2001-01-29 - 03:23:18 AM

It May or May Not Be Good to Be Me

I should be in bed, but I feel a sense of personal commitment to write something here each day, and here I am.

Sleeping late this morning helped me kick the light cold I've had for a couple of days, but also has me way behind in painting my minis. It's not looking real great for me to be able to field anything much on Wednesday. Not unless I take time off work to paint, anyway. Which I may yet do. Until they give me something new to do to replace the Product from Hell, there's not a whole lot of need for me there.

It frustrates me that there are people who say they can paint a marine in an hour, top to bottom. I don't know how many hours I have invested in mine, but it's probably closer to 15 hours per marine, maybe more. I suppose I could be doing more than they do, but if so, I hate to think of it. My painting is not real heavy on detail- it's mostly about getting a nice shade of red for their power armor.

I guess it's probably because I fundamentally lack hand/eye coordination. There may be people out there who can dash off accurate brushstrokes and get the look they want. I have to paintstakingly trace contours, use small brushes to minimize mistakes, and then go back and fix those little mistakes. It's a royal pain.

On the other hand, it's what I can do. The only thing I've ever done that I felt really good at is being a computer geek, which I now do for a living. It's nice to be good at my job, but it does mean that I'm low on talent in almost all my hobbies. I was never a great bass player, I'm mostly a decoy in paintball games, and my 40k figures are just good enough to get by, and take a long time to paint while I'm at it.

I like to pretend it's all about sportsmanship and that enjoying all these things I'm not so good at makes me a better person. That may even be true. But I think that if I had immense natural talent and success came easily to me at any of those things, I'd probably be willing to trade in some of the sportsmanship in exchange.

On the other hand, the Product from Hell clearly demonstrated that some people aren't even good at the one thing they get paid for. On balance, I think it's still good to be me.

Previous entry: The Weirdo Sale

Next entry: Towers o' Blocks