ScatteredGenius.com

Hey, internet. We’ve not talked in a while because, as I always say, I’ve been busy.

TL:DR, expanding behind the cut…

• - I quit my job.
• - I got a new job.
• - My new apartment is a shithole.
• - Related, ass is being busted to make it not such.
• - I finally got a bed, internet, and a fridge.
• - I’m going to decorate my new place making posters of my favorite internets using this.
• - As of now, I am pretty sure I’m going to the GDC. Are you going to the GDC?
• - I think the writers strike is over… Does anyone have a summary of what the deal ended up to be?
• - I have no forgotten about those vLogs. I did record one a day, I just need to find a computer able to edit them up.
• - My main computer, Miranda, died. Half of her RAID harddrives died, at least. I need new ones to get that puter up to speed.

The ‘new job’ deal all happened within the span of about a week. My friends are starting up a new company and they happened to need a lead multimedia developer, and I jumped at the chance. I honestly don’t know how much I can talk about, regarding the new company, so I won’t. It may be months before I can say anything about it but rest assured that the second I can, you’re going to know *EVERYTHING* about it because I’m probably not going to be able to shut up about it. (I mean this. No offense to even my close friends, but we’re talking NDA-level STFU-ness, so don’t even ask me. I’ll just tell you it’s about Walruses.) The job is quite literally my dream job. That’s all I’ll say about that.

Quitting my job at LiquidGeneration was rough, I left at a bit of a bad time, but they will survive. I’m really gonna miss some of the people there, we had good times and they were great people to work with. There were a lot of really talented and creative people there. I will probably be helping them out a bit after the fact for a while, at least until they find a replacement.

My new apartment is tough love. As I said, it’s a shithole. It’s a textbook example of people having no idea how to take care of a place taking care of a place for many years. Some examples:

• Instead of fixing things they just painted over shit. There’s paint literally on the window-glass, and not just a few drips. Like entire swaths of paint. Crack in one of the windows? Off-white paint makes a great sealant. And not just one or two of the windows. Literally all of the windows appear to have been painted by a blindfolded amputee with Parkinsons Disease. [Michael J Fox + Paintbrush = My Apartment].
• The people who painted must have been using paint rollers that were near death. There’s tons and tons of almost foam-like specs about the size of quarters stuck under the paint all over the place. Ceilings, walls, etc, the walls are lumpy and scary. Sanding them has revealed lots and lots of spackle.
• Instead of just painting over the new drawers, I wanted to strip the paint off of them, only to find literally ten layers of paint on some of them. I’m not exaggerating, because there was at least 3-4 different color coats of paint, spaced out by a layer or two of white or whiteish paint. One drawer was literally being held together by paint.
• I re-caulked the bathtub after much, much scraping of TILE GROUT, not latex, TILE GROUT. The kind that dries hard and is meant for TILE and not bathtubs. Next comes the sink.
• Did I mention that on TOP of that nasty tile grout, instead of cleaning and repairing it, they put this rubbery latex glue down and then these huge strips of plastic. They may have looked nice at first, but they had deteriorated and fell apart and got moldy and nasty and were so so so gross. Those got ripped out, and as I said, everything scraped off, and as I type the new latex caulk is drying out.
• The wood in the entire apartment is just old and busted and probably was termitey at one point. Running a electric palm-sander over one of the windowsills yielded a cascade of black/brown ‘pellet’ looking things that just spilled out from the cracks in some of the wood. Imaginations can decide what those are from, all I know is that’s gross. You can press on some of the wood on the windowsills and it feels like foam.
• Most of the often-used doorknobs in the place were falling off the doors. I don’t understand how this can get to this point. My only thought is that since it’s a two bedroom place, they’ve had to replace them several times so people could lock their doors but jesus christ… Naturally I have replacement doorknobs waiting on standby.
• I pulled the ‘cutting board’ out from under the counter, after having to pry it out because it was painted over. I was immediately greeted with the dried out carcasses of a family of cockroaches and what was probably their crap. The cutting board had been sealed in there and most likely was home to these lovely creatures for a long time. This even is probably one of the most disgusting things that has ever happened to me. Needless to say I threw out the ‘cutting board’ and am scared of my kitchen.
• Having a clean bathroom and kitchen and then going somewhere where both places are not ‘clean’ really makes you realize how important they are. Like the grody shower or the cutting board thing really threw me off and sorta lowered the ’sanctity’ of those places. I’m just going to clean up and fix up those places enough so that I have the sanctity again, and then I’ll be fine. I can live with lumpy walls =P

I’ve painted (lol) a pretty dismal picture, but I’m not destitute. The place is live able, it was just neglected. The work being done will make it live-able but any original plans of growing roots in this place and settling into living by myself are being thrown out the (painted) window. It’ll be fine for a year or so but once my lease is up, I’ll recalculate my life monies and move the hell out of it.

There has been much sanding and painting and cleaning and I’m sure I’ll get it to a comfortable state. My bedroom is done, apart from repainting the trim of the windows and such. But man, I don’t fancy myself a handyman, but some of this shit just seems like common sense.

In a twist of fate, as I’m starting the new job, the crew is heading off to the GDC, because we are all game developers and we need to confer. They have a huge casual games summit there which I had wanted to go to but didn’t really have an appropriate reason to go, at my last job. But now I do, and I believe I’ll be out there. If you’re going, let me know and we will catch a drink!

The writers strike is over, according to the interbutt. I am curious if anyone has a synopsis of the results of the talks, I want to see how they made out. Hollywood sighs relief? How many concessions or compromises were made and on what sides and what aspects?