Jurassic Beardie Asscannons

Man, I actually had a real weekend for once! And I used it for maximum entertainment and laziness. I REGRET NOTHING!
One of the better things to happen this weekend was Jurassic World. And I'm saying that as one of the few weirdos, who don't really care for anything Jurassic Park. Yes, I saw the original back in the day, dinosaurs are cool, yada yada yada, but I'm just not into that type of movie. I don't want to watch movies for cool effects alone - I want a good story! And to me, stuff like Jurassic Park is really just about a bunch of people running from something scary. Some stupid characters you never liked get eaten along the way, the main characters usually get away and at the end of the film you'll get one of those 'haha psych! The monster/alien/dino/killer totally survived' moments.

He's got a dino face, right?

I'm probably being unfair and oversimplifying things here, but I've been experiencing that whole "don't stop or look back or something's gonna eat/murder you" scenario in the form of nightmares since the age of 3. I don't feel like movies of that sort add anything new for me, personally. With that in mind, I actually had fun watching Jurassic World. Yeeees, it's still just a bunch of people running away from dinosaurs, of course all the characters you're supposed to care about are gonna make it out alive and a bunch of random assholes and the guy you're supposed to hate get murdered, because duh, have you never watched a movie before?

I still liked it. It was fun to watch one of the characters train (sort of) a bunch of raptors, depicting them as more than a bunch of mindless killing machines. Of course I'm biased here, because we live with what used to be a wild, untamed, big angry lizard. Who turned out to be pretty clever and playful and maaaaybe a little bit more social than some people give reptiles credit for.

Of course they're still cramming preschool levels of stupid in there. Oh hey, these dinos communicate verbally! A dino is one second away from eating a character you (are supposed to) like, so the hero distracts him with whistling and motorcycle noises. The dinosaur now lets go of his perfectly ready lunch, which absolutely cannot get away, just so he can chase after some other guy, instead. I dare you to try that with a real life predator! Do it! See how many friends you can save that way! And fan-favourite species of dinosaur teaming up against a common enemy, then walking away from each other peacefully after destroying the bad guy, simply because it's cool.

So, suspension of disbelief is strongly advised, but I still liked it. There were plenty of references to the original and the movie seemed strangely self-aware. At some point they're talking about how 20 years ago it was enough to just show off a bunch of dinosaurs to impress people and now everything has to be bigger, scarier and cooler. Sure, those were just the characters talking about how difficult it is to keep a dino park running, but it still felt pretty meta... um, am I using that word right?
Also, I'm really okay with films featuring younger folks like Chris Pratt, while aged action heroes of the 80s are farting out one pathetic sequel after another.

Game of Thrones makes you sad? Pfft, try owning a pet!

Oh well. Real dinosaurs died a long time ago and their stupid little cousins can be just as depressing. Look at these bearded dragons, for example. Don't get me wrong, I love beardies and I'd still recommend them to anyone looking to get a nice, easy starter lizard. They're incredibly easy to handle, they put up with all your stupid shit, they're friendly enough and they're not all fragile and squishy and scared of fucking everything like leopard geckos are. But they die in the most depressing, drawn-out, frustrating fashion imaginable.

Cats and dogs get old. They go a little deaf, a little blind and a little stupid, just like us. And I'm not saying they can't get cancer or some other nasty shit that forces you to part ways in some really depressing way or another. But many of them just slow down more and more and eventually they go to sleep and never wake up. Beardies, on the other hand, seem to just wither and go skeletal over months and months and months, going back between practically dead and perfectly normal several times in the process.

We're currently going through this with Earl Grey, yet another unwanted beardie we picked up from the shop, because nobody ever picked him up and he looked a little sorry for himself. We don't really know how old he is, he was always a bit skinny, but now he has reached a point where he's really just a scaly little bag of bones. He's still eating, he's active and everything, but he's losing weight ever more rapidly and nothing seems to stop it. Two of our other beardies went pretty much the same way, except we eventually had to force feed them to stop them from starving themselves to death.

So... yeah, we're done with beardies. We're still treating Earl with all the love and care he needs, but he's fading a little more each day and this is gonna drag on for several weeks or even months now, there'll be days where he eats a little more and seems a little more active and we'll be getting our hopes up and in the end I'll just be digging another hole in the yard. And then we'll be repeating the same thing with Nomnom a few years down the line. I believe she's still relatively young, so it shouldn't happen too soon, but it'll happen eventually and it'll be just as drawn-out and depressing as with all the beadies before her. We'll be tempted to pick up another tank mate for her once Earl will be gone, but at the end of the day, we end up being some kind of retirement home for ancient lizards, putting up with all their sad antics, because their original owners' love only goes so far.

Can you spot the cash shop user?

On a happier note, Gamestar liked my Warframe review, I have sent them some killer video footage and the whole thing should go live real soon. Warframe looks pretty bad on metacritic right now, because magazines and websites crapped out reviews right after the game went into an early, unfinished beta more than two years ago. It has changed a lot since then, but nobody could be fucked to update their reviews. Meanwhile, console reviews have been just as bad, because "it's only free2play" and reviews for this sort of game are being treated as such.

You see "professional" reviewers talking about how Warframe's "sound and music are as poor as you'd expect from a free2play title", saying the game isn't fun, because all the good content needs to be bought with cold, hard cash. Which is funny, seeing as all the best weapons and warframes can only be earned and crafted and they're not available in the cash shop. The game's audio is also perfectly fine, but some people have a certain negative mindset towards free2play, so they start complaining about shit they wouldn't even bring up had they been asked to pay 60 bucks for the exact same game before installing it.

Besides, the game has a 60ish PC metacritic, so you don't wanna make an idiot out of yourself by rating the game any higher on consoles, right? Even if said PC reviews are about the game in 2013 and you're reviewing the game in 2015. This shit is so incredibly half-assed and lazy, and they're doing a sloppy job, because they know they can get away with it. There's no publisher like EA, Square or Ubisoft behind this game, nobody is gonna call you out for "reviewing" something you've never even touched for more than 20 minutes, it's easy money. And it's unfair towards the game in question, its designers and the fans.

They're released a new weapon this weekend (which you can only buy with ingame currency), which might be a tiiiiiiiiiiny bit game-breaking in its current state. Have a look at the life bars of one Mr. Lephantis, also known as a what's more or less the "final boss" right now outside of the 8 player raid stuff:

I'm taking out each of his three heads using only a single magazine per head. And it happens so fast, the entire video isn't even a minute long.

Meanwhile, the stalker's life bar depletes in (literally) under two seconds, the only thing saving him from instant death being some cheap invulnerability move, delaying the inevitable by another moment or two:

I'm still having lots of fun with the new dragon warframe Chroma, pulling 40+ minutes of T4 solo survivals, though he does lack a certain amount of AoE-spamminess that would let him top the kill charts in mission types like defense, where casty warframes just sit in one spot and mash 4. Been playing with a few random strangers over the weekend who did exactly that, meaning they died well over a dozen times per wave, constantly relying on other players to revive their worthless ass, but in the end they had a couple extra kills over everyone else from putting absolutely everything into damage and nothing into surivability. "It's a cooperative game and I'm winning", or something. Nevermind the fact you wouldn't last for two minutes if you didn't have a bunch of helpful people to bringt you back to life all the fucking time.

Oh hey, speaking of people who die and shit - seen this year's final episode of Game of Thrones, yet? If not, incredibly minor spoiler warning right here. Got that? Did you see that? Turn away now if you're super upset over small, predictable spoilers. You've been warned. Somebody dies at the end. Big fucking surprise there, right? What really bothers me is people posting pictures of themselves crying over it. Literally crying. Can we please not make that a thing? It's fucking tv. You don't have to fucking cry. And if you do, don't share it with the world. It's stupid. It's particularly stupid in a fictional universe that tends to bring the occasional dead guy back. Just saying. Youknowwho may well return at some point, one way or another.

I was a bit disappointed. Oh yeah, more small spoilers ahead. One potentially cool battle more or less skipped right to the outcome, pretty much every character ended up in some kind of unresolved, confusing situation and now I'm supposed to remember all of this shit for a whole year until they show the next ten or so episodes. It's still the best damn thing on tv and everything, but it would have been nice to NOT end the whole fucking thing in half a dozen or so fucking cliffhangers. Seriously, it's not like I was gonna stop watching next year or anything, so don't torture your audience like that. Boo. Not sure what to watch next, all the interesting stuff is already done for the year. Maybe Youtube.

Whether you care for the particular subject they're covering in that episode up there or not - the whole thing is really well-made. It's a lot more entertaining and a lot less cringeworthy and stages than tons of "reality" shows nobody even fucking wants to see on tv anymore. Maybe it's time for conventional tv to fuck off and die.

-Cat

Supplies, Motherfucker!

Our house has a lot in common with our reptiles. For instance, it's shedding its skin like crazy. The fucking plaster has been coming off for a while and only three years later the landlord decided to do something about it. So we get a bunch of people showing up right outside our bedroom window at 8am ever day, happily hammering away at the remaining plaster. I usually work at night, so this whole situation isn't great, especially since these guys are taking their sweet time and they tend to leave at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Surprises don't have to be all bad, of course. For as much as I hate club cards and vouchers and shit (seriously, just make your stuff cheaper, for fuck's sake!), it was pretty neat to log in to this:

They used to send vouchers and statements in the mail, then it all switched to email, then it all ended up in the spam folder and... well, guess we didn't really check on that thing for a while. Man, look at all the pizza, burgers and ice cream I can get with these vouchers and not spend anything! Yeah, about that...
Claire decided she wants to go all healthy again. She's usually the first one to crack and give up on the whole thing, sometimes before it even starts. But here comes the summer, it's titties and tank tops and everybody wants to be sexy, so here's to another month or so of healthy eating if we even make it that far.

I know, I'm being super negative about the whole thing, but it simply never works. I have friends and family who go all crazy about this healthy food thing for a while, they lose a figurative ton of weight and look super awesome and go right back to being fatties. We're really no exception here. You do this for a day or two, feel all smug until a week later you start craving all kinds of shit, then you introduce a "cheat day", then you decide it's okay to eat junk food on weekends and then you have junk food leftovers or you can't be fucked to cook, so you order a pizza and hellooooooo food, I've missed you so much! Addiction is a cunt.

Still happy that I'm buying a truckload of food for only 12 pence, but I wish it was a little less healthy.

The main problem is how we're not one, but two fatties. I can have all the will and discipline in the world, but all it takes is a weak partner, who keeps on blabbing about whoppers and ice cream sundaes and you're fucked. Or maybe I'll be the one craving chicken tits wrapped in bacon and covered in melting cheese with a bit of woodsmoke BBQ sauce on top. The point is, we're both gonna hate boring, healthy food and basically we're just gonna wait for the other one to cave, so we can justify being a pussy about it and give up with them. Because if your partner isn't 100% in there, why should you? Or whichever lame excuse is convenient at the time.

 The rest of your life.

Anyhow - the current plan of attack is to reduce carbs and calories and nothing else. Not the amount. We're always fucking eating. Internet is dead? Let's eat. Nothing on tv? Let's have some food. Done fucking for the 4th time this afternoon? How about a snack? You can't drastically reduce that, it's just not gonna happen. So I'm trying something else.
Skinless chicken breast or beef. Not a whole ton, but ya can't go without at least some animal matter. And a fucking ton of whatever vegetables we can find. Broccoli. Carrots. Peppers. Throw in some goddamn mushrooms. Basically, just fill up the whole damn pot with whatever greens we can find. Add some mashed tomato and/or low fat yoghurt and that's it. Cook a pot of this shit so big, you couldn't eat the whole thing if your life depended on it. And the whole damn thing won't be anywhere near the 2000 or so calories you're allowed per day. And drink lotsa water. Maybe tomato juice for flavour. No fruity, sugary juices, no soda, no nothing.

Yeah, onions are pretty fucking great.

Then watch us lose our minds and start eating each other after a few days. Perhaps weeks. I don't think we can get used to mountains of random vegetables and a bit of lean meat for... well, for the rest of our lives, really. Because that's the thing with healthy food. You don't do that shit for a month or two until you've lost a certain amount of weight and then go back to junk food. I'm probably just a really shitty cook, unable to think of enough ways to prepare healthy stuff in attractive ways to stop us from getting bored after a few days. It's a stupid situation. We need to change a few things if I don't want to end up like my old man, whose diabetes probably contributed to him suddenly passing away at age 58. On the other hand, I really like how they're selling thise 4-packs of Magnum ice cream at half price right now. Somebody suggested having only some of that stuff. You know, less. That's not how it works, though, is it? Have some ice cream, munch on a bag of crisps, oh hey, cheesy crackers, that shit disappears without you even thinking about it. Best not to go anywhere near it in the first place.

Naaaah, I'm happy with some cauliflower, thanks!

Claire also doesn't like salad. Or vinegar. Unless it's on some fucking chips. That makes things so much easier! Who needs options, right?

Oh well. GTA:

What blew me away more than the effects in the video or how they re-created scenes from GTA V is how incredibly alike Los Angeles and Los Santos are. I've never been to Los Angeles and while I knew that Los Santos was inspired by LA, I had no idea how incredibly similar the two were. Wow! Look at the pictures here.

-Cat

Showing Off Dem Ninja Skills

I don't usually watch movies twice. Or play games twice. Once I know the story, there's really no reason for me to go back. Nothing new to learn or to see here. Still, I couldn't resist giving GTA V another playthrough, now that it doesn't run like crap anymore. I mean, just look at this:

No super interesting gameplay happening there, I get that, but it's smooth, it doesn't stutter or freeze and it looks absolutely fantastic. I just hope this new hardware is gonna last me for a while now, because I don't wanna have to lower everything to minimum settings again in two years.
The only problem is that we've finished all the heists and my friends don't really seem super keen on doing them all over again, so we're not really very active around Los Santos anymore these days. Right now it looks like things are gradually shifting over to Warframe.

The problem with Warframe is its initial steep learning curve. Claire and I have been playing this thing since the earliest stages, back when the game featured little less than shooting a bunch of guys in the ever same corridors. Modding, fusion, pets, we figured it all out as these features were introduced one at a time, but getting into the game nowadays can be seriously overwhelming.

So right now everyone we used to hang out with on GTA is trying to get into Warframe. Some are getting on better than others. Haggy is the walking asian cliché (tiny dick, shitty driver, natural ninja), so he went from complete noob to badass in about 30 minutes. Peter has a bow and tits, so everyone is happy. I'm not sure how many of these guys will eventually get the hang of it and maybe even stick around for a while. Who knows, maybe we'll actually have enough people for the raid one day?

Haggy has ruined Kubrows for me. You know Kubrows, those canine battle pet things you can breed on Warframe? He wasn't impressed. Like, at all. "Oh look, there's a llama!"

Fuck.

-Cat

SO SMOOF!

Everybody makes mistakes. We're only human. Random stupid platitudes about how we're all born to fuck up. I get it. But there's human error and there's the Royal Mail. I get letters, which are supposed to to go a different house, a different street, sometimes even a different town. Every. Single. Week. Royal Mail owe me one birthday parcel containing used underwear, 8 gigs of RAM and a delivery of German food, none of which ever made it to me, because moving something to a place that is spelled out right in front of your face is super hard or something. But this time you've really done it.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how they managed to send this to my house. Yes, I live in 9 Station Road. But this isn't my post code. This isn't my town. And I don't live in FUCKING WALES! Again, mistakes happen and sometimes they send letters here that were meant for my neighbour or somebody with the wrong post code, but this isn't even the right fucking country. The only "match" here is the name of the fucking street. I have no words for this, but I'm starting to understand why half of my fucking mail never actually makes it here or reaches its destination. Maybe Mike Tyson had the right idea after all.

In other news, there's finally a translated version of Final Fantasy VII that doesn't suck. It's fan-made and people are bashing the poor fucker over the whole Aerith/Aeris thing like he's shitting on the bible in public or something, because Internet. Where you can invent a medication against cancer and people will hate it, because it doesn't come in Strawberry Flavour. Can we make that rule69 or something? If it exists, people will hate it.

It's sad, not only because the translation is a fucking MOD and you can choose to ignore it if some fan's dedication totally ruins your childhood. But the whole thing is also incredibly GOOD - he's not simply fixing typos. Portions of the original translation made no sense or failed to deliver details from the original Japanese text, making parts of the story incredibly confusing. And some fucks hate him for making things a little more coherent.

Because a translation that makes sense is somehow worse.

I've probably called FF7 overrated in the past, because stuff tends to annoy me when everyone goes all crazy about it and I'm not super fond of Square or some of their fans. But chances are there's no other RPG out there, which has stuck with you, moved you and inspired you as much as this one if you grew up playing it back in the day. We've all promised our girlfriends we'd become heroes one day and they probably dreamed about being the ones to rescue us in the end or some other one of the cheesy daydreams conjured up by Cloud's story.

I've purchased a bunch of quality kitty cardboard a few days ago:

Your authority is not recognized in Fort Kickass.

Fortunately for me, said cardboard also contained bits of hardware, so now I know how it feels to be playing GTA V at 60 FPS - or up to 150 theoretical frames, which my 60hz monitor cannot display. Hurray!
That's great for work, because now I can record footage in glorious 1440p or even 4k, depending on the game. What's not so great is how, at least on Youtube, I have to choose from either 60 FPS or resolutions above 1080p. I can't have both, so I need to figure out whether I want smooth and speedy 60 frames or clear and sexy 1440p for my Youtube channel.
And there is much recording to be done, since I'm finally writing that article on Warframe I always wanted! It's the only game that lets me play a space ninja who is also a dragon.

Who also owns a giant Foxbatbear... thing

This game basically turns you into some kind of Bruce Wayne of the future. You have this ridiculously massive, ever-growing collection of tools and toys to help you fight bad guys and you can customize and upgrade everything to insane levels. It starts with your character, your Warframe, which also serves as a playable "class" of sorts. There are 23 different warframes, many of which come with upgraded prime versions of themselves. They all have unique abilities and strengths and weaknesses. You start out with one, but you can craft and collect (or simply buy) all of them and switch anytime you want.

Then you customize their looks and abilities. Colours, sigils, emblems, cosmetic armor, alternative helmets, but also extra melee power, greater range or more power for special abilities, yada, yada, yada. You also get to customize your weapons, which range from rifles to dual pistols to katanas to massive two-handed axes and shotguns and bolt-throwers and kunai and a billion other murderous tools.

After choosing the coolest hilt for your sword or the best camo for your gun you get to upgrade them with elemental damage, cover-piercing ammo, exploding arrows and even fucking stances. Every melee weapon comes with three or four different fighting stances, which all use completely different movesets and special attacks. Don't like the hacky-slashy moves on your Katana? Change to a stabby stance, which also makes use of its hilt with some attacks like Mitsurugi on Soul Calibur. This game is the tits!

It still looks pretty decent, as well.

You also get to custimize your own little starship that takes you to missions and back, as well as a set of wings for battles in space. And, as you've probably gathered from these screenshots, there are also pets. Do you want a living, breathing pet or a machine? In the biological section there's the (mostly) canine Kubrow, with feline pets on the horizon. You have to raise those as puppies, there are different breeds with various special abilities and skills and they come in a ton of different shapes and sizes. Claire's dog looks like a fat, ugly pig with an ass so massive, it lags the entire server when it attacks an enemy. Which is why she is now using a floating mechanical pear, instead, which blasts enemies with a shotgun and vacuums up loot. There's also a floating cube of death that shoots lasers and a little Asian dragon thing.

Of course you can also "just play" and not worry about these things too much, but the game lets you customize the looks and abilities of your pets, if you're into that sort of thing. That's a whole lot of stuff to unlock and upgrade and customize. It may be a bit too complex for people who just want to jump into the game and punch things, but it's a great crazy crime-fighting rich person simulator. You know - what kind of powers, weapons, animals and vehicles would I bring if I had cool shit times infinity to choose from.

Just gotta figure out whether I want to upload 1080p footage in 60 fps, which is super fast and smooth, but the youtube compression is also rather ugly and full of artifacts:

Meanwhile, 1440p compression isn't so bad and looks absolutely fantastic on Youtube, but won't allow 60 FPS on there for some reason, so it's less speedy:

If we're going the 30 FPS route, anyway, I could also record in 4k. Doing so with Shadowplay reguires a GTX 970 or better, which I don't have (yet), so right now I'd have to use Bandicam, which isn't super great on the performance and makes my machine struggle to keep the 30 FPS steady in the first place. I'd also have to buy it to get rid of the annoying watermark. Hmm...

Oh hey, since we're already watching videos and shit - you've seen the Fallout 4 announcement, right? This one?

This is the most life-life dog I've ever seen in a video game! Fuck you, Riley! And fuck all of you, who are already bitching about how disappointed you are for some stupid reason or another. It's fucking Fallout. Being disappointed with the announcement of Fallout is like being disappointed with the announcement of sex. "We're gonna fuck tonight" is NO reason for disappointment. Unless maybe you're in prison or something.

Also, it looks like we may eventually return to Skara Brae. Whee!

There's some good shit coming our way.

-Cat

Old People Parchments

Hoo boy, time to figuratively blow the dust off this old blog and get some shit posted! My new i7-4790k will finally arrive here tomorrow, along with 16 GB of juicy DDR3-RAM. Which is exactly when Intel decided to finally announce their Broadwell processors, meaning next time I need to upgrade my system I'm gonna have to get myself yet another MoBo, but for the time being, this thing is one of the fastest gaming CPUs money can buy.

My old Q9550 has served me well over the years, but stuff like GTA V is just a little too much for that aged piece of hardware and I so love all those particles and postFX and high resolutions and what have you. Seeing as I have to work with videos more and more for the job, I can't sit around on some 8 year old machine, struggling to maintain at least 30 FPS on decent-ish visual settings.

Ironically, I may not be needing this beefy new setup to do my job for much longer, as I've just given up on my news job. Posting and translating interviews and gaming-related news was fun for a while, the pay was great, but it was also unreliable. Sometimes it'd be there in time for the rent, sometimes we'd sit there and eat nothing over the weekend because they'd pay up a week later than the month before with nobody giving me a warning.

And god forbid if I asked whether or not the payment had gone out on time. I'd get all sorts of reactions from asking me why I never put anything aside for a rainy day to how baffled everyone is at my completely unrealistic expectations. I know, doing a job in April and then getting paid for it at the end of June is considered "normal" nowadays, but I can't help but wonder how they're oh so surprised with me telling them I get in trouble if it takes them more than 3 weeks to pay up. Especially since there had never been any problems of that sort in the six years I had worked with those guys.
Oh well. At the end of the day, an employer is always just that. They're not a friend. You're always a disposable human recource, no matter what they say. Or as a friend put it: there's no column for loyalty in MS Excel.

On the plus side, I now have lots of time for jobs from other employers, whose offers I've been largely neglecting in favour of that whole newsy thing. Right now I'm fully booked till way into July. Guides, reviews, translations, quest text, you name it. Rent is paid, the next two or three months worth of rent will be in the bank by next week and depending on how noticeable my hardware upgrade may or may not turn out to be, we'll be able to upgrade Claire's rig, too, should she require it.

And beyond that? Time will tell. I honestly can't say whether or not the jobs will keep coming the way they are piling up right now. The joy of being a freelance writer. Ideally, I'll be able to impress enough people with my work to stay in demand. Failing that, I may have to go on a trip to ye olde job centre once the well of gaming-related writing dries up. Strangely enough, I'm not super worried about the future. Things have always worked out okay for us - - and as a native speaker of what's a foreign language around here, finding work shouldn't be too difficult, should the need ever arise.

They've released a dragon warframe on, well, Warframe. Those bastards! I've played a chunky, tanky old warframe called Rhino for as long as that thing had existed on there, eventually switched to Rhino's prime version and stuck with him forever since. Leveled the odd extra frame here and there on the side, but Rhino made me happy. Now there's Chroma. He's chunky enough to make Rhino look almost lean and agile by comparison. He's super powerful. AND HE'S A FUCKING DRAGON!

That little Clan Claire and I started on there a few years ago? They're called Double Dragon. Double. Fucking. Dragon. Sooo... yeah. Gonna have to play and upgrade one. No way around that. So here's my motivation to complete what little there is left to do for the Elder Scrolls Online guide stuff. You know, the thing where I originally said I could probably give out a few pointers on how to play a Dragon Knight. And then they made me level up a sorcerer from scratch. Write about the six major updates, pvp, the cash shop, now I'm looking into crafting, vampirism and lycanthropy. I can't remember the last time I made such a massive pile of money within such a short amount of time. Don't get me wrong - it's a ton of work, some of which is way more complex than I had ever anticipated. In the past, I'd write guides on how to set up the best leveling spec, how to get through the progress stages, that sort of thing, but now it's all spreadsheets and optimal endgame gear and how and where to find the best upgrades and enchantments and holy fuck, this stuff is difficult!

Not complaining. I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't consider this sort of thing the world's greatest job. However, there is this stupid, nagging voice at the back of my brain now, which keeps chanting, "Chrooooooooomaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and I wanna set up an ideal build for that thing, slap a ton of upgrades on it, power-level the hell out of that thing and I have to force myself to concentrate on work-related stuff and not slack off with it. And I'm so weak!

Before I go, here's something scary for ya: Claire's (waaaay) late for her period. Which means nothing with her, sometimes she's late by a week, she even skipped a whole month once, her tubes are just special and fucked up like that. But, you know, you wanna be on the safe side and everything and it's a bit creepy how a bit of stuff comes out when you squeeze her tetays, so she pissed on a stick. More than one, even, several days apart, to be absolutely sure. And two unexpected things happened.

First off, it was negative each time. So I should reeeeeally drag her to a doctor, because something's seriously fucked up there with her hormone levels. What's weirder, we were actually sort of... disappointed?
We agreed from day one that we never, ever wanted to even go there. You know, kids n shit. We openly laugh at stressed out couples whose kids throw tantrums at the supermarket. Which isn't a nice thing to do, but neither is forcing everyone around you to put up with your spoiled brat.

But now, seven and a half years in, we're... you know, talking. Who would take care of what, how would we afford it, how much time would we have before we'd hafta find a bigger place, that sort of thing. Nothing is set in stone and before anything, we'll have to make sure that our future is somewhat secure, but is it ever? People are voting to abolish the human rights act. Get rid of human rights. They're for it. They've made a guy prime minister, who said wonderful things such as, "For too long we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens so long as you obey the law we will leave you alone." Not the best time to make babies. We should pack our shit and leave. Not sure where to go, though. They say Pluto is nice this time of year.

-Cat

Fun With Dead Pets

My first ever reptile was a bearded dragon. They're a little less twitchy and fragile than geckos and still relatively idiot-proof. And they don't live very long, especially when you have a tendency to pick up old, rescued or neglected animals. So let's just say we have a bit of a... rotation. In with the old, out with the dead. It probably sounds a bit more fucked up than it really is. Imagine walking past some scrawny, unwanted little lizard week after week and absolutely nobody wants it. And you have a nice warm vivarium with enough space in it at home. You get the idea. And then you get used to one another, everyone is happy and then they die. Awesome. Yeah, we're not gonna get any more beardies, but maybe we'll use the tank for something that lives a little longer. Baby beardies, maybe? I kid.

I don't believe in beardie heaven, but it seems a bit disrespectful to just flush a dead pet down the crapper or throw it in the garbage, so we tend to bury them. There are two dead reptiles resting in the garden, somewhere underneath our living room window. Or so there were, until the bones came up during a recent weed removing session. Now they're partially in the garbage, anyway. Sigh. Sorry, lizard. Or sorry, snake. Whichever one of you has been dug up by accident. They probably don't mind, what with them being dead and all, but it's still a weird thought to meet again like that. Then again, I used to live with a lady for a while, who kept her great grandfather's skull on a shelf. I'm not making this up. There was a human skull on her bookshelf.

My work around Elder Scrolls Online is coming to an end and I'm fucking exhausted. It was fun, I'm getting some good money out of it (I'm *finally* getting that i7-4790k or whatever next week!), but the surprise level-up marathon is burning me out right now. I handed in a bunch of stuff, everyone was happy, my job was done and then I was asked whether I could level up a sorcerer within a week or two. I'm such a whore.

Sorcerers are fun. For 41 levels now I've been soloing world bosses, anchors and public dungeons with such ease, I honestly cannot say whether they made the game a lot easier since the game's release a year ago or whether my build is just broken and overpowered in some way. Just nine levels to go and a whole bunch of pages to write about how to play, what skills to pick, what items to use, yada, yada, yada. That's great and I'm looking forward to even more money, but the constant grinding of levels on top of my online news coverage every single day, including weekends, is starting to wear me out a bit. Oh well, nearly done now. Oshi-

I am finally getting that article on Warframe! It's only one of the single-most fucking important F2P-Games across multiple platforms and for some inexplicable reason most magazines are extremely reluctant to feature it. I was finally asked to write a little something about it and I'd do it right the fuck now, but I had to postpone it until I'm done with Elder Scrolls. Then Warframe. Claire and Haggy are joining me on there, so it's definitely gonna be a fun job. Still no time to rest, though. Ugh!

I dunno, maybe I'll finally get to chill out on Everquest 2 for a bit by the end of June. Finally get that last expansion, get to the new level cap, get some more goodies for my characters... you know, before Daybreak fucks it up altogether and shuts down the servers for good.
Still gotta find the time for more GTA, as well!

-Cat

The A(sshole)-Team

If you're like me, then you love it when a plan comes together. We've been playing the first three heists on GTA Online and it's been some of the most entertaining and also most complex stuff I've ever done in any multiplayer game. Most regular missions on GTA are pretty staightforward - go somewhere, grab a car/package/bike and/or kill a bunch of ballers/yakuza/rednecks. Stuff rarely takes more than five minutes to complete unless your team starts ten or so miles away from the action for some inexplicable reason. And then there are heists.

The Disciples of Kitten like to dress for the occasion.

In theory, it's possible to just start a heist with any group of random strangers, who may only communicate in text using some foreign language - if that. And that shit isn't very likely to succeed, which is why the PC community is already begging for easier heists. So adorable. Always screaming for better balancing, buff this, nerf that... thanks, Blizzard. Thanks for turning a generation of gamers into a bunch of whiny, entitled cunts.

Like sex, heists are a lot more enjoyable in a group of people you know and love, especially when you can tell what everyone is into, what each member of your crew is good at, that sort of thing. Because unlike regular missions, heists require each and every member of your team to do a specific job - and they had better know wtf they're doing. And it goes beyond the usual MMO-style holy trinity level of compexity, too! Nobody heals or tanks on GTA. Well, you can buy a tank, but that's a different story, entirely.

"I'll man the cannon, Felix gets in the plane, Claire grabs the bike, Peter... who the fuck invited Peter?"

One heist requires a player to steal a getaway plane, while another player protects said plane against fighter jets using a helicopter that comes equipped with with gatling guns and guided missiles. The plane is required to help the other half of your crew escape from prison. It's a massive clusterfuck, where you depend on each and every member of your crew - if you fuck up and one of your team mates dies with no team lives left, it's game over. You don't just get to complete that shit with dead people on the team - you start over!
It was amazing to see how our team grew from a bunch of incompetent, retarded morons into a bunch of slightly less incompetent, retarded morons as we progressed from one heist to another.

We completed our third heist on the first try last night. Granted, I nearly fucked it up when I used up our only team life by introducing my face to the spinning blades of our getaway helicopter. But stealing a fighter jet and enjoying some sweet team-dogfighting whilst listening to a certain bit of the Top Gun soundtrack was easily some of the coolest shit I've ever done online.

Meh, if you've seen one explosion, you've seen 'em all.

You can tell how intense heists and many of the setup missions to a heist are by the atmosphere in voice chat. Most of the time we're so busy trolling each other, dicking around and doing stupid shit that at least one person is always dying of laughter. I'm not even making this up - every once in a while you'll catch one of our guys (or the lady) laughing so hard, they'll forget to breathe and then it becomes hard to tell whether they're laughing, crying, having a seizure or a little bit of everything. It's amazing how such a bunch of dickheads can instantly switch into pro-mode during a stealth mission, where several targets have to be taken out simultaneously from stealth. You take this guy, I take that guy, on three, you get the idea. I've never been so tense playing an online game before.

In between missions I like to drive around in a car with Haggy, who made his character look like Kid Rock. He likes to slow down his car to a crawl, so we can just stay in the car a little longer and enjoy some sweet reggae music. I always forget where he's from, but I suspect he's Jamaican or something. Asians, amirite?

We get shit done.

I hope they'll be adding more heists to GTA Online - and soon! We race, we play golf and tennis, dick around in free mode and kill each other with hammers, but nothing comes close to the adrenaline rush of a really tough heist, especially when you're doing it for the very first time and you have no idea what to expect.

I think aiming for the crotch deals more damage.

I'm still suffering from some rather severe FPS issues, especially in busy areas, where stuff can start freezing and stuttering like crazy, while everyone else in our little crew plays without any problems whatsoever. There are threads all over the internet where people with hardware much beefier than mine have the same issues. I still can't figure out how to fix this. Felix runs the game on decent settings and at up to 60 FPS on his humble little GTX 660. I'm jealous.

I like our crew emblem. ♥

The really annoying thing is how I can change my visual settings to anything from bare minimum to ultra and absolutely nothing seems to change about the performance. It just stutters like hell, even when I'm barely using 2 out of my 4 gigs of VRAM. Sigh. I probably would have given up on it by now if it wasn't so damn fun.

-Cat