Things That Must Be Said

So it's been a tough few weeks at Greedy Internet Gaming Pirates, Inc. Right on the heels of my very own circus, alluded and linked to previously in these very pages, was a convention that is essentially the boardgaming Homerpalooza of the known omniverse. And GIGPI was there. Except Landru wasn't. It's all very sad, you see.

I had spent months telling Mister Bigglesworth and Prince Evercrack about my upcoming complete lack of availability, commencing exactly one week before my very own circus. "No problem," soothed my good friend Mister Bigglesworth. All would happen in time for GIGPI's premiere money pump to be introduced at Homerpalooza. "No, really," I whined. "I'm not going to be available at all for a few weeks after July 22." Mister B was unswayed in his conviction that nothing could go wrong.

So on July 22, after two months of silence since those fateful and halcyon days in a cowpatty of a town in Central Ohio where I was, at least, privileged enough to meet The Dad and her husband, Mister B calls. "Software's ready," he says. "When you gonna test it?"

Gee whiz, B, I don't know. How about the 22nd of Never, you fucking assclown?

So Mister Bigglesworth and Prince Evercrack head off to Homerpalooza. They allege that the software worked swimmingly and that the whole world loves us (them). They allege that other potential business partners (GIGPI's not-yet-patented money douche relies entirely on other people's intellectual property to function) lined up like suitors for a bachelor Powerball winner. They allege that all is well, and we will set up a system of accountability (we need one, because I'm not accountable--I didn't do documentation for a piece of software that didn't exist), and Mister Bigglesworth will start "acting like a President" to enforce this accountability scheme, which will rely on a bonus pool paid from money that will apparently materialize from Thin Nowhere just as soon as we turn on the money douche, and we will be happy and swaggering Internet pirates indeed.

Uhm...right.

You may remember Prince Evercrack as the fellow who was afraid to answer my emails for four months because he was too busy slacking to even explain that he was going to be slacking for a while. Try holding that accountable.

You may remember Mister Bigglesworth as the guy with whom I traded nukes over the lead time for testing our product before our visit to Cowpatty, only to have to test the product in front of about 4 gross tons of gamers (eight gaming geeks) in that lovely city. Try holding that accountable.

Go back to the archives. Like, say, May 18, 2005, and the few days preceding it (sorry, I don't have individually linkable posts, because this blog is meant to be read in serial form, in its entirety, and that's just a you problem, innit?). Yeah, that May 18, 2005, the one where I complain about the same fucking problem, in my fashion that can now only be described as reminiscent of Nostradamus, except more accurate. The same fucking problem that has now recurred on its astronomically precise 60-day schedule.

I'm very tired. I've invested 18 months of a nontrivial amount of my time, something like $12K to $16K of my own money, and a crapload of my reputation in GIGPI. And I don't want to play any more. You tell me what to do. And until then, I'll just do laundry and play Hearts of Iron 2, because frankly? I don't have enough gas left to do much of anything else. And don't even seize this as an opportunity to tell me about your gas.