lawl

I just thought you guys should see this.

No homo.

Until next time,
I think I overuse that phrase.
~Kataron

Hotfix the Hotbox

Yesterday marked the release of the Sniper/Spy update in Team Fortress 2.

Each update comes with three alternate weapons, one to replace each of your main weapons. There have been updates for the medic, pyro, scout, and heavy up to this point. So that leaves the Engineer, demoman, and soldier.

But right now we're focussing on the two new ones, the sniper and the spy.

The sniper's main weapon is, of course, the sniper rifle. BUT NOT ANYMORE. Now it's a fuckin' bow. Cool. It fires faster, and can pin people to a wall, but it has somewhat less range, so it's more of a medium-combat alternative.

The sniper's secondary weapon was a small machine gun. Pretty shitty, really. Now it's been replaced with a shield that slows you down a bit, but prevents you from being backstabbed. Because the shield is hooked up to a car battery. Backstab = zap.

The third, final, and by far the most fucked up of all the alternate weapons that I have seen, is....Jarate. Like karate. But with a jar. A jar full of urine. You...throw the jar...at...people.

If the pee strikes an enemy, all damage given to that enemy is amplified by 35%, which, TRUST ME, if you've got one guy attacking you, and all of a sudden you're drenched in urine, you're dead. Also, if you use the ancient art of jarate on an enemy spy, he is unable to cloak until the pee wears off.

...you can also throw your pee onto a friendly unit, to douse fires. Or you could have a pyro on hand to hit them with a compression blast. Air or pee. Take your pick.

The spy update is probably much, much, much cooler.

There are three items being thrown in here, two watches and a gun.

One of the watches, when activated, provides you with a brief moment of safety. By safety I mean if somebody kills you after you've activated it, a corpse of you appears on the ground and you become invisible for eight seconds, but when you become visible again, you make a loud noise. But eight seconds is more than enough for a skilled spy to slip away.

The next watch is a new stealth watch. The old stealth watch is activated via the right click, and you're invisible until the power runs out, which it steadily does. The new watch, you can recharge the power by standing still. But that is the ONLY way to recharge it, so if you're in a hurry, you won't get it. But considering that it can be recharged while IN stealth, it's grand.

The third and final update for the spy is The Ambassador. A shiny shiny shiny handgun that excites me in all the wrong ways. Basically, picture a spy. He's behind you. But you've got a couple dudes around you, he's not sure if he can take you all down with just his trusty knife. So he pulls out the Ambassador. It's essentially a sniper rifle in pistol form, with head shot crits and it packs a mean punch. The only downside is that it fires more slowly, and each shot after the first is less accurate. So you're less likely to take down an incoming pyro with the gun unless you get lucky first shot, but it affords so many new stealth options. When you attack whilst in disguise, you break your disguise, and the only surefire way to make the other guy dead was to get right up behind him and plunge your trusty dagger into his back. Now there's another viable alternative, and that makes me a happy spy.

That's all that for the updates to TF2 this weekend, but one day they will fix up the last three classes. Although I have -no- idea what they would give them.

Oh, and before now, alternative weapons had to be unlocked by getting a certain number of achievements. I've got 29 out of a hundred and something achievements at present, and I've only unlocked the flare gun, and alternate to the pyro's shotgun. An alternate that sets them on fire.

Now they've changed it so that it doesn't really matter what you do, you can just...get the items. I've heard of them being acquired during combat, by people both failing and kicking serious butt, I've heard of items being handed to people that are quite clearly afk, and, shockingly, I have heard of items going to people that are SPECTATING the matches. That's just zany.

But right now, nobody knows the system for acquiring them, and there have been reports that there is a minor glitch in it. I for one played for...somewhere between three and six hours tonight, and I unfortunately did not come by any new weapons. Valve seems to have confirmed that yes, there is a bug in the system, and that items should be going out more often than that.

But yeah, all in all it's been a fun night.

And I ended up in third place on my team's score, and the first place guy had been playing on that server for most of the night, while I was fairly fresh. Felt good. I didn't bother trying with the spy or the sniper, I stuck with something I knew, something I was good at. Spraying hot fire at my allies in case one of them was a spy. Spy update, after all, more spies and snipers roaming around than ever before.

Until next time,
I hope they give the Engineers scorpions. I could honestly care less HOW they manage it, but scorpions are always cool. Scorpions.
~Kataron

Bass

Evenin', folks.

Not much has changed in the life of Nate, still looking for work, sending out resumes via the magic of the interwebs, haven't gotten much response yet. It is disheartening.

On the plus side, our Ulduar raids in WoW have gone really well, and I'm also improving in Team Fortress 2.

In Ulduar, we've manged to clear the first boss, the two optional bosses, the giant robot boss, the Council boss(es, there's technically three of them in one fight), the giant stone boss with the laser eyes, the crazy cat lady, and one of the guardians. There are four guardians, I believe. Freya, Hodir, Thorim, and Mimron or some other spelling. Freya we mostly have figured out, and would have killed her already, but our best attempt was muddled by a rather insignificant screw-up. Interested to see how I perform in there tomorrow night. Thorim is an irritating boss, as the group has to split into two groups, and both groups need to perform perfectly for five minutes or so before meeting up again, and we've had a lot of minor screw-ups. Hodir, we fought for the first time tonight, and we downed him on our fourth try. We had to figure out the fight and let everyong see how it's done. Then we pwned face. The other dude, we've yet to attempt.

So far, I've managed to replace my helmet, shoulders, gloves, pants, melee weapon, and last night I got a new gun. Quite frankly, the gun combined with the helmet makes me look like some sort of riot police dude. And that's pretty cool.

Also I have been topping the meters of late, my damage has been excellent. In a lot of the fights, I come in first, but I'm always in the top five or so if something goes amiss.

Then in TF2 news, they're doing a Spy/Sniper update this weekend. Very exciting, very exciting. Giving the snipers a bow, a shield, and a...jar....of....fluid....

....
.......

And the spies get a few neat new toys too, a watch that makes a corpse of them appear without actually killing them to confuse enemies, a stealth watch that recharges if you stand still without having to turn it off, and a BADASS new pistol.

Psyched to give those a try.

But it's late, my head hurts, and I am tired.

Until next time,
What's that? You want me to Misdirect onto the mage?
~Kataron

Praise You

Hey bitches.

So I just spent the better part of a week in Rockwood, and picked up a few toys. By toys, I mean knives. I got a throwing knife that used to belong to my dad's friend Wayne before he died in a tragic accident. I miss that guy. But somehow my dad inherited the throwing knife, and whenever I've been working with him, I've played with it, because he keeps it in his tool pouch. Or did, because he just gave it to me. I now like to keep it in my back pocket, pretty much regardless of where I am or what I am doing. I went grocery shopping with it today, I went to the movies with it today, and it went completely unnoticed. Only the tip of it is really that sharp anyway, I just like fiddling with it.

Also I got a pocket knife from cleaning out my dad's truck. He found it and decided I should have it. THAT blade is sharp.

But yeah. New toys!

I also got to hang out with Kate last night, which was a lot of fun. I slapped her butt. It was good times. We hung out with James at a bonfire at his place, then went to the bar where we proceeded to sit around and then leave. Riveting. I dislike most drunk people. But yeah, it was fun.

Uhhh....Anything else happen...Let's see....

I dunno. Anyways, I'm back in Kitchener, and tonight we went to see the new Star Trek movie. I don't really have much money, but apparently that shit is only six fifty, and it's a five minute walk from my house. We didn't walk, 'cause James' lady came with us, but god dammit that means I can go to the movies whenever I want, and it's not that expensive! Gonna see the new Wolverine movie soon, I think.

Anyways, I quite enjoyed the movie. It was well done. All the actors were remarkably well-suited for their roles. Kirk, Spock (or should I say Sylar?), Bones (I was most impressed with him, because it was a long ways away from his normal roles. Karl Urban normally does more...well...badass roles. Pathfinder, Chronicles of Riddick, Lord of the Rings.), even Simon Pegg and John Cho, they did their roles very well. And there was enough Star Trek humour and references to the original to keep Rick, James, and myself laughing. Even an "I'm a doctor, not a ---" line. It was good times.

I recommend it to anyone that likes Star Trek as a whole, and I for one hope that it revitalizes the industry and produces a new Star Trek show. Or at the very least, SOMETHING science fiction. What happened to the good old days of Star Trek, Andromeda, and whatever the fuck else I used to watch? Give me back my science fiction!

Uhhh....

What else...

I forget things...

At any rate, it has come to my attention that there is a new episode of Kateokyoushi Hitman Reborn, so I'm off to do that.

Until next time,
I have to pee, but I think someone just went into the washroom. I am upset.
~Kataron

Duke Nukem For Never

This just in, folks. 3D Realms have closed their doors. This is the production team that has been working on Duke Nukem Forever...well...Forever. For like the last ten years...And now, bazzam. Kaboom. Another generic explosion sound effect.

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about this. On one hand, a trailer released last year made the game look good, but...Well, this game has been on the edge of creation for ten goddamn years. And a recent news article indicated that it was almost complete.

So what will become of Duke Nukem's adventures? Another company still retains the rights to the game, and may push it towards another company. But then what will happen to all the work done thus far? Will it just get thrown into a recycle bin somewhere, to be emptied at their leisure? God dammit, these are things I want to know.

Anyways, just thought you should all know. Most of you don't care, but....Well, that's not important to me.

Until next time,
I have a staff. This is my armory.
~Kataron

Adelaide

Hey bitches.

Well, I'm feeling all better. I can't remember if I was healthy during my last post.

Last week was good. Eric came over. We set up our computers in the living room and spent the week playing WoW and watching dozens of DVD's on James' projector. It was good times.

Oh, and I got that turtle. I forget if I mentioned that. Really low drop rate, had to fish for my entire goddamn illness to get that fucker.

Here's pictures. LINKLINKLINKCLICKTHISFUCKERLINKLINKLINK. Scroll down a bit and you'll see all kinds of screenshots submitted by assorted bitches, most of whom got theirs long before me. I think when I got mine, there were...four? Four other people in the guild that had found them. But god dammit, it's the cuttest goddamn thing I've seen in the fucking game. Awesome.

It does this one thing with its head where it just lifts it up and looks around for a sec. And every time it does that, I think "AWWWW TURTLE". But...In a manly way. 'cause I'm manly.

So it occured to me recently that I don't really have a backstory for my WoW character. I mean, I'm basically an alcoholic that likes guns. So...A Dwarf. I figured the character was just born and raised in Ironforge until he wanted to strike out and make his own mark, and then took up a gun.

So I came up with something tonight to better explain it, when I was on a walk with Eric. Kataron's parents in the game are just a couple blacksmiths, hanging out in Ironforge doing blacksmithy things. You know, hammering metal...Smelting stuff....That sort of thing? Shit, I don't know. Anyways, I figure that at some point after the third war, Kataron's uncle came to check on the family to ensure that everyone was safe. I haven't decided on a name for him yet, but his uncle was sort of the black sheep of the family. The rest of them were blacksmiths and miners, while the uncle was a hunter and trapper. Kataron had been raised as a blacksmith his entire life, and was incredibly bored of it. When his uncle took him out of the first time and taught him how to shoot, he knew that the wilderness was where he belonged. He gave up everything he had in Ironforge, and apprenticed with his uncle instead, who taught him how to train an animal companion, how to set traps, and whatever else a hunter does.

So I figure that's a decent backstory. At least, it's better than the shit I came up with when I first applied to the Kingship. MAN I was drunk.

Also, I discovered recently that there is a channel called "koekinky". It was mentioned on vent as a joke, and I decided to /join it, and it turned out Johanus was in there. Nobody else joined, so it's still just Johanus and I. I lol'ed.

Oh, and I watched Fanboys tonight. Fantastic, but it had the same problem that most goddamn movies have these days. Unneccesary romantic entaglements. I mean, Jesus, can I get one movie where none of the main characters have some big relevation and hook up with the girl of their dreams? Granted, Kristen Bell in a Princess Leia slave outfit was boner-inspiring (ha, I just said that.), but god dammit nonetheless. And as a note, this doesn't really give away any plot, because she is the only real female character in the movie.

Anyways, it's just about three in the morning, so I'm gonna call it a night.

Oh, and in case you didn't guess from me saying I was out for a walk with Eric, I'm in Rockwood for a couple days. Was gonna come on the weekend, but my parents were up at the pond and Jared and Megan weren't back from Florida yet. Jared just had his first day of work today, I hope it went well!

Also I hope that our home is not being beseiged by zombies. And if it is, god dammit Jared, I've said since we moved in that we need bars in that window.

Until next time,
I was amused by the hatred between Trekkies and the main characters in the movie, probably mostly because I like both Star Wars and Star Trek. I'm Star Bi, as it were. No homo.
~Kataron