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I just looked up jumping spiders, Sal, and I think we share very different definitions of "adorable" - but their mating dance is kinda neat. Also if a spider ever jumped at me I don't think I would ever stop screaming during my natural life.

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So I'm moving into an actual house. It's a rental unfortunately that's also in a part of town that's somewhat worse than where I'm at (but it's Austin, there's really nothing comparable to Houston, where I was apparently living in an apartment which is currently the most violent area of the city as I found out). There's also tons of broken appliances and the house became a lower rate rental because it was "as is" and kind of grimy and dirty inside. There's also some roach issues with the German ones and lots of wasp nests everywhere outside.

However the good news is we have a great property manager who has like 5 different repairmen visiting all of last week and this week to fix every broken thing, all on his expense, plus an exterminator is coming out soon even though my girlfriend has already laid out a bunch of traps. We have way too much space to the point where I don't know what to do with all of it plus the rent increase from the duplex we are in now is not too bad. It's also much closer to my work, less than half (I drive 50 miles everyday to work and back currently) and doing the math on the gas money saved almost makes the rate increase negligible. Plus lots of trees and far away enough from neighbors so that I don't have to have to deal with noise and bass anymore.

I really need to do something special for my girlfriend. I feel really guilty because I've been in some idiotic crunch mode for the last four weeks of my mismanaged job and have hardly had any time to pack and move (we have a three week overlap with the two places so plenty of time). She's been taking on a lot of the move and readying the new place herself since she works 4 days a week. I really just wish I had more time to help her more and I'm really grateful for how helpful she's been with very little complaint. This is also coming off a three month thing that ended recently where I was working on an animation project with a hard deadline that was outside of my job, so I still had little time to spend with her. I have two vacation days left for the year to use... possibly a camping trip is in order.

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Sal and I were planning to go camping in Marfa in October—we've been planning this october trip for five+ years running and something ALWAYS comes up and we have to cancel. Turns out ditto this year. Marfa is cursed. Maybe you can go instead!

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Thanks for the tip, I definitely need a fresh place to camp. We've been to a lot of places so far, so anything new that is supposed to be great helps.

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Today I convinced a one-armed mother of two that I was a murderous psychopath.

Gaming talk sure is scary.

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I learned this when talking about the sniping mission in CoD4 in a bistro. Totally innocuous, you know "The game is so cool, it handles so well, the graphics aren't half bad, the movement feels good, the story is kinda bleh but what do you expect." About five minutes into this conversation we run into talking about missions. "How about when you blow that fuckers arm right clean off, huh?!"

Woops.

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So my partner and I talked today, and it looks like we may go forward with this. We only talked about really preliminary stuff, basic boundaries things, but even just talking so seriously about it made me feel a lot better about things. Not a situation I'd ever expected to find myself in, and the first week of my final school year is probably not the ideal time to have this on my mind, but nobody gets to decide when shit like this will crop up for them so I may as well roll with it. This seems like it would be a very difficult thing to do without people getting hurt, but the potential for good is also pretty significant. Time will tell.

I've also been re-teaching myself guitar steadily for the past month and it feels great to be able to pick up an instrument and make a song come out. It's been so long since I've done that. My partner dug out the bass that she'd given up on playing years ago as well and we're fumbling through stuff together. Fun times!

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Well, you know the drill. Make a journal topic on these very forums rife with pictures, video and audio.

Arrrhem. Good luck, is what I meant to say. I hope it works out.

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Infidelity is not as simple and binary as our rigid-ass square society would want us believe. Social boundaries are negotiable. Secrets and dishonesty tend to be more noxious to serious stable relationships than swinging.

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So I'm in Stockholm, primarily to catch Jonathan Coulton in concert, and also attending the SCII EU championship finals.

I'm mainly posting this in order to provoke jealousy.

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Get me a CD or I will insert a sharp, homemade knife into your abdomen.

(Nice!)

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I work from home and my life's kinda boring and lonely.

I'm not living in it though, cos living in a house by myself would be a living nightmare, so... I'm renting it out and profiteering. I guess.

...I feel kinda fat. That's my life right now. Kinda scary that that's it.

EDIT-- Y'KNOW: I'm totally ready for somethin nuts right now. I'm kinda bored of my friends and if I had to re-locate to another country tomorrow I wouldn't be too annoyed. I'm THIS CLOSE to being super upbeat n excited about somethin, but I don't know what. Keepin my eye out!

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I wish I could work at a different game studio. I can't leave cities, I'm not excited about any studio or their output in Austin and I generally don't care. I kind of hate this career as an artist and the pressure that goes along to get better. It's really difficult to get good plus there's overtime at the job that kind of prevents the stuff you can do to grow, plus balancing social life. Now outsourcing all art to China in games is also a big thing so entry level stuff is drying up more since it's always way cheaper to get subpar art from them.

I feel trapped because there's not a ton of stuff that I can move laterally at in terms of art, at least in this city. Or I've just forgotten what else an artist can do and still get paid. I have no web chops and that's the first thing that comes to mind. Freelancing sucks, you have to be really good and be a business man.

I feel like it's too late to change careers in life, not unless I ran into a bunch of money and was able to just not work for a few years and go to college. Even then I'd probably use all of that money to go through rigorous art training at some local continuing education type schools.

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I don't know which company you currently work for, but have you approached Renegade Kid? They operate from Austin. They're a cool little outfit that made the excellent Dementium games on the DS (hopefully a 3rd is forthcoming!) and are currently enjoying critical acclain for Mutant Mudds.

Maybe they could use a good junior artist willing to go the extra mile? http://www.renegadekid.com/company.htm Their job page suggests they're not hiring, but it's never a bad idea to get into contact, leave a portfolio, etc.

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It will require quite a bit of will and organization to evolve yo self artistically when you also must job full-timely on the side. I don't think it is impossible. Austin has a fair bit of handy events and clubs that can help you hone your skills, stuff like Dr Sketchy or Austin Drink 'n' Draw. Those two are figure drawing oriented thingers. Maybe people at these events can direct you further.

Personally, art school has been an invaluable tool in helping me work out my arrogance issues and come up with more coherent conceptual underpinnings to my work—but as far as technique and skills go it was kinda secondary. Then again, I went to a more arty-oriented university as opposed to a technique-'n'-hustle-oriented school—and when I was done with that I dropped the whole art thing and cashed in on my mad programming and design skillz instead. Ultimately higher education is a racket. You'd be better off in the long run if you can do without all that debt.

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So my partner and I talked today, and it looks like we may go forward with this. We only talked about really preliminary stuff, basic boundaries things, but even just talking so seriously about it made me feel a lot better about things.

I'm intrigued about her reasons, and what she said that made you feel better? A fascinating situation. Alan Moore was married to one woman while they shared a girlfriend. They had kids and everything. Sadly this experimental relationship didn't work out, and the two women left him.

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Man, I'm such a teenager.

So about three months ago my previous relationship failed and I've been dealing with that, but by now I feel like I'm safe to start thinking about a new relationship. Or [EDIT]something casual. The thing is, because of a Finnish peculiarity, I have to leave my home town for a year to do civilian (as opposed to armed) service, so even if something came up, a proper relationship is not the greatest idea. My two previous ones turned into long distance relationships and both failed after about a month and a half.

So, I managed to convince myself that I'd be okay with just an affair with no commitment. This is silly: I seem to be one of those people who have monogamy in their blood. I really don't have room for more than one woman in my head (or the other place). But I forgot that long enough to actually have a one night stand, which turned into two nights... After the first, I said I wasn't about to start anything serious since I had recently broken up, after the second I couldn't think about much else than her :P She had her own reasons for not wanting anything serious and she called it quits after I suggested a third meetup. It could be any one of many good reasons, but it doesn't really matter. And now I'm that guy, contacting her at least once or twice after I should have backed off. Can't help it, because, you know, maybe it was a misunderstanding. Pfft.

I have a ton of conflicting emotions about this. It feels good to have a proper crush and some new memories after my previous relationship. Weirdly, it also feels kind of good to feel confused. After all, it's how I've felt about these things most of my life ;D And now it's so very obvious that I should have known circumstances won't change how I am with women. What makes sense or not has never made a difference before. One time I started a relationship the day before I left the country for good! I know this is how I am, how could I forget?

Thanks for listening :P

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Current/common use of "affair" in English means you're schtupping someone else while you're married or in an otherwise-monogamous relationship without the consent of the other person in your relationship. For example: "Ray's wife had an affair with the milkman while he was out of town. Now she's pregnant and doesn't know who the father is."

If that's what's going on with you, there's probably a very good reason she's not contacting you. Because she's in a relationship with someone else and you were her bit on the side.

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Anybody have any ideas about how to deal with an infestation of Black Widows?

I just realised no-one answered this. I believe the traditional responses are:

  • Cleansing fire
  • Take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

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I did a sweep and killed a few of them, though i think they were coming in from a crawl space, and there's no fucking way i'm going in there.

I haven't seen any more since i did my sweep though, and Black Widows are apparently generally inclined to keep to themselves, so i think i'm going to pretend it's not an issue until i start seeing more.

You know, and i'll be careful if i need to start shoving my hand into old boxes.

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