Blog 10 A Long List of Thank You

This is me back in the studio recording Scooter for Borderlands 2. Also, I look like a vampire.

10/27/2011 During the World Series

So, that was unexpected and completely awesome.

Also, I’ve been informed Blogs are far more interesting with visual aids, so I’ve done my best to supply various photos from my hospital journey to try and liven up my tiny words.

Somewhere roughly around a week ago, Owen Good from Kotaku got in touch and wondered if there was an article on Kotaku to be written about my recent exploits in Northern Strokeland. While I certainly never shy away from attention, this particular thought seemed a little weird. It has never been my intent with this blog to try and use my condition as some kind of misguided and entirely warped way of attracting attention to myself. I’m only saying it because it’s been brought up, more than once.

The article is here: http://kotaku.com/5853740/at-age-29-a-game-developer-now-battles-back-from-a-stroke

In truth, I did the article because it gave me an opportunity to talk about the lengths people went to, to try and cheer me up in the hospital. Not all of these made it into the article, so I figure I would use an update to properly give credit for all the stuff people did.

Thank you to:

My mom, for attempting to spend every night sleeping on the couch in my hospital room and generally doing everything in her power to get me the best care possible.

Stephanie and Calvin, for visiting the hospital whenever possible but for doing such an amazing job fixing up my house so that when I came home I would have a clean habitat. Cleanest my house has ever looked, and they also did my laundry (and if you know anything about me, I have way too much laundry.)

My dad, for numerous trips to the hospital, including trying to drive there mere hours after his surgery only to be stopped by pesky “logic” and “public safety” in an attempt to prevent him from injuring helpless commuters. When did Texas become a police state?

Jeff and Josh, for bringing all the delightful food to me so I didn’t have to eat the food prepared by the lowest and most cost effective bidder.  The Korean Tacos were so good I wanted to eat the plastic they came.

Kristy Pitchford, also on the food train, for preparing me some delightful chicken tika masala completely from scratch. It was the first meal anyone brought me in the hospital and I inhaled it like air. Delicious.

Brian Martel, for the copy of Rage to play while I waited on endless tests including the test he stayed for where I got a sonogram of my heart and it could not have possibly been more awkward.

Randy Pitchford, for stopping by and asking my opinion on all matter of game design that I’m positive he didn’t need but knew it would help me out greatly in keeping my mind off the craziness around me.

Brian Thomas, for being there for me since we were but tiny skinny 6^th graders and a bad-ass stack of graphic novels to pass the time.

Rick Casterline, for also being there since 6^th grade (though, he’s always been less tiny) and coming up for an entire weekend to do nothing but play LAN games with me. Seriously, lunch to the wee hours of the morning for two straight days. It was awesome.

Erik Doescher, for asking Ernie Cline to come out and cheer me up. I will never forget that.

Ernie Cline, for actually doing it. I know that I’ve gained a friend out of this, and it makes you start to look at bad things in a far different light.

no ur fun

Mike Athey, for bringing me a beast of a PC and any weird technical thing I would need to game in the medical dungeon. My hospital was easily a 30 minute drive each way. He did it a lot.

Jen Wildes, for this:

I think secretly, Jen always knew I was more than a little broken.

Jessica Johnson, for being my long distance sanity barometer and always being someone to talk to and knowing when I didn’t want to talk about all the crap that was going on.

Strobes, Curry, and Jeramy, for coming up there to play Magic with me when I really needed to get my mind off of everything. Also, Magic is awesome.

Your 2011 Gearbox Software MagicTG tournament champs!

Joel, for coming and entertaining me as only Mr. Hijinksensue.com can!

Don and Stephanie for brining me the most tasteless magazines that I’m still laughing about. Some of the contents of this featured here:

Then I read a magazine called Ivory that had photos of Kristen Stewart in it.

Hayley and Julie, for bringing me fresh clothes and toiletries so that I didn’t have to wear hospital gowns and smell like a spontaneously combusting Monkfish.

Julie Overman and I getting totally gangster without said ability to do so.

Nate for going all Morgan Freeman to my Miss Daisy when I’ve constantly needed rides over the last few weeks.

Aunt Kay, for knowing even the sickest pirate needs a pirate ship to go with his eye patch.

Stephanie and PJ Martin for a box filled to the brim with SNICKERDOODLES, or as I like to call them, the cookie of the Lord.

Joanna, for your entirely unexpected and completely delightful phone call when it getting late in the hospital and I was all alone dealing with too much.

Wade, Becca, and Neil, for playing the least intelligible game of Fluxx ever when I was pretty much high out of my mind on God knows what. It was rad. You know it.

Denise, for a gourmet basket of awesome sweets I’ve been chowing on for the last two hours instead of eating healthy things. Aka, this guy:

And for so, so many other people and favors to list here.

It’s been 28 days since all of this began, and I feel like the history of my life has more entries in the last month than it has in the last four years.

Oh shit, I forgot to be funny in this one. Well, there’s nothing I can do about that now.

In words spoken to me that I will never forget, “Be funny. Be funny right now.”