The Queue: Dogs out of this world!
@CoryjTaylor
I spent the afternoon on Sunday walking around a park with my favorite person and a 163-pound St. Bernard. The local Humane Society puts on a big afternoon for people to bring pets to the park called, fittingly, Pets in the Park. We saw lots of dogs of all shapes and sizes, a few cats, some gerbils, and a bird. Somewhere there might’ve been a turtle too! There was a dachshund dash, and vendors, kiddie pools for the dogs to splash around in, and even free pup cups from Starbucks!
A great time was had by all. Arthur the St. Bernard was a very good boy and well behaved, which is never a guarantee when there are so many new smells and animals around. He was definitely the centre of attention wherever he went. There wasn’t a bigger dog that we saw all day! He even got to meet a very chill cat that was being carried around by its owner all day.
While I go and tell him what a good boy he was again, it’s time for our daily question and answer column — the Queue!
Q4tQ: have you ever replayed an old game and been astonished at what feels different? I picked up the FF Pixel Remasters bundle, and started with FFIV. I’m not even three hours in and I swear the point I’m at took at least ten hours to reach when I was a kid. But I know that’s not actually possible, because this is not a hundred-hour game.
What is time?
I’ll talk about how bad I am at Crash Bandicoot a little later here, but man, am I amazed at how well I did at all in the first couple of Crash Bandicoot games compared to now. I don’t know if it was youthful reflexes, or I wasn’t looking at everything from a completionist standpoint, and could be a little loosey goosey with my play — but I am not good at that style of platforming anymore.
Mass Effect is also an interesting one. I was a pretty savvy player, I think, in the early 00’s, but man, did I run circles around my first Mass Effect playthrough with the remake. I had the best gear and Omni-Gel to spare pretty early on.
For games without twitch reactions needed, I think age and wisdom beat out all that youthful exuberance. But I wouldn’t mind some of my old Crash Bandicoot skills back.
Ok, successfully tuned the bass and tested the amp so we’re good on that end! Now to stick it in the office for two months while I get other stuff done.
I hope you learn the bass line from Final Fantasy 2. Make sure to also get a good head groove goin!
Q4tQ Is the new Nomnom Nomnius thing in 12.0.7 accountwide or does each of your toons have to unlock/empower it individually?
Has Nomi come back?! I’ll hide the flammables… and the inflammables.
With Ocarina of Time getting remastered, I just realized it’s taken me about 20ish years to playthrough it. So Q4Q: what’s the longest it’s taken you to beat a game?
I don’t know if I’ve ever beaten any of the games that I played when I was pretty young. Ocarina of Time is a good example, but I could also lump early Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Crash Bandicoot games into that. They were just so tough and precise for young me!
Also, old me, as I didn’t do very well with the original Crash Bandicoot when I got it on Game Pass.
I’ve also never beaten World of Warcraft; every time I think I’m getting close, there seems to be a whole new continent to explore…
Q4tQ: Would you have enjoyed it if WoW had a sequel or expansion that went the GW3 route and took place before the main game?
Instead of “10,000 years ago” maybe it’s “5000 years ago”.
The meme that Warcraft history has impossibly long stretches of seemingly nothing going on kind of works in the favor of this, you have a surprising amount of freedom writing stories in that timeframe.
Ordinarily, I’m pretty against prequels. They’re often narratively lazy, and the stakes don’t matter as much because we know that any of our favorite characters from the prequel that don’t show or get mentioned in the original work — are likely dead and can’t be brought back.
However, a way, way long ago prequel like 5-10k years in the past does mean that we’re not looking at direct connections to original work, and more just vague waving at things in the future. So I guess that’s ok. It’ll just be a little silly when, at the end of the first major quest chain, someone says something about how there’s no such thing as portals to other planets, and that is a magic that would cost you everything trying to get it sorted out, and then turns directly to the camera and stares at you for a few minutes.
I personally don’t think we need it to be an MMO, though. Let’s get Warcraft back to its RTS roots!
qftq: I am cat sitting for my aunts next month, and I do not really cat. What do I do to prevent the cat from destroying everything I love? Any toy recs that will encourage the cat to play with things rather than getting up to mischief?
The cat has stayed here before when my aunts have been here, and she has a cat tree and a number of toys I would think of as more things to put in the trash. I suspect maybe she is always getting into things because she doesn’t have enough to do, and I am extra concerned because I may not watch her as attentively as my aunts do. She is something over a year old, but not by much.
That’s still almost a kitten! She’s gonna wanna be making all kinds of mischief. You are right that you should get rid of the twist ties. I get that they’re fun things for her, but as I’ve seen other people point out, they’re full of sharp metal and shouldn’t be chewed on. Cats will play with their toys on their own, but that also means you’ve got a bunch of cat toys all over the place.
Maybe just ensure that you have enough little crinkly balls and small fun characters stuffed with catnip to leave around. I know that Marshalls/Homesense/Winners/Ross/TJ Max all usually have a pet section, and I’ve had good luck finding good, affordable toys for Bacardi there.
If there’s something you really don’t want the cat to be jumping all over, like kitchen counters, you can try to cover it in tin foil. Some cats react pretty strongly to the weird and unexpected sensation and will spring away from it.
Ultimately, there’s no single solution to playing with a cat or having a cat entertain itself. They’ll get bored on their own and see what they can do to get a little extra attention from you, like knocking things off of tables and shelves.
Today’s Bacardi is sitting with a new toy. It used to have more feathers on its butt, but Bacardi hasn’t met a feather that he won’t lick into oblivion. Naturally, he’s in a great mood on this, the day of his new butterfly toy, so you’re likely to get whatever you ask for if you come to him with fancy loot needs.
Would you rather
Go to an Orc soul food restaurant
Or
Go to a Satyr Jaimaican food restaurant
Today’s Anna Earworm™: All For You
Have a great week, everybody!
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