Chp 606. All I want for my birthday…

So last week was my birthday. I turned 36.



When your birthday falls right in the middle of a crucial Sprint review week, well, it sucks… All the plans you have made before, simply just… poof… disappears. Or should I say, crash, boom, bang. :(

But things weren't all that bad…

My mom and niece were also in town, but as I mentioned earlier, since we were in the middle of an important sprint review where we had to showcase all the work we had done so far to our CEO and other stakeholders, I had to cancel my planned leave and birthday trip to Lavasa. I'm sure my mom and niece would have loved it :(

But I did manage to take a break from office during the day and rushed home in the afternoon to take my mom and niece out for a nice birthday lunch. Since time was of the essence, I took them to Arthur's Theme.







I also had to pay my insurance policy premium on that day as it was the last date! Lolz, talk about multi-tasking. So after I had lunch with my mom and niece, I made a brief detour on my way back to office to make my premium payment.

That was when I learnt it the hard way that one should NEVER fill up application forms or cheques on their birthday!

I was so accustomed to writing the year of my birth whenever I write the day and month of my birthday that I ended up writing 21.04.1980 everywhere instead of 21.04.2016.



I had to reapply for new forms and filled them up again (wasted another 30 minutes or so), including writing a new cheque! Aaargh.

Back in office, it was back to the grind. And then at 5 PM, our HR called all of us to the cafeteria, where we had the traditional birthday celebration. All my colleagues wished me a happy birthday, sang a birthday song while I cut the cake, after which we also had vada pav as snacks. 





And then once again, it was back to work inside. I was finally able to go home at around 11:30 in the night, where there was a nice dinner waiting for me at home. My mom and niece had already slept though, as it was very late by Mizoram's standard.

So yeah, that was basically how I spent my birthday. Nothing great or extraordinary, but still filled with a lot of pleasant memories. I always hide my birthday on Facebook and other sources, so I am really thankful to those who still wished me on my birthday. Thank you all so much once again.

Now that I'm 36, am I too old to desire a birthday present?

What is the one thing I wish I had for my birthday?

As a 36 years old gaming freak, the one thing I really wanted for my birthday, and which I had been eyeing for a really really long time, was this…



A "Catastrophic Companions" cosmetic item!

OMG, they are so adorable, and will make the perfect outfit to wear after bludgeoning somebody to death with a bat. It can be worn by all TF2 classes, and just look at how awesome they look in it! 



Those three cute kittens clinging on to the wearer! *sigh*

Unfortunately, yeah, as is a rule in any freemium games, you gotta pay for the good stuff.

The "Catastrophic Companions" cosmetic costs more than 4 grand INR. Dayymm…



Hence that is something I would loveeeee to receive as a birthday gift.

4 grand is too much for me to spend on cosmetics, that too with no "strange" properties attached to it, especially since I don't have any items worthy of a good trade.

The other day, my Mizo TF2 friend Than Moya managed to unbox a couple of cool "unusual" weapons. I've never tried unboxing my crates because keys are expensive. But after completing the recent "Tough Break" campaign, I had a lot of weapon and cosmetics cases lying in my backpack.



And so I decided, what the heck. Lemme go for it, I might unbox some unusual items too!

Since TF2 market offered a FREE ITEM for every Rs. 1379/- spent in a single purchase, I bought 6 Tough Break cosmetic keys, 2 Tough Break weapon keys and 1 backpack expander, for a total cost of Rs. 1445. That was the most I had spent on TF2 so far.









With that, I was ready to unbox -



I said a short prayer, and then with my fingers crossed, I started unboxing them one by one…

*drumroll*

And here are the items I unboxed…



















Well… it was disappointing that I didn't unbox any unusual items. But still, most of them were worth much more than the cost of the keys I bought, and I needed such cosmetics anyway, so overall I wasn't disappointed.

But I won't be making such a purchase again in a long time…

More than unusual items, right now, my greatest desire is the catastrophic companions cosmetic set. Because like I mentioned before, them kitties are so adorable. And another reason is that, I'm still pretty much an amateur in TF2, clocking just 500 hours of gameplay. I don't deserve to wear an unusual hat or wield an unusual weapon yet, especially since people with such items are automatically considered to be pros and expected to carry the team forward… something that I can definitely not do (yet).

So until then, cheers, and always feel free to contact me if you want to buy me the catastrophic companion cosmetic as a belated birthday gift! :D

Cheers!