Snubby Land Jackass on Feb 3, 2013
By Stevie
Posted in Other
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Back in 2008, 3 brave Snubby Land employees dared to do what no men have ever done before... film themselves doing stupid stunts.


Isaiah and Patricio asked me 5 Snubby Land-related questions. For every wrong answer, I was blasted in the face with a pillow while blindfolded. I didn't realize how terrifying and actually painful it would be. I can't remember for certain if I volunteered to do it or not, but I'm pretty sure I didn't and just got unlucky.





Isaiah volunteered to chug various drinks and sprint a lap between each one until he threw up. His last words were, "Don't try this at home."





Patricio and I competed to see who could drink 2L of water first. The loser had to eat 2 pieces of bread dipped in water. What we didn't realize until we examined the bread afterwards was that it was totally covered in mold, making this 10x worse. It's pretty funny how we realize that as we're doing it, with comments like, "It tastes like death."




So...

Downtime, First Year of University on Feb 1, 2013
By Stevie
Posted in Other
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Well, my sites went down for almost a month because I was switching servers and ran into some trouble with a database and also had some payment issues. My sites are back up and running now, although they should be slower and with occasional downtime. I originally moved over to an expensive dedicated server after releasing Straight Bullyism so that if it got really popular it would still be playable (the game relies on my server), but since SB is done with and my traffic is around the same, I can go back to a cheap DreamHost shared $10/month server since I don't have to worry as much about downtime.

Also I just wanted to get one thing out of the way: my last entry was pretty depressing. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm doing well and that things are moving in the right direction now. I have mixed feelings about posting personal stuff on my blog. Sometimes things seem fine to post at the time but later end up embarrassing me (especially if someone I know in real life such as a professor reads it). I'm still gonna continue to keep the blog updated though because: a) it's better than nothing in terms of content, b) keeping the site maintained helps keep traffic and revenue up, c) I've been working on this site for almost 10 years so I don't want it to go to waste.

I'll be blogging more about poker, but in the meantime I've been pretty busy with my first year of university at UOIT in the game development and entrepreneurship program. I finished the first semester around a month ago with a surprising 3.20 GPA (out of 4). The hardest part was Discrete Mathematics which I thought I would just barely pass, but turned out I got a C+ (and would have had a B- if I didn't miss a quiz while at doctor). Graphic Design, Creative Writing, Business and Intro to Programming were all pretty much burn courses (I went to maybe a third of those classes).



I'm a couple of weeks into semester 2 and it's looking like it's going to be a hell of a lot harder. This year I have Physics/Linear Algebra, Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Graphic Design and Object-Oriented Programming. Physics is the hardest because they don't spend much time on each topic, it takes a lot of practice homework, they don't explain things as well as they could a lot of the time, and finally university level math just scares me. OOP is going to be a lot harder than Intro to Programming because now we've learned most of the stuff I already knew, and learning new low-level C++ programming is just really difficult. The two business courses this semester actually have a lot of assignments and memorization involved, whereas the business course from first year there was only one assignment and zero memorization. Graphic Design is super easy though; first semester was easy but a lot of work because everything was done on paper (I had to do like 7 Bristol board sized finished pieces), but this semester everything is done on computer and we have the option to use Flash so I can basically just do every assignment as quickly as I can and still ace the course. Also, I have a Cintiq which is another huge advantage; most of the others are still just getting used to their first tablet. Keep in mind, most students are here for programming and completely suck at art, so the art is graded really softly.

Anyways, it looks like the only way I'm going to pass this semester is if I work my ass off and actually primarily focus on school for once in my life. Right now I'm slightly behind but I've got the weekend to catch up. I know it's going to be really difficult to switch from being a slacker to being a hard worker, but honestly whenever I hear the word "work" I think of how I somehow managed to finish Straight Bullyism after over 3 years of working my ass off, and that makes me believe I can accomplish pretty much anything I want if I put my mind to it.

Life, Bunch of Poker Stats on Oct 16, 2012
By Stevie
Posted in Poker
Comments (0)

FYI: This post turned out to be the rantiest doozie of a post I've ever made. It was intended to be about poker (which turned into a rant), but I ended up feeling the need to rant about why my life has been such a mess for the last couple years, so JUMP TO THE POKER TALK if you don't want to read this depressing life rant. I was thinking about taking it down actually, but I doubt it'll bite me in the ass and if you don't want to read it you don't have to.

Anyway, at least I got this big rant out of the way so my next post can actually be readable.

I still haven't been posting or maintaining Snubby Land as much as I'd like to, and that goes for pretty much everything else in my life as well (eating well, exercising, not procrastinating, doing Flash, playing poker, hygiene), but I think I'm finally starting to get my shit together, so that will hopefully change. My life has been a mess for the last couple years for a few reasons. I was seriously injured (due to a foot condition caused by skateboarding) and couldn't walk for a long time (~6 months), and when I could finally walk it was a gruelling process of getting better, getting worse, back and fourth... below is a rough graph to try to show how hard it was to get better. Luckily, I'm FINALLY able to walk as much as I want, and I'm going to try to start jogging soon, so this is finally done with. I'm EXTEMELY LUCKY that I'm able to walk just as I moved and started going to university.



Another reason is I was stuck working on Straight Bullyism for 3 years (a lot of it fulltime), because after the first year of work I couldn't just give up and scrap the project, so I was stuck finishing it off, which was absolutely brutal. Read the making of SB for more info on that.

My third problem was I had a serious dependancy on marijuana, which became a hard obstacle to get past (probably not nearly as hard as other drugs though, which would require rehab), but luckily I think I've finally gotten over it and I'm ready to be sober. One of the reasons I had so much trouble quitting weed was because I couldn't even walk or leave the house (it was basically like being in jail), so smoking helped pass the time. Also, I was working from home for years on SB, and weed also helped pass the time with that.

A fourth problem I've never mentioned on the blog is I was getting headaches that were getting progressively worse. It started out with everytime I walked up a flight of stairs, I'd have a headache for like 2 hours. Eventually, I would just wake up every day with a headache. And eventually after that, I had a splitting headache 24/7 with no way of getting rid of it (even taking extra headache pills would do nothing). The doctor couldn't figure out why and said it was related to stress, even though I told him I suspected the headaches were coming from my excessive marijuana smoking. He doubted that, but said I should quit weed anyway. I managed to quit for 50 days but started again, then quit for 30 and started again, now I think I've finally quit. I'd say I had a solid headache for ~2 solid months (this was EXCRUCIATING), with some time where it was milder before and after that. Luckily, as of now around 90% of the headaches have gone away. I really think they were caused by too much coughing induced by marijuana smoking (which was stupid of me because that's avoidable), but nobody else seems to have that problem, so it may be that most aren't as hardcore of a smoker as me, or maybe it's just not the weed that was causing the headaches. Hard to say, but hopefully they eventually go away for good. And for the record, I've quit cigarettes for 1.5 years now! It'd be even worse if I was smoking both.

One thing I've thought about is how bad I've suffered in the recent years in comparison to others. Some forms of torture are easier for someone to imagine without it actually happening to them than others (especially psychological compared to physical; people underestimate the psychological). For example, if I told you I got beaten up really bad, I was homeless for a year, or I did some time in jail, you wouldn't fully understand (unless you could relate), but you'd know its pretty high up on the list of bad things to happen to you. But when I tell you I was stuck working on a game, couldn't walk, was addicted (psychologically) to weed, and had chronic headaches, sure that might sound bad, but you probably don't comprehend nearly how bad it actually was. It might even be worse than those examples I listed earlier. That being said, I'm sure most humans on this planet have suffered more than me, but probably not in my demographic (age, country, etc).

So anyway, I think I'm starting to get my life together, and I'll probably be a lot happier now that a lot of these problems are behind me, which will be nice. I was working on a game with Ansel, but we've pretty much ditched it because we're both too busy. I also ditched some other small projects. I'm just going to take a break from Flash for a couple months, but I'll definitely be back with more cartoons and games in the future.
 
I've been playing poker, mostly online. To most people poker sounds like an extremely bad idea, and they'd be right for a lot of people, but not me (for example, currenly I've profited a couple hundred overall). I don't want to explain in full detail why Poker isn't gambling (if approached correctly), but I'll give you a 2 paragraph explaination so hopefully you don't worry about me (skip down 2 paragraphs if you understand the relationship between skill and luck in poker)...

Poker is unlike any other casino game because you play against other players, not the casino (the casino just takes around 5% of the money in play). It involes skill and luck, whereas other casino games involve basically just luck (even if you play perfectly, you're still more likely to lose than win in games like Blackjack). In poker, there are players with varying levels of skill. The players with a lot of skill will make a profit in the long run, and the bad players will lose in the long run. On any given day, a bad or good player can lose or win... the good player is just more likely to win. In other words, fluctuations in probably decrease and approach 0 the larger the given sample size. If I only play 100 hands, there will be huge fluctuations (I could get really lucky, really unlucky, or neutral). If I play for 100,000 hands, there will be a much smaller fluctuation in my profit (I can only get mildly lucky or unlucky). I like to think about it like chess. The world's best chess player never loses a game, no matter what the sample size. The world's best poker player never loses money, but only if there's a large sample size. Who cares if it requires a large sample size? You'd still have a large sample size in chess, you just wouldn't need it. The more you play, the larger the same size, therefore the more you realize your true EV (expected value). This translates to an hourly rate, which if it becomes higher than minimum wage, you are now pro or semi-pro. If I play poker for 1000 hours and make $5,000, I am making $5/hour, which is a pretty reliable figure because of the large sample size (IE if I play another 1000 hours, I expect around another $5k).

I was going to spend a paragraph talking about money/bankroll management, which when applied correctly guarantees you can't go broke playing poker, but instead I'll just link to this video. The basic concept is only play the lowest stakes until you reach a goal which allows you to move up. If you move up and reach a certain deficit, you have to move down again, etc.

So anyway, I recently started blogging about poker on Snubby Land. I never got a chance to post my previous poker stats (because I had to promote a video in my last post as payment for some coaching). When I started playing, I kept track of everything in Excel. Since then, I've started using software called Poker Tracker to track my online play, so I only have about 40% of my total online play in the graphs of my previous poker post. Here are all the stats from before I started using PT...

(Click to enlarge graphs. They are a little messy because Excel got all buggy and I don't have time right now to fix it)

And here are my more recent stats...



This shows the start of my online poker career. Here you'll see I spend a couple months playing micro-stake SNGs, and turned around $50 profit. I then switched to 9max cash games (at .10/.25 and then .25/.50) and went on a heater (ended up winning another $150, up to $450 at one point). I had some big fluctuations, and eventually decided I don't really like that format. I was going to go into detail about why I prefer SNGs to cash games (online), but that would be another 2 huge paragraphs, so I'll save it for another time.




This is up to date, I haven't been to casino in months due to moving away, not having anywhere near enough time anymore to bus down to Casino Rama, and also don't have enough money (can't really afford loss). As you can see, I won around $700 from my first 7 sessions. Not bad! Then I went on a horrible losing streak and ended up -$302. The $663 loss was due 66% due to horrible luck, and 34% due to me getting frustrated and playing bad. Not going into detail, but yeah, it was a nice wakeup call that you can lose big money playing 1/2 NLH (lowest stakes at casino). My next session was $280 loss, got money is as 2:1 favorite and lost in big pot, all-in EV (average expected value) of around +$300. Next session I lost $80, but was unluckiest day of my life (not including a $-160 online at .10/.25 that was ridiculous). Some donk donates $200 bucks to me, I then get it in as 7:1 favorite with nice herocall and get sucked out with 1 card to go. My EV was like +$280 lol. Then by either inducing the play or just getting lucky, another donk donates a full $200 to me. I then proceed to lose it as a 4:1 favorite. Then win some more small pots, eventually get money in again as 4:1 favorite and lose. How can you lose 7:1, 4:1 and another 4:1? I ended the day down $80 when I would expect to be up $700. Oh well, at least I got the donations from donks to even it out. And the session after that I would have been up $200 but some guy bluffed me for a big pot, it was a decent bluff. I folded top 2 pair because straight and flush got there on river, he showed top pair turned info bluff (he knew he was beat). So I ended up only up $21 that day. All in all, I'm quite confident with my casino 9max cash game play, and look forward to going back. I'm nowhere near a casino and busy with school, so probably will be at least a couple months before going back. But yeah, most live players at 1/2 have no idea what they're doing.




This is the best graph I have. Since I was unable to walk for so long, my friends would come by and play poker with me. One of my friends is especially bad, and we would play .5/.10 and .10/.25 heads up cash games, and as you can see, I wiped the floor with him, lol. He was complete amateur and hyper agressive bluffer. It was great experience and really some excellent fun for both of us. We would usually play shitface drunk and high lol (which was normal for me, except fot the drinking).




This is not including the other online profit graph (because that was before I was using PT). The other graph I ended up with a profit of $260, and this graph shows a more recent total loss $100, so in total I'm still up $160 playing online, it just looks like I'm down $100 on this graph. As you may recall from my previous post, I'm still experimenting to find what format I can specialize in.



Now I'm going to go into detail about which games I experimented with.



This format I've played the most of. I came to the conclusion there's not enough skill involved (which numerous people warned me, now I believe them), I'd hope for a 5% ROI, 10% at best, but it just isn't worth it. I watch training videos where the guy 4-tables for an hour, plays perfectly, and breaks even or is a slight winner. When I first started playing these games, I just went on a huge heater and didn't realize it. Either that or I'm getting unlucky recently, but I suspect it was just a heater. I'm most likely giving up on these games.




This is what I started out playing (it's the first 5 months on my old online chart). I'm actually up around $30 if you include those games. These games are pretty soft, but take too long to complete, and I don't see myself beating the higher stakes for more than 10% ROI... which would be really hard to do, and I still might just barely make minimum wage. I'm not ruling these games out completely, but almost.




This I found was a very difficult format to play, mainly because the games are super quick (1-10 mins, usually like 4), and you get put to a bunch of tough decisions every game (because you start with only 25bbs hu). Also, I'm not sure if I could ever beat the higher stakes. This format is still a decent prospect for me, just not sure if I can get good enough at it, or if my time would be better spent elsewhere. I'm going to have to do another round of experimenting each format.




This is a pretty cool format, but I find I'm always shortstacked when it comes to the bubble. This is probably because at micro stakes the fish actually have an advantage, because almost always a couple fish stack off way too early with garbage and end up leaving one fish with all the chips. Another problem is, 9max mtt players are way worse than 9max stt, so if I'm going to do 9max I should do mtt, but then the games take too long.




This is a good format because lots of bad players and I'm ITM a fair amount, but the problem is the games take too long, and if I'm going to play 9max mtt sng I mind as well just play tourneys where the REAL fish are, but then the games take even longer.




This format has the most fish, but takes the longest time to complete. I don't see myself doing this semi-pro because it requires playing really long sessions; if you are multitabling tourneys, you're there for 3-8+ hours waiting to be done all tourneys. Definitely still a good prospect, though. Tournaments are the hardest format to get ITM, and I've been cashing pretty regularly for this sample, so there's a good chance I'd make a big score eventually.



Anyway, it's becoming more and more apparent that there is no easy money online at micro stakes. I'm still trying really hard to figure out what format to specialiaze in... but when weighing the pros and cons of each one, I still just can't make up my mind. One day, I might look back on this post and laugh (when I've found the format and am grinding well).

Also I should mention, the Internet in my new apartment sucks, so occiasionally I lose a game because of a disconnect. The entire building shares the same Internet, so it's pretty slow. At least it's free (because it's a student building). I'll go into more about my living conditions next post.

In conclusion, haven't done well lately, but not terribly. Once I find my niche, I won't worry about going semi-pro for a couple months, I'll be content just making a small profit like $2/hr, because there's no shame in doing that when you first start out. I wouldn't want to have semi-pro aspirations and still be making $2/hr after like 3 years, but after a couple months that's actually a good goal imo. Anyway, we'll see how I do in the coming month; I think I'll do well. If I don't, who cares, long-term the most I can lose at micro stakes is maybe $-2/hr, which is fine if you are still learning poker concepts/practicing.

Wow... 3000 words and took me 4 hours to write a huge rant that I'm guessing few people (if any) will care about (meh, I don't regret it)... Well, at least my next post will be a lot easier to write. By the way, if you actually read all of this, consider taking an extra minute and registering an account on my forum (no email verification) and posting a comment, or emailing me. Tell me how interesting this was on a scale of 1 to 10. Or whatever.

Poker, Starting University on Sep 8, 2012
By Stevie
Posted in Poker
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I've finally gotten around to adding a Poker section to the blog. Although Snubby Land is still primarily my Flash blog and portfolio, I've been playing enough Poker lately to start blogging about it, so I thought it would be better in its own section instead of Other. For a brief explanation of my involvement with Poker, check out the Poker section info.

I'm still experimenting with different types of games online to try to find which ones I can make the most money at, which ones involve more/less variance, which ones involve more skill (where I can acquire a bigger edge over opponents), which ones are more fun/easier to grind, etc. Lately, I've been trying 6-max hyper-turbo SNGs at micro stakes. So far, I have played 468 games (usually around 4 games played at once) over around 2 weeks, which really isn't enough to accurately determine much, but I can show you how I have done so far and how I expect to do over the next 1000 or so games, or until I try out a different type of game.

I'm very fortunate to have JackTheShipper (a professional online player; once completed a 50k in 50 days challenge) do a leak-finder commentary on this example game that I played. After trying out a couple hundred games, I want to get any major leaks patched up now that I know what I'm doing, and then I should be able to draw some better conclusions after more games. Check out this video for some expert insight!




And although these stats don't mean much, here are my results from the 6-max hyper-turbo SNGs. Click the images to enlarge them.



















So basically, the only thing worth noting so far is that I have made an average of $5.06/hr if you just look at the $3.50 stake. I'm hoping I can get this number up to around $15/hr, which would effectively make me semi-pro. That will be my goal over the next couple hundred games.

Anyway, I just did my first day of university on Thursday and just moved all my stuff into my new apartment (in a different city than I was living before), so things have been pretty hectic lately. There's a lot of stuff I've been meaning to do for Snubby Land (such as adding more stuff to the fan art section), and there's a bunch of stuff I still need to talk about, like my upcoming games and plans for Flash, but there's just not enough time right now to get into that. I should be keeping the blog updated regularly from now on though, despite missing a couple months since my last post.

And also, I wish I could have given this whole Poker thing a better introduction, but I'm too busy for that too.

Learning, New Game, University... on Jun 22, 2012
By Stevie
Posted in Other
Comments (2)

So, Straight Bullyism has been out for over 2 months now, and it's gotten over 300,000 hits and over 200 Facebook Likes (big thanks to anyone who shared SB). I have to thank Newgrounds for a lot of that because they had me on the front page for almost 2 weeks. Although the game didn't turn out the way I had hoped in a number of ways, I'm still very proud of it and working on it was a great learning experience. I'm glad to be finally done with it and able to move onto other things, although it's tough after working on it for so long for me to fully get it out of my head. By the way, I did an interview for a podcast called The Call soon after releasing the game, but the audio quality is pretty bad and I'm not very good at talking.


Edit: Going to bed before 8pm seems to be the new trend these days.


I took a small break after releasing SB, and then I finally had the opportunity to start learning some new stuff, which I had been meaning to do for a long time but couldn't because I was tied up. I read a couple of books on HTML5, JavaScript and CSS3, so now I'm a lot more knowledgeable and up to date at web design. I'm doing a website right now for another Flash artist, but it's been on hold for a while after I finished programming it. It's mainly because the creative aspect of web design is a lot tougher than it seems, and he's having some trouble with working out a design. Anyway, I like doing web design a lot, mainly the programming aspect of it. It's fun because you get to work with a bunch of different languages at once: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and MySQL. It also tends to be a lot easier than game programming (logic-wise), and for some reason time flies when I'm doing it. The creative aspect of web design can be a lot more challenging for me; coming up with the layout is pretty easy, but getting the best colors/graphics always involves a lot of trial and error, and you can end up investing a lot of time in something you later ditch. Anyway, I brushed up on my web design skills mainly to work on this site for a friend, but I probably won't make any changes to Snubby Land for a while, or update the code to be compliant with the latest web standards, just because it's a huge site and it would be a ton of work. I was thinking maybe in a couple of years I might start a cartoon series and then redesign SL to be primarily tailored for that, but in the meantime this version should do the job adequately.

Being done with SB, I also now have the opportunity to learn ActionScript 3.0 and the latest version of Flash (CS6). Since I'm quite good at AS2 and object-oriented programming, AS3 has been pretty easy to pick up. I started reading a couple of books on it, but I was so anxious to make a real game using AS3 that I've put reading the books on hold and just started with a new game, while kind of learning AS3 along the way. Although I ran into a couple of problems, at this point the game is fully programmed and completely bug-free, and now all that's left to do is a ton of level design, art and animation. I've been working on this new game for a month now, and I've put in 85 hours. Most of that was for programming. Unlike most of my past games, where I did bits of programming along the way, this time I got all of the programming out of the way at the start. I find this is a much better way of doing things, because not only do I have a better understanding from the start of what the gameplay will be like, but it's a lot easier to add in animation, art and levels piece-by-piece into the framework I've already finished making. I basically just have a huge list of art/animation to do, and I can do anything on the list whenever I want. Or I can work on level design, and since this game is tile-based, the level design is a lot easier to manipulate because the maps are generated in code, like this:

ActionScript 3.0 Code:

I'm going to hold off until I get more of the art in before I give the details on my new game, but having already worked a month, it should be done in another 2 months. I'm hoping to have it done with a bit of free time before I go off to university in 3 months.

I also finally got a Wacom Cintiq 12WX, which is basically a touch-screen tablet. It allows you to draw more similarly to the way you would with a pencil and paper. It makes it quite a bit easier to draw compared to a normal tablet, and I'm sure once I use it for a couple of months I won't know how I survived without it. Another huge benefit of the Cintiq is that it acts as a second monitor. I configured it so that my large monitor is the primary monitor, and if I move my cursor to the left edge of the screen it shows up in the secondary monitor (the Cintiq). It's like having a really, really wide monitor that's split into 2 screens. This allows me to draw something on the Cintiq and then drag it onto the large monitor to get a better view, or have one program running on each monitor. For example, when I'm doing level design I draw out the levels on the Cintiq, and then convert it to code on the main monitor without having to switch between windows, I can see both at once. Getting the Cintiq has definitely made doing Flash a lot more fun.



Like I said, I'm going to University in around 3 months. I'm currently living in Toronto, and I'll be moving to Oshawa (like an hour drive away) to attend the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) where I'll be living in residence and taking an Information Technology program, which mainly focuses on game development. I'll still be doing Flash along the way, and I'll definitely continue to maintain Snubby Land. A lot of the work I do there will be very similar to what I'm already doing. The main difference is, they will focus on programming in lower-level languages like C++ and Java (which has nothing to do with JavaScript). Once I get a good foundation in programming, there are many different paths I can take in terms of jobs in the future, but it's too early to speculate now. Anyway, I'm hoping to have some time off after finishing my new game to get a C++ for beginners book and get a head-start for school, but I probably won't.

One thing I'm very worried about is the fact that I can still just barely walk, even after going to physiotherapy for like half a year. I've been struggling with this foot condition called Plantar Fasciitis, which I have pretty severe case of. It's basically where your foot lacks an arc, and it causes extra stress when walking. After doing a couple years of skateboarding, it seemed to damage my feet enough to the point where even after I stopped skating, they were getting progressively worse for a long time. The medical system basically failed me, because they didn't correctly diagnose the problem or give me any of the treatments that ultimately ended up helping me until my feet were in terrible condition (I was in a wheelchair for a while). Now, after months of physiotherapy, taking anti-inflammatory pills, wearing orthotic shoes, and doing progressively more walking, I have been recovering, but it's really, really slow. Once I get better and am able to walk a further distance than usual, I end up over-exerting myself and getting hurt, then I have to stop walking again. I was at the point where I could walk like 0.75km at once, but now I can't even go 100 meters. I can't even begin to explain how terrible it has been not being able to walk for this long. Anyway, I'm hoping I'll be able to walk in 3 months when I go to university, to be able to get around the campus and go out to socialize and stuff, but if not I don't even know what I'll do. I'm excited to go to university in every way except for that, but it's to the point where if I can't walk when it's time to go, I don't even want to go; I'd rather take another year off and recover. But, it's too late to back out now, so I just have to do my best to recover ASAP and hope everything works out.



If you've read my blog, in the past I've mentioned that I smoke way too much weed and have become dependent on it. I mainly developed this habit while working on SB, because I worked from home, had plenty of money, and was able to work while high, so I pretty much just smoked 24/7 for 3 years straight. When I stopped being able to walk, that only made things worse. Luckily, I've been able to kick the habit, and I haven't smoked in 50 days. With a couple of months off, I'll eventually go back to smoking, but just every once in a while. In the meantime, quitting will me a lot, because I need to learn a lot of new stuff in university and weed would have made that a lot harder to do. I've also got a head-start in learning in the last little while when I learned HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, AS3, Flash CS6, and also I'm learning to drive. So, I feel pretty well-prepared in terms of my ability to learn new things, so that doesn't worry me anymore. By the way, I've quit cigarettes for over 1.25 years now. The only real concern I have is that I won't be able to walk very well when I have to go to university.

On a side note, my game The World's Hardest Game is quickly approaching #1 in popularity (of all time) on Addicting Games! Right now I'm getting hits at 3x the rate of the game in first place, and over 2x the rate of the games in second and third place. According to some rough calculations, I should be #1 in around 8 months. The cool thing is, once I reach #1 nobody will ever surpass me! If you look at the logistics of it, no games that already exist have any chance at beating me due to the fact that I'm still getting more hits on a weekly basis than any other game there except whichever one happens to be featured at the time, and no new games that come out in the future will have a chance at beating me, because even if they get a tons of hits, I'll still have a 70 million hit head-start. Trust me, once I hit #1 I'll be there for at least 10 years (if the list is even around in 10 years). The best part about this is that I get a ton of free traffic from the exposure TWHG gets on AG, which translates in to traffic on SL and ad revenue. And I have a really great dedicated server, so I don't ever have to worry about my site getting too much traffic and crashing. Even though my server costs $250/month, I still turn a substantial profit each month on ads, and I'll be getting even more once I hit #1. It basically allows me to freelance full-time whenever I want, because I only need to earn a small amount of money in order to live off of, since the ad revenue takes care of most of it.

Anyway, I'm going to spend the next 2 months working pretty much full-time on my new game, so expect some updates and work videos in the near future. I think the game is turning out pretty well.