Well well well, looks like someone finally got smart to the little scam going on there.

Those few who actually give a damn enough to have followed my blog consistently may remember a rather retaliatory blog post I wrote back in January about my experiences a company known as A4e, operating as a subcontractor for the DWP. If not, you can read it here if you’re curious. There’s also plenty of similar posts/stories from others across the interblag (hehe).

Of course, if the government believes this is news to anyone but them, they’re being rather dense. There’s plenty out there to suggest and in some cases outright prove A4e’s illicit activities, going back at least two years. It’s amazing the DWP hadn’t clocked on a long time ago – seems everyone else did.

Although considering David Blunkett’s one of their £30k p/a consultants, it’s really not surprising they’ve been robbing the taxpayers and getting away with it, eh?

Oh well. They can take the blame on this one; it’s not like we didn’t all tell them enough times!

Could you honestly not have found a less petty way of handling your disagreements?

Sure, each one of you is just as entitled as the next person to dislike how something pans out, but in cases where one does not like how a situation is panning out generally the most sentient reaction is to walk away and disengage themselves from said scenario.

Hey, I like a good old Godwin’s Law as much as the next guy, but reductio ad Hitlerum doesn’t begin to describe that little outburst. In fact, all I can think of as an accurate label is to consider it a petty tantrum, much akin to my thirteen-month old nephew throwing his toys all over just because my sister wouldn’t let him have lasagne for lunch.

(Though unlike last night it’s actually okay when Benjamin does it. You know, because he’s thirteen months old.)

For a group of people who claim to be far more mature and grown-up than the GF community, you showed yourselves up on this one. Big time.

Although ultimately the biggest embarassment for you all is that you reduced yourselves to the level of selfish babies and still accomplished absolutely fuck all.

Boy, that’s a hard-knock lesson in life if ever I saw one.

I’m with Jebus and Mikey on this one, folks. (Man, there’s a universe-shattering admission.)

Woot, first paycheck came in from vBulletin designing! Haven’t exactly earned a millionaire’s paycheck of course, but it certainly does feel good to actually be earning again.

I was asked about the filthy-mouthed penguin on the frontpage, like where on earth that came from.

Guess the easiest way to put it is that the idea came from a filler sketch I did out of boredom, while trying to come up with some sort of rudimentary art style for a webcomic. The idea is that whenever a filler comic would be done, the penguin would be called upon to “entertain” the readers, and wouldn’t be in the least bit happy about it.

I dropped the idea mainly because the personality was a little extreme, and I didn’t want the comic to become a cussfest. Reason I used him on the frontpage here is really just a curtain call. Felt guilty about leaving the poor sod cursed to stay on the drawing board forever so here we are – his one-hit wonder appearance.

The past few weeks have been hectic as hell. Attempting to set up in self employment is a real killer. Thankfully I’m nearly there, so I can ease off and start doing stuff again.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. fans might be happy to know that I’ve got my paws on Maya and the X-Ray SDK, which is fortunate for both myself and Botdra as well as anyone who likes their tactical third-person shooters because it means we have a shot at enacting some of the concept work we’ve been doing without having to code a brand new game engine from scratch. Granted Clear Sky may not seem like the most desirable platform to work with but we’ll see how it goes.

First thing I’m going to do, though, let me tell you, is completely rip out the multiplayer and shelve it until we’ve got enough of the core mechanics in place for it to not suck donkey balls. Planned features thus far include cover system, expanded inventory mechanics including item combining and a more traditional ‘attache case’ inventory, tweaking to gun characteristics, weapon mods and “on the fly” attachments, more weapons with even more varied characteristics, a plethora of fixes to any damn bugs that get in my way, more environmental set pieces, maybe some female NPCs and a hella lot more NPC dialog. The rest is still on the drawing board, but hey – no rush!

Keep an eye out for the MikiMods Archive page to go up if you want more info on that – as well as all my iD Tech 3 mods I’ll also be drafting up profiles of exactly what it is we’re going to do with that tasty SDK.