The Future Rat Problem in Everett

 In Seattle they "took care of" the stray cat problem, reducing the stray population to almost nothing compared to other areas. In downtown Seattle there are virtually no stray cats at all.

But there is something that took over, two pests that carry diseases that can infect and even kill humans. Rats and pigeons, so many of them.

The pigeons are easy to spot, there are thousands and their fecal matter contains enough worms to kill off pretty much any wildlife. Not that any other type of wildlife is even possible in downtown Seattle, but the pigeons won't stay there, they'll spread out and infect surrounding areas until they've decimated all wildlife in western Washington.

The rats in downtown Seattle own the streets, at night you'll see them rummaging around the alleys. With rats they don't all travel at once, if you see one there are at least a dozen in the nest.

Scouts go out to get food and bring it back to the nest, most communal animals behave this way. As a species we learned that we cannot maintain the rodent population, so we adopted a species that would be perfect for reducing the pests, we call them cats.

But because we didn't want to accept the fact we were destroying the environment we started blaming the cats and dogs for the vanishing wildlife. In reality it is our own presence that is devastating the other populations, and only a few species can live in the environment we've created for us.

Of those species, only cats and dogs do carry very few illnesses that can infect us, the others can wipe out our populations in a matter of a few years. The irony being that many of the animals we've pretty much destroyed would prey on cats and dogs, coyotes, eagles, falcons, wolves, bears, etc.

Where cats and dogs can thrive, no other life can thrive but us, meaning we're the ones who drove out or destroyed the wildlife. Our very presence is has shaped the environment, and given we need wildlife it is time we accept the fact that nature gave us life which can live with us and embrace them.

The cat and dog, nature's response to our devastation of the wildlife, and we're destroying them now. In Everett I am starting to see rats who do not fear humans, rummaging for food without fear at all.

If you see one, there are a dozen in a nearby nest, and for every one you don't see there are several in the shadows watching you. This is the future of Everett, another rat infested diseased city just like downtown Seattle.

The scam of neutering and spaying is going to cost us our world, as we vacate these environments we have ruined it would take hundreds of years for them to stabilize and be reclaimed by nature. Given the lack of larger animals, without cats and dogs becoming the new organisms in that environment, many cities would never recover wildlife.

In nature the only constant is change, we've caused a lot of change and it's time we allow the change to just happen instead of swinging to the extremes that created the problems already. We will be replaced by rats, then when they go extinct because we're no longer here there will just be plants, we've already started a great reset of of the planet.

The Veterinary Scams in Everett

 So I am being pressured into neutering Rhodey, even though after 8 years of life it has never been an issue. I decided to get it done rather than deal with the pressure anymore and discovered a serious scam that all vet clinics are running in Everett.

First the "pre-surgery" exam is a total rip off. They charge for a full blood work when all they are concerned with are two levels, two specific chemicals in the blood which the vet glossed over and this cost more than $300 USD.

Then the surgery, at the discount vet it will cost almost $400 USD because he wasn't able to be neutered sooner due to Compass Housing making him ill. Other vets were quoting nearly $1,000 USD.

I am paid only $900 USD per month for disability. The housing authorities keep saying they have to be neutered or spayed, ultimately making it nearly impossible for a disabled person to actually keep their companions unless they are of perfect health and adopted only from the shelters after they are of a certain age.

Basically, the state is telling us what specific therapy we must have for something that is clearly a very personal thing even when it causes no harm. You see, Rhodey never sprays and he is never out of the apartment unless he's in my control, he is literally the most perfect male cat possible because I actually know how to care for and manage a cat, that is why they are my preferred companions, otherwise I would have chosen a different companion.

I actually understand felines better than I understand the ape known as homo sapiens, or as the low brow like to call us: humans. Humans suck.

Gaming For Fools

 There is a very long running problem with video games of late, one which is utterly destroying the industry. It's sad because the fans know why, but seem unable to to simply stop buying the garbage that has been released lately.

First I must demand no more zombies!!!! Seriously, this wasn't even that great in the early games, why are there so many zombie based games being bought? Stop buying them, if the theme is "zombie" then just avoid it, pretend it doesn't exist.

Zombies were used as a single and rare encounter in older games, one encounter of many. Even games like Resident Evil didn't focus on the zombie, they were just the first thing you see before the really scary stuff started chasing you.

Now they are the staple, the primary encounter. Zombies are cheap, and any bugs or glitches can be ignored as "expected zombie behavior" which excuses the laziness we now see in developers. But it's up to us gamers to stop paying for this laziness, so stop buying games where zombies are the primary protagonist.

Now the rot that this has created, while the developers have been awarded for their laziness they made it a feature of all games now. Even Minecraft is becoming one massive mess of bugs, glitches, and poorly implemented additions.

All the newest content for most of the major games are a mess, sloppy and hastily thrown together to try to remain relevant while the fans jump on the "next big thing" which ends up being a huge flop anyway. To the developers I say: 

Stop worrying about the fad hoppers, they'll always come back, take your time and get back to what you love doing. The profits will always be there.

To the fans, stop jumping on fads just because the developers of said fad paid a streamer or youtuber to play their game. Preordering, getting early access, it's just a bad idea.

Games like Valheim and Last Oasis turned into huge flops, but because everyone was rushing to those the Ark developers panicked and released two buggy messes full of redundant grindfest content known as Genesis and Genesis 2.

Minecraft developers got so lazy they decided to merge into the Xbox ecosystem. This merging added so many bugs and problems that this move will actually kill off the Java version.

Conan Exiles was the first to fall prey to this problem with the release of Isle of Siptah, breaking many of the core mechanics in the game and ruining the graphics system in a sorry attempt to beat the rush to newer games. The only games that seem to maintain composure during this mess are Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy 14.

I don't like FF14 anymore, but it's not because they rushed the production, it's because one of the stories they released broke the lore too much for me to appreciate. GW2 is going strong though, looking forward to the End of Dragons expansion, even pre-ordered it because I trust they'll release it when it's finished and not a day sooner.

So what made the successful ones so great before they broke? Newness, that's it, they each offered something completely new to the genres they focused on.

But all of the newer games are not doing that, Last Oasis tried but it was too little of a thing to build an entire game from. Valheim was just a low end version of Conan Exiles, so I have no idea why anyone even thought that was worth the purchase.

But in spite of the mistakes made by the developers, the primary fault lies in the fans. Everyone flocking to something that's "the best new thing" and then never returning to the games that still hold up in spite of their flaws hurts the developers, they think they lost everyone to a fad so they start moving to projects that are just more short term fads.

This makes game development a fool's game.