My Co-Dependent Cat

My Co-Dependent Cat

By Brandon Thompson

My cat is co-dependent, it's really not so bad

I think his meows are cute, so they never make me mad

My kitty loves to eat, all around the clock

When you rub his paws, he looks a bit like Spock

We have a special bond, me and my cat

If I ever have to rumble, I know he's got my back

My kitty is pretty strange, that's no lie

Once, I saw him take a bite out of a pie!

My kitty loves to show his fangs, always ready to nibble

But when he nibbles too hard, he usually gets in tribble

He's tiny, furry and meows a whole bunch

Every time he eats, it makes a loud CRUNCH

The world is full of cats, of all shape and size

But there's only one cat, who takes the top prize

I love my co-dependent kitty

My co-dependent kitty loves me

Breaking New Ground In Video Games - Record Your Own Commentary

Now more than ever, video games are in the hands of the players. From the time of concept until the game hits store shelves, fans and players alike can alter the course of a game just by how loud they complain. The "me" mentality has bred some truly horrible decisions, but there is room for some remarkable and welcome changes to some of our favorite games. Soccer, or Football as I prefer to call it, because screw america, is a beautiful game to watch and play. And one of the main drawbacks of all sports video games is the, at times, dry and repetitive commentary that drains the commentators of all personality. FIFA has gotten better at this over the years, and at present time it's the best commentary I've found in a sports game. But it's still not as good as it could be. One small change could make the most thrilling games legendary. The ability to record your own match commentary.

Now not everyone will want to record their own commentary, you just can't please everyone. But if you give that technology to a few talented people, you'll see results for years to come. Youtube has become an international beacon for video games seemingly overnight. Just doing a search for "video game" in Youtube brings back over 36 million videos. MILLION!! Even with all the copyright shenanigans that have occurred over the past year, people are still looking to Youtube for everything from game guides, the real time commentary over their favorite games. It's a field that's growing exponentially by the minute, and there's plenty of room carved out for something like this.

Imagine re-creating a game, and a scenario like this
  


With commentary like this.

Video games could never replicate this kind of excitement. It's the one thing missing from sports games today, but it's not that far off in the future. Maybe those part-time sports fans won't understand the euphoria felt when witnessing once in a lifetime moments. My grandmother still reminisces about her favorite american football moments with joy, as if they happened yesterday. That's the kind of environment I was raised in, and for other sports fans its almost like an unspoken bond. You never talk about why it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Or why you smile like a loon when your favorite team is playing. It's an understanding. An understanding that I think the video game community needs. And this technology doesn't have to be reserved for just sports games. But it's a start, and a necessary one at that. Because the next time I play FIFA as Chelsea F.C, I want my shouts of joy to echo through the stadium for all 90 minutes.

 

Fiesta Day Part 2 - Madness In A Crunchy Shell

"We've got to move it off this transport now!" I could barely hear the first sergeant over my shoulder, the roar of the crouton cannon drowning out any communication we had on the sea. I spotted a trench in the bread about 30 yards away and motioned to the first sergeant and he gave me the go ahead. Charging out of the tortilla ships, we screamed with the ferocity of a hundred, nay, a thousand lions. Croutons were exploding all around us, a bread stick clipped me in the leg, but I kept running as fast as I could. I knew the end to this war was on all five members of my squad, myself included. "AAAAAGH," I heard the scream a few yards away and I knew it was someone from my squad. Just as I turned my shell to look back, a crouton landed in front of me and exploded, knocking me onto the ground, the world quickly turned black.

I was able to regain consciousness, although I could not tell what time it was. The sky seemed darker, but when you're getting pounded by shrapnel and explosives you hardly have time to see what color the sky is. I looked around and noticed I had successfully made it to the trench, though I couldn't figure out how. "Could the explosion have carried me the rest of the way?" It didn't seem very plausible. I couldn't tilt my shell fully and I could feel a sharp pain up my spine. My shell was cracked, and I cursed the all you can eat buffet at the UTO show. I knew I had to find a first aid kit soon, or my shell was as good as toasted. I was able to flip myself onto my front, a few shreds of lettuce falling out of my head. I noticed a taco slumped over a few feet away from me, clutching a first aid kit in his hands. I tried calling out to him, but a crouton detonating overhead ended that conversation quick. I crawled as quickly as I could over to my comrade in arms, only to notice that he wasn't moving much, if at all. I slapped the palm of my hand against his leg a few times, trying to get his attention, when his shell split in half and seasoned ground beef spilled all over me. I had to turn away immediately at the site of my brethren's dead shell spilling his organs all over the ground. I heard it's bad luck to vomit on the recently deceased.

After taking a minute to honor my fallen compatriot, I quickly patched myself up, poking my shell out to look for the rest of my squad. Just as I started scanning the horizon towards the MG nests, I heard someone shout, "Sniper in the nest!" I had received enough combat training to know that when a sniper sets their scope on you, you're pretty much history unless you can pull some kind of magic out of your ass. As it just so happened on this day, magic was on my side. The instant I heard the sniper call-out, I grabbed two fistfuls of sand and flung them up as high as I could, then hit the deck as quickly as I could. I don't know if the sniper ever fired a shot in my direction, my pounding heartbeat drowned out practically all noise on the forsaken battlefield. Now that there was a sniper live on the battlefield, maneuverability was essentially nil on our end.  

I had to forge ahead in the trench if I wanted to regroup with the rest of my squad, wherever they were. I could still hear my fellow tacos carrying on the good fight, though I couldn't tell if they were winning or losing. I crawled for what seemed like an hour before I made any noticeable progress towards finding my friends in arms. I heard someone radioing for help just over a ridge in the trench. We were too far away from the enemy lines for it to be one of those Italian devils, so I chanced it and hopped over the trench towards the marinara ocean. "OW! What the hell do you think you're doing?" I'd never been so relieved to be screamed at by an officer of superior rank in my life. The first sergeant was using a radio to transmit our progress to the home base, clear on the other side of the ocean. "Sarge, what the hell happened? I don't know how I got to the trench, and where are the rest of my squad?" I wasn't prepared for what the first sergeant was about to tell me, and I had no idea one taco could hold so much salsa vomit.

Discouragement In Its Ugliest Forms

Self-assurance is a trait that seems far out of reach, at least for me. I've spent years in creative counseling with all sorts of cognitive "behavior" therapy aimed at "focusing on the good" in every day life. It's all built on the belief that thoughts, feelings, and behavior are all connected and that individuals can move toward overcoming difficulties and meeting their goals by identifying and changing unhelpful or inaccurate thinking, problematic behavior and distressing emotional responses. For a while, I thought it was a bunch of shit. Exactly the type of thinking that this sort of therapy is supposed to correct. Then, something amazing happened. I actually understood what I needed to do in my life and how to better my behavior to turn myself around and head down the happier path in life. Since I've taken my new outlook on life I've realized some things never change. Cognitive therapy is still a bunch of shit.

Maybe it's the type of culture I've been raised in, the things I've seen in life and on television. "Johnson, we needed those documents two weeks ago. Have them on my desk in 2 hours or you're fired." Or, "tired of looking fat and unattractive? Buy this overpriced exercise equipment and lose 100 lbs in a week." Even our school system that we are so proud of is pushing kids to graduate at an earlier age and go into college when they have barely reached high school. The few schools that exist to serve the student and give them the type of teaching they require are getting elbowed out of the room by (mostly) conservative thinkers who don't see the need for these types of schools. I became one of the unfortunate victims of this elderly way of thinking when the school board decided to hold me back a year when I was a junior, when the school was geared toward keeping a class of students with the same teacher through all 4 years. I'm hardly bent out of shape about it now, but it certainly proved to me that very few people gave a shit about my education, especially the people that were getting paid to make sure I even got an education.

What does that have to do with self-esteem? Not much, in reality. But being told that I wasn't good enough to stay with the designed program flow of the school didn't propel me to believe I could one day be president of the divided states of america. In my eyes, I'm not successful if I don't get results right away. Which is exactly the WRONG way to approach life if you want to live the extra-terrestrial life of a writer. Can you blame me? Every day is another bombardment of "immediate success or death" and I can't find a single institution to tell me that the best things in life are served over time. You can't live life in a week, Rome wasn't built in a day, and I sure as hell can't survive at a job where I either make the quota or get the pink slip. But what do I care, cognitive therapy is a bunch of shit.

Maybe when we stop electing our government officials the way we vote for televised talent competitions, our government might actually resemble the wants and needs of the people, and another generation won't be force fed the same bullshit I've been spoon-fed since birth. But that's a long shot, these things are set the way they are for a reason. Just don't be surprised when people like me shut down because we can't conform to the tried and FAILED ways of teaching that you so desperately cling to like a raft beside the sinking Titanic.

Earth Friendly - A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

It's refreshing to be able to find a science fiction book that doesn't drown itself in 700 pages of text. What A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy offers is like Monty Python in space. It's fitting, since main character Arthur Dent is from jolly old England, with each main character offering some quirky characteristic, whether it be a second head or white lab mice with the ability to talk. But it's not the rapidly changing settings and environments that make this sci-fi novel different than the grandiose epics of days past. This novel presents something that only the most adventurous and free-thinking of people want, even if they don't actively think about it. An escape from the life-sucking drudgery of life on Earth.

It's hard not to feel bad for Arthur Dent. Whether he's battling bulldozers about to demolish his house, or getting ejected from intergalactic ships by Vogons with horrible tastes in poetry, Arthur can never get things to go his way. That's what makes him a believable character. He doesn't possess some magic power, or the key to humanity's survival. Arthur is a guy living on Earth, who happens to know an interstellar hitchhiker named Ford Prefect, who's been stuck on Earth for far too long. Thankfully, Douglas Adams doesn't treat the relationship between Arthur and Ford like a sickening buddy cop duo. It seems, at times, like the two main characters genuinely don't like each other all that much.

But just when things are about to take a turn for the worst, Arthur and Ford run into a distant cousin of Ford, and the adventure really takes off from there. On the hunt for a planet that may or may not exist; an ex-president of the galaxy, his girlfriend, and a manic depressive robot compliment the unconventional duo of Arthur and Ford, who have no choice but to go along for the ride. Douglas Adams has crammed A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy to the brim with imaginative and wacky alien technologies that are sarcastically referenced by the titular guide. It all seems to fit together like puzzle pieces and make perfect sense, even though these things are far from reality.

It's hard for me to pinpoint my favorite aspect of this wonderful novel. I'm a sucker for developed characters and sweeping story arcs, and A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy throws some mind-bending twists and turns in the seemingly anemic 216 pages. But never have I read a more complete novel in so few pages. It may have taken 4 paragraphs for me to say it, but I fell in love with A Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy from the moment I opened the front cover. After plodding through Stranger In A Strange Land, my brain was completely tapped, unable to process any more science or fiction. But Douglas Adams has created something wonderful, that must be shared by all. Needless to say, I'll be scouring the local bookstores in search of the next novel in this greater-than-fiction universe.

Adventures In F2P - Neverwinter

                                                     "You don't have to pay to adventure"

            Neverwinter cliff-notes -

• Developed by Cryptic Studios and published by Perfect World
• Released in Jun 2013
• Uses in game currency ZEN
• Several F2P titles preceded Neverwinter at Cryptic Studios
• Featured content packs for purchase offer obvious enhancements that might not be available to those only playing for free.
• $200 for access to exclusive playable race
• Pay your way to front of load queues 

         Games like Neverwinter give free to play games a bad name. Aside from huge hit titles like League of Legends and Team Fortress 2, the free to play genre is generally laughed at because the selection of titles in unplayable. When you have an influx of games like Neverwinter, it buries the few gems that populate the landscape. So why pick on Neverwinter? Because beneath the awful slowdown and load times sits a pretty fun experience, though rare in its availability.

         Neverwinter likes to boast that "you don't have to pay to adventure," and while that may be true at the most basic of levels, you have to pay if you want some semblance of a grand series of quests. Once you pick from the varied selection of classes and races(one of which costs $200 to unlock) you have to sit through a completely unnecessary cut scene that gets you nice and prepared for the absurd amounts of lag you will encounter. You do the generic MMO beginner stuff for a few minutes before you are unleashed into a hub world that seems to be frozen in Jello. The trail of sparkles that seemed so helpful in the tutorial sent me off in 20 different directions and laughed maniacally as I circled endlessly around my quest markers. Despite my best efforts to enjoy myself and play the game, the slowdown I endured in the hub town made the simple task of selling items or finishing a quest nearly impossible. The few quests I was able to complete were completely user made and were quite impressive in their quality. I actually managed to get myself into a queue for an instance while struggling to get through the town. The instance was full of allies and monsters that were in my experience range. Surprisingly, instances seem to be completely free of lag, so my advice is to get a group of friends together and start running instances as soon as possible. That will alleviate most of the frustration that I unfortunately had to endure.


       After being used to how smoothly World of Warcraft ran, it's so disappointing that Neverwinter fails to keep my experience as smooth as possible. Turning my graphical settings down to minimum only made the lag uglier. Fair warning to anyone that turns their graphical settings to maximum, your screen will be full of sparkly crap that you can't get rid of, enjoy.

      There are good free to play games out there, and I'm determined to play them. But after my experience with Neverwinter, I'm feeling seriously discouraged. But my experience wasn't all bad. If you are a seriously huge fan of D&D or have always wanted to design and create your own quests, Neverwinter can provide moments of great enjoyment. But for anyone looking for a smooth and fun MMO to play in your spare time, you shouldn't put yourself through the frustration.

Fiesta Day - A World War II Parody Featuring Food

The smell of marinara wafted through the air. We had been sailing in it for what seemed like weeks. In reality, it had only been a few days. But that's what war does to you. You lose sense of time, you don't notice how cold or hungry you are, you just want to fight. We didn't know who or what we were facing once we were to hit the garlic bread beaches, but we knew it was going to be hell.

I didn't always want to go to war. I was taught that fighting was never an option, that there was enough room on the table for everyone. Yet here I was, my home plate destroyed, ravaged by the horrors of fighting a purposeless war. Before we set sail for the enemy, the eldest taco, who had lost more than anyone else in all the fighting, only had one thing to tell us. "Tacos, before you sail off into the great unknown to restore order to our humble corner of the restaurant, remember this. There is nothing to come back to. Those damn raviolis took what little we had, and slathered the remains in garlic butter. I instill in you, the last hope of our kind. You must fight until there is nothing left. Give every ounce of ground beef, every shred of lettuce, do not stop until the enemy lay dead and their insides splattered on those plates they love so dearly. Our future is NOW!" The roar from my comrades was deafening, yet there was something inside my shell that told me this wasn't right.

"Garlic bread fast approaching! ETA 2 minutes! First battalion launch team ready your equipment!" I scrambled to get everything together. My comrades were saying their final goodbyes to their loved ones, one of them was huddled in the corner praying to our creator Armando the Chef. One taco near the front of the tortilla blew salsa everywhere, some of it landing on my face. I was too focused to let it bother me. The adrenaline was pumping so fast through me it felt like time slowed down. This was the feeling that so many of my family members told me about before a customer takes that first bite out of you.  The euphoric feeling of being lifted and lowered to and fro from the plate, this marinara couldn't replicate it. Before I had the chance to say my final goodbyes and prayers to my loved ones, I could see the garlic bread beach through the fog, and in that instant a little sauce dripped down my shell.

I was apart of a small squad tasked with eliminating the leader of the Mozzarella Movement, a mean son of a bitch named Palermo. A meatball with an attitude, he was suspected to have initiated the initial strike against my brethren. Palermo was last seen a few clicks from the beach, organizing a meeting between top food lords to discuss their next plan of attack. I knew deep in my sour cream, that we weren't going to let that bastard live to see dinner time. Without warning, we were grounded onto the garlic bread and the tortilla hatch opened up. The next thing I knew, we were storming the beach with croutons and bread sticks flying from every direction