions that came with season 8 just pissed me off. You see, I'm a very competitive player. I don't just want to finish a mission or some public event, I don't just want to be on the winning side in pvp - I want to fucking dominate. And I absolutely mean to brag when I say that I'm consistently topping the DPS-tables, kill-charts and scoring one first place after another even when I'm using exotic ships and unusual set-ups, which the community largely considers subpar or even useless.

I had not played since November and this is the first thing I did.

I know, I know, everyone is awesome on the internet, but I have countless videos on my youtube-channel showing off landslide-victories in pvp, top-scores in just about any event you can think of and half of the time I get that shit done with outdated, weak ships or unorthodox builds. My STO-videos are the most popular content on my entire channel and the first thing I had to do when logging on after my long break was work my way through tons of fan mail I had received ingame. Which is a lie, it was really just two letters from people asking about some builds I showed off in some videos, but it's still nice to have earned at least some tiny amount of fame with the shit I do on there.

And then Cryptic came along and fucked me. They came up with ridiculously powerful tactical consoles for fleets. Without getting too much into the mechanics, let's just say they're items, which provide a massive damage boost over all previously existing gear of the same kind. And it was only available to fleets (read: guilds). This ruined the game for me in several ways - first of all, I had to farm up millions upon millions of credits in order to afford what was previously the best stuff in the game, only to watch it become subpar from one update to the next. Secondly, that new stuff was so much better in comparison that I could no longer keep up with fleet ships, which were kitted out in nothing but fleet gear. And most of all - I didn't want to join a fleet!

I learn everything I need to know from my cat.

Just reading those ever-repeating, ever-same fleet recruitment spam messages makes me want to throw up. "Looking for friendly, active members!" Well, no shit! Why do you have to stress that so much? It should be pretty obvious that nobody is looking to recruit assholes or people, who don't actually play the game. Who wouldn't even be there to read your recruitment spam to begin with.

And there's my problem - most fleets expect you to be online and take part in their shit for a certain amount of hours a week. But I don't wanna play what other people want, I wanna play what I want. And sometimes I simply can't be "active", because the publisher expects me to marathon-level some character in some other game. And call me crazy, but after 10 or so hours of random MMO grind, I just don't want to relax by switching over to another MMO.

They also make you a recruit or a trial member and you have to hang with them for a few weeks or months before they let you use their facilities and shops. Which is fair, they had to work for that stuff and they don't want any random noob to walk in and benefit from it, but I don't wanna get married to some virtual club in order to earn all the best shit, just because the devs decided that you should not be allowed to have nice items as a solo player.

But fortunately for me, the community of STO is awesome and like me, many players think that all the best shit shouldn't be exclusive to powerful, high level fleets. So a random maxed out fleet invited me, said I could make use of all their shops and stations, buy all their exclusive gear and I never have to hang out with them, talk to them, play with them or whatever. Heck, I can leave anytime I want, if I want to. And you know what? That's so fucking awesome, I think I'm actually gonna stay. And I have all the nice new gear now, so... yay!

They're also offering free TNG uniforms right now.

Best of all, they've finally upgraded my favourite ever ship of the Franchise, the Galaxy-X Dreadnought from "All good things". I don't give a shit about their upcoming new tier of starships, I don't care what cool new abilities, buffs and consoles they're gonna get. I'll be using my beefed-up Galaxy now and nothing but that. Even if that means I won't be uploading any more new builds and pvp videos with weird new ships. I guess I can still do that with the upgraded Galaxy, of course. Oh and did I mention I was already unstoppable with that thing before they put it on a level with all the other "endgame" ships?

Rawr!

-Cat

Bonerlands

I can't blame anybody for assuming I'm fishing for stuff when I write about how I'd probably play certain games if my financial situation allowed me to do so. Honestly, though, what I was trying to say in my last entry is that I find Borderlands 2 so good, I'd probably buy it. And the only reason that I haven't done so already is the fact that I just don't have enough on the side to do so right there and now. Nothing more. We've all been there, right? You kinda want something, but it's just not reasonable to spend money on it, because you might need it for something more important, so you decide to wait a little while longer.

The reason why I'm bringing this up is because five minutes after my last post went online, we had the GOTY-version gifted to us on Steam. Both of us, Claire and my grumpy self. We're super happy and we're really enjoying the game (put another 8 hours of play time in there last night), but honest to Godzilla, we're doin' okay, we're paying all the bills, everything is fine. And to our dear donor, we'll make up for it and gift you a copy of Colonosopy Simulator 2014 or something next week.

As you might recall, my first impression of Borderlands 2 was pretty good, but I wasn't entirely sold on it just yet. Several things have changed since then. First of all, I have learned about Shift-Codes.

And I may or may not have overdone it a bit with their use.

On top of skins, heads and other such goodies, these codes provide golden keys, which basically can be turned into epic gear. And epic guns kill shit faster, which fixed my "all my guns are too weak" issue. I've also bumped into this fine gentleman:

That guy's name is Loggins, he shouts something at you about being in the dangerzone, then sends you to the Goose's Roost to burn down a net and stop three shirtless dudes from playing slow-motion volleyball. And frankly, if you don't get these references, then I want you the fuck out of my blog until you've educated yourself, you worthless barbarian.

Claire and I have built a truck and used it to chase down random raiders in their vehicles to ram them to pieces and shoot giant sawblades at them. Co-op car chases. With sawblades. Lots of explosions. Look, we're easily entertained, which is why we've spent hundreds of hours playing Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and Warframe together, but this is easily the most fun we've had in a multiplayer game since getting high, naked and beating up a bunch of assholes with giant purple dildos.

And you thought I was only joking, you silly fool!

The game still feels pretty tough and unforgiving in places, which is probably because we haven't played it to death, yet, and we're really only two players. But the story is pretty decent so far, the characters are all incredibly fun and it's difficult not to like folks like Handsome Jack or Ellie the Belly. Not so sure about Tiny Tina, but she might still win me over once we get to her campaign. We're only 13 levels in and there is this seemingly endless amount of content to go through, so this one should keep us busy for a while.

Vehicles make everything better.

Connectivity issues are still a massive pain in the ass. I have found a workaround, which might help us play together via LAN, so here's hoping I can get that to run. It just seems stupid having to reconnect to Claire's game every ten minutes, even though we're sharing the same stupid connection.

-Cat

Badass Bonerfart

I know it's blasphemy and my sudden enthusiasm is years behind the rest of the world, but I never really cared about Borderlands 2. The characters just didn't appeal to me very much and I'm not a fan of "artsy" visuals. Borderlands uses those thick, black outlines around everything, which I guess is supposed to give everything a comic kind of look, but that's just not my cup of tea. But the game can be played for free on Steam this weekend, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt and this was the exact moment where I felt that maybe this game isn't so bad:

What a fucking cool title song! Been playing it up and down all day long.
The game is pretty fun and I'd consider getting the GOTY-Edition, which is 75% off right now if there wasn't a certain funeral-sized hole in by bank account.

Claire and I have put a little over 8 hours into the free weekend trial thingie so far and we've had a lot of fun. Driving around Pandora in heavily-armed vehicles is fun, especially when you just run over random animals, raiders and just about anyone who can't get out of the way fast enough. The game has a certain Mad Max coolness about it, albeit a lot sillier. Helping to come up with a new name for the wild Bullymongs, only to watch them turn into Bonerfarts was hilarious and pretty unexpected.

The whole experience is far from perfect, though. We can't get LAN multiplayer to work AT ALL and having to play coop multiplayer through Steam, even though we're sitting in the exact same room, sharing the exact same network, isn't just annoying, but also comes with its fair share of interrupted sessions. "Connection lost." Boo!
And while every other game generates individual loot for each player, it's perfectly normal in Borderlands 2 to fight over certain epic weapons - finders keepers and all that.

There's a staggering amount of revolvers, automatic pistols, assault rifles, sniper rifles, guns with elemental effects that set enemies on fire or electrocute them, grenade launchers, triple-barrelled rifles, shotguns, guns, which explode and can be thrown like grenades (wtf?) and while they're all unique and interesting in their own way, most of them aren't really that satisfying to shoot.
I think we're about level 12 now and so far, most of the enemies feel like bullet sponges and the guns feel pretty weak. There's the occasional weapon, which kills baddies at a satisfying pace, but move on to a higher level quest, face tougher enemies and your once mighty weapon feels like another pea shooter.

We also had a few problems with the odd shitty side mission here and there. There's an insane amount of missions in the game, there is a ton of stuff to do and I can understand that some missions are better than others, but it's a bit weird when a quest points out a spawn location for a certain type of enemy you're supposed to kill, the tracker tells you to "kill 25" and there are only ten bad guys around. So you need drive all over the place to find more baddies or leave and re-enter the map to respawn them. It got worse when we had to shoot those baddies with a specific mission-related weapon, which didn't come with nearly enough ammo, so we had to run back and forth to stock up on bullets. This is probably less of a problem when you're in 4 player coop, but there were only two of us.

Most of these problems will probably go away at the higher levels when our characters become a bit more powerul. I assume grabbing some of the DLC content would help with these issues as well. More to do, more experience, better gear and all that. I'm not totally in love with it right now, but we're gonna keep on playing, because it's still a fun, interesting game and we might still go for the whole package in the long run. There's also this funny and strangely moving character trailer here:

I'M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!

I'm really tempted by the Borderlands 2 GOTY edition and I'd buy it right now if I had the money. Ironically, I will have the money next week, which is exactly when the special offer ends and the price will go up from a tenner to 40 Quid again, so... yeah, I'm afraid that's just a little too much right now. Oh well, maybe I'll try a keystore or something.

Meanwhile, my "home office" is turning into the world's craziest zoo. Our beardies are getting a little bored in the bedroom, so I'm trying to take them out here and there and have them sit with me while I write my articles. Earl Grey needs lots of love, because he freaks the fuck out whenever somebody goes anywhere near him. He's fine when you pick him up, but other than that, he seems to be a nervous wreck. I've never seen a bearded dragon lose his shit the way he does.

Nomnom and Earl Grey.

Meanwhile, Hugo must have developed some sort of advanced reptile taste buds, because he's getting tired of the occasional raw meat I used to feed him now and then while preparing dinner. Locusts make up around 80% of his diet, but he does get the occasional slice of bacon, serrano ham or whatever tasty treats we have in the house, if only to get him out of my face when I'm preparing dinner.

You know, cook a bit of pasta, throw some mincemeat at the begging lizzard, that kind of thing. Except sometimes he shows up a little late and the meat is already fried and seasoned and... well, I let him try a little of that stuff and now he goes to sleep in his food bowl and he won't give it back.

It'sa his Dolmio-day

Sharing the house with an ever-hungry lizard and two hyperactive cats is a bit like living with a bunch of 3 year olds. Except, they always remain 3 years old and never grow up to become less demanding. On the plus side, they also don't grow into teenagers, who want you to drive them places and shit.

Commence pet battle in 3... 2...

If you're at least a little familiar with cats, then you'll be aware of "the rips". You know, those five to ten minutes a day, where your cat goes batshit insane, runs all over the place, climbs up the curtains and/or just destroys shit for no reason whatsoever, then goes back to sleep like nothing ever happened. Imagine that kind of shit with two cats. Imagine them terrorizing a carpet python, which will quickly grow into a 10+ ft monster, eager (and more than capable) to turn your cats into a quick snack. 

The kitty wrestling championship was only the beginning.

Now imagine all of that happening inside your "home office" every day.

Or in your kitchen.

This really makes me appreciate our royal python. They're certainly not the most spectacular kind of snake. In fact, they're the exact opposite of everything people assume and fear about reptiles.

They're quiet and they don't kill your cats.

I wonder how I would have reacted as a kid, had anyone ever told me I'd be living like this one day. I don't regret it, I'm having fun over here, but my days at the office are just a bit more surreal than they are for most people.

-Cat

Expendables, Expanding

The following entry contains thpoilerth.
The third Expendables movie just came out over here and it's a steaming pile of poorly-written horseshit, which makes absolutely zero sense whatsoever. I liked it. It's completely predictable, it's full of massively overused clichés and it really doesn't make any sense. In the first five minutes of the film they blow up an enemy base by driving a train right into it. You see the bad guy just standing there, calmly, waiting for them to come, then his eyes widen as the train crashes through the gate and shit just explodes everywhere. Okay, so, who puts their base right in the middle of a bunch of train tracks? Didn't they see the train coming? Couldn't they have opened the place up and let the train go through or something? Why was the villain just standing there, waiting for the inevitable? Maybe there is some logical explanation here, which I'll understand when watching this the second time around, but all I remember right now is some place in the middle of a railroad track getting blown up - by a train. In another section of the movie they're fighting the entire army of some made up middle eastern country. For some inexplicable reason, their military has a special motorcycle unit, which consists of exactly two men, so one of the main character can show off his special motorcycle-related abilities. They also have tanks, which are so big, you can put Dolph Lundgren in them.

There's also this completely unnecessary scene where Stallone leaves behind all the old people from the movie poster and replaces them with a bunch of younger characters absolutely no one gives a shit about. And to the surprise of absolutely no one, the young team fails, so the old guys have to jump in to save the day. They could have just let them die and no one would give a fuck, because there is no character development, we don't know these younger guys and they're about as interesting as that kid with the sniper rifle in the previous movie. Who died. And nobody cared.

And the clichés, holy fuck! Bombs with a visible countdown timer on them? Check! Timer stopping at exactly 3 seconds? Check! Guy just magically "hacking" security, bombs and shit, just because "he's that good"? Check! And of course this doesn't impress the younger characters at all, because "well duh", while the whole thing looks like magic to the veterans? Checkity-check! Movie's main villain has the opportunity to kill off the main character multiple times, but prefers to do some stupid shit like give a speech or torture one of the hero's friends? Fucking check! Villain looks at painting of Cain and Abel and ten minutes later he tells the hero 'we were like brothers', because symbolism is haaard? Check! Main villain has a gun, faces the unarmed hero and decides to "settle it like men", only to die 30 seconds later? Cheeeeck! "Oh no, the hero is dead and everyone is all sad and depressed and oheywaitaminute is that the hero and he's okay? Yaaaay!" - Check. Sigh.

That film is pretty awful and I liked it. I liked the Star Wars reference. I like the illusion that you can still kick some ass when you're an ancient fucker, because it makes growing old a little less terrifying. I still have all my teeth and I haven't spotted a single grey hair on my body, but damn am I gonna freak out when that shit finally kicks in. So it's nice to have a movie that says, "Hey, those 70 year olds are still pretty fit, so don't worry. You still have a few good years ahead of ya." It's all bullshit and sometimes that's exactly what we need.

Speaking of things I need - I might be a tiny step closer to striking two more things off my bucket list. Nothing is set in stone, it may not be possible at all or I might not be good enough, but there miiiight be a Berserkerkitten comic in the future and I might, perhaps, possibly get a chance at voice acting.

Without wanting to break any conscience, I think it's okay to say that when you help write a magazine, you will have to sit and talk about new ideas and content to put into said magazine. And among the suggestions and ideas I handed in to our senior editor was a Berserkerkitten comic, inspired by the illustration drawn by the incredible Marvin Clifford when I first got my own column - you can also see the image of the caped cat in this very blog. Basically, the idea is that I do the writing, come up with characters and stories and Marvin, if he's interested and available, would work his magic and bring each strip to life.

Right now, all I know is that our senior editor really liked the idea. I really don't know whether or not the whole thing is really going to happen, but damn, I'd fucking love it. The guy is an absolute genius and I genuinely love his art. And I won't lie to you - I'll be fucking nervous if we're gonna end up working together. Thrilled, but really, seriously nervous.

The voice acting thing came up during a Skype call from work. "Hey, you should lend your voice to a Bond-villain or something", because apparently, there's something calm and evil about it. I get strange comments like that about my voice when friends and coworkers talk to me on the phone for the first time or when I get invited to podcasts. People also tell me I have a sexy accent when I speak English... ahem.
Long story short, of course that remark on Skype wasn't dead-serious, but it's actually something I've always wanted to do. You know, voice acting, maybe for a cartoon or a video game. And maybe, juuuust maaaaybe I may get a shot at it sometime. Some of the good folks who produce videos and other fine quality content for our website have lent their voices to characters in games before and they might know someone and... you get the idea. It might be nothing, I may not be be talented enough, but I said the same thing the first time I was asked to write reviews and columns for money, so... who knows? Fast forward another decade and maybe I'll be voice-acting the main character in Berserkerkitten - The Videogame. Har!

-Cat