The Queue

Claptrap is one of my top favorite video-game characters of all time. There’s something so endearing about a tiny robot that is so annoying that everybody in the game hates him. He gets just the right amount of annoying traits to earnest desires for friends to rage-filled tirades against the jerks who steal his stuff that it shouldn’t work — but it does! It’s a tough line to walk for any character, and someone this poorly designed, one-wheeled, one-eyed little guy makes it work.

Borderlands 4 has been good fun so far! The team has put together a really solid, fun, looter-shooter that takes the best parts of the previous five games and adds some new stuff to speed up the movement a bit. Summoning your vehicle anywhere with basically no cooldown is a game-changer and really takes the slog out of the early zone once you get it. I also really like how the game’s humor has gotten a bit more focused than the last game. It’s still got jokes galore and funny moments, but I haven’t seen as much pop-culture referencing that popped up in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. There’s nothing specifically wrong with reference humor; it’s just not going to last as long as a well-written joke.

While I go and open like five more giant glowing chests full of weapons, it’s time for — The Queue!

Nothing like coming back from a weeklong road trip and being immediately assigned homework from a fellow Queue writer. I’m not one to back down from a challenge so I’ve spent all week working on my answers. So if this article feels especially Cory-heavy well now you know why.

My trip itself was really fun. Drove through the wilds of Kentucky (stopping at Cumberland Gap and Mammoth Cave NP) and Missouri to get to Kansas City (this just in: BBQ is yummy). Saw some wild bison on the way back which was really awesome. But enough about last week, it’s time to get to my work from this week!

Yes, I’m listening to Sepultura today.

Just how is Amazon going to adapt Mass Effect for TV? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to ask.

But while I’m being anxious about that, let’s answer some questions, shall we? Starting with my favorite video game.

I’ve been playing a lot of Drop Dutchy this week. It’s a very pick-up-put-down puzzler. It takes the lines and blocks of Tetris — with a far slower, more relaxed drop speed — but adds an additional element of having the bricks and lines give you resources which can be used strategically to improve various other parts of gameplay. Like if you stack several Wood pieces together, your Rangers will get more units, and after the round you can use the Wood you collected from making lines to improve your Ranger for later rounds. But, if your (computer) opponent also has a Ranger, watch out.

This is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and we supply the answers. Get it? Supply? Because wood and grain and stuff?

I went to a local art vendor thing this weekend, and this was the standout piece of the whole thing. Look at this cat, it’s so close to being Bacardi, it’s uncanny! This is a large piece too, roughly the size of a 75″ television. A true statement piece to really tie any room together.

I’d love to have a picture of me holding Bacardi up beside it to show that it was hanging in my home now. Unfortunately, it was also 2,750 Canadian dollars. As I don’t have 2,750 Canadian dollars currently set aside for cat paintings, I didn’t buy it. Liz also seemed hesitant to gift me the money as an advance on my next several years of Queues… So alas, I am left without a giant cat to hang upon my wall.

While I go and put together a team of renowned art thieves for a totally unrelated job, it’s time for — The Queue!

I was going to make a joke asking for good game suggestions for weekend if I have time to play something, but the Silksong release deserves better. Congrats to Team Cherry on Hollow Knight: Silksong on such a phenomenal launch they took down both Steam and Nintendo’s shops, then hit probably record-making (or breaking) concurrent play numbers. I’m still working on my interest in Metroidvanias, but your art may convince me to give it a go anyways.

Anyways, it’s Friday, this is the Queue, and while it’s your regularly scheduled time, I am not your regularly scheduled channel. Let’s freaking go.

I’m not saying that telling someone to hug a hippo is attempted murder. But I am saying that it’s a very, very bad idea to actually follow that advice. I know you’ve all heard about how cute house hippos are, but they don’t actually exist and real hippos are considered one of the most dangerous animals in the world.

I’m honestly not surprised, considering that they can weigh up to four and a half to five tons and have tusks the size of railroad spikes. To put this in context, a hippo could body an Allosaurus, because it weighs almost twice as much as the biggest estimated sized Allosaurus specimen we have to date.

Please do not hug a hippo. It will kill you if you are lucky.

Somebody here gets to go to the zoo today and it is not me. I am extremely jealous, but despite that I am still here to write the Queue. Responsibility really is just the worst.

But let’s get to the questions.

So, it’s not what you think — I have a major problem with storage, but again, it’s not what you think. I have a Google Pixel phone, so I use it to take photos, like you do. But in this last generation, despite it being a major selling point of the phone, they’ve started charging me for storing the photos I take on my phone, and screenshots, and all the photos of birds I take for the Merlin app. This is also tied to my email, so now until I migrate and/or delete a bunch of stuff, I can’t receive emails. Well, I can from the Old Navy marketing department, but not my kids’ schools, apparently. And now I’m also getting messages that my OneDrive, which I use exclusively for my writing and backups, is also jammed with stuff. So many people didn’t configure their OneDrive to backup the stuff they wanted backed up and complained when stuff got deleted, so now Microsoft made it so it automatically backs up your Desktop and you can’t turn that off. The desktop is where I have folders where I shove things like one-off screenshots and memes, so now my writing is all slammed in there next to gifs I thought I’d deleted almost as soon as I used them — but not from the cloud.

Anyway, this is The Queue, our daily column where you ask us questions and I’ll answer just as soon as I finish deleting this terabyte of memes I didn’t even want.