NASCAR: The Reality TV Series

So this is the first time I've posted in a month so it'll be difficult but I'll try my best.

The NASCAR season has 10 races to go.  This is the "Chase."  Let me explain for those who don't know.  For the first 26 races of the season, drivers gain points and wins, like a regular race series.  Once the 26 races are over, the Top 12 drivers are entered into the Chase, where the points are reset and it becomes a brand new season over the last 10 races.  Drivers that fail to make the Chase still participate in the races but only the 12 Chase drivers can win the championship trophy.  So basically, if you want to win the Big Trophy at the end, you MUST make the Chase.

As you imagine, there's a couple of problems with this.  The first one is if you gain enough points to lock yourself in the Chase, those last couple of races become meaningless in terms of the Championship.  Look at Jimmie Johnson's record over the last 4 races--finished 40th, 36th, 28th, and 40th, very noobish, I figure Jimmie liked wrecking the car cause "YOLO, I'm in the Chase anyway."  Yeah, Jimmie has that baby girl but who cares, NASCAR trumps family.  The second one, which we can see on display now, is that racing teams will "game the system" to get their drivers enough points to make it to the Chase.  That is not to say this has never happened in motorsport but the nature of the Chase just acerbates the problem.

Richmond was the 26th race, a 3/4 mile oval.  Four drivers were on the bubble--Joey Logano (#22), Martin Truex Jr. (#56), Jeff Gordon (#24), and Ryan Newman (#39), and only two of the four could make the Chase.  A couple of things go down and here's what I got out of the flurry of news the last few days:

* Early in the race, Jeff Gordon struggles and goes a lap down.  Going a lap down is a death kneel for a driver's chances of winning.  Think about restarts as "rounding up" your lap progress so if you're on the lead lap when that happens, you gain a lot of ground (dropped a second behind the leader) that you don't get a lap down.   So stay on the lead lap as long as you can.  Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson dings his car to draw a caution that helps Jeff get his s*** together and back on the lead lap.

* Brian Vickers is ordered to pit with a few laps to go to help his fellow Michael Waltrip Racing teammate, Martin Truex Jr., move up another spot.

* Joey Logano falters late into the race (about 20-25th place).  One position ahead of Logano is David Gilliliand (#38).  Penske Motorsports (Logano's team) bribes Front Row Racing (Gilliliand's team) to tell the Gilliliand to slow down and let Logano pass.

* But worst of all!  Late in the race, Ryan Newman is leading the race by a sizable margin.  If he wins, then he's in the Chase.  Michael Waltrip Racing, owner of Clint Bowyer (#15) and Martin Truex Jr.'s cars, is aware that Truex Jr. is in jeopardy of missing the Chase if Newman wins.  So Clint (who is a lock for the Chase) is ordered to spin out with 5 laps to go to help Truex Jr.  A caution comes out and on the restart, Newman loses his momentum and finishes 3rd.  It gives Truex Jr. just enough points to make the Chase.

"39's gonna win the race"

"Well that kinda sucks...5 more right here"

"Is your arm starting to hurt?"

"I bet it's hot in there, itch it"

"Oh yeah"

*le spin*

There's no real defense of what happened here.  Shoot, in the post race interview, if you stare away from the camera and say "Yeah, uhhmm, we had a bad tire..." you're lying.  And Clint continues to do television interviews denying any wrongdoing with team owner Michael Waltrip claims Clint really had poison ivy (who tells someone to really scratch their arm on the radio???).  He's not in court, he doesn't need to plead the 5th, he's already been slapped on the wrist, he might as well say "I cheated, I'm sorry" and just get on with it.  But no, he continues to shred any credibility he's had thus far.  If you're dug in a hole, most give up but a few keep digging their way to China.  Remember this is the same guy from a year ago who instigated a brawl with Jeff Gordon so I'm not surprised by Bowyer's actions.

Post-race, the initial result were Truex Jr. and Logano are in the Chase and Gordon and Newman are out.  However, the next day, NASCAR penalized Michael Waltrip Racing, deducting points from Bowyer, Truex Jr., and Vickers and suspending their pit chiefs.  The point loss was enough to replace Newman with Truex Jr. in the Chase.  And then, a few days later, after the Logano controversy comes to light and after Gordon's bitching, NASCAR puts Gordon in the chase too for a grand total of 13 Chase drivers, flagrantly tossing the rulebook out the window.  As of now, Logano or Gordon were not penalized for their mutinies.

The only thing more baffling is Michael Waltrip's dance routine.

EDIT: It gets better!  Today, NASCAR adds a new rule to the book that reaffirms COMMON SENSE SPORTS ETIQUETTE that we were taught by Herm Edwards years ago.

NASCAR requires its competitors to race at 100 percent of their ability with the goal of achieving their best possible finishing position in an event. Any competitor who takes action with the intent to artificially alter the finishing positions of the event or encourages, persuades or induces others to artificially alter the finishing position of the event shall be subject to a penalty from NASCAR. Such penalties may include but are limited to disqualification and/or loss of finishing points and/or fines and/or loss of points and/or suspension and/or probation to any and all members of the teams, including any beneficiaries of the prohibited actions.

Artificially altered' shall be defined as actions by any competitor that show or suggest that the competitor did not race at 100 percent of their ability for the purpose of changing finishing positions in the event at NASCAR's sole discretion.

Is this really necessary?  Are NASCAR drivers dicking around that much that they need to be told "you better try hard or else"?  Can't we just say "don't game the system" and call it a day?  Okay, so this 100% balls out thing is A BIG F'ING DEAL.  Get Rich Christensen on the phone.  He runs bracket drag races (which make no sense) and he can tell when you're not going all out, hence the name of his show PINKS: ALL OUT.  Some BS like "Jimmie Johnson ran a 32 sec lap at qualifying, now he's running 31.5 sec laps late in the race, he's clearly sandbagging, BLACK FLAG HIS ASS."

IF YOU DON'T GO ALL OUT, YOU DON'T DESERVE TO BE HERE

NASCAR has no idea what they're doing.  Truex Jr. is the sacrificial lamb in this situation.  It's a shame because technically, he did nothing wrong, his teammates did.  Bowyer and Logano are still in the Chase, Truex isn't.  And after learning about Gordon's inclusion in the Chase, Truex Jr. objects to it.  Think about this--if Truex is punished by Bowyer's yellow flag, shouldn't Gordon be punished for Johnson's yellow flag too?  So basically, NASCAR is like a reality TV show that adds and changes flimsy rules as it goes on to create the drama it so desires.

I CALL BULLSHIT YOU GUYS

Besides, I'm getting tired of the Chase being called "NASCAR's playoffs" anyway.  In other sports, if you lose a playoff game (or series of games), you're eliminated from subsequent competition.  Players/teams are eliminated until one remains.  In NASCAR, this isn't the case since you can still participate in and win races even if you're mathematically eliminated from the Chase or aren't even in it in the first place.  Just get into the chase, get a car that can win mile/mile-and-a-half tracks and win the championship.  Besides, what are the odds these non-Chase drivers can win the Championship at that point in the Season?  Isn't the Chase useless except for resetting points and nullifying the progress made over the last 26 races?  It's absurd and I'm pretty sure most NASCAR diehards want it eliminated after 8 years of its institution.

Oh well, I'm a NASCAR fan but still, I have to shake my head at these guys anyway.  Tomorrow, we go Boogity Boogity Chase Racing again and it'll be brushed aside.  So anyway, that's it, and screw Alabama for yet another curb stomping of a SEC rival (Texas A&M).  Life sucks and I'm still unemployed but the SEGA flame never dies.

New Updates To Sonic All-Stars Racing, 90's Arcade Racer, And My Optimism

Okay guys, we're back online and I'm sorry about the huge ass delay.  I'm alive and kicking, just barely though...

This news is OLD'd but I don't care, I thought you'd want to hear my take on it.  So, the new DLC character for Sega All-Stars Racing is the Russian commander from Company of Heroes 2.  This is DLC that came out on July 4th which makes no sense since it's an AMERICAN holiday, not a Red Commie one (BOOOOO) but that's besides the point because the character choice is certainly a strange one.  It's a WWII tank/submarine/fighter combo and that alone deserves praise because the idea of driving a TANK sounds like real neat idea.  Otherwise, my response might as well be summarized by this...

This character, along with the other PC exclusives like the Tactician and the Shogun really show how much Sega has fallen off the map.  Perhaps I'm a bit bitter that I wish more relatable Sega characters like Ryo Hazuki, Segata Sanshiro, Jacky Bryant, Ristar, Vectorman, Bonanza Bros. Toejam & Earl, ChuChu's, or even freakin Bayonetta made it into a game that was meant to promote Sega's Golden Age.  Or also bitter that DarthS0L, Sumo, or Sega basically played us for fools, proposing "Internet petishuns" to help get our favorite characters in the game that were all for naught really.

But the main cause for bitterness is seeing characters from games that I could barely consider Sega in nature (Football Manager, Total War, Company of Heroes) are getting precedence over the other characters for political posturing--people who liked Sega All-Stars Racing are more likely to get into Football Manager, Total War, etc. and vice versa.  It's free promotional material for games that are just painfully non-Sega in nature.  I mean Western-developed games about gritty war heroes and football simulators isn't what Sega should be known for.  It shows that they've completely failed to develop good games in recent time and are willing to stamp their name on any decent games they can get their hands on to seem relevant once again.  I'm not saying games like Football Manager or Total War suck, but whenever I read stories about them on the Sega blogs, my thoughts basically devolve to "meh" since I didn't get involved in Sega years ago just to read about them.  Really, to this day I'm still utterly baffled that Sega would get involved in the Aliens franchise, only to watch garbage Gearbox and Randy Pitchfork piss all over it.

Anyway, cause the Reddit-spooge-inducing Steam Summer Sale is on, I picked up Sonic All-Stars Racing: Transformed up for PC for $8.  Not bad and I hope you did too.  I haven't played it yet but I'll have it for 60 FPS goodness on a rainy day.  One problem I finally realized after all these months is that the game isn't going to work with this fancy GT steering wheel I got a while back.  Why??  Because you can't fly planes with a steering wheel.  Now that's just lame...  Think I said this before but if given the choice for cars only at 60 FPS or cars/boats/planes for 30 FPS, I'd take the cars at 60 FPS.  And the steering wheel compatibility is another reason...

Sonic All-Stars Racing: Transformed is basically in its waning phase and if Sumo were to add anything else to the game at this point, I'd probably shit bricks.  Doubt it'd happen though.

We do have another update from another game and it's from The 90's Arcade Racer crew via Kickstarter email.  This was some time in June.  Basically, they're going all-out with this game now, as they have introduced what appears to be an airport terminal level (Scud Race, duh) as well as the "Omnomnomnom" car which is clearly meant to be the Phantom Full Force car.  In other words, I think feature creep is kicking in as the crew has said f*** it to normal arcade conventions, let's crank the number of cars and tracks in this game up to 11.  Here's two hi-res screenshots.

Now, I might as well tell you what happened recently too and this was after I got fired.  Basically, I sent Pelikan another email about my recent woes and said I can help with the game if necessary (also gave him the link to my personal portfolio site).  He sympathized with me but has since then never replied back with an "offer" (even a free one would do, that's how much I want to help with the game).  And I can understand the lack of offer since I am a programming noob who lives on a completely different continent than he does.

So the game is coming along nicely and let's face it--I've kinda run out of things to do for racing games.  The 90's Arcade Racer is basically out there honing in on the Sega Racing Utopia Project we've all desired while Sega and Sumo Digital are jerking off and every other racing dev is obsessed with making their racing games as photorealistic as possible, gameplay or fun be damned.  I did throw out the idea about a year ago that I should create my own 3D arcade racing game like Daytona or OutRun on my own but let's face it--it'd never work.  I'm not an artist and I no longer have access to the same tools/software that I did during my days at grad school.  It would be like constructing a car out of popsicle sticks but no glue.  The 90's Arcade Racer is doing better than I ever could in a freelance project so I'm basically left in the dust to play the role of an inept cheerleader.  You have no idea how much this depresses me.

As an aside, and I hate getting all emo once again, but my motives have most certainly changed over the last couple of years.  At first it was all "hoorah, we're gonna work for Sega and make Daytona USA 3," then it's "well, Sega seems out of reach but it might happen and I might get to work on some racing games," to "I don't give a shit anymore, I'll work for anyone who pays for me."  My optimism certainly got shot down, curb stomped, and roasted as firewood really quickly.  I'd consider it fortunate if I ever get to "contribute" to a racing game ever again outside of Super Sprint.  Argh, everything just got all fucked up since I was fired and I'll be lucky if I ever get a job working at a video game studio again.  Sorry to be Debbie Downer.  I'll be back with more updates someday so later guys.

E3 Drivel, Sony, Racing Games

Guys, I have a confession to make.  I haven't been keeping up on E3.  I do not care about 99.9999% of the games they talk about.  I know about how everyone is taking a dump on Microsoft whom is trying to spin-doctor their way out of the fact their console sucks. Microsoft blows now, Sony all the way, even though I have little incentive to buy any next-gen consoles.  But I will tell you what I know.

This is the best thing that Sony has done since Kevin Butler.

Yeehaw, watch this burn on nine different screens for nine times the sizzle.
Also the PS4 is region-free, Xbox One isn't, oh happy days are here again.

See you in Hell, Microsoft.  Where you'll be forced to play sub-par Kinect games for eternity, the same exact games you forced your pitiful developers to make.  Really, they have a patent on viewing/counting the number of people the Kinect picks up on, NO SERIOUSLY, READ THIS.  Didn't get this from from /r/gaming either.  See you in hell too with your little 2-second satisfaction posts for LE SWEET, SWEET KARMA.

As for Pokemon, you now have Fairy type Pokemon.  Boy I'd never see the day, rofl!!  As for Smash Bros, you have Mega Man and Wii Fit Trainer.  Hooray Nintendo.  Let's hope that Sonic makes a return especially to return the favor that Sonic games are going Nintendo-exclusive.  Speaking of Sonic and Sega, well, there's really nothing I give a crap about.  There's new Sonic games, including another Sonic & Mario Olympics game (WHO KEEPS BUYING THESE????), Bayonetta 2, and some Mickey Mouse game I don't care about (I'm trying to get the fuck out of Orlando, remember?) but that's it.  Hey Sumo, where is that elusive DLC character for Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed?  Where's Ryo Hazuki?  Where's Segata Sanshiro?  Where's Yu Suzuki with the Shenmue 3 announcement?  And that's how the world turns for a Sega fan--get your hopes up, wait, wait, wait, wait, get old, wait, wait, wait, wait, muse about how good you thought Sega was, wait, wait, wait, wait, then get a life or die of heartache.

Now about racing games.  Nope, nothing I care about.  Forza and Driveclub are bleh--too much realism, not enough emphasis on having fun.  Well, how about Need for Speed: Rivals?  Surely this game would induce vomiting but hold up a sec--just watch the gameplay footage.  It's a bit weird cause there's multiple screens going on.  Basically, it's simultaneous gameplay from the points of view from the evader and the cop.

  

Now this game isn't made by Black Box, responsible for the atrocity that is NFS: The Runs, or Criterion with their overrated crash-gasm games.  This is from Ghost Games, a new EA studio out of Gothemburg, Sweden.  And overall, looking at this game, it doesn't look TOO bad.  Basically, it feels kinda like the old NFS games--you drive around, cops are behind you with the radio chatter, you weave around ever-changing landscapes, and there's no stupid bonuses for doing stunts, shunting and using EMPs to make your rivals crash and die.  Here's footage from NFS 4: High Stakes on the PS1.

Looks familiar, don't it?  Plus Rivals has Ferraris in it.  Hey, if Ferrari endorses something (*coughoutrun2cough*), you know it's gotta be good stuff.  But I'm not getting my hopes up cause this is still a NFS game that has EA's greasy fingerprints all over it so I'm still a no-buy for me.  But it's worth giving props where it's due.

Other racing games...well, there's also Mario Kart 8.  Their new feature this time around is driving up on the ceiling and walls, kinda like in Super Mario Galaxy, to create more dynamic looking tracks.  They also seems to have tightened up the handling a bit cause I bet you they saw Sega All-Stars Racing: Transformed and thought "oh shit we're gonna get our asses kicked here" even though they have yet to introduce boats or planes into their game--rather they stuck with hang-gliders and driving on the bottom of the lakes.  Sumo, you got Nintendo where you want 'em.

One more thing.  Dead Rising 3 sucks ass.  What made the first two cool were the colorful mall/casino backdrops.  Here's it's a crappy-ass town loaded with gritty shaders.  Oh, and I don't give a damn about The Last of Us either.  I know that's not E3-related but I'm tired of hearing about that damn game.  Again, where's Shenmue 3.  Later guys.

A Nightmarish Week Of Losing My Car And Job

GUYS I'M DOING ALRIGHT NOW.  Sorry about the radio silence.  This has been a really shitty week--let me just describe it as best as I know how.

PRE-MEMORIAL DAY 5/24:
Things are going swimmingly.  The project we're working on received a six-month extension and the company is upsizing!  Everyone is let off work a few hours early but I stay to add an alternate control scheme for the vehicles as presented by another one of the programmers (accel, brake, and steer are mapped to the left joystick).  Got that in, impressed the "boss," and got a three-day weekend (Monday was Memorial Day).

WEDNESDAY 5/29:
After an average Tuesday workday, I drive in to work on a damp Wednesday morning.  As I enter the parking lot in my blue 2-door bullet-shaped sedan, I traverse some slippery black pavement with one more left-hand turn to go before I reach my parking space.  Hit the brakes but OOPS, the car won't slow down or turn as I careen into a fenced region with a dumpster inside at about 20 mph.  Airbags go off, windshield cracks, and an undetermined amount of damage is concurred to the front right of the vehicle as two of my coworkers run over to aid me...and end up slipping on the black pavement as well.  Shows you how ridiculously bad this pavement is in the rain...a sign or a speed bump would've helped you sons of bitches.  It was the most BS way to crash, really.

I am not physically hurt but have to hold back man-tears because of fear my vehicular companion of 7 years may have taken its last ride.  After making a round of calls to the cops, insurance, rental car, AAA guys, one placed to my family, my dad's response was basically "HOLD ON SON JUST LEAVE THE CAR THERE!!" as he hopped in my mom's black 4-door Mercedes and drove 9 hours from Louisiana (my original home) to Florida (my workplace) just to help fix the car.  I called off the tow truck and the rental car as he showed up after work to bang the car together a bit.  Turns out all the damage was cosmetic and all it needed was a new windshield, airbags, and front right light and bumper/panels.  My dad was able to drive it back to the garage to get the windshield replaced which was a miracle in and of itself.

That combined with the ticket would probably set me back at least a week's salary which isn't TOO bad and is certainly a relief because I thought I would be reamed with much more than that.  I didn't think things could get much worse than this but guess what--it did! :D

FRIDAY 5/31:
So anyway, after spending some impromptu quality time with my dad on Thursday, he jets back to Louisiana Friday morning in my blue car for repairs while I drive the Benz to work for the second day in a row.  All is good as me and everyone else appear to be loafing around the office before the weekend arrives.

At 6 pm, one of the HR ladies comes to my office saying she needs to speak with me.  I say okay, and we make this rather awkward walk down the hall to the conference room.  I've seen that expression on her face before, the one that's like "you're fucked so I won't say anything to you" as I'm forced to sit in the room alone for a few minutes waiting for people to show up for the eventual sacrificial lamb ceremony.  Two more HR people arrive and, to summarize, say "We're letting you go at the end of your probation period because the engineers say you have had performance issues, goodbye."  (FYI, engineer = programmer)

At this point, I turn pale as my worst nightmare turns true--I had failed to hold down my second job for ridiculous reasons and all I could think of was the metaphorical vacuum cleaner that had sucked me right out of the womb and tossed me into the dumpster--the very one I had run into two days ago.  I beg them to tell me what I had done wrong or how I could have improved but they basically deflected it, saying that they're not engineers so they have no idea.  Hey, this is wonderful.  I'm being let go from my job without a single clue on how to improve myself going into my next job.  It's as if the cowardly engineers who called for my abortion decided not to stare me in the face one last time and try to help me out as a human being in need of improvement just so that they could bolt home from work and get the weekend started a few minutes later.  You've gotta be kidding me.

After getting shit-canned for the second time for no good reason, watching both my car and my job get destroyed in seconds, I panic and start calling friends and family, including my parents, to tell them about how molested I had just felt.  What happens next? Dad calls and says "HOLD ON SON I'LL BE THERE TO BRING YOU HOME!!"  That's right, my dad who had just arrived back in Louisiana after driving 18 hours in the last two days insisted on driving straight back to Florida AGAIN (in a different car besides the blue bullet) with my brother and his GF in tow just to help me pack up my stuff and return home with my family.  Apparently I couldn't have made the 9-hour drive alone by myself (I was too emotionally wrecked) and my mom wanted me home for her birthday (June 2nd, 2 days from now) so yep, there goes my dad again.

SATURDAY 6/1:
At this point in time, all I could think about is why exactly was I fired and how utterly distraught I was.  Was it because I was a terrible employee?  Was it because I wasn't smart or good enough at this job career?  Or was it because I rubbed my boss the wrong way?  These are thing that had me in a cold sweat as my dad showed up at 5 am to pick me up and drive me home that day, making him drive a grand total of 36 hours in the last three days.  Thanks game studio for sucking ass and not firing me on a Thursday.  Would've saved us a lot of stress and gas money.

I get home and spend time with my family at last.  Too bad as soon as I get home, the house basically collapses in on itself as I have to contend with other issues--Brother #1's girlfriend who is always getting in fights and stirring up trouble, Brother #2's loudmouth friends and irrational obsession with whoever uses his toothbrush, Brother #3 and his friend always playing video games and bothering me at every waking moment.  It's like not only did getting fired fuck up my life, it also fucked up my family's cause now I'm another obstacle that's trying to inhibit progress or some bullshit like that.

MONDAY 6/3:
After a weekend's worth of radio silence, I finally get in touch with one of my friends at the company.  He says that I was the only one fired and that there were meetings going on discussing why exactly I was fired.  In other words, every single person, including the engineers who called for my head, was discussing my termination with everyone else EXCEPT FOR THE PERSON WHO ACTUALLY GOT FIRED which is me.  There was nothing I could do but picture my sacrificial lamb corpse being flogged and molested some more as every single lie about me propagated through that building and all my credibility was shot to hell.

I immediately fell sick once again as my mother decided to take actions into her own hands and send a "to whom it may concern" email to the company in a last-ditch attempt to find out what was being said about me.  Was this a good idea?  I DON'T KNOW, I'm in panic mode as it is so it's not like things could get that much worse.  Who replied?  The head of the company, not one of the engineers, who rather than try to find out some legitimate information replied with a jerk-ass email about how he's sorry and how it's a big company and you suck so STFU and never bother us again.  My mother was aghast and so was I.

TUESDAY 6/4:
Another miserable day and, after rocking the boat for so long, I finally get some sort of e-mail response from an anonymous engineer (though I can tell who it is) with a list of wrongdoings and things I could do to improve myself.  The list was mostly bullshit--basically a couple of one-time errors that I had made in the last two weeks that I had since then apologized and corrected.  What's one for instance?  "Including vestigal code that could possibly break the game's logic or the build in the future."  It was one instance of me setting a UDK actor as the parent of another actor and that was over a month ago.  Boss man asked me what I had meant by that code and I walked in, succinctly explained what it had meant by these few lines of code from a long time ago, and they were removed and no harm was done.  But somehow, because of this one incident, I was essentially leaving landmines throughout the entire database.  Okay.

Another thing--"Doesn't know how to follow design documents or take instruction."  This one I love so much.  Basically, the last thing I was working on with the game was UDK vehicles--a tank and two 4-wheel-vehicles to be specific.  And after receiving a bunch of good feedback on how the vehicles have handled, I received an outdated design document for the vehicle as well as feedback from various designers, some of whom spent time in countless meanings or weren't at work at all.  So I was sorta left with a bunch of incomplete, conflicting design ideas for the vehicles, some of which I had to bang together and hand off to whomever was reviewing them at the moment.  I always carried and pen & paper with me to write down any suggested changes which I implemented one-by-one.  Yet somehow, it's all my fault for being a lousy employee.

Yet another thing--"Don't submit huge chunks of code at once and review over it 100 times."  Basically, just be all tippy-toed when editing code which IMO sorta conflicts with my programming methodology.  I just took very small steps trying to edit large systems of the game and whenever I'd try to hurry things up, I'd get a stern lecture.  It was really nonsensical and is another thing that just clashed with my boss.

And lastly, the most fun of all--"Repeatedly late" and "Always playing games in his spare time."  The time frame to arrive in the morning is from 8 to 10 am.  You must stay for 9 hours each day.  Me, I opted to arrive at 10 am and leave at 7.  It was a good deal and my bosses rarely spoke up against it.  But somehow, in that last week, wrecking my car and limping to work late didn't help my cause any.  It's like the flair from Office Space--you want me to show up at 9 am?  Then make it a rule to show up at 9 AM!!!  As for the games--we always have a one-hour lunch break to hang out and play games if we like.  I was playing games during that time but because of how low-pressure the time was that last week of employment, I would occasionally open up my iPhone to click on my Tiny Tower buildings.  Not like I replaced work with games...I just started running out of work that last week because everyone was either in a meeting or simply loafed around as well.

In short, my worst nightmares had come true--my boss only took the worst aspects of my tenure (from his point of view), blew them up really large, and used them to incriminate me as a terrible employee.  To make it worse, my boss had opted not to be transparent with my wrongdoing this whole entire time, essentially feigning friendship with me until the last moment when I was taken out via a firing squad he wasn't even present in.  I still have yet to reply to that e-mail.  Technically, they have my balls in a vice so I can't reply even with the slightest disagreement since they'll think I've learned nothing and won't give me a positive reference in my future employment.  Just the quality of everything has went to shit since I got fired.  Did I learn something from all this?  Sure!  Be more transparent with your boss.  Be more conscientious with your image.  Also try showing up to work a little earlier and put down the iPhone.  But there are ALWAYS things you can do better to improve your image so that's beside the point.

TLDR: The whole thing boils down to this--I had a picky boss whom had duped me into thinking I was doing a good job up until the very last moment when I was fired and accused of being a terrible employee.  He had taken forever to get back to me with a crummy email listing a bunch of wrongdoings I don't necessary agree with.  I am currently unemployed and living with my parents but I'll find another game programming job somewhere (I SURE HOPE SO) and hopefully rebound from this mess.  Thanks for reading.  I want to get back on-topic with some Sega stuff, some Indy 500 or NASCAR talk, it's just that I feel like I've been dunked repeated in a tub of dog piss over the last couple of days so it's gonna take some serious time to recover.  Thanks for your understanding.

Was Having A "Good" Day

...until I saw this on Reddit Gaming...was like 6th or 7th from the top of the page.

Let the Burnout/Split-Second spooge-fest begin!  I love how we can't even play the "less realistic racing games plz" card anymore cause it descends to this:

"Hey Eric, like the new Forza/Drive Club?"
"No, I'm tired of realistic games, they should be more focused on gameplay and being fun."
"Oh so it's like Burnout, that's awesome!"
"No...something a little more colorful and lighthearted and...not bro-tastic."
"How about Mario Kart!"
"No, I mean something more arcade-like, fast-paced, and skill based!"
"...Need for Speed?"
"....>_>"

I think I've had the above conversation like twenty times in my life already.  Bah, Sega can't win.