86 - Lolz Famous, a New Toon and a New Cat.

Eep. A bit of a larger gap than usual, but I've actually been quite busy. Things are going well over at Massively, with my last column being linked on the BBC News Technology site, which resulted in us/me getting plenty of attention, so I spent last weekend feeling very pleased with that fact that I was famous on teh intarwebz for a while.

This writing malarkey has turned out to be a bit more work than I realised. That being said though, it's really more a case of me not being firmer with myself and sitting down to write on a schedule, and instead firing up WoW "just for a half hour". I'm sure you can all relate to that. Regardless, I'm enjoying having a platform from which I can bang on about whatever takes my fancy - it's a huge opportunity, and I'm really grateful that I've got the cahnce. More than one member of my family has told me, "You never know what it'll lead to..." I think they may be over-estimating things a bit, but I suppose they have a point.  The one downside to the freedom I've got in what I write is that I've got to think a bit harder about each week's subject, but that's hardly the end of the world.

I've been up to a few things since I posted last, so let's see if I can't bring you up to speed in a bullet-post styleee.

• I've rolled up a new character in WoW, a female Draenei Warrior named for my girlfriend. This'll be my first time experiencing the game from the Alliance point of view, and I've delibarately rolled a warrior to try my hand at tanking. Joined a casual, laid back guild, which seems like the thing I'm looking for just now. 
• I managed to scrape enough money to buy a new graphics card, a rather tasty Radeon x1950pro, which should prop up my aging rig for a while yet, unfortunately I'm going to have to buy a new PSU to power the f**ker.

Right, this one is a biggie, so it needs more than a bullet point. My dad dropped me an email on Tuesday there, asking if we were still wanting to bring their cat, Tigger, to live with us. Long-time readers may remember that we tried to bring him over to us a while back, only for my dad (being the royal pain in the arse that he is) to change his mind at the last moment. Despite being furious with him, we were still taken with the idea of getting another cat, again, long-time readers may remember the farce that turned out to be. So, we find ourselves in a difficult position. Do we risk taking Tigger and having it all go pear-shaped as it did last time, or do we leave things as they are?
Tigger is probably 14 years old now, so he's getting on a bit for a cat. Mum and dad do love him, but they could certainly take better care of him - when we tried to get him earlier this year, he hadn't been to the vet since before I left home, about 6 years ago. They put him out every night, and he goes to sleep in a box/house/hutch thing that my dad put together for him in the back garden. The box is a fair size, but it certainly doesn't look very warm or dry. Last winter when we had heavy snow for a while, Tigger actually got snowed in! I've asked them repeatedly to just let him stay in and get him a litter box, which they keep saying they'll do, but never actually get around to doing, presumably because they're too lazy.

So - a dilemma. Do we bring Tigger over, knowing that Annie will almost certainly freak out, and that Tigger is a bit old to be moving home, and commit to the several months it may take to just get them to bear one another? Or do we just say 'No', and let Tigger stay where he is, where he's hardly being neglected, but still end up wanting a bit more shelter now that he's a bit older and the weather is getting worse? Money is obviously an issue, with us being bankrupt, but we can cover that by tightening our belts a little more. If we tell our accountants that we had no choice but to take Tigger on, we should be able to account for the increased costs without too much trouble. Hopefully.

In all conscience, there really was no way we could say no. God knows it's going to be tough. I've got the first two weeks of January off, so I can get started on breaking them in then, we'll bring Tigger over just before then. I've told my dad that if, after a couple of months, it's a definite no-goer, then we'll have to bring Tigger back. There's no point in him being with us, warm and cozy and spoilt rotten if he's terrified of Annie or just pining to be back home. I think one of the problems we had last time was that we pushed things a bit too far, too soon. We'll need to go slower this time.