Gah. I feel like I’m about to get an ulcer or something. I know what I’m looking at, and I know that the immediate numbers are only meaningful in that more or less everything has happened as expected, and the states that are really in question aren’t going to get called any time soon… but man. It’s excruciating.

It’s also sickening to watch the coverage. Larry King had someone on, who said they wouldn’t make a call at this time, because of what happened in 2000, and King pressed him for his “gut” feeling until he gave in. That’s just fucking disgusting. Look at 2000. Did you assholes learn *ANYTHING*?!?!?! Christ.

Keeping my fingers crossed, and my stomach in knots.

Hands down, I’ve never been this nervous, or frankly, terrified, of an election in my life. www.electoral-vote.com has the current count at 262 Kerry, 261 Bush. It’s crazy. I’m expecting that ludicrously high voter turnout will dump this in Kerry’s lap, but I’m astonished – completely, utterly astonished that it’s even as close as it is. That almost half our country is so utterly idiotic that they would give this asshole who’s fucked up so *badly* the last four years another four years with nothing to lose to really, truly screw things up.

VOTE, dammit.

Politics:

Tomorrow our nation will change. The American people will show whether we have the capacity, the integrity, and the intelligence to choose to make the world a better place, not a lesser one. To act on our honor, our integrity, and our morals, not our fears, our hatred, and our cowardice. We will either rise to the challenge, or shrink from it. The world is watching.

I believe that tomorrow will define America for me. I believe – I hope – that tomorrow, I will see that the American people know the difference between good and evil, right and wrong. I will see that we believe in responsibility and accountability. That we believe in honesty, compassion, and trust. We will see that we want a smart, trustworthy leader, who will work with the rest of the world, not against it.

I believe that in the last four years, I have seen what evil truly is. Stories of evil I heard, from Hitler, to Lex Luthor, made it clear who the villain was. Evil acted evil. It believed it was evil, and when you saw it, you knew what evil looked like. Of course, things in the real world are never as clear as they are in your narratives, even as history is retold to us, the truth becomes less clear. I understand, now, how Hitler rose to power. He rose to power on the backs of those who wanted to believe that they weren’t responsible for being poor, or being afraid. He promised them safety, superiority, and freedom from fear.

We have the choice tomorrow, to make the world a better place. To understand that we are responsible for our actions. That our policy has meaning, that our actions have consequence. That we will not be ruled by fear. By the worst in us.

The next sentence will appear to be in jest, but I am deadly serious.

Tomorrow, we will find out whether the terrorists really have won.

Finished Second Sight last night. The gameplay is a little unbalanced at times, and the voice acting is horrible, at the start. But the game as a whole is *excellent*. The storyline is really one of those sorts of stories I can only imagine being told in a videogame, and the plot twists are really, really well done, and really well delivered. I’d recommend it quite highly at full price, and it’s a *steal* at $20, which is what it’s selling for now. Definitely pick it up, if you’re looking for a new game.

“The president’s rallies are invitation-only, and dissenters are barred, so few if any Democrats were in his audience, but the news media on hand would carry his message beyond the rally site. “If you’re a Democrat and you want America to be strong and confident in our ideals, I would be honored to have your vote,” Bush said. ” – from Salon

How utterly disgusting and vile is it that this man, who has barred anyone with even a remote inkling of not being a rabid supporter from his rallies, is saying, at those same rallies, that Democrats shoudl vote for him? How offensive is that? That we’d have a man who doesn’t give one rat shit about freedom of speech, or discourse, saying that people *BARRED FROM HIS RALLIES* should vote for him? It literally turns my stomach, and makes me feel ill.

If Bush gets elected next Tuesday, it will truly be the lowest, most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen the American populace do in my entire life.

Job:

Finally talked to my boss about how frustrated I was feeling. Though he didn’t have a silver bullet of any sort, he said a number of things that were comforting, such as that my frustration was reasonable, he had questions about the particular course of action that was taken, and that the intern that got put into design is explicitly a very junior position. Still, the issue is that her title is “Designer,” and that makes a huge difference in terms of both mobility, and influence. But I think it was enough that at least I’m satisfied knowing that my boss is going to be looking out for me in some capacity, and that he knows what’s bugging me and why.

House:

Not to jinx things, but it looks like the leaking windows have been fixed. Rod Kuhns did a great job sealing up the mini-roof, and unplugging the drain holes on the windows. For what it was, I think I paid too much for the actual *work* per se, but the issue was really one of knowledge. Reminds me of a story I heard summer freshman year of college working at a bike shop. Patron walks into the shop, and talks to the owner. He’s got a rim that’s out of true, and the owner says he’ll true it for $25. Patron agrees. Owner takes the wheel, positions it in his hands, and hits it hard against a nearby workbench. Wheel’s true. Patron says, “Er… $25’s sort of expensive, given that you just whacked the wheel on the bench.” Owner says, “Yes, but I knew how to whack it.”

Rod knew where to drill a couple holes, and two other professional contractors did not. Given that I’ve spent on the order of $5K total over two years, the last bit that actually *worked* was money well spent. *shrugs* Ah, well. At least it’s over.

Job:

Change: How to instigate it? That’s the question I’ve gotta address before the middle of next year. That seems like a long time, but it’s really not, in terms of moving a career, particularly because career path determinations appear to be made much earlier in the process than I had previously thought.

I haven’t yet talked to anyone at work about how mindbogglingly frustrated I am over this whole intern->designer issue. I asked my boss if he’d have time to chat for a bit about an issue that’s really been bothering me, but so far, I haven’t heard back from him. But just to think out loud, really, the problem that I’m facing is twofold. One, that I need to know how to insure that my career actually moves me toward game design, and not away from it. Two, that I am almost insanely jealous of someone here who seems to have gotten the position that I’m striving for with almost no apparent experience, or qualification.

The problem is separating the two, because in my mind, they’re inextricably linked. The intern who ended up on the design team for next year breaks almost every notion of what I expected one needed to do to get that position. She’s not experienced, she doesn’t know the mechanics of the game, and she hasn’t, far as I know, displayed any particular skill or talent at game design. So the problem is that I have some internal notion of what one has to do to strive for a position like that, and her progression literally breaks every metric in my mind.

So, to talk to my boss, I have to approach it as, “Here’s what I want to get out of this job. Clearly, I’m either missing a path in, or have approached it in the wrong way.” The subtext would be that, “…because this unqualified, IMO, person has clearly gotten what I want, and I have no fucking clue why or how.” That part probably best left unsaid. But that second part is what really *bothers* me. It’s what eats at me every day at work. It’s what drives my job satisfaction into the ground headfirst, and stomps on it. It makes every day just that much more miserable, because I have to hear, see, and deal with the person who got what I wanted on a daily basis.

To be clear, she’s a nice person. She’s kind of a kissass, but beyond that, she’s a reasonably hard worker, and hasn’t done anything untoward that I know of. So let me be clear on that point. The namecalling is because this is my blog, and it’s an expression of my frustration, not a reflection of her character.

But so … I dunno. I suppose the way to approach it is to deal with the professional side of things – the career path issue, through my boss, and see if he’s actually going to go to bat for me, in terms of long-term career planning. If he’s not, then I have to start looking to plan my own career, somewhere else. If he is, then I need to find out then how to reconcile my pure, livid hatred for the situation that’s been created, and deal with it.

Still. It’s a pisser. Not happy about it at all.

Hot Water:

So, Rescue Rooter man shows up ~9:30, as he said he would, and scurries under the house. Ends up being able to get the cover of the water heater off with minimal fuss. I, apparently, was totally incompetant at that particular task. It had looked like the gas line ran in such a way that would totally obstruct the removal of the cover. It did somewhat, but the real problem was that actually the cover was on *wrong*, which made it much easier to get on and off once it was put on *right*. *sigh*. But he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the heater, though he did find, that the pilot was actually sparking every time, it was the burners that weren’t lighting properly, not the pilot.

So, he gave up. Charged me $45, which was less than the “mandatory” full hour’s fee to come out. So that was ok, I suppose. At least he got the cover off.

So, I said “screw it” and just called the manufacturer. Which is really what I should have done in the first place. They pointed me to the “flame sensor” and described that it would see when the pilot was on, then it also checks to see whether the burners are on. If it’s covered in soot, or other gunk, then it will read all wrong, and things won’t work right. Recommended sanding it a touch to clean it up. So, I went and sanded it a little bit, and it seems to work ok, first shot all the time now. I’m gonna keep trying it throughout the day to make sure that that was the problem that was fixed, but the second part, which is the really great news, is that even if it’s the ignition box that’s gone south, it’s *still under warranty*, which means we’d get the replacement for nothing.

Awesome.

So, $45 stupider, it looks like we have consistent hot water again.

 

How to get ahead: Do nothing well.

So, let me parse the subject of this post for you. It’s not, “Do nothing well,” in the sense that you should be incompetant at everything. It’s, “Do (nothing) well,” in the sense that one should be very good at doing stuff whose content is absolutely inconsequential.Why?

Here’s my dilemma, or at least, my perception of it. Last year, I stepped up to the plate. I learned the system I had to work on well, and did so to the best of my ability. I busted ass, blew through my work like nobody’s business, and most of the time, was able to go home on the weekends and chill, instead of slaving away in the office – even after helping other people out.The problem is that for next year, half our team is leaving. Two people are moving on to completely different projects, one person is moving into design, and that leaves me, the other guy who started on the same day as me, and one of the guys from last year.This means that we now have *less* combined experience than the team at the start of last year, and because I was good at what I did, now I’m indispensible.

On the other hand, one of the production interns worked really hard last year. She was here long hours, blah blah blah. But what did she do? She took notes. She worked on the manual. She wrote object descriptions for the catalog. Crap work, mostly, when you get right down to it.Next year? She’s on the design team.This makes no fucking sense to me.

We just got through brainstorming presentations, and the team I’m on’s presentation *blew away* every other team’s presentation by *miles.* It was entirely based on a concept that I’ve been working on since the day I set foot in the studio, and though the team made a lot of excellent additions and tweaks, every single important idea in the presentation was solely mine. I know that sounds like I’m diminishing the contribution of the rest of the team, and I totally, totally, totally don’t mean to, because it wouldn’t have been nearly as “solid” without them, and some of the core ideas are immeasureably strengthened.But the fundamental, system-level innovation is mine. Period.

Now, I’m stuck in a situation where there’s a non-zero chance that my ideas will be fundamental to next year’s game, and I’ll literally have almost zero input into the practical design of their execution. This is *EXCRUCIATING* to me, and though I realize that this is much more input than you get at most places, EVERY MOMENT I think about the fact that this production intern who took notes last year will have more input into next year’s game than me is *mindboggling* and makes my job satisfaction fall through the floor.ARGH.

I feel like Zell Miller even sitting here thinking about it. It makes me *furious*.

Politics:

It strikes me now that the issue of polling is a strange one. The Gallup/CNN/USA Today polls have consistently oversampled Republicans, despite there not being a bias towards Republicans in the actual voter turnout in the last several elections. So I wonder, why would someone do that? What do they have to gain? If a knowledgeable person looks at the breakdown, it’s quite clear that because of Gallup’s bizarre breakdown, even though they show Bush’s numbers going up, they’re actually going down per person sampled.

So… to what end, I asked myself. And the only reasonable response I can come up with is this:

The reason that polls like Gallup are oversampling Republicans is to sway public opinion. Now, that much of it is obvious. But there’s a more sinister side to that. If Bush consistently polls as “the winner” until election day, it becomes much harder for the public perception to accept a Kerry win in a close call. Bush, having been “winning” until election, should by default, win in a close race – the public mentality will have been formed to be biased towards accepting the status quo.

Because the perception is that Bush “should” have won, the close race pushing in his favor will be easier. This is why polls with a three point Kerry lead are “tied,” and why a one point Bush lead have “Bush Leading.” This coverage has been almost completely uniform across CNN, and many other major news outlets. This is *so* subversive, and apparently simplistic, that it completely seeps into the public’s subconscious. Bush *should* win, according to the polls. He’s had a lead, and Kerry, at best, has tied him. The incumbent rule, where an incumbent less than 50% is in serious trouble, hasn’t been brought up almost at all by the same press.

Leaves you to wonder why. But I don’t really wonder anymore about why. I wonder about *how*. How is it that the media is being so uniformly manipulated like this? It’s really Orwellian NewSpeak, in many ways…