Is

I know.  I've been busy.  I've debating posting this past week due to my stress level reaching a... threshhold which is becoming unbearable to contain.

But more on that later.

As I work I often browse videos on google.  Usually social or political videos.  The theme of late has become gay rights.  And I want to say, before I forget, that there's one fundamental argument often used that.. I guess irks me.

The whole - is it a choice?

The anti-gay say it is.  The gay say it isn't.  Usually this is backed by multitudes of opposing 'scientific' studies and opinions.  And the entire point is completely missed.  And that's what I hate.

Look.  The us is supposed to be a free country.  Trying to prove whether or not it is a choice is... moot.  Let's pretend it is a choice.

It's my choice to be bixsexual.  That is my decision.  Like it is your choice to choose your sexual partner, religion, creed, etc.

I'm not afraid to stand up and say that.  I should be allowed to make such a choice.  The end.

I wish more gay people would stand up and say as a us citizen is it my choice and right to be gay.  \o/  Fundamentally there shouldn't be anything more to it than that.

By participating in the proving battle it not only leads away from and confuses the point of why gays should be allowed rights, but also seems to make some gays look weak.  "I can't help it I'm gay. :(" 

Don't for a second think I don't believe I wasn't born with an affection for both genders.  I'm simply making a point that saying "It's my right to be gay >:O" is a far stronger statement.  I shouldn't have to prove shit.

Yeah! >:/

I haven't posted lately because I've been rather busy.  My free time has been spent trying to unwind in Warcraft.

Crunch is finally over.  Our project looks kickass.  And all my hard work has paid off.  I can't say how.  But it has.  I am very happy and excited :)

I'mma admit to something - I'm a fan of porn.  I know, chicks aren't supposed to like porn.  They're supposed to be squeamish and innocent and.. whatever.  Well, I like porn.  The more fetish driven, weird fantasy sci-fi wacked it is the more I enjoy it.  I like my dirty dirty fanfiction.  And Livejournal communities are an excellent provider.

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2498711

http://www.warriorsforinnocence.org/search/label/LiveJournal

(no, I am not one)

Read the comments on their site.

I understand the want to help. But goddammit, stop stomping on my good time in the process you righteous assholes.

By Friday I will have worked... 12 days straight.  Something like 10+ hours a day.  I hate alpha/crunch/whatever on projects.  I suppose that is the nature of the industry, however...

.. No.. not really that a project is just a lot of work.  It's that we have 2 or 3 people who just don't do their effing jobs on every project.  That's the nature of the industry.  I suppose that's the nature of any industry.  Assholes who don't do their effing jobs.  Who have lots of schooling and background and get paid well more than me, but surf all day.. or wander around.. or play -freecell-.  That can't possibly be useful research.

The difficult part is not the hours.  The difficult part is having my name on something that plays like ass.  And I would rewrite the dialog, I would put the effort forward to have the game make coherent -sense-... but I'm not the designer.  I don't get paid designer pay.  I would have the cut scenes cameras not showing the back of character's heads.. but I'm not the scripter.  I don't get paid scripter pay.

I get paid artist pay.  I'll be damned if anyone's said anything about my environments looking anything but awesome.  I was done with -my- bugs 2 days before alpha.  I picked up all sorts of slack - collision, scrolling textures, sprite composites... stuff usually programmers do...

The difficult part is holding myself back from trying to do it all myself.  I'm staring at the book my boss said would start me off scripting... wondering if I should really do it.  I want to.  I want to stand up the asshole on our project who will write me paragraphs about how busy he is.. when I can plainly see him browsing youtube from across the room.  This was a bad week to find out this jerkoff is getting paid near twice as much as I am.  I'm betting myself I could learn this language faster than he.  I'm betting I could do way more good for this company.  I'm secretly hoping if I do they fire his ass. 

I did okay learning java in college.  I made A's.  I just couldn't pass the math for the minor.  This is a piece of cake.. right?  Or is it a waste of my time?  If I do this am I going to stop being an artist and start being a scripter?  I really don't -want- to be a scripter.

Am I being too competative..?  Or do I have the interest of my future and the future of the company in mind?  I honestly can't tell.

(Really long rant.  Seriously.  Total all out bitching below.)
I really do hate this asshole scripter.  I rarely honestly hate someone to my core.  But lord I hate this guy from the center of my being.  Not only is he getting paid more and doing jack all, but he treats me like I'm a novice at everything.  He treats our lead like she's 5.  Like she wouldn't understand what a camera is in a 3D scene.  She's a fucking animator your dick.  He's insulted artists work (which he claims to be an idiot at) on multiple occasions, but in such a roundabout way it's hard to even explain.  He's in your face overly nice all the time, so it's hard to be openly angered by him.  He drives everyone up the wall.  The term we use for him is "blisteringly annoying". 
Everyone dreads having to ask this guy anything.  He avoids giving a straight answer at all costs.  Instead he'll insert all sorts of nonsense about how important his job is and all the mountains of work he has to do because boss a/b/c is a slavedriver.  He'll try to explain things he obviously has no clue about and that you didn't ask about.  And, most annoyingly, he'll jokingly place the blame on everyone but himself.  But no, it's literally everyone else's problem but his.
His voice is just way to effing loud too.  Somehow - SOMEHOW - he got seated with the artists instead of the scripters.  Every time someone comes to talk with him, the artists all shift and start groaning to each other on AIM because his voice filters right through headphones.  I thought this one chick was gonna fucking lose it today - she stamped her feet and pushed away from her desk and gave me the most miserable look.  Then left the room for a good long while.
He has these AIM conversations with me too.  Where it's.. like he tries to corner me into admitting I'm not doing work, or that my work is sub par, or I don't even -know-.  His wavelength of thinking is way beyond my grasp of understanding.  Here's.. here's an example.  Every morning he messages me and says "Morning!" and I go "Hey, what's up?".  Now to regular people this is regular conversation.  But he rarely answered.  I figured, in my naivety when he first started here, that he was caught up in work.  Happens a lot.  Sometimes people don't answer each other till after lunch.  But no.  One day I get this gem, "Oooh, I think I get it.  You're not actually wanting to know "what's up", that's just your way of saying hello." ... I had to -explain- to him at great length that, no, the "Hey" was the hello in return part and that the "what's up?" really was an -actual- question with an -actual- question mark.  Now he answers the what's up with about 6 pages on how he's doing... and never asks me how things are on my end.
This jerk totally lied to my boss this weekend.  And I finally flat out told him the other day.  This weekend artists had no work, but we stuck around testing like crazy so the scripters could fix it.  This ass kept claiming he didn't need a build because he had an emulator on his computer.  He couldn't help script because he didn't have any part in the -actual- scripting, just these awful looking cutscenes, and he wasn't about to jack up their shit.  But he wasn't testing.  I was constantly passing back and forth to my computer to change minor issues and he was sitting there.  Chatting.  Surfing.  Giggling at joke-forums.  Working on tabletop stuff.  He joked with me and my boss about how fun testing a game for 8 year old girls was all weekend.  Fuck you.  You didn't test shit you lazy bastard.
What I hate most is that I -really- need to be nice to this guy.  I need to be pro at work.  I really need to limit how much I tattle on him to my boss, when I bring myself to tattle at all.  By some nasty twist of fate this guy is also a plot member on a larp I've been dying to play in, but never had the money for.  Huge surprise, but nobody there can stand him either.  I really haven't cared anything for the drama going on there, I play to have fun.  It's a rule I've adopted.  But this guy, during work hours, will start telling me about things.  About things my friends are doing, when I plainly know they're not.  Like he's trying to turn me against them.  People I've known for 4 or 5 years.  He basically implied one of my best friends was a slut to my face.  But I can't blow up on him like I am here.  I have to be nice.  I have to smile and nod and play neutral.  "Oh, she did...?  Heh.  Well.  I guess whatever she wants to do..."
My friends warned me about this guy from his past in the larp.  Day one they told me, "Don't piss him off.  He's the sort of person who, if you get on his bad side, he'll manipulate everyone and get you fired."  I highly doubt with his rep he could pull that off.  But I'm almost tempted to make it known how much I loathe him, then watch him get his ass in trouble trying.

*sigh*  I hate ranting in journal-things.  But it's about the only thing that makes me feel honestly better.

Haha, drawing this helped a little last week:

The saying has become a joke.  I said I wanted to punch him in the goddamn face.  "In the goddamn face" calmly or just "goddamn" with a punching motion has become common when this guy is half-having a conversation with you.  Luckily he hasn't figured it out yet...

Next time I'll post drawings.  Or something more interesting than this bitchfest :P

This weekend I worked on my yard.

I'm still new to this whole... owning a home business.  We were lucky - winter didn't require much work.  Everything dies this far north.  We probably should have swept up more leaves but... we didn't.  Now it's warmer and everything's sprung to life suddenly.

We have this line of bushes around the front that need to be trimmed.  But they hide the fact that out grass is 2 feet tall from the road.  The tree in the front died.  The other four need seriously to be pruned as they're littered with dead branches.  Most of the plants in the planters are dead or sickly.  Except the jasmine and the sage.  They are very happy.  The back doesn't have grass.  It's just a clearing of weeds.

The lady who lived here before us didn't take care of her yard.  Or she let her kids, maybe.  That would explain the different types of boardering on the planters - 2 kinds of white stone (nice stuff) and three different colors and shapes of.. ugly fucking plastic.. stuff.  The white stone in the front is plotted around the big oak out from the house in the most ridiculous shape ever.  I think we finally decided someone was trying to make the shape of Texas and failed miserably.

After we bought the house she rented it from us for a month and a bit so she could move out.  She didn't water at all.  The tree in the front died a week after we moved in.  It's still covered in ugly crispy leaves.

Oddly I'm beginning to feel all this is for the best.  I wasn't a fan of most of her plant choices.  Slow-growing spindly shrubs are just not my thing.  I'm glad most of it died.  The tree that croaked dropped those spike-balls that hide like snakes in the grass and nip the soles of bare feet.  I'll replace it with a dogwood or oak.

That is my job this spring/summer - to take care of the front yard.  Today I have decided I am going to say screw the backyard after spending some time there.  Why?  Y'know - I really don't like grass.  Grass is boring.  I said it was covered in weeds - which consists mostly of clover-like plants.  Half of them have sprouted these very pretty little purple flowers.  There are daisies and dandelions.  Today I  clipped down some of the larger unruly weeds- biased because they are scratchy and leave me with a mild rash.

I noticed because we never raked many of the leaves that underneath is alive with insects.  Spiders and doodlebugs, worms and beetles, wasp larva and ants - oh there were ants!  Not nasty fireants but at least 3 different other harmless sorts.  I haven't seen ants aside from fireants in years.  There are moths, grasshoppers, caterpillars, ladybirds in the weeds.  Sure it's just bugs.  But I like bugs.  I like the feeling of walking out into my yard and feeling like it's alive - instead of pruned and shaped and perfect.

So I will plant sunflowers and let the birds come and maul them.  I will plant onions where the spider plants have died.  I may find some wildflower seeds and scatter them, see how they fare.

The front will be respectable and the back a wild of my own liking.

Workity work working.  Hate milestones.

Yum yum some music.

Thank you, Wind Rider, for that comment.  You've reminded me to think about that's important as my mind keeps shifting between various fantasies of all that can go wrong.  So thanks.

Things seem to be working out, finally.  It turns out for thirty days after I initially get a new car, I'm automatically covered by my insurance company.  So I turned out to be in the green for insurance coverage.  I also talked to the chick again, who said she knew those scratches on the back were there beforehand, that she wasn't going to claim them as part of the accident.  And sorry that her father made that mistake.  I guess I judged her correctly at the scene for being an honest person after all.

So things are going through insurance instead of between me and her.  Which is bad and good I guess.  Because of certain Texas laws and such, because I turned into her lane, no matter how recklessly she was driving, it's my fault.  Unless I had a witness.  Which I don't have.  And it's.. one-fault or something.  Meaning it's either one guy's fault or the other guy's - and loser pays all damages.

Sucks.  But before wanting to change that law - I'm determined to change all the fucking archaic laws about dry counties, no selling of hard liquor on sundays and no beer or wine before noon.  Really it bites I have to drive 15 miles to buy a beer.  I mean, wtf.

So I've been bummed and stressed obviously.  From work and this awful situation alike.  I am completely burnt out on WoW.  So here's what I've been working on for the past night.  I haven't colored in forever and it looks like ass.  Goddamnit I'm so exhausted.

I had an accident last night.  Good reason to be upset, right?  The chick and I decided there was just minimal damage so we didn't report it.  And I was fine until her father called me later, telling me the damage was going to probably be over a thousand bucks.  For scratches?  What?  There are scratches on the back of her vehicle too?  There are none on the front of mine...

After much crying and brooding and not a lot of sleep I debate on who's fault it really is.  Mine for having my turn signal on and making a lane change?  Or hers for tailgating behind another vehicle on a dark freeway with no lights.  All I have are your headlights to go by babe.  If I can't see them I'm fucked.  I turned into her, admittedly, because I had to turn then if I was ever going to make it and she was nonexistent as far as I was concerned (I even looked over my shoulder, shit.)  As fast and congested as that freeway was we're both fucking lucky we aren't dead.

Why should I have to pay for other people being shitty drivers?  Do you try to speed past a merging semi and assume it was their fault for 'hitting' you?  Hmm.

The worst part is - this is the one time thus far in my life I don't have insurance.  Well, really I'm about to call and see if I do.  I -just- sold my neon.  I -just- got this car from my mom.  I've been waiting for my parents to get back from a business trip so I could get the numbers and name for our house insurance.  Some multi-line discount they want me to do.  It's also easier to have an agent in the same city and such.

So in 4 minutes I get to call the insurance people.  And just pay on the murano's plan in place of my parents - fuck multiline discount.  And hope it covers the time of the accident.

Still, I'm hating myself for being too nice.  Shaken at the scene, I admitted I hit her.  Which, technically I did.  She also technically tried to race past a merging vehicle tailgating a larger car on a black night.  I said if it wasn't much we shouldn't involve insurance lest both them go up, I'd just pay it out of my pocket.  I was the nice guy.  I'm the good driver.

I feel betrayed and screwed.