Letter Never Sent Tell me when to go.

After driving down to Dripping Springs for a meeting, I came back, had dinner and watched ‘The Apprentice’. Around 10 o’clock I started on my jack o’lantern. I am now finished and am very tired. The pumpkin guts dried out my hands. It was either that or the gunpowder from the ‘black cats’ I used to decorate it.

Updated: Here is a pic of my pumpkin. It’s supposed to be a suicide bomber, hence the firecrackers I used for the beard and moustache. I actually won the jack o’lantern contest, which was a surprise to me. Lord British took some of the firecrackers out and blew them off during the meeting:

Everyone at work is keyed up about Halloween with all the in-game events for the players, and with the parties and Halloween contests here at work. I may be dressing up for the costume contest, but my primary focus is going to be on the pumpkin carving contest. There will be food, beer, and prizes! They will give out the pumpkins tomorrow and I’ll need to carve it that night. This takes care of two things since I already needed a pumpkin to put up outside the house.

I’ve also been busy on the business front. My clients seem to hit me at once when they need me to do something. That’s the only time it gets tough working full-time and freelancing. Luckily, as is the case with everything else in life, most things you need to do only take a couple of minutes of real work. It’s the starting that gets difficult. Once you get the ball rolling you create your own inertia.

In other news, today in the meeting I found out that Chris Classic is leaving the company for a job as executive producer for Steve Jackson Games, the makers of Gurps. That is awesome! I know everyone here is either proud, secretly jealous, or, in my case, both. He is a great guy and I can’t wait to see what he does there. I also found out that another of my other coworkers is leaving for Washington D.C. where his wife is getting promoted. There may be openings here soon if you’re a gamer and like working for a pittance.

The Weekend was lazzzzzy and pleasant. Here’s the short-attention-span run down:

1. Friday, J-o-d-y and I went to show at Antone’s with band that does the King of the Hill theme. Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, formerly of The Refreshments. Enjoyable, especially after drinking beer. Great ‘Teenage Wasteland’ and ‘American Girl” covers. Met coworkers there for outside-office-bonding. Nice guys, especially when drinking. Man hugs ensued. Got soaked by torrential rain walking back to car.
2. Saturday/Sunday beat my brains with hours of Civ 3. That was an enormous waste of time.
3. Saturday night played bingo at “B-12 Bingo” off 290. Intense. Didn’t win. Later when trying to sleep had one of those holy-shit moments in the dark when you realize that one day in the future, you will no longer exist.

In case you didn’t already know, I work for a video game company. I work with a lot of nerds. Let’s be frank, I am a nerd. At work we spend our day playing the same games over and over looking for “bugs”, or mistakes in the game. Every time there is a new “build” or version of the game we check over all the systems and changes to make sure the game works like it should before the new version is released to the players. The main reason for our existence is that most game programmers and designers make a lot of mistakes.

Everyone I work with plays video games. Most are dedicated role-players (RPG’ers) or console gamers and a very few like myself enjoy the visceral action of a first-person shooter (FPS). Your goal in most online RPG games is to acquire loot, kill monsters (“mobs”), and level up your character. The goal in most games I play involves turning other players into chunks of meat and taking over their bases. It’s pure, ruthless competition and violence. It’s a quick adrenaline fix. It’s a cock fight for dorks. There’s not much more to it than that.

Anyway, this afternoon Kyle sent an email out to the entire group. The subject line read: “WTB Postage Stamp — 50 Cents. (nt)” I could guess that he wanted to see if anyone had a postage stamp he could buy, but I couldn’t remember what “WTB” stood for, so I said out loud, “What does WTB mean?” Chris Classic in the next cube replies, “Wants to buy”. Immediately, because almost everyone else has heard me ask this, I hear what sounds like someone’s impression of a cow, “Nooooooooooooob”. By noob, they mean to imply that I’m a newbie, someone who shows up in a game or chat room and bugs everyone with stupid or obvious questions. The nerve!

Then, I hear another person mooing, “Noooooooob” from across the room and then pretty soon everyone around me is mooing “Nooooob”. There is a chorus of mooing coming from all directions. I felt my face turn red. I couldn’t think of anything to say. The moment seemed to last forever.

See the thing is, buying stuff is a big deal in most online games. You buy healing potions, armor, weapons, you name it. In games, players sit in town and say things like, “WTB Demon Bone armor” and if you have Demon Bone Armor you can try to sell it There is no such dimension to the FPS genre. I wanted to yell out, “But, I don’t play RPG games!”, but that would have been inviting certain humiliation. There is no excuse for not knowing that…. not in my world.

I was embarrassed, but I did also enjoy it. There is a balance to maintain. It’s only fair that I take my portion of the teasing. I’m sure I’ll be making my digs again tomorrow, just like I always do. After all, there is a reason they call me “the Griefer”.

Do you ever have those exhausting days where you feel like you’ve read everything there is to read on the internet?

I’m an impulsive person. I don’t like to think over things and gather data and then make the most prudent decision. It’s more exciting to do something impulsive and then try to make it work. That way, if you promise something big, you work hard to deliver and you get results you might not have gotten had you decided on a more careful course of action.

I’m thinking about this today because I’ve been toying with the challenge of trying to pay off my remaining student loans before the beginning of 2005. I’m not in debt, but I hate owing money. I hate knowing that someone is making money off my debts, debts I took on when I was young and naive. That being said, I knew what I was getting into when I got the loans. I acknowledge that. Part of the frustration I feel is directed at myself for not making some different decisions.

Ever since they added the online payment method I’ve been doubling or tripling my monthly payments. The only reason I have done this is because it is so easy to make the payment online. When I feel the irritation of that debt I can go and do something about it in seconds. That may mean just paying another fifty bucks or whatever I can squeeze out of my budget, but it helps you feel more in control of your situation.

At this point, my next payment is advanced to 3/7/2008 since I have been paying over the minimum. That means I could enter a coma for three years and still not be obligated to make a loan payment. There are 75 days left in the year. Let’s see what happens.

Today is a beautiful day. Someone might appreciate your kindness. Find a person to give attention to. Look them in the eyes and connect, then ask them how they’re doing. It will make you feel good, too.