Hm. How odd. So it turns out that the person who hit my car was an 80 year old friend of one of my neighbors. That’s good. She says she’ll cover the damage, which is even better.

Hey. You. Yeah, you. The guy who hit the burgundy Mini on the street, and caved in the driver’s door and rear quarter panel. I’m talking to you. Why’d you hit my car, then not leave a note, you fucking worthless piece of shit?

Fuck you.

holy shit. It’s like the fucking walking dead, today – my allergies have hit me smack in the face with a goddamn sledgehammer. My head feels like it’s full of cotton, and I can’t keep a single train of thought in conversation for more than like, five seconds. My nose is constantly running, and there’s a pressure behind my eyes that feels like it’s eventually going to pop them out of my head. Strangely, when I’m sitting in front of a computer, my train of thought remains relatively stable, but when talking to people, it’s like I keep restarting a conversation, and have to figure out who the heck I’m talking to and why…

Enough already.

A conversation with some friends triggered this phrase as a description of how I feel about meeting new people. I have a lot of friends – good friends. More than I get to see on a regular basis while still being employed. I’d like to see theze people, but if I’m honest, the problem is that there’s either some hurdle to doing so, or having not seen them in so long, I wonder if they still have any interest in hanging out.

Which is sad, in some sense, but I hope that it’s not that we’re drifting apart, so much as simply don’t have time. Which is also sad, but somewhat less so.

It reminds me of how a couple people kept telling me I should go to my 10 year reunion, because I might get back in touch with people. I don’t *care* to get back in touch. Even if I like the people, they’re people that I only know because circumstance forced us together – if we weren’t in high school, I wouldn’t necessarily have cared. The people I still keep in touch with on a regular or semi-regular basis are the people I *chose* to keep in touch with, for some reason or another. Why would I need to give someone I didn’t choose to keep in touch with, or chose not to keep in touch with me, another chance? Where would I fit them in?

So now I sound like some sort of bizarre, reclusive hermit, which is not so – but I think that honestly, the point is that I don’t need more friends, or even really want more. I just don’t have the time.

Work:

Things felt a little insane this afternoon. Because of some personnel shuffling, I’ve basically absorbed the work of one of the designers, while still retaining ownership of the design stuff I was working on, and the scripting tasks I’d already had on my plate. Basically, I’ve now got the work of two people. The designer whose work I’m now responsible is still here for the next two weeks, mind you, and so it’s not like I’ve got *all* of his work on my shoulders, but he’s definitely more checked out than checked in. Not that I mind – I know how it is once you’ve decided to leave a place. I know he’ll close up shop properly, but I also know that he’s not at 100%.

So, though I’ve hit a roadblock in the scripting process (waiting on other, as-yet unavailable resources), and the design work on my section is more or less complete, I had a moment of panic where I thought that I was going to be responsible for the designs I’ve now been made responsible for (as of basically this morning) in the huge design review meeting tomorrow. Now that I think about it, I’m actually fine, because everyone *in* the review meeting knows the status of the transfer, knows that it happened a day ago, and knows that we’re good. So that panic was largely unwarranted.

What *is* worrying me, though, is that the lockdown for the design is coming up very shortly, and there are actually some rather major points that I disagree with the previous designer on, and think that if we’re going to change things, we have to do it soon, and do it decisively. The problem is that with all the other stuff that I’ve gotta review, and understand, before I sign off on it as its owner, I’m not sure I’ll be able to fight the proper fights. Thing is, this is one of the major changes in the game this year, and the predominant opinion seems to be, “It’s gotten this far – let’s not change it now.”

And maybe they’re right, because we are working on tremendously limited resources, on an extremely short development cycle. But the problem to me is that this is one of the central – if not *the* central mechanic in our game, and I don’t like the way it works at all. It doesn’t make sense to me, and my feeling is that when it actually is put into practice as the central mechanic of the game, it simply won’t work. It’s one of those things that on a micro scale seems ok, but when you realize this is an extremely widely used, repetitive system, every little bit has to make perfect sense, and right now, it works fine when used once, but fit into the larger picture, I don’t see how it’s going to work at all.

So, my feeling is that I have to come up with an alternative that is figured out down to the smallest detail, and present another completely fleshed out, substantial alternative that can be perceived as trivial to implement. Because the development of that mechanic has only gone through some previsualization stages, I think it may be possible, but time is of the essence.

Definitely got my work cut out for me.

Well, it’s offical. This year, I’ll have a hybrid Game Designer/Object Engineer credit. Nice.

So, two out of three ain’t bad, I guess. Only one window still leaks. I have some really minor suspicions about the window by the door, but it was bone-dry – colder in some spots at the top than others, which made me suspect maybe it’s not 100%, but no moisture, which I suppose is what the point is.

Ah, naturally, I spoke too soon. One of the three leaky windows is at it again. I should be less paranoid, because I think I understand exactly where and exactly why it’s leaking, and that it’s completely repairable, and that I know someone who can and will repair it – but it makes me paranoid, and is again keeping me from sleep, and it makes me constantly check the other two windows, which take a little longer to show leaks than the one that’s leaking now.

So it’s possible, even after all that, that the windows will still leak, and that nothing is in fact, fixed at all. It looks – looks – like two are holding steady, but unfortunately, only time will tell. I still have high hopes for the two that are holding, and I think that the one that is leaking (the bedroom window) is doing so from the mini-roof above the garage – but it still makes me worry, and the worry keeps me from sleep.

Alas.

Happy Birthday to my late grandfather!

Work:

Work’s going remarkably well, I think. I’ve been working on implementing an object that’s a critical part of one of the systems I’ve been designing, and it’s actually coming along much faster than I thought it would. It’s not super complex, mind you, and the logic behind the *system* is actually completely missing, but we’ll be able to get an idea of how it *feels* in the world, which is sort of strange, even without the underlying logic. So that’s actually pretty cool.

I’ve definitely been getting more responsibility at work, which is a pleasant… I wouldn’t call it a surprise – I’ve been trying explicitly to get this to happen, so I’m not … surprised – I suppose it’s all proceeding as I have forseen at a much quicker rate than I’d expected. I expected to have to pick the lock, but it looks like in the process, I’ve actually busted the door down, and appear to be able to walk in, straight away. I expect that there’s work/disappointments/arduous labor to be had in the process, but so far, it’s been really invigorating.

Actually, at this particular moment, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’ve got enough responsibility, that I can lay out the course for what I’m doing, and actually see it almost all the way through to the end. Something I probably couldn’t do in a more design-oriented role, and something I definitely couldn’t do in a more OE-oriented role. For me, this is exactly where I want to be right this minute.

House:

The windows look like they’re actually ok. I say that hesitantly, because it was raining pretty hard tonight, and still no leaks that I can see. That’s not to say it won’t happen, but it looks pretty damn good, all things considered, and I’m actually optimistic that this fix might stick. Of course, the tradeoff is that we have rats, and even though we’ve taken measures to isolate them from food, and the upstairs peeps have sealed off some of the more obvious access points, it looks like we’re going to have to put our faith in the hands of professionals. Which kind of sucks, because it’s probably a minimum of $350, and more likely a year-long contract at ~$5-600ish, until we can proof the exterior of the house. Maybe simple, maybe not. Hard to say, I suppose. Quote’s coming in next week. We shall see.

Work Part 2:

Got a raise today – or rather, it was made official today, which is nice. Not huge – hell, not much more than inflation – 3.4%. But still, it’s the first raise I’ve had in five years, and it was apparently somewhat above average for our group. And there’s still the bonus in May, once the fiscal year closes out, which is nice. Any little bit helps. But I think more than anything, the notion that I’m not actually *losing* money, year-to-year, is a nice change of pace, and I feel like my career is *progressing*, which is a nice change of pace, and I feel like my job is reasonably *stable*, which is yet another nice change of pace, and I really enjoy what I’m doing, and think I’m really kicking ass at it, which is a final, extra nice change of pace from years previous.

Other’n that, things are just pretty good all around. We taught Mobius to stand on his hind legs, which happened *really* fast. He’s a really bright dog when we give him stuff to do – I think we need to focus more on keeping him mentally stimulated, to be honest. Gotta read up on other things to do with him. He loves hide and seek, and doing tricks. Funny little guy. Really makes me happy that we got him.

Things are also going great with friends, with the fiancee, pretty much everything. I’m happy as a clam. Hell, even finances have been on the uptick, and though there was a hiccup with a late W-2 that’s gonna cost me ~$650, I think it’ll still end up ok.

Games:

Picked up Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Urbz for the DS, and ATV Offroad Fury 2. So far, all three games are *excellent*, and for a total of $30, I think it was a steal. Been playing some Fable, FIFA Street, NBA Street v.3, Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath, and some Halo 2 online. I’d rate every one of those games above an 8, for varying reasons – but all told, I think that whole batch of games cost me… $115, for 8 games. Not too bad. Mind you, that includes using my yearly points from EA’s store, but what the hell – a free game’s a free game. 😉

Hm. Almost seems like I should be starting to get paranoid. Things can’t stay this good forever.

Weird. Been having problems logging in to Blogger via my bookmark to the editing page, but went to the homepage, and logged on just fine. Strange.

Anyhow – home today with some sort of stomach nastiness. Feeling better – I figure I just must have eaten something off last night. Watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow this morning, and was pretty thoroughly underwhelmed. I wanted to like it, but just found it very hard to get into – Gwyneth Paltrow’s character is so monumentally idiotic that it’s extremely hard to root for her, particularly when Angelina Jolie and Jude Law have some actual chemistry going. Ah, well. Viva Netflix!

Still feeling pretty lousy, but hopefully it’ll get better soon. Ick.