Whoa, I didn't give up after week 1

Longtime readers of this blog know that I might stop writing it any time, without warning, causing six months of making no progress with creating a video game. That’s part of the thrill that results in extremely loyal readership.

WELL, this week isn’t the week because I’m still here. Here’s how our character art is progressing. These updates represent ~10 hours of work, and mark the fifth straight week of working at least 5 hours (one hour per workday). Baby, I’ve got a stew going!

I’m not going to show all of the updates, only the ones that changed the most. In the following gallery, first you’ll see the character art I shared here last week, and next to it the update.

The shape of Erika’s head changed. It had a bump on top of it but I think it looks better with just the clean line. The left / right walking animations for both animals changed substantially. Pancake’s fur lightened up, and both of them got an eye upgrade.

Podo’s tail also saw some improvements. Originally, I didn’t even have his tail visible when he’s walking down. Now you can see it whipping around behind him. In the left / right animation, Podo’s tail is thinner and it moves a little more naturally now.

When Erika moves left to right, the main thing that changed is the way her hair moves. In the old version, it kind of looks like her hair is behind her head / detached from her. Moving just the ends of the hair rather than the hairline aided in the illusion.

Special thanks to my live modeling crew

Life Updates

This post comes with a life update! Pictured above is my fun new wallet, next to the old wallet it is replacing. It’s a big day - the old wallet has been my primary wallet since 2005. I used it for 18 years, which means it is older than I was when I got it.

I’ve been in the market for a wallet for a while. My old wallet was falling apart. You know when your wallet stops actually holding your stuff and instead everything falls out completely freely? Like you turn it upside down and every card falls straight out of it. This wallet was at that stage several years ago.

The old wallet says “Stanley Blacker” on it. A wiki search reveals that Stanley Blacker is kind of a mercenary as far as brands go. The brand doesn’t even have a wiki page - only the person Stanley Blacker does.

According to wiki, Stanley Blacker was one of the first fashion designers to sew his name onto the clothing he made. So like, he understood branding. After gaining notoriety, he started licensing out his name as a brand that other companies could pay to use on their merch.

So basically, this brand could be on just about anything. You just have to pay to use it, and it has some association with men’s clothing / fashion. While I guess this means the wallet COULD have been expensive, if you’re a company using this branding strategy, I’m guessing you’re selling very low-cost stuff.

But wait, what do you mean it could have been expensive? Do you not remember how much your wallet from 2005 costs??? Well ACTUALLY, the original wallet was STOLEN. Yeah, I’m tough and I steal things.

But actually a friend lifted it for me. Said friend worked at a big chain clothing store called Syms. During our junior year of high school the store started going out of business and having going out of business sales and such so I think it was a pretty easy heist. The statute of limitations hath expired.

You can see the brand name of the new wallet in this shot - Mokuyobi is the name. A quick google shows they sell a bunch of different stuff - backpacks and clothing being the two biggies. Everything is made in US, so my heart was a little happier knowing that. I bought it at a local ‘stuff store’ that carries ethically made stuff (hence stuff store), including lots of local goods and goods made by under-represented groups. It’s very queer and all-around inclusive in vibes. Workshop PGH is its name - check it out!

The old wallet has been safely transferred to the McLepke Horcrux Preservation Museum.

Key to Success

The last item in today’s post is this strange card, which I unearthed while transferring everything from my old wallet to my new one. This card is about as old as the old wallet - I’ve been carrying it since fall 2005.

And look, I don’t have a George Costanza wallet (i.e., one stuffed with tons of junk). I probably don’t even have an average wallet when it comes to how much I keep in it. When I did the wallet contents transfer the only things I had in there were 1 credit card, 1 debit card, driver’s license, medical marijuana license, a GoodRx card, and the index card pictured above. And by the way, the GoodRx card didn’t survive the transfer. My pharmacy stopped taking it a while ago and I forgot to toss it but it has been canned. So yeah…this index card has survived in a very sleek wallet.

The surprising juxtaposition to that survivability is how little sentimental value I think the card has to me. The origin of the card is my high school calculus teacher. He had this schtick he did every year where early on in the year you would take an index card, and write down these keys to success for the year’s course.

Then, if you ever saw the teacher outside of the school (he lived in the same town as the school), and showed him that you were carrying this card, you would get extra points on the next test (or something). This is how it ends up in your wallet - he incentivized us to carry it with us at all times.

Now, even back in 2005, I thought this whole gimmick was unfunny. Like, it’s a teacher trying to be fun and playful with the kids and I do appreciate that, but out of all such efforts, this one just doesn’t appeal to me much. Just my opinion, idk. Like, were these log rules even that important? What is the connection between the log rules and seeing you outside of school? It was just a slightly underbaked idea. The guy was like 60 when I had him and had presumably been doing this schtick for a long time so apparently he liked it.

Anyway, all of this contributes to what I mean when I talk about the card having actually relatively little sentimental value to me. This guy wasn’t my favorite teacher. I didn’t think this Keys to Success thing was funny. I didn’t love my calculus course. I didn’t dislike it either - it was just middle of the road. Much like the whole ‘show me this card outside of school’ thing. It was unfunny but also unoffensive. At the same time though, taking the action to throw the card out always feels kind of unnecessary. My wallet isn’t over encumbered and 99% of the time I don’t even remember it’s there.

The Keys to Success are kind of the index fund of sentimental objects. Even though it started at an initial investment sentimentality rating of close to 0, after simply holding onto it and mostly forgetting I had it, the compound interest of 18 years has made it something that I guess I now value? I mean, it’s in the new wallet. It just outsurivived yet another rival. Eat shit, GoodRx card.