This Friday I had some sort of milestone to meet. I worked until about 12:35, got the last train at 12:43 (was actually a few minutes late) and headed back home. Unfortunately the last train only took me to catch a coincidence for a line which had already stopped. I waited in line 5-10 minutes and eventually took a taxi home. Woo !
The milestone didn’t go as well as I wished. I planned to put a lot of eye-candy in this phase of the project, but there was a lot of stuff outside my sphere of knowledge. The shaders, the off-screen rendering, etc.. I had to figure out how it all works on the XBox 360, which uses the well known Direct3D, with some important variations which makes things a bit more complicated to achieve.
Particle systems are also a pain to build without a proper tool that makes one experiment with some standard parameters. One could code a physics accurate explosion with particles, but that would be way too heavy (and require a degree in particle physics 8). Many compromises have to be done for games, compromises imply tricks, tricks imply fine tuning alternative representations.. basically a lot of trial-and-error work, therefore the need for tools that allow one to play around with parameters.
I hope I’ll have the time to do things right. I hope that what I did so far is good enough to pass the milestone ! I certainly tried to add some interesting new effects. The 360’s pumped up hardware was quite helpful, as I could draft CPU heavy systems without worrying too much to optimize performance along the way.
Cool.. but lets switch to the hot topic ! “God makes them, then couples them”. That’s the rough English translation of the title of this post. It means that some people are meant to be together, generally intended with a negative meaning.
I once (about a year ago ?) had some sort of relationship with some girl. It was a complex story. I basically thought that she was interesting and I decided to see what would come out of it. To this day, it has been the most instinctive, spoiled and flirtatious girl that I’ve ever met. An explosive cocktail, a “floating mine” as a friend of mine used to describe her.
The story is very complicated and the girl was truly something… she used to tell me that she didn’t like me because I wasn’t tall enough, and because I wasn’t blonde (although she didn’t mind Africans at all..). She’d hang out with me and say “I wish I was with XYZ instead ! He was tall, blonde, intelligent, the best ! I would really want to meet him now !!”. Once she plainly told me “I don’t want your genes !”. hohoho that surely has a special place in the history of the most funny and stupid (and honest ? 8) things that I’ve ever heard from the mouth of a girl !
Talking about mouth, she was certainly very cute, but the smile was a bit problematic.. (my nickname for her was “Alien”… 8). I remember once she was bragging about trying to buy a present for her boyfriend (some fat guy that she took pictures of in his underwear and she would show around !!), instinctively I told her “Try brush your teeth !” …ehehe that was funny, for me and my Italian friend, as I actually said that in Italian. “what ?” …”nothing nothing 8)” (that was mean, but nothing compared to what she could say).
As it might appear, I do have some resentment towards her.. probably, but I blame myself. I got myself acquainted with someone I knew it was only bad news, because I wanted to learn about it ! I wanted to learn how can someone be like that, flirt with such ease, jumping from friend to friend, continuously talking about marriage, being so lovely one minute and so mean the next.
I learned a lot but it’s not easy to try to convey most of it.
Japanese culture surely has its part in generating troubled girls. Some are brainwashed into having to find some good man to marry. “Get your college degree and then get married”. Her problem is that, although pretty young, she could already speak English. That means that she had access to most foreigners to spoil her. Japanese men are generally not willing to take 1/10th of the bullshit that foreigners do. She surely knew that well, as her target were continuously somewhat needy guys. She needed leverage and that’s easy on a foreigner.
So ! Recently I learned that she got married, actually I learned that her marriage isn’t doing so good. Her husband is a some guy I used to cheer for as he tried to stay in Japan, at some point considered a friend, but that actually grabbed his “golden opportunity” and pursued her as he disappeared form my sight… perhaps thinking that I would hold a grudge on him for messing with some girl with whom I was somewhat involved. Well, certainly I would have appreciated a little more honesty. Considering that I practically was their cupid (I jokinly once told her about this guy that was coming to Japan and back then she said she would marry him ! ..talk about being selective.. geez !)
I remember describing her to him and he’d say “Davide ! You can change her !!”, wtf ?! Forget it, I’m not going to try brainwash someone like that. She’s beyond hope ! Plus, anyone that can make such a 180 degrees turn, isn’t a very stable person…
Apparently he didn’t trust me, he believed that he would be able to change her and live happily everafter. Now I hear that the marriage quickly went sour. She ran off, and her parents asked him out of the house (wtf #2 ?!).
I remember that girl talking about marriage and all those other things with me. One day I met her and she had in the purse the paperworks for getting married to her current boyfriend (not the fatty one, that was only later). It was all so nuts, and for a nut job like that, there had to be some university-educated, super-gullible, somewhat tall, blonde (more or less) guy that would actually go for it !
I was right, it was good to get involved with her, she showed me some amazing things !
Sorry for the guy. I hope he learned the lesson.. ! He certainly isn’t going to get much active support from this side though.
Welllll.. funny how I learned about all this the day after that I met a nice girl !! It’s like, somehow someone took care of padding the floor with a pillow just right before I’d fall off my chair !
Also I would like to specify that I had no intimacy with the girl in question. Fack the random sexual relatioships, that’s bullshit !
Posted by Davide Pasca in Society, 3D Graphics, Diary, Japan