If somebody pisses me off or upsets me, I need to stop brooding about it like a little bitch and call them out directly.

Over the last few years I’ve learned that I avoid confrontation to a fault.

Bonus: how did this past year’s go?

Shit.

This time last year I was meant to be moving into my own apartment, then I was laid off, my mortgage offer expired and I had to pull out of the purchase. I now work in a shitty purchase ledger job as a temp, where my office is 50 miles away. The pay sucks and I question why I’m torturing myself working in this role just for some recruiter to earn commission from my misery.

Halfway through the year I had a (kinda close) friend disappear for roughly two months after a rough breakup. I met up with her at a karaoke eve when she reached out because I was worried about her wellbeing. She came on to me pretty hard, we kissed at least a dozen times, dirty danced a few times and made out once, but then she apologized and friendzoned me via text after I got home. And to make it clear, she was the one initiating all this.

My love life wasn’t all bad though. I did date someone at the beginning of the year and while that relationship didn’t last, the breakup was amicable and we’re still really close friends.

Still not sure what I’ll do NYE tomorrow…

There’s two edutainment games I remember playing on school PCs back in the early 2000s (either 2000 or 2001) and I’ve found nothing about them since. Asking about them on the TOMT and TOMJ subreddits got me nowhere.

One was set in a castle and had an intro where the main character crosses a moat. I remember it for a particular minigame where you operate a catapult and have to launch cabbages at people hiding in barrels, following instructions like “90 degrees clockwise”, “125 degrees anticlockwise”, etc. If you successfully hit all 8 targets without fail, the victory message was “You cabbage head!”

The other was more like a loose collection of minigames and several different CD collections were released. I used to own one that I found in a supermarket bargain bin. The minigame I remember on this collection involved moving a pin to pop balloons. The background music was some kind of weirdly upbeat jazz song.

Too bad we got dragged kicking and screaming out of the EU five years ago. Securing a job offer and work visa is going to be really difficult, and I don’t speak another language.

At the moment, everything.

This time last year, I was meant to be buying my own apartment and finally moving out from my parents’ home. Then I got laid off, spent seven months struggling to find work and then landed a temporary purchase ledger job which I fucking hate. Partially because the commute takes me about 2 hours each way, partially because I work an 8-5 shift and have to get up at stupid o’clock in the morning on office days, and partially because we use Oracle Fusion which is the biggest crock of shit I’ve ever used.

Unfortunately that means I have to live with my parents for even longer. Renting somewhere is out of the question because Bristol is the second-most expensive British city to live in, and I basically can’t get a mortgage without a full time job.

Sometimes I question why I chose to pivot towards accounting. I have a History degree, I’m fully AAT qualified and I’m halfway through my ACCA and I’m earning £13.50 an hour, or just £1.29 above minimum wage on a zero-hours contract. I can genuinely earn nearly as much from stacking shelves, flipping burgers or pouring pints, not that there’s really many hospitality or retail jobs available. Office days genuinely take 13 hours out of my day. 8 of these are working, 4 of these are the commute and 1 is the lunch break I get.

My future is uncertain and I feel like there’s no point in bothering. Best-case scenario, AI is truly a bubble that’s going to burst, crash the stock market and leave us in a recession. At worst, it takes all our jobs and the rich leave us to starve.

Despite a brief relationship with a woman who finally popped my cherry (we’re still really close friends and I’m grateful she took my virginity), my love life is practically nonexistent. Online dating is an absolute void where I only seem to match with GPS-spoofing South-East Asian and African women either pulling love scams or trying to find a Western spouse and the means to a green card. Two ladies messed around with my feelings and led me on big time this year and that’s left me exhausted.

I have a lipoma on my neck which is going to cost me a lot to remove, and good luck actually finding the time to get the consultation and surgery/liposuction booked. The NHS won’t do it because it’s not cancerous, even though this thing has grown to the point where it’s 5.5cm in diameter and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sounds like the kind of power mod who spends his evenings sat in a hotel cuck chair because that’s the most intimacy they’ll ever have with a woman.

I think the only reason Republicans still win US elections is that your average American is stupid enough to think that waterboarding is an extreme sport.

The app is literally called Tea, as in “spilling the tea.”

Let’s say a vile, manipulative, entitled woman went on a Tinder date with a guy. He insists on splitting the bill rather than paying for her food. She feels insulted.

She then takes to Tea and her local Are We Dating The Same Guy Facebook group, slanders him with false accusations that he tried to sexually assault her, then posts his Tinder, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn profiles online. Suddenly he’s being ostracized, receiving nasty messages and even loses his job from women bombarding his employer with negative phone calls, emails and comments about him.

Men have had their lives ruined by false allegations posted to AWDTSG communities before. But opposing the existence of these platforms is “misogyny”, apparently.

What’s stopping him from doing a Nayib Bukele and sending the National Guard to Congress to force through legislation?

Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey and Dustin Hoffman walk into an Irish pub.

The bartender sighs, “Oh no, not Yewtree again…”

Nah, this is yanderedev

This is YandereDev levels of bad.

Cats (2019)

• Directed by Tom Hooper, a guy who doesn’t know shit about cinematography but somehow had two previous films gain critical ablation despite this.

• Released years, even decades after the West End and Broadway shows had been discontinued.

• Relied heavily on a star-studded cast featuring Ian McKellen, Rebel Wilson, James Corden, Idris Elba, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo and Taylor Swift.

• Horrifically bad CGI which costed an absolute tonne to produce because Hooper was an arrogant arsehole and didn’t listen to the people on his crew who actually handled special effects for a living.

• Most of the songs are significant downgrades compared to the original stage show, i.e. musical vs film version of Magical Mr Mistoffelees.

Yes, everyone will say “civil rights improved”

Gay marriage was only legalized due to a Supreme Court decision that declared same sex marriage bans to be unconstitutional.

Since then, Republicans have appointed replacement justices, and it was they who overturned Roe v Wade and upheld a lot of Trump’s recent antics.

His Andrew Tate one is comedy gold. Perfectly nails a depiction of him that’s both realistic and incredibly unflattering uncanny valley body horror.

I thought the voices for this were AI generated until I heard his quote on Palestine at the end and remembered that very clip which landed him a Twitch suspension. Fucking hell, those are all actual Asmongold quotes?

I am inclined to believe that Krafton are completely in the right, they were not lying about Charlie’s side-hustle, after all. He is genuinely putting his time into producing three different film projects, and there is no way you are going to juggle these with the full time development of a video game sequel…

Krafton also wouldn’t put out a statement like this if it weren’t true, otherwise they’d be getting sued out of their arse.

AoE III was excellent. It explored new ideas and did it well. As a long time AoE fan who played all of them since the first, AoE II is massively overhyped, and AoE III is unfairly shit on.

AoE2 genuinely had a small competitive scene on Voobly and Gameranger. It was being played as a grassroots esport by dedicated fans even before the HD and DE remasters.

One of the third game’s glaring problems was how poorly balanced it was. IIRC the winning strategy was to play French (who already had overpowered cavalry), rush to the third age and use a particular tech to effectively blockade your opponent’s home city and prevent them from playing anything in their deck.

Even when AoE3’s Definitive Edition came out, fixed a lot of the balance issues and added a bunch of new civs via expansions, the damage was already done and sales were so low that Microsoft cancelled their latest expansion and halted development a few months ago.

Also they were voluntold to do Halo Wars, and they did a good job on it. It’s a good game, and it did an excellent job on console with a controller scheme, which was impressive at the time.

Played the Xbox 360 demo of Halo Wars near its initial release and wasn’t impressed. All I really remember about the game beyond that was how bad the box art looked. I mean those spartans look like they have fucking long giraffe necks.

Gamepad controls and real time strategy just don’t mix. You either make something so mechanically slow that keyboard & mouse would shit all over that control style, or have to bastardize the game mechanics so much that it’s all but fully automated. The only game I’ve seen remotely work as a gamepad RTS is Tooth and Tail.

And that’s pretty much what Palestine Action did.

I 100% believe the claim that Microsoft executives mistakenly thought they’ve just nabbed the Donkey Kong IP by acquiring Rare. Definitely seems like something some c-suite ghouls who are totally out of touch with the games industry would believe.

Also, I’m not sure how much of Rare’s downfall was due to Microsoft’s mismanagement or their core talent leaving to form other studios. Maybe a bit of both.