Dr. Gonzo

Sleeping Dogs is fucking fantastic. I haven't played it in a while, but it was one of those free Xbox Gold games a while back so I've got the free definitive edition somewhere on my Xbox account. I'll have to get back into that after I finish my wide backlog of other single player games that I need to play, but haven't been able to make the time to finish because life is a cunt and keeps getting in the way of me having fun. My game time has been very limited, so I've mostly been getting into games with a multiplayer component so I can play with this group of friends I've got here and lately we've been very into State of Decay 2. I never played the first one, but I'm really into the second one. It's a cool open world zombie survival game - you have a small community after you get through the intro and your goal is to make it through each day and survive. Each day gets tougher and tougher and there's other NPC communities that might ask you for help (or demand you give them resources); if you don't give into demands/help people out then you've got a weird situation where not only are there hostile zombies out to kill you. But also hostile arseholes who are either too needy and expected you to drop your own survival to help them; or a bunch of greedy bastards who want to take your hard earned shit. So there's sometimes fuckers with guns you've got to worry about too. But if you help people, you can rescue other survivors and have them be a part of your community. And there's a semi-RPG element; the characters have their own personality traits, they get better the more they do certain things (like the more zombies you beat to death, the better you become at fighting) and once you max out a skill you upgrade it and it's sort of like a very simple skill tree where you've got a choice between what you specialise in. Other than that, you collect resources, build up your community and your base, murder zombies, etc... If you've got a survivor in your community who's a total cunt, they'll start fights with people and decrease moral and you can exile them. Or more fun than exiling them is sending them out on a suicide mission. If any of your survivors die, they're permanently dead and you can't revive them. So you've got to be pretty careful. When you're doing co-op, you just play on your friend's community... but you can access all of your survivors from your community to help them out. You get rewards for playing properly and helping their community once you log back into your game - so as to encourage actual co-op. And shit can go from looking total fine to very fucking hectic pretty quickly. It's a quality co-op game and I highly recommend the fuck out of it.

Anyone seen this article from Private Eye - re: Jacob Reese-Mogg's investment fund setting up a feeder fund in Dublin to avoid hard Brexit consequences? Just to remind you that the minds behind Brexit believe that international mobility is for the rich... not for the rest of us.

Grey cat with white feet.... looks like Cosmo haha.

They are cute, they've actually evolved to be cute so that people like being around them instead of thinking they're murderous little dickheads. My kitties stay inside though, but that's mostly because I live in downtown San Diego and I don't want a tramp stealing my cats. Also our cat that's not a kitten has a medical issue and if he doesn't eat his prescription food he'll die, so if he gets lost for a day or two, and I don't want that happening. The kitten's grown up a bit in the last few weeks. Here's a picture of her annoyed that Cosmo's in the little part of the cat tree she likes to nap in. Wait... where the fuck's the insert attachment button gone?

So King Kenny has finally been knighted. But how do you knight a king?

Is it true that Roman has filled the board with people who are more like personal friends/business associates of his, rather than people with experience in running a football club? I've heard that said by a few Chelsea fans online on reddit, no idea if it's true. Seems a million miles away from when he first took Chelsea over though.

Unfortunately, yup. Heart attack either on the pitch or in training in China, shortly after he left Newcastle IIRC. Sad though.

Just seen that it's been a year since Cheick Tiote passed away at age 30. I'd totally forgotten that happened until I just saw it. I remember him and Cabaye making up a pretty good midfield unit. And 30 is far too young to die. Sad stuff to remember, RIP.

2 rare Amur Leopards were born at the San Diego Zoo over the weekend.

I can't play the FM games anymore because I get furiously addicted to them and I don't focus on real things and just focus on being the world's greatest manager.

I love the AS Roma Twitter guy. Actually funny memes.

It's a pretty interesting book about the impact Western music - particularly metal, punk and reggae has had on the Middle East. And how fans of that music are in some cases enjoying that music as a form of protest against the governments they live in (because the music is illegal - it's a fairly old book, so it doesn't cover things like the Iranian death metal band that was sentenced to death); and about how everything in the region has at least a tinge of politics to it and how our music has taken on political representations there. It's also interesting at showing a different side of the Middle East to what you see on TV or read about in the news - because the author isn't just a history professor at some school somewhere in the US, but he's also a Grammy winning musician. And his book is sort of about his travels in the region, staying with other musicians, fans of these western genres of music, and music critics.

I somehow missed this yesterday... but Jesus fucking Christ that sounds fucking horrific. Is that... permanent? Or is it something that can be fixed with surgery and/or physical therapy? Just did a quick google of sciatica and it didn't really say. That's shite though, I hope you don't have to live with pain like that forever.

I can only fucking imagine.

Nah London's banks have always been open to dirty money. There's former African warlords living there now because they took their millions and fucked off to London.

Yes, speaking of delusional minds: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/20/london-now-dangerous-new-york-crime-stats-suggest/ Although I don't know if that will impact you at all because I can't tell if you're English or not, let alone from London.

Nah he's Russian, but again ask him to buy you some new banter mate cuz yours is shite.

If they think he's money laundering he's probably got a hand in all sorts of crimes (assuming he is money laundering).

Nothing says "positive" like not being able to bring in your top choice for manager for the upcoming season, abandoning longstanding plans for building a new stadium, and having your owner under scrutiny for his close relationship with a despot that conducts chemical attacks in Britain.

I did that for a week while I had to get my car fixed. It was fine other than the fact that the public transit here is absolute dogshite and I was late to work every single fucking day and there's no convenient train time for when I'd get off work so I'd be stuck waiting around the platform for hours or stuck doing extra work (and I don't get overtime or anything, so being sat there at my desk for no reason is irritating). The concept of the switch is brilliant though. It's not the device's fault I haven't used it more. I'm an idiot for forgetting to bring it on my last few trips for work.

My job's alright... I wouldn't say I love it or anything. I don't dislike it, and that's better than some of the other jobs I've had. We do statistical analysis & consulting for various businesses we've got as clients (mostly insurance companies, but we've covered a pretty wide variety of industries) - so the part where I'm just crunching numbers is pretty fucking boring. The stuff where you actually have to interpret your data and make recommendations to businesses based on that data requires a little more brainwork and creative thought (although not too creative). Some parts of the job are pretty fun - I like the face to face meetings with clients (usually because I get to eat tasty food and get drunk on the company's credit card ) and some of the business trips have been great fun. But I really fucking hate when they send me out traveling and I've got to be wherever I've been sent to for more than 3 days. Traveling is simultaneously the best and the worst thing about the job. I can't complain too much though. Catch me on a different day though... and I might have more gripes about work. But how much can I really complain about my job while I'm currently posting this from work ?

They're fucking cuties, aren't they?