We love video games. We love playing them, reading about them, and writing about them. This is what motivates us to provide the most deep-cutting factual gaming news on the internet, with no thought of extrinsic reward. We don’t do it for money, fame, or the affections of cosplay models, though of course we get all of that in abundance. We do it because it is our calling. We do it because someone has to.
But sometimes, even we can use a break.
Day in and day out, our lives are focused on video games. We couldn’t imagine doing anything else. But life contains multitudes, and writing about video games all day is like eating pizza for every meal. Sure, pizza is amazing and nutritious, but eventually we want a taco, if only to cleanse our palette so we can go back to enjoying pizza again. And we’re sure, even if you might be too ashamed to admit it, you might be a little tired of reading about video games nonstop, too.
So this article, dear readers, is our taco. Let’s enjoy it together. Let’s take a break from all this video game stuff and talk about something else. Something like pangolins.
First of all, just look at them:
They’re adorable. We definitely picked the right animal for this article. Apparently they are sometimes called scaly anteaters, which is fitting. They look like the Pokemon evolution between an armadillo and an anteater—wait. That doesn’t count as video game talk, because Pokemon is a card game and an anime, not just a video game. We could have been referencing any of those. Doesn’t count. Anyways, moving on.
According to Wikipedia, Pangolins are mammals of the order Pholidota, whatever that means. It kind of sounds like they are members of some knighthood, The Knights of the Order of Pholidota, which sounds really cool. They even have little armor plating on them. They also walk on their back legs with their claw hands raised like little dinosaurs. I could imagine them holding little swords and shields in those claws, marching to battle while epic music plays. Something like the Elder Scrolls soundtrack, particularly the main theme in Skyrim, where the second you heard the horns blasting and the choir chanting you had the indelible urge to slay a dragon, or a troll, or shout a Whiterun guard off the top of the stairs—
Okay, there’s no excuse for that one. Damn! From the rest of this article on you will be convinced you aren’t even reading a video game news site at all. You aren’t reading Hard Drive, you’re reading Hard Pangolin, or Pangolin Drive. The Pangolin Times? We’ll figure out a name. In the meantime, this will be nothing but an informative piece on pangolins starting NOW.
Pangolins can use their claws for defense from predators, but mostly they use them to dig up termites and ants, which they then eat up with their long, straw-like tongues. They live in burrows and hollow trees. They are solitary animals, only meeting to mate, and only raising their young for two years. Seems cruel, but who are we to judge? Sadly, they are the most trafficked mammal in the world, as they are killed for their meat and scales. This, and also deforestation, has led to several species of pangolin having their conservation status as threatened, with some even being on the endangered species list and ahhhhhh we can’t do this! We need to talk about video games! Video games! Elden Ring! Gamers! Layoffs! Cutscenes! Checkpoints! Mountain Dew! Lethal Company! Stick drift! Lag! First Person Shooters! NPCs! Jerma! Sidequests! Jiggle physics! Body odor! Microtransactions! Pokemon with guns! Gaming!
We’re sorry, readers. We don’t know what we were thinking. We’re not cut out for this pangolin news stuff. Clearly video games are what we’re meant to focus on for the rest of our lives. We learned something very valuable about ourselves from this experience. And, not to be hyperbolic, we learned something about life in general. Namely, never branch out. Always stick to what you know. A brutal lesson, but an important one nonetheless.
Thank you for joining us on this little experiment. In our next article we will be back to our usual gaming selves. We’ll leave the pangolin news to the pangolin people.
