Been still thinking a good deal about the issue of game development, and residual payments. There was a post on wilwheaton.net about it, and though I’d heard it before, the point that actors & developers are on the same side stuck this time. Sort of. The fact that the SAG was pushing only for residuals for their members does turn it somewhat into an us vs. them issue, but at the same time, I can’t really expect the SAG to be looking out for people who aren’ t members (ie: the rest of the game development community).

Still, the notion is sound – the voice actors *are* a part of the game development process, and though they contribute extraordinarily little, in terms of the amount of time they have to devote to a project, the issue is *still* sound. Their payment, obviously, should be proportional to their contribution, but the fact is, the more copies a game I’ve slaved on sells, the more money I should make from it. While EA pays my wage, they continue to profit off catalog sales for *years* after they’ve stopped paying me, no matter how unique/novel my contribution to the development process was.

I’m still not sure where the line is drawn, though – do you pay all engineers for their contributions to things? Does the guy who designed the LED mask that a company uses to churn out a billion LEDs a year get a cut of each one sold? Forever? I suppose that’s how it would be. If done right, you could cut everyone in on part of the profit, and the company would still get its cut, essentially the “work” the company did, as an entity, in producing the product.

I think the reflexive “WTF? Are you fucking kidding me?” response I gave initially wasn’t necessarily the right response – it was a reaction to a presumption that the voice actors felt that they deserve a cut of the profits, and the developers don’t. I understand that the SAG doesn’t give a shit about the fact that the developers are getting screwed, and I understand that they’re only there to look out for their members. It feels shitty, to me, that I’m substantially more powerless, simply because at some point, someone *else* stood up for the actors – that they get to ride on coattails that have already been established, and if I want to try to organize something similar, I will undoubtedly face years of hardship, and likely get drummed out of the industry, were I to become the public face of unionization. Whee.

Then again, there’s probably something to be said for starting your own company that *is* essentially the core of the start of a union itself. That thing is, “It’ll undoubtedly be thankless, crushing responsibility that will destroy you financially,” but there you go.

Glad we called the Roto Rooter guy – he was nice, professional, and his machine had a long enough attachment to reach the clog, which I’m not sure the rented snake would have had. He rooted the thing all the way to the main, so I’m sure the drain is clear. We have some roots in the drain, which is bad, bad news, but hopefully, not serious enough that we can put it off for a bit. Worrisome, but not fatal.

Now, on the way to Home Depot to get a tank attachment kit, and a 4″ to 4″ coupler, as well as something to put into the cleanout to close it up, at least temporarily. Lovely. At last, though, that issue is gone.

We took the toilet bowl off this morning, and there’s a pretty serious backup. It’s about as close to a complete clog as one can get at this point. We got a small drill-powered augur this morning, and were able to stuff it all the way into the drain, to no avail. We then found a cleanout in the back that we didn’t know about previously, when we tried to use one of these pressurizing balloons that attach to the end of a hose. We attached it, and shoved it into the drain, and it didn’t seem to really work, but looking out the window, there was a leak, which was spewing water. Turned out, there *was* a cleanout in the drain, but it was “covered” by concrete – we’d blown a small hole in the concrete, which was what was leaking. So, Joe used a screwdriver and a brick to open up the cleanout, and we tried to put the pressurizing thingie down the drain there, but to no avail.

Next up, alas, is calling a professional rooter for a quote. He’s on his way, now, and hopefully, I’ll be able to afford it…

The left rear corner of the house has a leak. This wasn’t discovered until Colin moved out, because his bookcase was in the way of seeing the stains on the wall.

A few months ago, when we found the leak, we called the roofing company that put the original roof in, and they sent someone out to repair it.

A few weeks ago, we had the room re-drywalled & painted.

Last night, the leak returned.

So far, the damage is relatively minimal – the drywall is clearly wet, but it’s not terribly *visible* yet. I put a fan on it, and hopefully, it’ll dry out without too much damage. The real question, though, is *why* the roof is still leaking, and whether it’s the roof at all. There’s big wet spots around each of the downspouts, and I’m wondering if somehow, the little “drains” from the roof into the downspouts are spewing water out into the wall somewhere *below* the roof. I don’t think so, after having taken a look at it today, but I honestly have no idea what else it could be. The roof looked relatively ok, to me. Maybe there’s a leak somewhere higher on the roof, but the corner looked ok to me.

Hopefully, Sierra Roofing will realize that their repair, which was still under warranty, did nothing, despite the roof warranty having expired between then and now. I kinda doubt it, and if not, I’m gonna have to get yet another contractor, and pay them still more money. Whee.

Home ownership: Fuck that.

So this girl’s missing in Aruba, and it’s all over CNN. And I just don’t give a shit. The *only* time someone going missing is news is when publicizing that person’s missing-ness might help figure out what’s going on, and *only* to the extent that it helps, relative to the worth of publicizing other stories. Jennifer Wilbanks should never, ever, ever have superceded the Downing Street Memo. This girl in Aruba shouldn’t be superceding say, anything. And neither should fucking Michael Jackson. But, even though the media swore up and down after 9/11 that they wouldn’t get bogged down in crap the way they did with Gary Condit, and ignore the actual *news*, we should have all known that laziness trumps integrity.

nice job, media.

Been in a bit of a funk the last few days – mostly since I went to the ER for this bronchitis thing. The worst part is that I don’t know whether it’s genuine, or whether it’s drug-induced. The doc said that the steroids they gave me would make me moody, but it’s been a couple days since the really heavy dosages, and I doubt if the Azmacort is having a really strong effect on my mood. Maybe, I dunno.

But the problem is, I can’t tell, and I can’t trust my own judgement at this point. Normally, I know how I feel and why. Sometimes, I’m off in the intensity of my reactions to things, but by and large, at least I know who I am. Right now, I can’t tell why I feel like I do, and whether they’re genuine reactions, or simply a drug-distorted reaction to things.

Mostly, it’s a sense of dissatisfaction with things right now. The house is getting a little overwhelming, and the money issues associated with the various expenses have been pretty rough the last few months. So, sort of struggling in that regard. Then, there’s work – I’m now the last OE from last year working still in any capacity as an OE on our team. Everyone else has either fully moved to a different position, a different team, or left EA altogether. So it sort of sucks being the last of a friendly, tightly-knit group of people that worked really well together, and feeling like a foreigner every day I’m at work.

Reminds me of being half Japanese, half Finnish. When in the US, I’m clearly “other” – less so than elsewhere, but the ethnic ambiguity definitely colors the way people react to you, even if only in very small but still perceptible ways. Still – that’s nothing compared to going to Japan. Even in my family’s home, I’m definitely a foreigner – no – an *outsider*, and always will be, even if I were to do my best to interalize and adopt Japanese culture. Even worse in Finland, where I’m even less attuned to, or familiar with the cultural differences. I guess I feel like a foreigner at work, as well.

It’s sort of strange, too, the primary reason why I feel that way right now. It’s because most of the other people at work are fucking hilarious. Clever witticisms, random goofing around, etc. abound. Most people there are relatively extroverted, or just plain funny. I tend a bit towards hermit-like behaviour, and frankly, I’m not a very funny guy. So, if say, the lead animator comes up, and cracks a joke, I often find myself at a loss as to how to respond. Where one of the other animators might concoct an elaborate followup to whatever it is that was done, I just kinda sit there like a chump.

I dunno. I mean, it sorta sucks. It’s like going to a party where everyone’s cool, and realizing that you’re the square. The one guy who’s still leaning up against the wall, while everyone’s out dancing. Maybe part of it is up to me, to get out on the floor – but another part of me simply wants to be me, and feel like I’m part of the team, the way I did last year. I dunno.

But then again, maybe it’s just the drugs talking. I just have no idea.

I dunno if I spelled that right. But what I’m talking about is the whole concept of “home improvement”. It’s like rolling a rock up a hill, over and over and over again. We got the two bedrooms drywalled, finally, and painted. They’re a sort of sage-y green, with white trim, and they look pretty decent. A little more intense green than I’d hoped for, but not the Lime Nightmare(tm) of our friends Uyen & Charles’ first attempt at a green room.

Tonight, I fixed a couple outlets in Joe’s room, which worked, but had somehow or another gotten hosed – all it took was replacing the fixtures, and making sure all the wires were tightly attached. In the other room, which isn’t completely under the “new” wiring yet, there’s only one working outlet, and the light. So, new power lines need to be pulled to the outlets in this room, but I *believe* that there’s either a junction box at the top of the room or the bottom. I don’t remember which, but it’s somewhere reasonably accessible – it just needs to be hooked up.

Still have the goddamned clog in the bathroom to work on (hopefully, will get a snake at the Oakland tool rental library tomorrow, then tackle the actual problem a little later in the week), as well as the persistent leaky windows at the front of the house, and a leak in the back corner that we only found when Colin moved out of the room, and left the walls exposed. The back corner of the roof had been leaking pretty badly, and it shows in the walls. Fortunately, I had seen the problem outside a couple months before, and the original installers of the roof came out, and supposedly fixed it. The problem is, we won’t *know* whether it’s been fixed until it rains again heavily, which isn’t likely to happen for *months*.

So, undoubtedly, when the rain comes, once again, we’ll have this problem to deal with, and it’ll potentially cause damage to the work we just did. But still, it was work that had to be done, and now was the time to do it. But it just feels like there’s always so much more, that I could devote myself entirely to working on the house full time for six months, and there would *still* be thousands upon thousands of dollars worth of potential repair to be done, both on the exterior, and on little cosmetic details.

It just feels never-ending. Each step is a step in the right direction, but every once in a while, I accidentally look up, and realize I’m really, really far from the finish.

Despite my displeasure at my N-Gage crapping out, I’ve gotta say that the QD is a substantial improvement, in terms of form factor. Changing games is a snap, but more than that, everything about the look & feel of the N-Gage has undergone a substantial upgrade (except for the menu icons, which are bizarrely, only like, four-color). The buttons feel better, the weird button-in-the-d-pad is gone, and it’s smaller, and feels sturdier.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/03/human.traffic/index.html

Apparently, we’re accusing other countries of not doing enough to stop human trafficking, which Condoleeza Rice is labelling “modern slavery.”

Which I think is absolutely correct, without a doubt, the proper thing to call it. However, I think it is somewhat odd that CNN also has this article:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/05/09/real.delay/

which addresses the fact that Tom DeLay has actually encouraged the practice of “modern slavery,” and praised Saipan’s “businessmen” as what’s good and proper about Mr. DeLay’s view of America.

How do these people sleep at night?

Undoubtedly, on beds stuffed with money. I just wish that they’d burn in hell instead.

I realize I’m just setting myself up for some sort of irony, but for the most part, the steroids seem to really be beating the crap out of my bronchitis. I’m coughing a bit here at work, but after a *solid* eight hours of sleep, I don’t have a damn thing to complain about. I almost wept out of happiness, when I woke up this morning and saw the clock.