Eccentric Flower:201005/I Hate Everything

Let's review.

I have just dropped a reasonably large chunk of cash on a new tablet laptop. I am far from convinced this was a wise investment. Sure, it's cute and light and lovely for reading web pages on the couch while I'm watching TV, which I never am, but if I just wanted something to do that I'd have bought a goddamned iPad.

No, I bought this computer for two reasons:

One, so that it could play games downstairs, so that I am not tethered to the office chair upstairs all the time and can actually participate in downstairs activities while playing MMORPGs.

Two, so that I could have a drawing pad which is up to Wacom standards (it is, in fact, the Wacom driver) but which handles the main problem I have with all computer drawing tablets, which is that I can't draw when there is a disconnect between where my hand is doing the work and where my eyes are doing the watching. In short, I need to be able to draw on the screen, and this seemed the correct approach to that.

I have proved that the first is achievable, even if along the way I have had to create a new control scheme that allows me to do the complex set of commands in DDO without ever using the mousepad or buttons, because the mousepad is simply not workable for it. It has two modes of control - push hard and get almost no response, or suddenly you tap it just one iota more and then you spin in circles or run off a cliff because you got too much response. Ketchup bottle. It's possible this is because I have not configured the trackpad properly; it's possible I don't care enough to care.

I have proved that the second is also achievable using the retarded little touch/pen drawing program that was bundled with the computer. Even though all I did was scribble, the quality of the mental feedback/lack of disconnect was vastly improved over my distant Wacom tablet days. (The last time I used a pen tablet heavily it was on a PowerPC Macintosh 7200. You do the math.)

Now of course, I can't do anything more until I get my hands on a copy of the only drawing program in my universe which is worth using. It's called Painter. Let me tell you a story about Painter.

Once upon a time there was a company called Fractal Design and they made a brilliant product called Painter. It was a lot like Photoshop, and you could do all the things you could do in Photoshop; but you had to dig to get to the more complicated things, because Painter had achieved the ideal of onionlike design, where you could just step in and immediately start doing simple stuff, and when you wanted to do more complex stuff, why, lo and behold, there was an option for a little more complexity, just sitting there waiting for you to be ready for it ... and then another option ... and then more ... and eventually you had worked yourself into the full force of its personality by stages so slow you didn't even realize you were being taught.

Photoshop taunts you with its complexity; it dares you to master it. Painter invited you to come in and fiddle with all the toys that were so cool-looking and so easy to use; the idea was to offer full features without being scary.

Unfortunately, as is always the case in software, the software which had the crappiest approach became the de facto standard. This is why Adobe and Microsoft win all the time even though there are usually fifty much better alternatives to their approach; because they conspire to corner the market. And Fractal realized they needed more clout to keep their product alive, and merged with a small hip company called Metatools and a larger, less-hip company called Ray Dream, and they began with good intentions and talking a good game, but then Kai Krause, the most brilliant insane interface and graphics technology designer ever, vanished into parts unknown, and everyone else chickened out or bet the wrong way, I can't tell which, and MetaCreations divested itself of all its products which were even remotely interesting and went off to die quietly somewhere, and Painter was sold ... to ... I can't even bear to say it.

Oh, all right. To Corel. To Corel, the most odious software company in the world. To Corel, possibly the only major software company I hate more than Adobe, which I in turn hate more than Symantec, which I in turn hate more than Electronic Arts, which I in turn hate more than Microsoft.

Why do I hate Corel so much? Well, I'll tell you a story. Back when I was working for a company called Fifth Generation, which made the best backup software in the world and made what would have been the best antivirus software of its time if they hadn't neutered it, and a few other products which ranged from semi-brilliant to so-so, we called Corel "the ghouls." Corel had a reputation, then and now, for making cheap acquisitions of software which they would then turn out to die. Oh, they'd keep products on the market, to sell what they could - but no upgrades, no support, no care, no nothing. Corel, as far as I am concerned, is still the textbook case of a company that honestly does not give a damn if its software is good or bad, honestly doesn't care who does or doesn't buy it. They know they'll stay alive on total volume of sales, because they have bought so much near-abandonware over the years. Seeing a piece of software I actually love get bought by Corel is like watching the favorite puppy of your litter go home, against your will, with the man you strongly suspect of having beaten his last dog to death.

And I just had to buy software from these asses. Because I literally cannot use any drawing program heavily other than Painter. And I'm going to get it and find that it sucks now, because any changes Corel has made to it over the past eleven years will surely not be improvements. Corel doesn't improve anything. They probably have tried to make it more Photoshop-like in some way and have ruined its beautiful design. I know this.

(I would be running my old copies of Painter right now if there were a chance in hell that they'd run on Windows 7. I tried running my last copy of Painter on XP once. It did not go well. The program ran fine - for five minutes at a time.)

I do not understand and do not like the trend by which everything slowly gets bought by bigger and bigger fish and inevitably, gradually, turns to crap. I've watched so many good pieces of software turn to crap over the years. I'm watching Twitter and Firefox turn to crap now. Sometimes I wish for a cosmic mandate that all software stop at version 3 - the version where you've gotten most of the bugs out and before the bloat begins to settle in.

But I digress. Anyway, that's the story of Painter, and I'm pissed that I had to give Corel any money just because they happen to hold the leash of the dog I want, and I hope to god they honor my educational discount, because I'm not giving anyone, least of all Corel, $400 for any software in the world, even if it washes windows and performs oral sex.

Seriously. There is no software in the world worth $400. Go ahead, name something you think is worth $400. Sorry. You're wrong. (And Robert, if you come in here with that talk about "whatever the market will bear," I am going to bodily teleport down to New York to slap you. There is such a concept as fair value for the commodity that is not driven by gougery, and I will stick to that gun rabidly until I die.)

I digress again. And can you tell I'm sort of in a wee bit of a bad mood?

It's not the money I had to give to Corel (may the bastards choke on it). It's not the fact that I'm worried I am not going to justify the cost of this laptop. It's not that I've spent the last four working days waiting on other people to do stuff, yet unable to start new stuff because as soon as I do something will erupt.

It's not the really rotten experience I had in DDO the other night. It's not the sleep (sleep's been pretty good); it's not the weather (that's been pretty good too); it's not a lack of exercise (I've been walking a fair bit); it's not diet (although I really do need to cut back on the protein).

I think that what's eating me right now - what has been fermenting and fulminating for a while now, if you know how to look for it - is that I have absolutely no creative fulfillment. I'm not using my brain for squat. Writing XML parsers doesn't count, and neither does kicking the ass of "Jeopardy!" every night, nor does playing games. Nor does reading, or watching a movie, or watching television god help us, or reading the internet, or even reading The Economist (although the latter is often the high point of my week).

I need to make something. I need to feel I have accomplished something. I need, to use Jessie's phrasing, to be able to feel like I'm pretty fucking hot stuff at something. Anything. I need to feel I am not some schlub who does nothing but go home every day and play computer games. I need to be something better than that.

But I have a problem. That problem is that I cannot, on neither good days nor bad, convince myself that any of my ideas are worth the time and the energy and the work that it takes to bring them to fruition. I can't convince myself that they will bring me anything more than thirty seconds of mental euphoria, because for so goddamned many of my past projects, that's all they've ever brought me - a quick flash of joy after they're done, followed by an even greater crash once I realize that not only is my lollipop all gone and now I have to go find another, but that no one else gave a fuck.

You know, if I want that kind of sensation I can just go masturbate, and it'll be less work getting there, and slightly less depressing after I come down.

I bet fifty dollars I don't ever finish a single drawing on this goddamned tablet. It's sad when you give yourself a bribe and yet already know it won't work. Not only is the futility overwhelming, but you wasted a perfectly good bribe.