collared

[spatch]

Mr. The Cat got a birthday present yesterday in the form of a brown leather collar just right for an indoor cat. The eventual goal is to get one of those special tags that say IF YOU CAN READ THIS I'M A DOOFUS CAT WHO IS LOST SO PLEASE CALL 617-FEED-ME or whatever, though with the price of tag printing I don't think I'll use that many letters. Abbie's collar benefactor assured me this was the best collar she could find for him as the other ones featured rhinestones and other sparkly things, and while Mr. Abbie is many things, the Pretty Pretty Princess of Cookieville he is not.

I anticipated a major struggle putting the collar on him. He's never worn one before, and our adventures with a walking harness ten years ago (my god, has it really been 10 years?) ended in humorous disaster: he fought with me when I tried to put it on, I took him outside and all he wanted to do was eat dirt, then I brought him inside and he fought with me again while I tried to take the darn thing off. Flashbacks of trying to give him pills also ran through my mind, and before I went to collar the cat I invited people to say good bye to my arms in their pristine, unshredded, pink/fishbelly white state.

I did decide to get a little wily, though, and doped him up good with catnip beforehand. He snuffled along the floor like a little vacuum cleaner and proceeded to get very mushy. I picked the gargantuan beast up (he's back to 20+ pounds, all right) and put the collar around his neck. Amazingly enough, he didn't get fussy at all. He squirmed a bit when I was trying to buckle it, but it was hard trying to maneuver under all that fur. At no time did he switch to DO NOT WANT mode, and I was very impressed and proud of him and ended the session by giving him more catnip and stressing that he is a Very Good Cat Indeed. I'm not sure if it was the catnip or his general disposition that made him so easy-going, but I was real happy that it didn't end in tears. He doesn't mind wearing the collar at all; I watched him afterwards to see if he'd start showing any slinking signs of WHAT THE HELL MAN but he didn't. In fact, he curled right up to me and dozed off purring while I played Oblivion and went all Ghostbusters on some Ayelid ruins.

The end result is that he now has a dapper brown collar which you can't really see unless you look for it, and if you come by, please do look for it and tell him that it does indeed make him a most handsome fella, because I can only say it so many times before it loses sincerity.

Comments

[spatch]

I've actually been playing the XBox version, so any mods I'd use would be official downloadable ones I'd have to pay for and I don't have the money just yet for that. There are some nice side quests available, though, from what I saw, and a neat mage's tower that you can't own but can probably be a squatter in once you clear it out of all its evil or whatnot. I'm currently playing a hybrid Imperial blade/destruction/sneak/restoration/heavy armor dude so as to maximize my Fun Potential, and I'm just levelling as I go along. Stat points are allocated on the D2 model of "what do I need right now? Carry more stuff, have more mana magicka, or -- ooh, a +5 to that..." so I'm not really micromanaging, just having fun in the environment and yes, it's incredibly immersive. It's one of the few games where I really don't mind taking the horsey along the roads instead of using quick travel for the most part. And the dungeon crawling is rockin.

I found it's much easier to begin this way because two of the earliest quests you can get (the haunted ship in Anvil and the Honorblade in Chorrol) give you a sword and shield combo that can't be beat through the early part of the game. Even if you don't bother recharging the longsword, it's slightly better than the other ones you could get at that point and the shield has some reflect damage on it which, I think, is given even if you're not blocking.

I just found a shirt that gives me mercantile points and it looks swell when you're going all sneaky-sneaky thru the night to steal stuff, so I'm getting to the part where the gold starts to flow.

[ikkarus01.livejournal.com]

If you like sneaky-sneakering (and really, who doesn't?), then I definitely recommend downloading the Pirates' Cave or Whatever They Call It add-on. Dude. Pirates. It takes a little investing to get the place ship-shape (har!), but once you do you'll get to send your little pirate band out a'pillaging and earn yourself some nice scratch for the trouble.

[grumqa.livejournal.com]

That's one cool thing about Oblivion. I'm playing an entirely different game, it seems. Don't remember either of those quests. I either just wandered around cleaning out bandit lairs or occasionally dropped in on the main plot to see how it was doing. (Hint: if you go get Brother Martin, but then never take him where he wants to go, you have a free companion, albeit one who fusses about Weynon Priory a lot.) I tried stealing stuff, but didn't like it. I kind of alternated between a nordic mace/fireball/healing guy and a bow/illusion/alteration type that didn't steal but was still sneaky, mostly for the purpose of putting arrows in things. But then either I wound up being crap with the bow, or I made it a major skill and I levelled like mad.

Now I'm wondering if it would be effective to get really good at alchemy too, and have Arrows of Debilitating Effect. I forgot how that mechanic works.