Missed The Boat…, …And Catch The Next Much Smaller One, Owner Of A Lonely Heart

When the iPhone development kits were being released, I snagged a copy to look at (which, well, I do that with pretty much any new piece of tech that’s going to get widespread acceptance.  It’s part of what people pay me for – to know stuff.)  I then immediately decided not to get involved in it – I really wanted to do some app development and game development on there (In particular, porting Boulder Panic! and Tile Panic! to it), but I felt it would be a distraction, and too little return on investment.

Goddamnit… I was wrong on that one.  I couldn’t have imagined how popular the iPhone’s AppStore was going to be.  I’ve heard tales here and there of successes from the first month, but, no real hard figures on it besides “X number of downloads” and some of the first week stats for sales that developers got.

Someone finally broke the silence, and gave out solid figures.  For a $5 game the shipped in July, they have made $250,000.  On a cheezy puzzle game (my forte).

No, I didn’t add an extra zero there.  That’s the sales figure.  That’s not including the 30% that Apple got to keep (it’s a 70-30 split with developers).  FOR A FUCKING PUZZLE GAME I COULD HAVE DONE IN TWO WEEKS.  Not a big name developer like EA or THQ (who both are hitting big releases on the iPhone now), an independent.  It’s like a wet dream for indie game developers.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

The other surprising thing is apparently sales aren’t slowing down yet – I assumed you’d see a two week sales burst (because of novelty, and the push for phone owners to get apps on their phone – call it pent up buying for not having anything to “legally” put on the phone).  After that, it fall to a much slower and lower pace.

Here I thought developing for the iPhone would have been a distraction, instead it appears it shoulda been the goal.  *SIGH*

Oddly enough I’m doing a little work with an iPhone developer (on a non-iPhone pet project) so I might have to sponge up a little bit o’ knowlage on it and get my full dev status.  But, after seeing that $250,000 figure, let me just say it one more time….

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

Work has been slim for a while, but, I started having nibbles again, and I also basically started a network of lead generation folks for myself.  One of the first leads generated was for an aircraft industry website – which would end up being the largest single website I’ve done to date if I nailed it (108 pages of CSS + HTML without a CMS backend).  Then they went silent – I assumed given the costs involved, the project died.  Then I get a call from the person handling sales on the project – “They’re doing it in two stages now – they want a quote on stage one, which will be due Nov. 1.”  

In that time between the two, I’ve landed two other long term projects, got my father trying to setup a connection on another one, Kenosha has called about a project (which isn’t a “Go” yet), and two existing websites are discussing the idea of complete revamps.  One of the website revamps is coming to Wichita to chat about it at the beginning of October.

Only the two long term projects have contracts on ’em.  But if I land all the rest of this, it’s gonna happen all at once I figure.  I’ll pretty much kiss my life goodbye for a month.  That’s not a bad thing either – I could use the money.  Granted, a good chunk o’ it is going to go to bills and people I owe money to.  But getting out from under more stuff is a good thing, and personally I LIKE paying people what I owe ’em! (‘Cause I feel like scum when I can’t)

Lance has a contract gig for the next month, but if I happen to land it all, I’ll have to see if he wants to pick up some extra work in the evenings.  Time will tell if I get contracts on all of it or not.

Sure, it’s not at sweet as say a FUCKING $250,000 PAYDAY, but it beats the shit outta not having any work 😉  And just as important as landing the bigger contracts, those nice little continued revenue stream projects – FINALLY.  That will make the slow months easier to deal with, and the big months even bigger.  I can get my war chest filled up properly, try and hit the setpoints me, Lance, and Meredith discussed, and bring him back on full time with some security.  God that would be nice – working with Lance is always a great thing.

More loneliness than any man could bear

— Message In A Bottle, The Police

Lately I’ve been lonely to the point of being somewhat depressed.  Not REAL bad, just sort of a background downer.  But enough that it’s been affecting my sleep.  It’s not things like not having friend – I’ve got friends.   I chat with Brandon every other day, I go out to lunch with Harmon and Cindy every other week or so, etc., and of course I live with Doc who’s become a pretty good friend.

It’s a more… romantic sorta thing ya know.  For a long time it got staved off because of two people:  Meredith and Tammy.  Tammy gave me someone who, well, I absolutely adore – pretty much anything we’ve done together has turned into some insane adventure (which, let’s face it – while I might dislike drama for the most part, and adventure or an opportunity to don my rusty old armor is always a pleasure for me).  And Meredith for quite a while fulfilled a more… hm… refined? sort of female companionship with her friendship where we’d set and drink wine and chat. (Ya know, I don’t think you could find two more completely different women than Tammy and Meredith.)

And also with Tammy I had someone to routinely flirt with heavily, and chase.  I didn’t flirt with Meredith a whole lot as a matter of respect to her and Lance both (I’m not sure that either would mind or miss-interpret my intentions if I did flirt with Meredith a whole lot, but why risk it – friendships are too important for that 😉  Basically if ya’ place the interactions I had with both of them, well, you end up with 75% of what I like out of dating anyway (Ok, I like sex alot, but, I don’t have to date someone seriously to have sex, so it only accounts for 20% of a relationship for me).

I don’t talk to Tammy all that much these days, and I rarely see Meredith.  So I’m about as lonely as it gets.

A funny out of the blue conversation came up with Brandon the other day – he pops off wtih “You know… you are your own man.  You can do anything you want, live how you want, be who ever you want to be, do whatever you want to do.”  

I nodded.  “Yep… and no one to wake up to in the morning.”

His jaw dropped for a second “You’re right.”  He’s married, and no matter how cramped up you can feel sometimes, you really don’t want to trade ANYTHING for waking up to someone in bed with you in the morning.

It was funny seeing someone have any sort of envy to that “freewheeling lifestyle”.  Typically I’m the one with envy – Lance and Meredith’s relationship, Nick and Heather and their new baby, that sort of thing.  Note I say envy, not jealously – to me jealousy implies a level of anger or bitterness or even greed, while envy conveys more a desire.  

Someone told me “Well, gee, if you lowered your standards…”  You know what?  Fuck that shit.  I didn’t compromise marrying Heather, I didn’t compromise chasing Meredith around, I didn’t compromise dating Jess for like two years.  I value (in random order) beauty, intelligence, and a sense of humor.  Every woman I’ve had any serious intentions with have been beautiful, intelligent, and had a love of laughter.

Why in gods earth would I “lower my standards”?  So that I could be in a relationship, but be less happy about it?  Trust me, on my worst day of marrage it was better than my best day with some of the girls I was with just for sex by miles.  No.  Fucking.  Way.

I can’t be serious with someone who isn’t beautiful to me.  I’ve vain enough that it matters – not for how other people see the person I’m with, but because when I look at ’em, I want to feel that physical attraction.

I can’t be serious with someone who isn’t intelligent.  One that 1 – 10 scale, the fastest way for a woman to loose points (multiple points) it to be beautiful, but open her mouth and reveal that there’s nothing behind that beauty.  What a waste.  Because a great conversation where points are debated (even if you’re both on the same side), or information is exchanged, or even just feelings discussed are… almost magical.

I can’t be serious with someone who doesn’t have a sense of humor.  Everyone knows me – a loud boisterous (or is that bellowing) laugh, and I love to do it often.  Fuck, if you walked into a room with 500 people, I think you could tell if I was in the room just by stopping and listening for my laugh – it’s that loud and frequent.  And I dearly love to laugh with someone else who’s into it to.

So, again, why would I settle for less?  And I know they are out there – I’ve met 5 or 6 of ’em in my life so far 🙂 OK, so most of them are married by now… so that does reduce the potential dating pool.  But they’re out there.  And if I managed to snag one before, even if somewhat temporarily, it can happen again.

Now for the flip side of all of this…

1)  This is a “phase.”  In fact, after having ranted about it, I’ll probably be a hell of a lot less depressed about it.  That’s just how it works sometimes 😉

2)  While I may have had more than once I’ve found someone who meets my criteria, and who was interested in me, that doesn’t nessisiarily mean I’m that attractive anymore.  I’m really kind of a rough around the edges guy anymore (well, and soft around some edges), and I’m not likely to change.  The more “myself” I am, the better I am at being me, so if I try to be something else… well, fuck it, that’s not an option. 🙂  And let’s face it, “balding” is not sexy unless you speak with a mild foreign accent – for instance, Patrick Stewart I am not.

3)  Inevitably, because of that part about being myself long term relationships are probably doomed to failure.  I have my goals in life, and just about anyone who fits the description I put for will already have hers.  Something could start, but eventually both parties would look at each other and realize that I’m way too self-absorbed in my goals to be a proper mate 🙂

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things – I’m not bemoaning it.  That’s how things are, and how they will most likely remain.  I’ll probably end up throwing a new profile on the free dating sites for a while, then remember why I took ’em off in the first place.  Because the women there are not Beautiful, Intelligent, and good sense of humor.  Oh, and “Not Fucking Psychotic” should be added to that list somewhere – but it’s optional really.  I did date Jess.  (Insert Rimshot here! 😉  And then I’ll be all fine again, and ok with being alone again.

Though I have to admit – one of these days I should probably go trawling the bars and screw the hell outta some cute chick who’s got an IQ in the “slightly better than moron” range.  But I’m actively avoiding doing that 🙂

$250,000 FOR THREE MONTHS OF SALES!  FUUUUUUUCCK!

Davis