the game's the thing

[freckles_and_doubt]

I am forced to contemplate the horrible reality that I'm about to upgrade my computer for entirely frivolous reasons. The Evil Landlord played the new Dragon Age for fourteen hours straight yesterday, which meant I was entirely unable to play the old Dragon Age, my computer being a bit weeny even for games which are several years old. I had a moderately productive day as a result, but you have no idea how twitchy it made me to hear fights and explosions and tactical swearing resounding down the passage, and not be able to pursue my own enjoyment of same. Although, I have to admit, if I do upgrade (which I can afford, and have been promising myself) and install the game and my save files, this house will succumb to a thick pall of computer gaming over evenings and weekends, in which we'll probably entirely neglect to speak to each other, cook meals or feed the cats. So, not much change there, then.

(We are remembering to feed the cats, mostly because they have that "interpose self between person and screen" thing down pat, but a reasonably large proportion of the feeding seems to be for the benefit of the marauding neighbourhood tomcat, who has cunningly circumnavigated our sneakily closed cat-door and is now accessing the house through various bedrooms or, quite possibly, the walls. In addition to nicking food, he beats up our cats and, occasionally, sprays. I am now open to offers of dart-guns, cat-traps, hit-squads, small quantities of plastic explosive, or voodoo curses of the requisite nature).

Part of the moderate productivity was a new Microfiction. This volume's themes are all pictures, this one being the very odd one here. I think I may have been getting a bit stale with the one-word themes: this one has galvanised me to slightly odd creativity. Then again, it's a very odd picture.

Now I shall go and plant pansies. Mmmm, pansies. Totally the wrong time of year, but I love their little velvety faces. I also have to do something to console myself for the slightly blasted heath nature of the garden after the garden service had with it their wicked way - they've mown the lawn down to a sort of straggling stubble, circa Aragorn somewhere around Rivendell. Which will teach me to mow the darned thing more often, I suppose. A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot, but its demands are unceasing.

Comments

[rumint.livejournal.com]

Have you considered your existing computer may have enough horsepower for Warcraft?

[mac1235.livejournal.com]

Some say the hard drive is half-full. Some say the hard drive is half empty. A computer geek upgrades anyway.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Are you still running that ancient machine with a 2GB hard drive and one picogoblin of RAM? If so, quite apart from the game-playing convenience, you should probably upgrade on moral grounds alone :)

[dicedcaret.livejournal.com]

The surest way of achieving eternal damnation is to play WoW ;)

My missus, with the assistance of an animal charity, has just managed to catch the local feral tom who's been causing mayhem. It's possible he may return, but considerably calmer after being snipped. If he does return, we'll have to feed him outside somewhere, so he gets into a routine which doesn't involve house invasion and molestation of our beloved moggies.

You might be able to trap him using one of your cat boxes, then take him to Graham the Vet who will offer a discounted rate for snipping and injections. We've managed that with one feral we had, but trapping with a normal cat box very much depends on how approachable the target is, unless you can rig some sort of mechanism for shutting the door from a distance.