Another Darwin Award

OLYMPIA, Washington (Reuters) - A man less than two weeks into a planned journey to dribble a soccer ball from his home city of Seattle to Brazil, the host nation for the 2014 World Cup, died on Tuesday after being struck by a car in Oregon, police and the man's supporters said.

Richard Swanson, 42, was struck as he walked on the shoulder of a road on the outskirts of Lincoln City just east of the Oregon coast, said Lincoln City Police Sergeant Randy Weaver. Swanson's soccer ball was found nearby, Weaver said.

 Thank God they found the ball!

Asshat Quote of the Day

Gay marriage denies religious liberty to people who believe in traditional marriage. - Michele "I'm not fucking the pool boy" Bachmann

Oh look.. a political oriented post.  Shocking.

Dream a Little Dream

This is not a Miata.  It's not a Porsche Boxster.  The Jaguar F-type bumps up against some very heavy hitters, Maserati, ZO6, 911, etc.  A super charged V8 putting out 500 horses, and 0-60 in 4.2 seconds.

The looks are stunning, and the interior stylish and futuristic.  That sound..

I had made a decision to buy a 370Z in about a year in order to save money.  I suppose I could still do that, and when pCARS2 returns come in, sell the Z and by the F-type.  That would be the smart way to do it.  I'd have more money in pCARS2, so better returns.  I can drive a Z for a couple years and be quite pleased with it.

The F-type just fits me.. like it was made for me, and Rob really likes it too.  I'm going to be 50 in a few years and change, and that's when you're supposed to buy the one expensive thing you shouldn't have bought.  I'll do it..

Math is Hard Werk

click for full size

So.. math nerds.. let's talk about investment returns. I have 80,000 Euros (roughly $115,000 with current exchange rates) invested pCARS currently.  Due to the FSA issue, SMS has had to split off the next gen platforms into a separate budget, completely separate from the legacy platforms (PS3, XBox, PC).  It stands to reason that even though we expect there to be more units shipped on the legacy platforms than the new, the mere existence of the game on the new platforms means that there will be fewer legacy units shipped, right? My return will be less than if there was no new platform units shipped, because I have no investment in the budget of the new platform development.

So - an idea struck me. What if I take 50% of my investment in the legacy platforms and put it towards the budget of the new platform development?  Doesn't that increase my return? I think one variable that we need to know is the budget of the new platform development. Once I have that, I think I can setup a spreadsheet to do some calculations and see what happens. If the budget for the new platform is very low, say 1.5 million Euros, then it would make sense for me to shift all my investment into the new platform sales because I'll own more than twice the percentage of the returns than I do on the legacy.

SMS is working up the structure for investments into the new platform now, and should be opening it up to new investment soon. They'll need to determine the budget when they do that. That'll be the key I think.  SMS has been required to offer refunds on the current investments, so for me to switch 50% of the investment into the new platform, all I'd need to do is have a new contract drawn up.

ed- Errr.. it's a 50/50 SMS/investor split on the new platform instead of 30/70.

pCARS

Project C.A.R.S. - TGC-GTS championship event promo from JonZ on Vimeo.


Wheeeeeeee

7 Foot Balls

An active NBA center admits he caught a severe case of Teh Gay as a kid.  He's the first active player in any of the 4 major American sports to do so.  That takes a lot of courage.

I did the closet thing for a while.. badly.  I just wasn't very good at it, but doing that fucks with your mind.  When a person is young, they tend to care about what other people think.  At a certain age, I decided I didn't give a shit what other people think about me.

When you go from paranoid to liberated, it's a good feeling.  Now we just need to get the whole marriage issue sorted out. It won't be long now.

I Am Shrunk

Saw the psych a couple days ago.  She added Welbutrin.  It's supposed to help with the chronic fatigue.  So far it does seem to have an effect, and I'm on a half dose right now. Everything else went well.  We ended up talking more about real-estate than my condition. My BP is still low, but my ears are a bit louder.  It was annoying me so I went ahead and took a klonapin.  That tends to bitch slap the tinnitus, and give me some peace for a while.

I'm going back to Phoenix at the end of May.  This is specifically a Mr. W. trip.  I bought tickets to a Diamondbacks game for Sunday afternoon vs. the Padres.  I don't know shit about either team now, but they're really really good seats and I like watching baseball even if I don't know the story behind all the players.  I can see Mr. W. and I going to a lot of games in the future.  I don't think we'll get seats right where these tickets are if we do that though.  The idea is to save money for the future, but you never know how the game financing thing might turn out.

Speaking of which, SMS got a PS4 dev kit, and I think the new Xbox kit is coming soon. The Wii U version is progressing already I think.  In order to satisfy the financial regulators in the UK, we needed to separate the financials for the legacy platform and the new platforms. I could take my money and put it towards the new platforms, but I think that'll sell less than the legacy.  There's a lot of existing PS3s and X Box's out there right now, and not everyone is going to run out and buy a $500 console right off the bat.  I'll probably put a few thousand towards the new platforms though. It is disappointing it's not all in one big pot.

I think about Mr. W. a lot.  If I'm not working or playing a video game, he's on my mind. That's a good thing.  I know I keep punting on things I said I was going to talk about down the road, but I'm not sure how cathartic it'll be for me at this point.  I was going to write the story of me and John, but I already know the story and I don't know if anybody else would be interested.  When I first thought of doing that, I thought it would help me resolve some issues.  I'm not sure if I have those issues anymore.  I might do it just as a tribute to John, once I'm done being pissed off at him.

The thing is, I'm not sure if it's the meds or Mr. W., but I think a lot more about the future than I do about the past now.  It's probably a combination of the two.

One Little Victory

So the Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys have embraced Teh Gay.  Yay!  Maybe Mr. W. and I will go to Paris to get married.  I could see that being very cool, and very expensive to fly everyone in.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have told him about my sucky blog.  Now I can't really talk about him behind his back.

The Depths of Admiration

Mr. W. and I have come to a consensus on... this thing that we're doing.  Using the "L" word (no, not lesbian you pervs) seem wholly inappropriate given the circumstances, and so we 'admire each other a great deal'. The nice thing is that it implies something else without actually having to say that something else and seeming like a complete idiot.  We're in on our own joke, which is nice.

I'm actually feeling a bit better.  My blood pressure is normal, and I'm not having headaches anymore.  My mood is also pretty stable.  Mr. W. and my family has a lot to do with that.  So ya.. I'm doing better.  I even very nearly posted something about some absurd political issue.  It's just not time yet to return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Plans

Had a physical today with my PCP.  My blood pressure is too high.  I'm sure many of you are thinking - duh.  The doc thinks putting me on a diuretic in combination with the med I'm already on will help bring it down.  She also thinks it might help with the ringing in my ears. I'm really quite tired of the ringing.  I'm also going to see an allergist because I think there might be food allergies that exacerbate the problem.

It seems I've firmed up plans for how I'm going to get back to Phoenix.  I'm going to stay here until I can get the house in order and sold, and then move back.  There's a bit more to the story.. but I'll get to that later.

It's a good story, but patience has never been a virtue I posses.

Moving On

.. is not as easy as you'd think.

A lot has happened since I've last updated you lot on my continuing saga. Things have changed dramatically. Spending time with my family showed me that I could feel normal again. Well, maybe 'normal' isn't the right word, but I was better. Those relationships are important, and over the last several years I had let them become strained. I had become so comfortable with John, the dogs, and the house, that it didn't seem like I needed anything else. That was a mistake.

It also seems that John's immediate family is far crazier than I gave them credit for. None of them speak to me anymore, with the exception of his brother Mike. I honestly don't understand that, and have no idea what it is that I did that caused that. John's dad sent me some really awful emails in the days following his passing, and his sister Sarah has always been a narcissistic psychopath, but through all of that I remained cordial and did the right things with the family property and so on. People who I thought were friends turned out to not be. I suppose that's just the nature of loss. I don't blame them. 

As Stephen King wrote, life turns on a dime.

I spent some time with a friend I hadn't seen in a number of years; Mr. W. (who isn't quite so anonymous now). The short of it is, he's wonderful. Naturally this creates the problem of being right in the middle of mourning the most important person in my life, and seeing that there can be life after that. It's confusing.

In my way, I thought I'd have to carry the pain and sorrow of losing John for the rest of my life in order to properly respect him.  When I was with my family, that pain was gone.  When I was with Mr. W., that pain was replaced by joy.  When I was alone, came the guilt.

Over the past 5 months, people have asked me what I thought John would want for me.  I honestly don't know. I think he would damn sure prefer to still be here with me. I'm just not going to rationalize anything I do on the idea that John would approve. I'm trying not to let social conventions get in the way of something that could actually allow me to be happy again.

I had honestly thought I'd be on my own for the rest of my life, and that wasn't such a pleasant idea. Consequently, I second guess every thought I have.  Am I interested in Mr. W. out of a fear of being alone? Am I so crazy that I'd latch onto anyone who was kind to me?  If I hadn't had such a strong impression of Mr. W. years ago, when I wasn't quite so crazy as I am now, then maybe I'd be more concerned about that.

So.. I've decided that the timing of the tragedies and joys of life are not up to me.  They just happen.  John will always be a big part of me, and Mr. W., being the sweet soul he is, understands that.  I'm sure every October 15th, on my anniversary with John, I'll cry like a baby all day.  I'll probably do it on December 5th as well.

But every other day can be the type of day I always wanted.  It'll be different than the days I spent with John, as they should be.  Mr. W. is his own man, and I have no interest of turning him into John.  That assumes, of course, that everything works out.. which doesn't seem to me to be a big 'if', but rather leaning towards 'when'. It's not completely up to me though.

In the books I've read on grieving, a common theme is that we're supposed to learn from loss. I have.  I could never use the word 'love' before.  I held my emotions back, both good and bad.  That's not a problem anymore.  I feel this compulsion to be completely open and honest about what I'm thinking and feeling.  The pain of loss hurts so badly that I want to tell the people that I love that I do, because it's the complete opposite of that pain.

I'm still a horrendous procrastinator though.  I guess some things never change.  I have every reason in the world to get everything here in Dallas sorted out as quickly as possible and move to Phoenix.. or Scottsdale. There is another life there for me.  A really good one.. a wonderful one.  I'll always wish what happened with John had not, and that I could have learned these lessons without having to endure what happened. I'm still not quite ready to let him go and say good bye, but I think when I move back to Phoenix, that might be the time.

Back in Black

I spent the last 2 weeks in Phoenix and had a really good time.  It's nice to be able to pick up and visit while still able to work.  I also had a chance to catch up with an old friend, and that was very enjoyable.  I'll probably refer to him in future posts, so I'll call him Mr. W.

I'll be working on the move with a purpose now.

Ridiculous

A new trailer created by one of our team members.  It's very nice composition, but is demonstrating some stuttering.  There are some problems with high frame times, but the render engineer is working on bug fixes now.  Optimization will come later.

The release date has been pushed back to ~Easter 2014.  I really want to get this game out, but it needs to be perfect.  We're only going to get one shot at introducing a new IP (intellectual property).  We need a 90+ meta-critic scores.  An 85 will be seen as a failure, even though that's a really good score.  The user scores may set a record, since we already have a massive user-base that will all give it 10s.

No new news on the.. umm.. exclusive.. well, they're stewing right now.

I'm still planning to do a trailer, but it takes many, many hours to do the raw video captures and the editing.  I'm going to wait until we're well into beta.

Pay Me

Most of the regulars know my working situation, but something happened today that I find hilarious so I'm going to describe my employment again to set the scene.

I work for MegaCorp (which is of course a fictional name).  MegaCorp contracts to a government agency for services.  The section of the government I've been working with for the past 5 years awarded the contract to a different company, let's say XYZ, a bit over a year ago.  In order for me to stay with the same section, MegaCorp sublets me out to XYZ.  XYZ gets paid a flat rate for the contract, and then pays MegaCorp a portion for my services.

I have to record my billable hours in both MegaCorp's and XYZ's accounting system.  They have to match, because MegaCorp gets paid for my hours, and not a flat rate.  Today, I got an email from my MegaCorp manager telling me that there was a .5 hour discrepancy in my billable time between MegaCorp's system and XYZ's system.  She wanted me to figure our where I made the error and fix it.

That's not the interesting part.  The interesting part is that my manager didn't take out the email text that started this from the accounting clerk.  That bit of the email had in it.. the hourly billable rate that MegaCorp gets from XYZ for my services. It's $100 an hour.  An annual salary based on $100 an hour is roughly $208,000 a year.  I do not make anything close to that, however in addition to my gross salary, my benefits are valued at about $25,000 annually.  If MegaCorp was not to take their profit for pimping me out, I should be making roughly $175,000 annually.  If I could contract to the government directly, I should get paid a bit over $200k and then pay for my own benefits, like health insurance, which under Obama-Care starting in 2014 would be very reasonable.

Holy crap.. the accounting clerk just sent me a copy of the invoice.

Anyway.. last year I did some bitching about my pay rate to my MegaCorp manager, because I was getting offers from other companies for substantially more money.  Now I know why I was getting offers.  I do the work, they take a massive cut.  In any case, MegaCorp gave me a promotion to the highest level of SE in the company.  The promotion was supposed to come with a raise.  I haven't seen it yet.

My MegaCorp manager will be hearing from me shortly.  I'm not greedy, but if I'm going to be a whore, I better get paid for it.

Not Done

I went to John's house to pick up mail, and promptly fell apart again.  I'm doing better for longer stretches of time, but this is still completely fucked.

It seems like this entire process is designed around distraction.  I can play a game, or watch tv, or whatever, and I'm basically okay.  Not great, but I'm okay.  If I think about John, I start the same fits.. or whatever it's called.  And I want to think about John.. all the time.  To not would seem like abandoning him, and I can't do that.

I'm supposed to be able to think about John and remember the good times, and be happy.. but the problem is that when you remember the good times, you realize you don't have them anymore and then it all comes crashing down.

Today is Friday.  Tonight is date night with John.  I'm going to be alone here with the dogs, and I'll think about him and it's going to suck.  This is not how this was supposed to work.  Whatever it is that ruined this.. ruined everything.. is the target of my hate.  If it's 'God', then god can go fuck itself.  I don't give a shit about how everything gets fixed eventually.  I'm right here today, and John is not.. and that's bullshit.