What I should do, and what Payday 2 should really not do

So it's another year past, and now is the time for some serious reflection of what we've done, what we did but shouldn't of done, and what we should of done but didn't.

And if you're still following me after that mess of the sentence, now is also the time to look at things we should do in the new year... and what things we really should do but probably won't.

Unfortunately all this introspection has been interrupted by the that is what I've done is had about four Christmas dinners in as many days, which is quite frankly now starting to look like something I've done but shouldn't, whilst simultaneously making me realise what I should of done but didn't was eat less. Thinking on this subject a bit more, this puts me to mind that next time the season swings round is that what I should do is to eat less of the turkey / chicken / beef, and in all honestly that's definitely something I really should do but won't.

So while I'm absent of genuine thoughtful introspection, at least I'm being efficient.

Eh, close enough.

In my complete defence, I don't want to see another chocolate for at least the next... seventeen minutes. Now that may seem flippant, but considering I'm sitting waist deep in a pile of gifted chocolate it's kinda inescapable. I've been filing it away under the 'well, that's a flat surface' method and I am one sneeze away from a death via a chocolate avalanche. Which while this death is incidentally number seven of my top ten list of preferred ways to die, is not something I intend to do tonight. I mean, I've yet to see the new Sherlock, so that death can at least wait until later in January.

So with a lack of anything intelligent to talk about I'm going to waffle on about Payday 2 for a bit.

Now Payday 2 is a game where you play a bunch of organised criminals pulling various heists, from simple jewellery store robberies, to bank hold ups and more elaborate schemes: one has you steal a variety of sold paintings to add tiny cameras to the frames to enable you to see inside a penthouse apartment of a man you were paid to frame by planting somewhere in the region of half of Columbia's annual cocaine production in their personal vault. So it's not same-y, is what I'm trying to say.

It has one of the best weapon modification systems I have ever seen implemented in a video game, and you can also modify the masks that you wear as well for an added bonus. You also can level up with a variety of skills in different trees; I'm currently managing a blend of enforcer and mastermind. As an enforcer, I get heavier armour more damage and terror output, while as a mastermind I provide a variety of buffs to my team. I was originally attracted to the mastermind by one of it's skill descriptions, Stockholm Syndrome - civilians you have threatened have a chance to help you up if you've been downed.

My crew's plans normally blend between stealthy and brutal - the first twenty minutes agonizingly eliminating patrolling guards and security cameras before kicking down the doors and screaming GET DOWN ON THE FLOOR. GET DOWN ON THE FUCKING FLOOR. NO HEROES. NO FUCKING HEROES. I SWEAR TO GOD I WILL FUCKING KILL ANYONE WHO FUCKING LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE MOVING. AND THEN I WILL SHOOT TWO MORE FUCKING PEOPLE AS A LESSON. NOT. TO. BE. A. FUCKING. HERO.

That bit is admittedly a rather disturbing amount of fun. So all good, right? Eh... well...

Payday 2 is one of the most unfair, cheap games I have even encountered.

Once the stealth fails, at higher difficulties, you basically have to restart as there's no way you have enough firepower to blow away the five million police in riot gear that were chillin' just two minutes down the road. That's fine, no worries. However, some missions decide the Fuck You approach, like having a chance to spawn extra guards (whom you can only kill so many before the police gets automatically notified) in areas already cleared, turning a twenty minute prep into wasted time. And certain missions you can't even stealth, so you're fighting Bulldozers all the time who only go down when you've fired enough lead to physically pin them to the floor by sheer weight. Who can also spawn in cleared areas on stealth missions, for funsies. You're never safe - enemies can, will, and do just appear.

It doesn't feel fair, and you start feeling really cheated. You realise that in a lot of missions; success depends entirely on luck - will their be three trucks, or two? Will the escape van come here, or over there? Will the guard notice me this time, or will he not? Will there be a fucktonne of Bulldozers, or a metric fucktonne of Bulldozers? As you don't get paid until you do enough missions to get to the titular payday - and a few times now, me and a crew have played for hours failing repeatedly until everyone realises they aren't having fun. And I admit that while I'm not that good, everyone else on my crew is, so ham-fistedness ain't the issue.

So you quit. Wasting all your time with no payout. And as money is needed to do EVERYTHING in game that's painful. And rage-inducing. So you grind the missions that don't have the fun and interesting twists to them to get the much needed cash, because those twists, while original, isn't worth the unfairness.It doesn't help that I also feel the DLC is unfair - without the Gage Pack 1, you have no grenades, and most the guns in the Gage Pack are better and cheaper then any other equivalent, giving a pay-to-win vibe.

Right now it's a balancing act, and it's tipping into the 'why bother?' point, which is worrying, because it's definitely fun. So much to scream at people and out wit the police, cackling into the night. Tragically, that fun is dependant on the game's internal mood and chance. I worry that without some behind the scenes balancing and tinkering, this game will fall off my recommend list. Don't pick it up at full price, is what I'm saying.

It has convinced me however that on my to not-do list for next year, that I should never try to actually rob a bank. And the stats back me up here.




Payday 2 is available here, but check out the Steam Store for the holiday sales and Kinguin when out of season for a discount.

cock sex boobs - the filters are here to stay

Okay. Are we all sitting comfortably?

So remember when I absolutely exploded over the shit-for-brains scheme to ban all porn on the internet via the infallible means of filters? It's my most popular post bar Guns Of Icarus thus far, so some of you read it. Well, it turns out that after all that screaming and yelling the bill was sunk for it being laughably stupid yet horrifying. And so the world was a more sane, happier place.

Ha.

Ha ha ha ha.

It's funny because the world isn't that kind.

Because it's back. Oh, it's back. Instead of making a law about it, most of our internet providers have been leaned on to create their own bloody filters. So now let's have a look at this undemocratic filter applied to us...

Hmm, Ben Goldacre, what witty delights do you have for me today... ah.. er...

What.

Excuse me a moment. You know, I had this big 'I told you so' built up for the this, because that does mention sexual health, something I did say would be ended up blocked. I had a dance prepped and everything, which was very difficult to convey by the median of word. But I... don't want to do it any more. I failed to ever imagine that 'respect' for your sexual partner would be something necessary to get rid of.

WHAT THE ACTUAL SWEET FUCKING FUCK.

Oh, I made a tasteless joke instantly, telling my partner to get back in the kitchen until it was pointed out that respect could also mean not knocking your partner from room to room like a football. So I started out being not funny, and I was immediately one-upped to being depressed. Oh and look, the Edinburgh Women's Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre's website is blocked as 'pornographic.'

Welcome to the eve of 2014. We block information to not treat your loved ones like a human punching bag.

Or to rape them.

Oh, I could be kind, and point out that BT has changed said page.

No, BT, this doesn't answer my questions, you sick slimy shits.

I could be kind, and point out that this is opt out and you have to choose on start up so it's not imposed on you.

But no.

No. This doesn't deserve kindness.

This is absolutely abhorrent. Considering we have almost every person who was on 1980s television currently facing charges for paedophilia, you'd think we'd want plenty of sexual education out there. Nope. Nada. Zip.

It is disgusting that BT would think that this is something that anyone would want to block. It is disgusting that is anyone would want that blocked, that BT is happy to enable that. It is disgusting that after being called out on this callous shit BT is still offering it as an option.

I will never grant BT my business again. It's not much, but it's all I have.

Er, I should probably add a few lines about how awful it is to block homosexual related content, especially because many teens discover their sexuality may find little support from home or immediate friends, so the internet is a safe place to seek help. And that's true. It's just that there's a lot of rage up here, and it's having to fight for a place, and I keep coming back to the whole 'not rape' thing. But you can just consider some close-minded parents blocking sexual education content in an attempt to keep their children on the literal straight and narrow. How bloody charming.

Make no mistake, for all the smiling Davy boy does, this the person he is. This is the things he wants.

The sad thing is... among many sad things, admittedly, is that the original bill, the original start to all of this, had nothing to do with web blocks. That was tacked on at the end. It was originally about granting digital ownership rights. Yeah, that music in your iTunes library, those games in Steam, your Photoshop on you desktop? They'd be yours. Free to trade, loan or return, like any other physical thing you own. That would of been amazing, and sorely needed.

Instead the porn thing got tacked on, and torpedoed the bill. We now no longer have digital rights for our property. But we still have this fucking evil filter. And make no mistake, anything that would take education and banish it is, without any preamble, is evil.

It's not over though. Look at that list. What's that? Extremist websites are to be blocked. Extremists. What's extremist, anyway? We don't really have a definition. The hate shriekers? The dissidents? Is it The Guardian, constantly leaking documents from Snowden, if they're endangering intelligence agents, isn't that extremist? Best get rid of that criticism... These filters have moved so far beyond the supposed menace of porn, and this is what we have now. Freedom of information is no more.

Welcome to 2014. This is what my country does now.

My Christmas gift to you is an extension to Chrome that will bypass this horror.

Because fortunately, as despicable as my leaders are, they are mercifully inept.

Christmas gets in the way of all the nice things

Would you believe it, but it turns out - I am actually really bloody busy. It's almost like there's a big festive thing or season happening.

So. Er.

I have something in the works, it'll hopefully be out tomorrow. After that, I'll be intermittently updating until January. I have lots of rage and bile ready, so that'll be nice and Christmasy.

It's not work food unless it's more grease than protein

Well, clearly, with the death of Nelson Mandela the only thing left now to do is to look over his life, his achievements, the controversy, his place in the world and-

-wait.

I did a serious-ish post last week. So this week it's a silly week. Phew!

Oh thank god. That topic was going to require actual research and effort. And there was no way I was going to be able to handle the death of such a momentous person without seriously stepping up my game, so we'll pass on it.

Today we'll take about the weakness of work food.

You know, it should be something simple to get correct. You have workers. They get hungry. You have a place to serve them food. But I've never worked in a place where it's one hundred percent. The one I go to now is the best I've ever had, but there's still a couple of items on the menu I'd only suggest to the brave and foolhardy. They're also not the greatest regarding timing - you're free to specify when you'll turn up to collect your order, but they haven't quite mastered the knack of having it ready. They seem to believe when you turn up is right about time to start cooking, which is kinda defeating the whole purpose of ordering ahead of time. Not a big deal... unless, of course, it's eating up your break, damn it.

It doesn't help is that it's also expensive. You get to do the great weigh up - how many hours of work do I need to do to afford a coke and a sandwich? For those commuting by train, you could depressingly see half you work day vanish to train fares and food before you actually start making money. Hoi. Of course, even more saddening is the fact that while I whine about the price I'm pretty sure attempting to buy the same things in Tescos would cause me to spend the same, if not more, so yes, it's subsidized - but food is expensive and wages are low.

The cheapest canteen I every experienced was when I worked at a supermarket, because their was no way in hell any employee would accept even a moderate mark-up when they all knew the true value of the product. It was impossible to slip something past them, especially when everyone could list off a dozen quick and harmless ways a pallet of foodstuffs could be perfectly edible yet unsellable to the customers. Oh look, a pallet of biscuits fell over. Bugger. Not sellable now, they're all broken. Anybody want a biscuit, help me clean up?

One place I worked at had no on-site facilities bar a kettle and a fridge, which was meant to contain a Mars bar and a coke for the diabetics in case their blood sugar went dangerously low because going into a coma would hurt productivity. Well, I say meant, but often some mystery dudes got thirsty and the munchies and the fridge was more often then not devoid of the essential sugary life savers. You'd just have to hope your coma day did not fall on one of those days. It did however have a selection of milk; ranging from 'two more days until becoming cheese,' and 'two more days until reaching sentience and applying for a job.' Though in fairness that is every work fridge. It's simply not a work fridge without milk that's older then the building, actively trying to escape.

2009? Pssh. It'll fine for at least another week.

The best bit was that there was a couple of snack related options, with a small greasy cafe down the road. It was sort of place that decided that arteries were fuckin' pussies and declared war on them. The best bit was that if you decided you were done for today, you'd order something that contained sausages.

After consuming the aforementioned assuages, you wouldn't have to wait long. Twenty minutes later, you'd be gripping the porcelain toilet bowl so hard you'd leave dents as your body tried to flush it's innards out of every available orifice. After the screaming and sounds something suspiciously similar to water balloons bursting against the wall so fast enough to be fired by a machine gun, you'd slither along the floor to someone sort of in charge and mournfully and weepily announce that you ate the sausages. They'd sigh, and tell you to go home, presumably powered not by your own legs but by a torrent of repulsed food eaten fourteen years ago.

Somehow, somewhere, our group collective decided that this was worth it to bugger off home early, possibly giving credence to the theory that madness is contagious. They even tasted funny, yet still we all brought them. Personally I suspect the cafe was a front for the mob, getting rid of bodies for a profit. But they were so cheap! How could you turn them down?

Honestly, it's probably healthier for employees to drive forklifts into the walls then eat this stuff.

Considering it takes around twenty four hours for food poisoning to kick in, that doesn't even make sense. It's like the 'food' offended your body on some basic level. Admittedly, what made less sense was that we kept buying them. Though in truth this tangent is less about the inferiority of work based canteens and more the insanity of man. I hope that sooner or later, much like John Snow removing the pump handles to prevent further cholera, someone civic minded torched the place down for public safety. But considering the sheer amount or grease that cafe produced, it was one errant cigarette butt away from that fate anyway.

Another great one is the food van man. Or van woman. Whatever. They come around in a van, (duh) metal and possibly shiny, that open up their sides to reveal a cornucopia of food primarily designed to inflict heart attacks and workers going for just that little bit longer. Our original food van man had a van that was at first a sleek silver van but by the time I started work had developed a patina of filth thick enough to turn it grey. But he had a notebook to have tabs and served coffee hot enough to hopefully kill anything in it that, with a shot of Dettox for everything. For many people, that was enough.

My favourite moment is when we had a second food van man turn up at the same time as the original food van man. Only the second guy had a van that was clean. The lack of sludge coating was almost intimidating. The queue of people immediately shuffled over, and the first food man would glare hatefully at the second, not seeming to understand people who need coffee will drink coffee with grime on it, but not if they have options.

Everyday this would repeat. You'd of thought the first guy would recognise that competition is best fought by improving you game, but as this sales dwindled his van started getting even grubbier, which was sort of impressive in a horrifying way. Eventually, he wouldn't even get a queue when he arrived first - we'd all be waiting for the same who served his coffee sans e.coli, thank you very much. Victory complete, the second food man became our only food man, until he got wind of an impending site move and sold his van to another, who was blissfully unaware in a few months his biggest source of revenue was about to skip town. God bless you ridiculously savvy second food van man. You are a legend.

I should probably get back on topic, but all I can think about is the fact after what I've eaten, and what I've seen people eat, it is a miracle we're all still alive. Now excuse me...

I have a hankering for a sausage roll and chips.

So when do I get my 11% pay rise? I'm already paying for it, after all

Oh boy. So. In my country, we have a relatively new system of determining our Members of Parliament's pay. We used to allow them to vote for their own pay rises, which went on for quite the while before we all cottoned on to the fact that quite frankly that is one of the stupidest ideas ever. Of course, we as a country only coined this after the parliamentary expenses scandal in 2009 where it was discovered it shockingly turned out with no oversight on the public purse that people can, will, and did dip their hands into it freely and often. So in 2009 IPSA, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority was created to administer MP's pay. And as was well forever and ever...

...until they just announced that MPs will be privy to an 11% pay rise. Woo!

Okay. That 2009 expenses scandal wasn't that long ago, and it's still fresh in people's minds as every know and again somebody claims something silly on expenses and the public gets all irritable at it. The public sector has been on an 1% frozen pay increase for a fair few years now, and will continue to be on it until at least 2016. And to top it all off, it has also been revealed that over half the people currently in poverty do actually have jobs. Really. It's almost like that whole "we're only in debt because of those jobless shirkers" mantra I've been hearing for ages in complete horse shit as it turns out that yes, the country has basically been suffering a colossal pay cut these last few years.

Could... could I get an 11% pay rise? I mean, Jesus, all I've ever been privy to is cost of living rises (which are weirdly enough always set below inflation) and those have never been in the ten's of percent. Look at me, writing a little blog on the internet. Do you think I've ever seen a pay rise in the ten's of percent? Ha!

My feet are cold because the heating's expensive.

I know how you feel, blanket dog.

The only good news thus far is that the current message is austerity and cutting costs, and there is no utter way any MP could accept this pay rise without looking like the biggest hypocrite and douche known to humanity. Unless your Sir Peter Bottomley, who thinks this pay rise is fine. And while I've put his name down here to display my dislike of that man, at least he's honest enough to say he wants the phat cash - as research from IPSA claim's that two thirds of MPs believe they're underpaid. Aw. Bless. So while many MPs are crawling out the woodwork to lament this pay rise, they've mostly be passing on the message discreetly about having more phat stacks, please.

I mean, seriously, what the fuck IPSA? Seriously? You ask a bunch of - for a lack of better term - employees if they want more money and because most of them said yes you shrug and went along with it? And then choose to go along with it hardcore? Really? Any normal work place would of had near enough 100% saying yes please, more wonga, the only reason it was as low as 66ish% is because you are taking to a group of people whom many of which are either independently wealthy or savvy enough to not ask for more money from the public coffers when the public are not cool with that. Probably because the public's feet are cold because they can't afford heating anymore.

11 fucking percent. 11 fucking percent! I'd kill a man for 11 bleedin' percent, which just goes to tell you how little I'm paid. Whilst Sir Peter Bottomley has been all for the pay rise, as least the defence seceraty Philip Hammond, has acknowedgely that asking the public sector to show pay restraint while not exercising it themselves is wrong. However there's been no leaders stepping forward to say clearly that their party will be turning the raise down, because many MPs want the pay raise, who have been seeing real wages fall admittedly - real wages triple the national average, but who's counting?

On the one hand, I want to sit here and attempt fairness by looking at MP's wages and debating the impact differing wages would have on social makeup. After all, the very reason a salary was introduced to MPs was to enable a more diverse Parliament, because before the only people who could afford to dedicate their time to serving in parliament were the rich, as everyone else had to get on with their day jobs, which at the time was probably something like blacksmithing, being a peasent or dragon fighting or something.

Dragon populations in Britain back then were much higher, with greater territories then today's Welsh and Scottish highlands. I'm alledgedly historian, trust me on this.

So I get that there's a point to the salary, a good point, even It's just that when people say a decreased salary will discourage middle class people from turning their hand at politics all I can say in response is good. If the (relative) low wage turns you off from serving the public, then clearly we don't want you serving the public in the first place. We'll pass it over to someone who cares about the public, not someone who's mostly concerned with the bottom line.

However if you are going to sell yourselves so completely and utterly on the notion of austerity, it is inconceivable to justify taking such a wage increase whilst simultaneously demanding that every one around you to tighten their belts. I will be monitoring, using the Freedom of Information Act is necessary, which MPs decide that the dough is too sweet to pass over. I will remember which of those that do.

Sigh. Maybe instead of bitching about politicians I should knuckle up and join them.

At least then I could put my heating bill on expenses and not have cold feet.

Garfield hates Mondays. I loathe them.

You know what's been really pissing me off recently? This:

Yes, because clearly that was Monday's fault.

Fuck you. Fuck you Garfield. You are a fucking cat. Like you understand how tremendously shitty Mondays are.

I work in one of those jobs where it doesn't even have the good grace to enter a stasis time-freeze when I leave for the weekend. No, because that would be bloody kind. When I leave, the job's still happening. Ticking away, over and over. Never ending. So a weekend for me starts to feel like instead of being my time, it's just time when I forced to watch things pile up without me, whilst I'm unable to influence it. I'd rather it just be my only a chance to release the tension by burning something down or playing too much Bioshock Infinite.

CAWCAWCAW MOTHERFUCKERS

God I wish I could spout crows from the skies on command. Work to do? CROWS. Credit card payment due? CROWS. Need to shave? CROWS. Too long line to wait? CROWS. Being unsatisfying in bed? CROWS. Quite frankly, the day they sell a potion on the street corner that allows you to summon an army of murderous carnivorous crows at will is the day society comes to a screaming halt.

Anyway. Garfield's hatred of Mondays.

So really, my weekend is basically less of a weekend and more of two plus days of work not done silently building up in the background, stacking up, over and over on the sly, until it comes crashing down in malicious glee Monday morning. Which would in an ideal world be my entire problem, and thus not really worth complaining about. But no! Work is a harsh mistress, who is not done with me. Because I work on the dispatch end of sales, throughout the day, I get to see my impossible in-tray fill even bloody higher due to sales still fucking happening, from those anonymous selfish pricks who keep my job afloat.

Honestly, I have no idea how people manage to work in retail. Whenever I see another sale come through on my already silly busy schedule, I bitch and whine and gripe like a champion. I am the ultimate 200 metre Bitch Fit premier. You have no chance against me. But I can do this in the privacy of my workplace, far away from customers. In retail, you're in the customers eye line and earshot. All the time! How? How do these paragons of saintly patience and infinite tolerance put up with the unremitting torrent of stupidity and busywork their customers spew? And when they're not bothering you with nonsense, they're messing up what was a pristine store. I know how I would deal with it. CROWS.

That shirt display was immaculate before you messed it up! RARGH.

Because customers are stupid. Please. When not at work, I am also a customer of many things. Believe me when I say we customers do stupid and insensitive things all the time as standard sodding practice. We should, as a nation, hell, as a combined species, preface any and all interactions to people behind the counter with an apologetic head bob at our ineptitude and time wasting...

...Unless you are facing people who work at PC World or Currys, because those companies take a perverse delight at hiring people how have no idea about computers. At all. Once I had a man attempt to sell me the malware which is Norton as he said that Microsoft wouldn't update Security Essentials. Er. Wut? Honestly, if you yourself don't know much about computers, bribe an eight year old with chocolate and get them to help you decide what to correctly buy.

It's become a thing recently to try to encourage Black Friday to migrate it's way overseas to here. Seeing that Thanksgiving is a made up fictional holiday, I guess it's fine because at least you get the day off and have too much food. I can support that. But Black Friday? The day of sales notorious for customer related violence? Fuck that. You can keep that tradition, America. Keep it, and we'll share with you the mysterious wonder of Boxing Day. You'll like it! It's a day when you roll around in your own flab, nursing a hangover after over-indulging on Christmas Day. It is honestly the best holiday ever.

What has Garfield got to worry about on a bloody Monday? No, I don't see his declarations as gesture of solidarity with a plebeian such as myself. It's like a politician claiming he understands that all those poor people are going to freeze to death and that's just not jolly well right, is it? Garfield is a overweight cat, living rent free and meals included, like a politician, living with amenities paid for by expenses. No. Fuck your attempt to connect with my woes.

It almost makes me yearn for the time I was unemployed, when days of the week ceased to matter. Why hate Mondays? It's just like every other day... Until you remember the poverty and the depressing shattering of self worth that unemployment brings. But hey, Mondays stop mattering! Yay?

My Mondays are shite. Of course, some people's Monday's are considerably shitter than mine because they have jobs which are actual serious business, or even legitimate danger or great physical effort. But, in absolute fairness, those people aren't me, and thus their problems are not my problems.

So, in summary, go clean your own balls Garfield. I have to go to work tomorrow.

Don't you start.