Fallout 3 and babies

So I've been sitting here for a couple of hours now, balancing a pencil under my nose and drawing genitalia on the corner of a piece of paper and I can't seem to come to a conclusion about something that's been troubling me. I've tried experimenting with theories, running computer simulations and drawing up schematics, but they all fall short of solving my mammoth conundrum.

If a fraction and a decimal were to have a baby, what would it be? My first thought was a percentage (Logic: 1 + 1 = 11), but then I swiftly decided that I was a colossal idiot for thinking that. In fact, this whole question is redundant. Let's move on.

I can't actually think of anything major that I want to complain about right now. All of that regular stuff like school, tiredness and women is a little bland and way too overdone for my liking. If it weren't already clear from my previous post, I'm incredibly pessimistic about this upcoming summer and since that pet peeve of mine is sitting on a fence 200 yards away making silly faces and giggling at me, I think I'll turn around and talk about something that I actually want to talk about.


Fallout 3. Aww c'mon, don't feel alienated - I won't get too technical, promise! It's just that a new DLC slithered onto the XBL Marketplace several days ago and I only had the desire (and cash funds) to download it a couple of days ago. I've always admired Bethesda games, and their latest RPG instalment (stolen from Black Isle Studios along with their lunch money and 3 baseball cards) is nothing short of amazingly awesome [/subjectivism].

The locale this time round is a muddy, neglected swamp inhabited by lobotomised tribesmen, a Christian, a brain in a giant glass jar, inbred locals, a gypsy, a British ghoul and a few other oddballs prowling around. You start your divine quest by speaking to a distressed mother standing by a dockland pier who relays to you the worry that her daughter has gone missing, apparently by stowing away on a boat in the direction of the aforementioned hillbilly haven. The bitch didn't seem to have a lot of money, but it's okay, I could always just take her daughter as chattel if she refused to pay me a handsome sum.

So after hopping on board the Duchess Gambit and buying a ticket from the unusually creepy ferryman, I began my journey to the great and wild beyond!

(Spoooooooky :$)

After disembarking, I was immediately tasked with making my way to the Calvert Mansion, a gloomy and dilapidated old building located on top of a hill nearby. The manor's sole humanoid inhabitant, the sarcastic, moustache-twitching Desmond, seemed to be having a little trouble with a hoard of invading tribals and so I took it upon myself to assist him in booting them out the front door.

As the final corpse hit the floor, Desmond swaggered over to me, uttered something that I interpreted as a "thank you" (sounded more like a condescending lecture), and then proceeded to verbally accost me about how he has this 200 year feud with a brain called Mr. Calvert, and that I apparently am the only one handsome enough to infiltrate the tribal stronghold and find out what the fuck is going on with them.

Erm, okay. Starting to feel a little bit taken for granted though.

Anyway, after trudging through the unwelcoming swamps, stopping only to exchange a few passing words with the locals (and by "words" I mean "bullets"), I eventually arrived at what used to be a cathedral, but was currently serving the purpose of a fruit farm/crazy peoples' squat. Turns out I wasn't cool enough to get into their clubhouse just yet, so they directed me to some arbitrary place somewhere about 10 million miles away to get some seeds from the mother of all plants. Fuck me, I hope she knows I'm not a vegetarian.

(I heartily thank the Fallout Wiki for this picture)

What happened next is anyone's guess. It seems that as I went to pick the beloved seeds from the immaculate perennial's womb, the old gal let out a bit of gas which quickly rendered me unconscious. I awoke sometime later to a pounding headache and limbs that felt almost weightless. Night had fallen during my slumber, and so I dazed and confusedly began to backtrack through the forest, stumbling over rocks and shrubbery as I tried to pull myself together.

I remember hearing the gurgling of a contented baby, a floating saw that drew itself jaggedly across the landscape, exploding bottles of my favourite soft drink and the corpses of all I had once held dear to me floating face down in the putrid swamp waters. I remember being told that I was stupid for having fallen for it whilst the trees carved themselves into violins and began playing for me. I remember seeing the skeleton of my mother lying listlessly on the very same table on which she died.

I remember waking up drenched in cold sweat.

Discontentedly, I made my way back towards the cathedral.


Bleh. So I arrive back, get welcomed into the community, discover that part of my brain has been removed but still somehow find the enthusiasm and energy to continue on my quest. Or make that quests; remember that missing daughter?


I suppose this is what you would get if Fiona from Shrek and Jade Goody began a lesbian relationship and had a secret lovechild (shut up). Anyway, the unprecedentedly aggressive little brat seemed to be having a bit of an inner conflict; she neither liked her new friends, nor wanted to leave without partaking in a good, old adventure first.

Well she patched up my head a little, gave me some very important information and told me to let her mother know she'd be back "eventually". Meh. It was no more exciting than all the spelunking and reporting back to Lord 'Tash that was next up on my Obedient Bitch checklist.

I eventually got the point where Mr. Brain had reduced Tashman's house to flaming pile of cinders and dog remains, and so the former took it upon himself to end this feud once and for all by storming the nearby lighthouse where Brainy was apparently hiding. I don't really know why he couldn't have found this out a lot sooner, since there wasn't really that much of an explanation as to why he all of a sudden discovered that his arch-nemesis had been hiding just down the road from him these past two centuries, but what the hell.

This ends here, Calvert.

("We shall fight them on the lighthouses next to the beaches!")

Against the backdrop of Limp Bizkit playing loudly in the background, me, my compatriot and his moustache galloped eagerly towards the antagonist's den of evil and suffering, waving our arms in an expression of war-mongering fury. The sneaky dastard had prepared for our arrival, and so our first encounter with a couple of Sentry Bots was met with an exchange of bullets and wounds. Neither of us were perforated, thank God, but I several times nearly unwillingly replaced my head with a missile shell. All those video games have given me good hand reflexes.

And so we progressed, deeper and downwards into vile labyrinth of Professor Calvert. His robotic sentinels proved no match for mine and Tashy's might, and we were soon at the bulkhead of his centre of operations. With a mutual glance and a curt nod at each other, we raised our legs and kicked the door down, sunglasses exaggerating our beguiling indifference and guns the size of small children cradled in our arms. Fuck yeah.

("You really think you have the brains to stop me"?!)

The air was still; the tension thick enough to cut with a knife. My boots clunked against the thin metal catwalk as I strolled towards Calvert, slowly raising my shotgun. His futile attempts at dissuasion were met only with contempt and a complete lack of empathy. It's funny, I don't remember his final words.

Tashy winced as the burst echoed through the complex. My spent cartridge dropped to the floor, whilst my lips curled into a menacing smile.

"You did it! You sexy, irresistible bastard!" I had seldom seen such joy on the face of this stranger I had known for a whole 2 days. After a brief celebratory hug and an exchange of phone numbers, he handed me the key to Calvert's secret weapon stash and let me have at her. Needless to say, I exited that room a happy and satisfied young man.

As I strolled back down to the dock, "Smug" written all over my face, I encountered that thing I'd been looking for earlier; apparently she discovered that the creepy ferryman was the one lobotomising travellers, and took it upon herself to take over his boat, lock him in the cupboard and wait for me to come and deal with him.

"H-heh", I replied, my facade of toughness feigning under her crazed glare, "I'll take care of him". I think you can imagine that I didn't lament losing those next two shotgun shells in the gut of that habitually sleazy brain-fiddler.

So after packing up all my new goodies in a nice little napsack, I strolled back onboard the Duchess Gambit and told Nadine to take me home. It felt good to be back in my native lands, and the distressed mother (now apparently rich or something) thoughtfully provided me with a modest amount of caps and wild fruit, which unfortunately voided the deal of me keeping her daughter, but did provide me with enough pocket change to buy a good few crates of post-apocalyptic candy bars.

The only question left remaining is what to fill that new empty hole in my head with?