Behind the Scenes

So I decided that it is high time to post yet again. I’ve been bogged down with tons upon tons of work, and most of it is caused by my want to quickly be done with fixes which in turn breaks other shit. If I had it my way I would not be using the same variable on several different screens, each screen has a unique set of variables so that when changes are made to one to correct it it doesn’t totally fuck over the other screen, but that’s just me.

I’m trying desperately to get my story started but I really haven’t had the time to really sit down with it hardcore and just write, I think the other thing that is working against me is that I’m worried that I’m not getting enough into the story, I’m just hopping from one thing to another kind of like my entries, but I think I have to just suck it up and write, and I’ll let my amazing girlfriend help iron out the kinks later.

I know that I promised a webcomic, or at least a 1 panel, but I really haven’t had the time to sit down and draw or come up with a story, I have been doing my doodles quite often so I think I’ve found what my character(s) will at least look like on paper. I just hope that it is a smooth transition over to the computer side. For some reason my drawing becomes really blocky. I’d like to use photoshop, but that’s where its getting blocky. I’ve used flash, but the auto curving and such sometimes screws up what I’m trying to draw. Well we’ll see what happens.

So I have some tragic news after looking over the books, and balancing my finances I have discovered that there is no way in hell that I can afford a trip to Winthrop, I want to go so bad and watch the Eagles, at Homecoming, beat the ever living piss out of UNC-Asheville, but its just not going to happen. At least it will be on TV so I’ll be able to watch it from home. That of course will open up another can of worms since I’m no longer going that means that I’m available for the family’s every request and call.

I think I might just hide, I wish I could at my place, or maybe I still will, but I’d love the chance to just have a slow weekend do what I want to do, get the work that I desperately want to get done, and then be ready for the next week actually rested.

I think if I just slow down, maybe try to knock out a video game, write some of my story, thoroughly clean up my place, maybe do some drawing, and just relax, this could be the best weekend in a while. I’m not saying, however, that I want to be completely cut off from the world, but I’d love to be able to take it at my pace for once.

That’s the problem the world around me right now is going at a breakneck speed. Every time I blink I miss half a dozen or more things that are going on around me. Yes I am aware that it is physically impossible to catch everything that is going on in life, or be involved in everything that is available in life, but I’d like to actually try to take in what is going on around me in my own way.

Okay enough of that I think I should probably get back to it, but I have to say that I’m really interested in some of the games that are coming out soon and hopefully soon I’ll post again to talk about them.

The Parking Lot Experience

I keep forgetting to post about this, so since I’m kind of stuck on my coding for the moment I figured that I’d take this chance to write a quick story, its true, and it involves a co-worker and I…

So this past week we have been on a 10 hour a day schedule, well most of us, there are those who already worked 10 a day so they got bumped up to 13, but we’re not going to get into that because it is not my place to talk about it.

At every lunch we got to eat on the company money, so we chose from a variety of places, it was on Thursday when this story takes place. I had recommended the local deli which is just up the road if you go straight through the college campus. So me and my co-worker went to get the order, not knowing how large the order would be to carry we decided to park and go in together. So we pulled into the parking lot while it was raining to discover there were only 4 available spots left in the lot, and of course they were in the opposite corner of where we wanted to be. We braved the walk through the parking lot and got into the deli, and got our order. THE END…

Well not really because the story doesn’t begin until we get back to the car. We have all the food packed away and start the engine heading for the exit of the lot knowing full well that we have to pay a dollar to get out of the lot. There are two machines that will take the ticket and then ask for money so we go to the left most one. It sluggishly took the ticket and then gave it back to me. At this moment I was concerned so I decided, before the car behind me could take the other machine, I backed out and went to the other machine. This machine took the ticket faster but just to fuck with me threw it back at me at the speed it took it. So after another 6 or 7 attempts my co-worker gets out of the car and talks to the parking person who is just sitting in her car chatting it up on her cell phone. Remember it is raining, and so he and the parking person start talking, he is told that we need to use the call box because she can’t do anything to help.

So I try to use the call box, and all we get is the voicemail. At this time there are quite a few cars starting to want to get out and they are beeping their horn, but after a while they see that no one is moving. My co-worker decides to see if he can’t just manually open the gate so that we can get the food back to the office because at this point its been 10 minutes. I of course am still trying to use the call box. Soon a student from the university declares that he is stuck in his spot and has a test in 5 minutes so he helps try to open the gate, so they both go at it and get the car in the left side out. Sadly though driving an SUV I can’t fit under the gate so I just have to keep pressing the button. Finally I get someone on the line but because it isn’t clear that you have to press an additional button to talk to the person they hang up as they have no response to their greeting. I call again and get the man again, I tell him we are stuck in the parking lot all 12 cars that are trying to leave right now. The man informs me that I have to put my ticket into the machine in order to leave. I then informed the man that I had been doing that all along as well as trying to get him to pick up the phone. It was then that he decided that he would send someone.

Thankfully the ticket started to work a couple of minutes later and we were out of there, with the now slightly cooler or warmer food depending on the state they were in when we started this adventure, with a story to tell the company and now the internet.

The moral of the story is don’t ever expect shit to go smoothly there is always something that is going to fuck up your day ever so slightly.

A quick post with lots in the system

So here I am sitting on my couch watching an episode of Most Haunted, and show I used to watch religiously, but sadly with life and the always busy schedule I haven’t kept up with it. There was a site that had a bunch of the episodes on it, but that got shut down so I’ve basically completely fallen out of touch with it.

I’m currently on my very old laptop, I find it funny that very old means 7 years. It was my computer my freshman year at Winthrop. I’d love to talk more about Winthrop but after the terrible display that I witnesed on TV I really don’t want to talk about it.

The funny thing is that I’m typing faster than my computer can take so I have to constantly backspace because I don’t see the mistake until much later. The other thing is that the touchpad is freaking old as well so the mouse will randomly go across the screen as I type. The last piece to the equation is the simple fact that since work has been a bitch with its length and the amount of people that are now bailing on the engagement party, paired with the poor Winthrop performance has left me a bit tipsy, well not really tipsy just saturated with more than I had anticipated.

I wanted to hold off posting until I had a one panel comic to post, but I need to post before then. Well I better get off the computer. I’m still trying to figure out all what this can do, and also the show is back.

Leave a message or not I am interested in how many people read this, but at the same time it isn’t going to change what I write and say, though I think if there were people out there, alot, maybe I’d post more often or maybe feel a need to update more often. As it stands I’m under the impression of 2 readers, one being the love of my life, my future wife.

The Desire is there, but does he have the Skills

So as I sit in front of the computer yet again the desire, and the urging of a co-worker have put me at the keyboard for some more blogging. I have to say that I wish that I had the time to blog ever day, but at the same time I don’t think I do enough cool shit to warrant that. Also I don’t think I would fair too well if I just bitched day in and day out, you need a break from time to time, constant bitching will only wear you out after awhile.

So lets see what I’ve been up to as of late. I’ve finally beaten Mass Effect, I have to say though the game did have some visual flaws that bugged the crap out of me, with the awesome ending boss battle, which I didn’t die once during, and the chance of scoring with the Alien Chick, I’d have to call it a good all around game. Sure I didn’t get every little achievement, especially since they built the achievements so that you would have to play through the game twice.

I’m still playing College Hoops 2k8, and I’m still far from realizing my dream of winning the Big Dance, or becoming the coach at Winthrop, both of these goals must be obtained before the end of the season and its starting to get a bit unnerving how I haven’t been able to accomplish those feats yet.

I’m finally getting a chance to actually step back on the court. After being rudely awakened to the fact that the team that I play for, and the one that my dad’s played for for over 10 years, wanted me off the team I got a break and was able to join another team in the same league. This means I get my vengeance on some of those assholes, and I also know all their little tricks. So I can’t wait for a chance at them. I’ll be starting my career back up this coming Tuesday at 9 PM.

I’ve taken this day, V Day, as a chance to screw with my boss’ head. I’ve dressed up all nice, it is for my lovely lady and the fact that I’ve got a dinner at my mom’s house to attend tonight, and am going off for a lunch meeting around 11. Hopefully he gets in before then and sees me leave all bright eyed and bushy tailed. In all honesty he probably won’t notice, that’s just how things roll over here, but that’s a story worth saying with actual verbal words and not written.

Winthrop has started to finally get their ass in gear. They have won the last 2 games, and with UNC-Asheville falling at least once the ability to over take that coveted 1st place spot is once again within our grasp. I know this is hoping for a lot, but I would love for that spot to come down to the game on March 1st, which I will be attending, and is also Winthrop’s Homecoming Weekend. It is also the last game of the season before the conference tournament starts up.

I have to say that I am just a bit more than pissed off at how much car repairs can be. I had to drop over 1500 over the weekend, to most that’s probably nothing, just a bit of spare change, but for a guy who only gets to take 45 bucks home from each paycheck because of taxes and bills, that type of money is something that is sacred. So the end of the story is that I’ve basically emptied out the bank for my rear axle, ball bearings, brakes, something crazy like that. Oh and to top it off my car still makes a bit of a funny noise, but seeing as I didn’t want to spend a ton of money over the weekend I didn’t make mention to it, and good thing because if I had I’d probably be taking out a loan right about now to pay for the car.

I would love the ability to sell my car and get something smaller or not have one at all for a bit to kind of build up some money, but the problem is that no car means that it becomes extremely difficult to get to work each day. Maybe in October when I’m married we can work out some kind of deal and only take a car in a day, but until then yeah the gas guzzling and probably repair/tune up costs will keep piling up. I’d love to have a car like my lovely lady, the Subaru Impreza is sweet.

So I’ve come to the realization that to realize my dreams of doing webcomics, or writing a story, or working on my coveted Crystals of Pryann project, I can’t do it alone. Sadly my brain works faster than I’ll ever be able to type, and its always better to bounce ideas off someone, and for me that is pretty damn necessary because I’m overly analytical about anything that I personal do. So maybe I can get my lovely lady to be my partner in crime for the web comic and the story, Crystals of Pryann is probably out of her realm, but at least I can get two of the three out. At least I hope that’s what can be done.

So with the defeat of Mass Effect I’ve been asking myself what will be replacing it as the game I’ll play when I’m not in a sports mood. The sad thing is that I can’t add to my collection from a store because you need money for that, but that’s cool I’ve got enough to hold me over. I hate to say it but I don’t think any Final Fantasy that I shelved is going to come back, but I could definitely field another RPG. Though I think if I do that I’m going to get back into dot Hack and try to beat the last part of the game, though I’m a bit pissed I watched a trailer for the last one and it should have said SPOILER ALERT because I definitely saw someone there that is suppose to be dead, I mean I killed him at least once or twice already.

I’ve been really getting into podcasts as of late, well at least trying to because they give me an outlet to see what other people are thinking that think along the same lines as I do. The sad thing is that most of them are conversational, but bad. The only one, and I stress one, that I find entertaining and interesting is the Penny Arcade one. They shoot the shit a bit and then get down to business on putting together their comic. That might be why I enjoy it more because I see the end results of their discussions, its not just a bunch of people who go off on tangents and may never come back, with Penny Arcade there is a sense of closure, and a desire to see what else they’ve been thinking about.

It was brought to my attention that to the casual passer-byer that it would seem that I’m alone in the world, and that from time to time the same girl in my life pops up for a second. Well I just want to go on to the record and say that my girl is someone that I care for very much and is the most important person in my life right now, and it will stay like that. The thing is that I don’t make mention of her often because I want to keep most of our life private, sure there are times where I put too much of myself out there, but it isn’t my place to do that to her as well. The other thing is that there’s nothing to bitch about her, I mean I’m sure if I had to think about it for about 3 months that I could come up with something that doesn’t bother me at all but might bother someone else, but that’s life, that’s what happens. There is no one in this world that everyone likes, and is perfect, it doesn’t happen. You have to find your flaws and live with them, make yourself stronger, try to erase those flaws, unless of course what they see as a flaw is something that makes you you, in that case they can all kiss your ass. There are too many people today that blindly get led around by others because they want this acceptance, but they’re not really getting it what they are getting is a chance to destroy who they really are, and a chance to live a fake and meaningless life. I’m not saying that there should be anarchy and everyone should strive to be completely different from each other, but I think that what makes us individuals is the most important thing, and if others can’t see that, then they aren’t worth your time.

I know that for some that would kill them, to have to turn their back on people who they see as friends, but in the end are just a bunch of people out to shape others in what they want and have no want or desire to see people for who they really are. The end of the story is that those friends come and go, and even though there might be times where you desperately want to be with those types of people to feel like you belong, if you don’t let yourself go you will find that you have friends that would do anything for you, and don’t want you to change a bit.

Now that is what I call a tangent, and man can I go off on them. So with that I’m going to end this little conversation, turned big. I’ve got to get some work done, then pick up the lovely lady for a quick trip to a cafe for a cake for tonight, and then get back to work.

Don’t be a stranger, drop a comment, I like comments, comments make me happy, but people reading and not saying anything makes me sad… Well I wish I could guilt people into leaving me something, because to be honest it gives me some fuel to write again. Sadly the only comment I had was about HD radio, and I really could care less about HD radio, its going to die, they said it, I said it, Satellite is going to probably win out, I’m just pissed over the lack of effort on originality when it comes to the radio, why the fuck do I need to 7 different Top 40 radio stations that sometimes play the same song in sequential order. All I have to do is listen to it on one station, then change the station and boom there’s the same fucking song. Wow creativity at its finest, you want to know how to conform to society become like the radio stations. Alright seriously I’m done for now.

Curious How They Don’t Move Like That

Amazing its been quite awhile since I last updated the blog, and I probably made promises about comics or stories, and sadly I can’t actually deliver on said comic or story, but have no fear they are getting started. Brainstorming is the natural way of doing it and with the stress, and busy schedule that I’ve been on I’ve just not been able to review the brainstormings.

I have to say working in an office with the actual lights on is quite scary, its way too fucking bright in here, and it just seems unnatural.

So let us see here, what to catch up on. The Giants ruining the Patriots fight for perfection was priceless, even though I’m now being called Eli from time to time because apparently I have some resemblance to the guy.

The Hawks coming from behind to shove it in Kobe’s face was amazing, I can’t tell you how happy it makes me to see either Kobe Bryant, or the LA Lakers go down. Which brings me to this question, what the fuck is a Laker? Are they dudes who sit around a lake and fish, are they actual lakes, or are they just in love with lakes, you know in that special way that no one but they understand.

Sadly Winthrop Men’s Basketball has suffered back to back defeats, I’m exactly sure what is going on but it is safe to say that they have no game during the second half any more. This is what they suffered against Missouri St. and now it is spreading like wildfire. I don’t know if its the coach’s slow game plan that is slowly knocking the players out of their rhythm, or if its just bad conditioning. Whatever it is it needs to be fixed pronto, and on top of that UNC-Asheville needs to go down, there doesn’t need to be another undefeated season in the Big South for a while.

I wish I had something to say about work, I really do, but I’m drawing a blank. Either that or I’m so stressed that I’m blanking out any thought of work, even though ironically here I am sitting at work. We are trying desperately to close out parts of the project that we’ve been working on, and I think, sadly, that this will be the first title that will see the light of day that will have my name on it. ( Note to self: Make sure my name is indeed in the credits). It is a bit weird though, the project is really going by fast, which is a total 180 from what went on with the last project which seemed to drag on forever.

I’ve found a good use for the Archos my dad gave my sister for Christmas, that ended up being given to me because my sister didn’t know what it was. It’s not the best thing, and the company who makes these things are a bunch of assholes for the fact that they don’t put many codecs on there unless you want to pay extra. I’m a firm believer that if a device can at some point handle certain features that they should either already be on there, or become available in a FREE update.

I think I’m starting an unhealthy consumption of Mountain Dews, its like a disease. I’m on a 2 to 3 Dews a day routine while at work. On the weekends I kind of take a breather and end up consuming large quantities of Chocolate Milk, or Beer. It really depends on what time of day it is.

So I’ve been playing Mass Effect as of late and I have to say that I’m getting frustrated from time to time, I’m not to the point where I’m ready to just get through the chunk of the game to complete it, but I’m not far off. There are too many chances where a stray bullet has knocked me out and of course when switching from surface to an actual building there usually isn’t an autosave even though they are having to load the building and therefore could kill 2 birds with on stone if they would autosave right before handing the control back over to the user, so if lets say they accidentally get caught by that sniper that the player doesn’t have to play the entire planet/moon over again. I am really starting to feel the pain of the map though, when you go in and are zoomed into a planet and you want to zoom out for some reason that B button just looks oh so good, but its the X that will get you what you want. If you hit the B you exit completely out, and that’s some BULL. My only other qualm with the game is something that I had a problem with in Halo 2. If the game is going to support these beautiful textures and what not they have to be loaded, not this bullshit of oh wait 2 seconds after you look at this rock the fine textures appear.

I’m still playing College Hoops 2k8, I haven’t reached any of my goals yet but I think I’m starting to close in on them. Those goals being winning the Championship, and getting to coach Winthrop. My time is growing short on the game though, I like to accomplish these feats before the actual season finishes so that I can kick back and relax as I watch the Madness unfold.

Changing gears slightly, I decided yesterday to take care of something that had been plaguing me for a while, and that was my keyboard at work. It looked kind of gross not on the keys but below them. So my smart self took off all the keys to clean the nastiness, which was a lot of nastiness, though I have to say the vast majority was hair. I ran into a small snag though right at the end. I couldn’t remember where all the keys went, I knew the basic ones but when it went to the num pad and some of the lesser used keys it was trial and error. I have to say that overall I did a good job the only thing I ended up messing up was the space bar, no I didn’t put it in the wrong place, but there is a special design to it so it was constantly leaning to one side or the other, and the other thing was the g and h keys I switched them which I figured out quite quickly when I started to type out some code.

I have a feeling that now that I’ve open the flood gates that my typing might just keep going, which I really don’t have a problem with though that does tend to slow down other productivity of which I am being paid for right now. Speaking of which, I have to say that it is my opinion that certain parties were given too much credit upon their arrival here, and as a result the company is paying for their assumptions. I’ll just say that in the previous 4 days 3 were filled with me spending half a day trying to figure out what was changed or over-written that shouldn’t have been over-written, but I’m not going to get any further into that I’m going to let it slide because I don’t need to be stressed out going into the weekend.

Speaking of weekend mine is going to be filled with stuff, I’m not exactly sure what all of it is going to be but I can promise you that I’m going to get a haircut, my car check up, and some cleaning of the condo, probably the bathrooms this weekend. Oh and I’m going to the Hawks game tonight as the Hawks put their 3 game win streak, first since December, on the line against LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

One quick note I have to say that this past Sunday had to be one of the weirdest that I’ve had in a while. After having lunch with my dad talking about wedding rehearsal dinner, I received a call from a gaming agency, yes this was a Sunday when they called. Apparently I’m still being pursued by some companies out there that will remain nameless because the company does reveal who they work with. So we’ll see what happens as I’ve sent my resume to them and am waiting to see what will come of that if anything. I’d love to stay in Atlanta, but I think if the money is right and the job is something I’m truly passionate about, its going to be hard to look the other way. I’ve talked it over with my wonderful lady, and I know where we as a team stand on the issue.

Speaking of teams, as I just keep going, I have to say that I’m thoroughly pissed at the fact that my dad didn’t remind me when sign ups were for the basketball league, as well as I wasn’t invited to join his team. That is total and utter bullshit. I want to play, I was one of the few people that was always there ready to run myself into the ground ever night, and I get repaid for that by first of all staying as simply an alternate, and then completely blocked from being part of the team, or participating in the league with another team.

Of course there’s always the question of am I close to back in shape, and I’d have to say that my endurance is starting to rear its head again as I am starting to work out maybe 3 times a week, mostly aerobic type of work outs. I need to start doing strengthening, but with the limited stuff at my disposal doing so would mean furniture and other house hold objects. Which I guess would be cool but its probably not the safest thing in the world to do.

Speaking of furniture I got a new piece, I know everyone is dying to know about it, its a chair, thanks to a co-worker, I received, or more like got out of the hallway a free chair which will now serve as my office chair for the time being so maybe I’ll be more ready to actually do work in the office seeing as the chair will actually put me at the computer and not below the computer. My problem is that I’m so freaking tall so that if I have to sit weird at the computer that my shoulders start cramping up, especially when I’m putting in those 4 to 5 hour runs of Lord of the Rings, which sadly I don’t do often but I do do from time to time, and when I do have the chance I like to knock out huge chunks of the action so that I feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Alright Alright I need to ease off the blogging now I’ve got to get back to work, drink my first Mountain Dew of the morning, read a couple of websites, check my e-mail, and do all those other things that I do in my day to make sure it is complete.

I will try to get a comic together, I wish I could say more but I’ll keep everyone in suspense, and I’ll try to be back sooner than I was last time. So for now, go rest your eyes because I know that I’ve probably strained them with the amount of stuff in this blog.