Assertions, Avowals and Abstract Art

Things are finally cooling down, and the tower fan I was forced to invest in to prevent being welded to my chair is finally blissfully quiet. This week was all one big hot blur, but I’m sure I can remember some things… Right?

I’m going to work on Horde today. This promise I make to you, to me, and… well actually just to you and to me. It has been too long. It’s a zombie game isn’t it? Yeah, something like that. I’ve been working on company running things for so long now, that I don’t even know what I need to do next. Probably make the game fun or something. Last week I tried to sort out the employment contract for our new starter. However I only really got as far as getting the legal minimum requirements written down. I need to put it into a document, rather than have it as a list of bullet points, then I need to see about getting it read over by a lawyer, to make sure I’m not shooting myself in the foot, or writing something unreasonable.

I’m dedicating my morning to that, but this afternoon, it has to be Horde time. I need to remind myself what I’m doing all this for. Creative freedom, fun and engaging work, the chance to build something from the ground up, and a hard boiled egg… Wait, no, that’s Pratchett isn’t it? Forget the egg.

I also need to finally set the date of the next live stream. It has been two months. I was hoping to do one a month later, but things really got away from me. Truth be told, I’ve been a bit lax lately, and it’s starting to take it’s toll. I know I could do more, but I’ve been feeling so exhausted. I reckon if I actually start to do more I’ll feel less drained, contrary to conventional wisdom, but I need to kick myself into doing it.

I’ve been trying to avoid letting the above laxness seep into the contract work though – I need to at least keep feigning competency or else I might not get more work down the line. As such, the SockMonkey work has been proceeding along nicely. I’ve kicked the Xbox into rumbling, as well as writing all the hooks needed to detect sign out events and be ready to handle that (although I’m currently waiting on some support for actually handling it). Oh and I got the onscreen keyboard to work for Xbox too. That was an odd one, as the onscreen keyboard works the same way on all platforms (even Switch), except for Xbox. Which requires a new plugin from the Xbox library to work. Cue me bellowing at the Xbox angrily…

Anyway… To wrap things up, a fun creative activity for all the family! Suzie has been watching the “Five Minute Crafts” videos on Facebook, y’know, the ones where with a simple pencil, Styrofoam cup, and 7 sacrificial lambs, you can, in 500 takes, make a giraffe statue with glowing eyes? Those. She got the idea to actually try one of these crafts, but as we were lacking in lambs, we settled for a slightly more achievable “Dutch Pour” painting exercise. This is a technique where you combine paint, pva and water in a pot and pour them onto a canvas. You then use a hairdryer to blend the colours and spread them over said canvas. It was actually kinda fun:

See! Anyway, below is the finished result, and if you would like to try this at home, you’ll need an outdoor space or place you don’t mind getting covered in paint, glue, paint, water and a canvas, a hairdryer, and the fundamental acceptance that your skin will be permanently discoloured by the end of the exercise.

Matt out.