English Translation Project for Little Busters! (Game)

[izmosmolnar]

No need to bite in me my friend. I was just trying to help.

No I meant it more like "So how far is the translation already?" or "When can we expect a patch finally?".
Not many fan-translator enjoys answering such questions I think, and even the "outdated" TL wiki page says: 'Q: "Progress updates? Status?" A: "That's not really a question.' Which makes me think they probably aren't fond of such enquiries.

Actually the newest entry is two weeks old though ("Age: 2 weeks; applehq: Update snapshots"), but I'm not sure when was the last TL edit, as I only found that link on another board I frequent.

Lastly I do think even if/when they would give up they would be so considerate to let the fan-translating community know they are abandoning it. So for me personally, as long as they don't announce such a thing, they are working on it. Edit: I've also just noticed it's not longer a closed project anymore (Source), so some of the capable people could even help out I think (?). (I'm not 100% of that though).
Anyway, I'm sure it's going to be translated eventually.

[Tyabann]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

No need to bite in me my friend. I was just trying to help.

Sorry, I'm just snarky like that. I appreciate the info, seriously.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

(Source)

Their new question answer:

Originally Posted by Source

• Are you translating Ecstacy?
• Kinda.

This amused me greatly, though it might mean that when they finish LB! vanilla, they may move on to working on the EX routes. Not a sure thing (no quoting me on it), but maybe that's what that intends to say.

As far as the open/closed project is concerned, they probably had a translator quit without telling anyone (...again, IIRC). If anyone decides to go to them with the intention of helping, be sure that it's not a flash in the pan. The last thing they want is someone to just drop it (and we, the waiting not-so-impatiently-we-swear, hate that too).

[Kudryavka]

Well, I asked Fluffy on IRC about translating LB! Converted, and then they got kinda weird and said:
"Well, why waste our time doing Converted?? When all it is is just EX without hentai? Most of our members show strong interest in translating EX already." <--something along those lines.

So, I take that as a, "Yes, we will (try to) translate EX."

[siletim]

they probably had a translator quit without telling anyone (...again, IIRC)

Huh, what? I don't remember quitting, much less without telling anyone about it. Our other translator is still active.

Well, I asked Fluffy on IRC about translating LB! Converted, and then they got kinda weird and said:
"Well, why waste our time doing Converted?? When all it is is just EX without hentai? Most of our members show strong interest in translating EX already." <--something along those lines.

We have 6 active members working on the project, did you wait for any sort of official answer? Maybe what you heard was just some random unaffiliated person talking out of his hat for all I know. (Wait, you said 'Fluffy'? I hope you do know, that it's not even a human, it's an irc bot for crying out loud.)

This amused me greatly, though it might mean that when they finish LB! vanilla, they may move on to working on the EX routes. Not a sure thing (no quoting me on it), but maybe that's what that intends to say.

I'm pretty sure I answered this question a million times by now, and I'm pretty sure I even did so in this very thread you're now reading. I'm well aware that most people who are anxiously waiting for us to finish the project can't even be bothered enough to spend a few minutes of their very precious time and look up an answer to their question. And yet they still complain about how little of our own (I suppose not quite as precious) time we invest in the project. But whatever, let me repeat one more time. We ARE willing to move on to LB:EX eventually, the reason we're now working on LB is that translating LB:EX would require first translating LB (which happens to be a subset of LB:EX, or rather LB:EX more like LB + additional content). We have someone trying to make our patch compatible with LB:EX, as we're aware that many people only have/can get their hands on LB:EX, but we can't give any promises yet. I hope it's clear now.

What question? "Why aren't you working on the project you signed up to work on?"

I was going to write a longer answer, but I'll keep it short. We ARE working on the project, you don't see any updates on the TL wiki, since we aren't using it in the first place. Like somebody else mentioned in this thread, we're mostly using this -- http://svn.blicky.net/lb/log -- and if you take a closer look you'll notice that we're far from being dead (there are reasons why there seemingly weren't any updates for the past month, but trust me it doesn't mean everyone was just sitting around doing nothing.)

Fluffy seems to have taken down the site that originally hosted the patch

We experienced some troubles with the hosting company as far as I can tell, and the reason we didn't upload the patch elsewhere is that it's largely obsolete by now and we were planning to release a newer version of the patch soon (it's coming out eventually, don't worry)

I'm after all, basing my post on a lingering and old decision

Why don't you get your facts straight first, before making any claims? Apple's decision isn't absolute, and other members of our team didn't support him in his decision to only work on LB. He even changed his opinion since then, but really we've always had it in our plans.


Well, I hope that cleared things up a bit. It's a shame how much everyone complaints about us, I don't think we have received much positive commentary so far, but well, it won't keep us from continuing to work on the project.

p.s. Oh yeah, in order to avoid confusion, let me remind you that what you see above is by no means our official answer or anything of this sort. It's only my own personal thoughts, and other members may disagree with what I said. Don't go quoting me on every other forum saying that we're all a bunch of assholes, just because you have a personal grudge against me, thanks.

[izmosmolnar]

No, quite a lot of us who are patient enough wrote positive commentary to you folks at Ixrec's board . I do wish all the best in the project, and I realize how much time and effort it takes to completely finish. (~I intended that as a positive commentary now).
LB it's still hellova lot newer than Kanon, and we just received Kanon patch after all this years recently.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by siletim

Well, I hope that cleared things up a bit. It's a shame how much everyone complaints about us, I don't think we have received much positive commentary so far, but well, it won't keep us from continuing to work on the project.

Thanks for the clarification. I was operating on what I knew and could find quickly for my own comments and information. I figured you'd be around eventually to smack down what I got wrong (and I was right about that, wasn't I?). I guess I just wish you were poking around the thread more often I try to do my part by dealing with the...ah... 'less-than-positive' comments.

I would like to point out that most of us (particularly the lurkers of the thread who aren't saying anything) really do appreciate the work you're doing on the project and fully endorse you guys. I know I do.

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

LB it's still hellova lot newer than Kanon, and we just received Kanon patch after all this years recently.

Clannad is also significantly older than LB! And there's still no official patch for that, either.

[izmosmolnar]

I know that (I have my doubts about Velocity ever going to approve the current Clannad leaked patch to make it official TBH), but Kanon was actually 5 years before Clannad, that's why I choose to use Kanon as an example instead.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

I know that (I have my doubts about Velocity ever going to approve the current Clannad leaked patch to make it official TBH), but Kanon was actually 5 years before Clannad, that's why I choose to use Kanon as an example instead.

Just stacking the evidence to help you .

[Kudryavka]

Sorry for calling you guys Fluffy. It's just that that's the only name I've seen you guys use to refer to yourselves. Do you guys have a name for your group?

It's just that kinda smart-ass Q&A on TLWiki that got me thinking bad things. Sorry about that.

[spawnofthejudge]

Originally Posted by Komari

It's just that kinda smart-ass Q&A on TLWiki that got me thinking bad things. Sorry about that.

It is smartass. And it is awesome.

[siletim]

Originally Posted by Komari

Sorry for calling you guys Fluffy. It's just that that's the only name I've seen you guys use to refer to yourselves. Do you guys have a name for your group?

It's just that kinda smart-ass Q&A on TLWiki that got me thinking bad things. Sorry about that.

That's a good question actually. I don't think we ever thought about what we should call ourselves, but I guess that's the name most people know us by, so there's nothing wrong about it. And about the 'smart-ass' Q&A section on wiki, I can see where you're coming from, but again it was written entirely by one person with no input whatsoever from me or anybody else.

I guess I just wish you were poking around the thread more often

I don't frequent animesuki all that often, and this thread kinda slipped from my mind, sorry.

[sitsatsot]

Wow ~! You guys sure work hard 8D !

I really hope you finish the patch soon! I'm looking forward to it ! My brother had just buy me that game but I don't understand it at all ! I'm starting to learn japanese right now.... *Yeah just to understand this game >3>*
But it would be great if I could play it in english ! So.... I'll support you with all my mind and SOUL !!!!! O3O

[Richard 23]

Hmmm, it appears that tim has gone silent. And I don't always pay attention to things going on around me. So I'll recklessly leap in here and sow some confusion...or something. Actually I'm not really into sewing, but anyway...

Originally Posted by Golden Witch Drugs

Will they ever do a patch for EX though? I would like to play the 3 extra routes...

That's an excellent question and one which has not really been raised before.
You may rest assured, and in full confidence and with no restrictions whatsoever, go ahead and play through all three routes. We have no overt plans to dictate terms to those who wish to play Little Busters! and/or Little Busters! EX TNG as they see fit. At least none that are official at this point.

Originally Posted by Komari

Aw darn it, Jze0.
It works with EX, I used it on my copy.

Fortunately or not, any strange behavior you experience while experimenting with an LB! patch on a LB! EX release will not be limited to your individual copy, unless your disc has media flaws or if you've been huffing paint in the garage.

If you're interested in a more technical explanation, read on. If not, well there's always more paint.

Spoiler for gory details:

LB and LB! EX, along with many other game titles, were designed for and run in a proprietary game engine, REALLIVE (previously called AVG2000) maintained and licensed by VisualArt's. The license holders also must be very protective of their product; the startling lack of information about the software itself and any development tools that surely must exist for it are nowhere to be found. But I'm already getting off course.

There are many different versions of REALLIVE out there, almost as many versions as there are game titles, at least those that I am aware of. A REALLIVE based game comes with the client version of the game engine and a bunch of game-specific media files, also in proprietary formats, and one big archive masquerading as a text file, SEEN.TXT. This is the primary target of game translation groups like the highly professional team over at #fluffy.

In it's present format, SEEN.TXT can hold anywhere up to 9999 different numbered archives, each of which contains lines of dialog intermixed with instructions (in a proprietary bytecode format) that tell the game engine what to do next...ie, what image to display, what bgm to play, which flags to set, which H-scene to serve up, etc.

If you were to examine the bytecode instructions for Kanon SE, for example, you might come across the infamous "Ugu~ that hurts" flag, or ambiguous sentence fragments such as "feels good (kimochi)" or "smells funny (kimchee)" which are inserted depending on other variables, each of which has subtle effects on how Ayu's first experience plays out (bun in the oven?).

Spoiler for more gore:

However, you can't just crack open SEEN.TXT and expect to find any evidence of Ayu's big moment. You probably won't even find Ayu's name in there. Individual script files (ex. SEEN0513.TXT) are jumbled up a bit using XOR, sometimes using a game-specific key, sometimes multiple keys, and then packed into the big file of gibberish.

The majority of each of these files contain game engine instructions, the details of which have not been made public, and most importantly of all, the available commands, the content of the parameters and the actual effect those commands have at runtime vary from version to version.

For the most part, if you're lucky I guess, the differences between versions are backwards compatible, that is, you're going to have better luck running script files from an older game in a newer client application than the reverse.

And when you're dealing with unique and tricky feats of code like that which implements the mini-games, consider yourself lucky that it does anything that resembles the game at all. The most realistic expectation would be a harmless crash rather than erratic behavior. I would not be surprised if the mini-games are pushing the limits of what REALLIVE and AVG2000 were designed to do in the first place, which is to display text and a stack of images while soothing background music loops over and over.

Translation of REALLIVE based games involves separating the lines of game text from the bytecode (they are woven together throughout with bytecode instructions between each line of text), and extracting the snippets of Japanese text used as variable contents. The bytecode goes into one file, the text into another. Once this has been done it's much easier for translators and editors to deal with.

After the first round of translation is done and maybe a little script tweaking, perhaps to make a game heroine float around the screen goading the player to give up while making him stare down the barrel of a loaded weapon while ignoring any possible answer just to confuse patch users, both files go into a blender, and the resulting file is scrambled up again using whatever custom method the game requires and then the result is tested to avoid obvious fatalities.

The unexpected behavior of an LB! script executing in an LB! EX installation with LB! or LB! EX dialog is to be expected. When it does work, it's an unintentional goof on our part or perhaps on the shadowy programmers working under the VisualArt's banner in a cone of silence and obfuscation.

The #fluffy Guarantee* (* non-binding claim)

If you do find something that accidentally works in LB! EX and it seems to fit in with your general expectation of the game, feel free to let one of your friendly fluffy representatives know and we'll be sure to quash that before you can say, "when are you guys going to release a patch for Rewrite? I can't read Japanese."

ONE MORE BORING TECHNICAL ASIDE: other than the VisualArt's tools which have never been made public, a tool that fully understands 100% of the bytecode present in LB! does not actually exist, although I am aware of someone working on it now. And the same is true for LB! EX which uses a newer version of REALLIVE with additional features, new unknown bytecode, and a boatload of additional script files for those three routes that EX! owners are impatient to play.

Originally Posted by Komari

And also, when you install the patch, it disables all of the extra EX content (the 3 extra routes, H-scenes, rewritten/added lines), so you can't play it in English OR Japanese.

Well, yes. If you were to replace your newer EX script file with a modified version of a somewhat similar looking file provided by the whimsical applehq from an entirely different release of the game, things like that are bound to happen.

Have you tried replacing Kanon's script file with Planetarian's SEEN.TXT? I will admit it's a bit weird at first when Reverie bumps into you with a bag of pilfered Taiyaki but you get used to it by the time she says "Nihahaha that hurt!" when you bonk her in the Planetarium.

You'd probably have better luck if you tried installing the individual script files (SEEN513.TXT, ...) that have been roughly translated rather than replacing the entire game in one go. Even better would be to combine the newer bytecode instructions with the old, but translated, text. Well, anything is possible.

When the updated tools get to alpha status, and somebody finds the time and motivation to splice the LB text with the EX! scripts (I've been mulling it over for months), an EX hack that doesn't go off into the weeds will be not too far off. In the meantime, you might have enough time to expand your vocabulary to a couple thousand kanji!

Originally Posted by Komari

...Meaning that the patch transforms your EX game into the original Little Busters!

And at no extra cost! You can't buy that kind of service anywhere. Look all you want. It simply doesn't exist anywhere else. Fluffy delivers!

Originally Posted by Komari

So if you're waiting for this patch, don't buy EX, since Fluffy probably won't make a patch for EX and the patch will disable all the new content.

Well now, I wouldn't say that. The methodology you are using is flawed. Replace only the updated content and the updated material will still run, well bits of it will, the parts that the old version of the script contains GOTOs for. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if someone, through the process of combining LB and LB EX content in just the right way, the as yet undiscovered Masato route will be discovered and possibly some others that haven't even been conceived of yet.

Actually your chances of the LB patch working for LB EX without modification better than successfully running the Kanon SE's script (REALLIVE) in the original Kanon (AVG32). So don't give up yet.

Wow, I sure went on long, didn't I? It must be the endless summer that's getting to me.

I hope some of this makes sense to any poor soul that reads it. If so, maybe you can find the time to explain it to me.

DISCLAIMER: I speak on behalf of nobody, not even myself. YMMV.

Thanks.

[izmosmolnar]

I've heard the main route is fully translated recently, and some of you are working on Rin's route. Are these rumors true? If yes are you planning to release the main route as a partial patch? Thanks in advance for answering, and all the best with the project in the future.

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by Skyfall

"Routes" is an everyday concept when it comes to VN - each heroine's story is referred to as her route, and whose route you embark on depends on how you choose to act on the several selection points through the game. You would need to have several (or specific) "flags" to get a certain heroine's route (Some choices can lock a route as well though), and Kudo's roommate choice is one of those events, though far from the only one. (And if i recall correctly, you shouldn't generally suggest the girl whose route you wish to obtain as the roommate).

That's 100% right, 0% wrong. You make it sound so simple!

The use of flags (a TRUE/FALSE value for maintaining state) is the bedrock of all visual novels, interactive story games, and "adventure" games going back to the prototype, Colossal Caves, the original Adventure game.

you can't go in the house without opening the door, you can't open the door without unlocking it, you can't unlock it without the key, etc. These conditions are represented by a long list of state flags, a series of numbers, each either 0 or 1 and are stored in saved game files.

REALLIVE, the game engine in which LB runs for example provides thousands of such flags for use by whatever game is running in it.

The flags themselves have generic names so without a map of what the flags are for, even having access to them to get to a desired route or state would be a real pain.

The sheer number of nameless variables for maintaining state is a bit intimidating.

there are 8 named arrays which hold 8000 values each, 8 which hold 16000 values each, 8 more with 32000 each, 8 more with 64000 each, 2 named arrays which hold 2000 strings (text fragments) each....

OK, I'll stop counting now. These arrays have helpful names like A2b and Z8b. If you were to ask me what the meaning of the default value 3 in C2b[0020] is for and I wouldn't be able to tell you. But it means something. If you search through all the game files, you might be able to associate the event that causes that value to be updated, but you'd still have thousands to go....

I probably should have just agreed with skyfall...

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

So, uh.

How's that translation effort coming?

While I'm sure that for the asker of the question it's a very simple thing to ask. For the person answering it, there really is no simple answer. To be more accurate, the correct answer is the reply those annoying magical eight balls provide: "answer unclear, ask again later."

It's one of those questions like "how are you?" Most people say something like "I am well" even if it's not the full and honest accounting. Because the questioner doesn't really want to know the answer, or at least not the full accounting answer, and the respondent is usually too polite to go down the long list of things that aren't quite as they ought to be.

But you probably expect the courtesy of an answer to such an obvious and simple question.

It's going well. It's a staggeringly huge and seemingly endless task, one that isn't really all that obvious when holding down the control key to skip line after line of hand translated and edited and reedited sentences to get to the next route.

The truth is none of the people at #fluffy really have any more idea when it will be done than you do. Not the guy tling in the former Soviet Union, the native speaker somewhere on one of the crowded Japanese Islands, the guy in Finland who edits my edits won't even tell me the release schedule. The guy who edited a ton of the many images, I don't bump into him often enough to get his answer.

As for the UK guy, whose real name is applehq, he's keeping the release date to himself. I'm not sure why.

Probably the best way for you to get a feel for when any translation project of this size and scope would be to find a group that needs an editor and dive in. I bet you'd come out with new insight and a sense of doing something worthwhile.

Originally Posted by Komari

Dunno. You can ask fluffy on irc, but they seem to be rather arsehole-like as of late.

I sure hope you're projecting or jumping to conclusions here. Did you ask a question with no answer like "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" Believe me, they've probably gotten your question so many times and still don't have the answer. Not having an answer can be a little frustrating. I'm sure on a bad day it could cause someone to get the idea they're letting people down or something.

Of what I know about the small group of people scattered across the globe, almost equidistant from one another, is that they all have one job or two or school or other projects or other nagging responsibilities that all conspire to keep them from working regular and steady hours on the project. Life gets in the way.

I've got a full time job, a volunteer job, editing when I can, hacking reallive when I can't, updating a slightly outdated disassembler and matching compiler, written in a language that I haven't used before, so I've been rewriting it on and off for weeks.

It takes a lot of time and there's always other annoyances vying for that time. My impression based on very little fact and probably overly optimistic is that maybe in a year or two there will be a patch file out there probably bundled up by applehq that people will occasionally download that approximates the experience a native Japanese got to have a lot sooner. And maybe people will like it. And it will be a quick and easy download, and pretty small considering how long it took to finally get released in a "final" (abandoned) state.

Originally Posted by izmosmolnar

As far as I know they hate that question almost as much as "why not ex?".

Hate is the wrong word, but I doubt you can actually crawl into other people's heads so it's easy to understand the confusion. I don't know what other games the #fluffy people have in their collection, but one they all have in common is Little Busters. They all got into the game one way or the other before EX even existed. And one is as good as the other in theory, both even better. But why extend the lead time by doing a changeover. LB is enough in itself and more than enough of it will be able to be applied from one to the other.

It's like asking after coin was tossed and came up tails, "why not heads?" Gee, I dunno why not. But I'm not really going to dwell on it because if I question everything, I won't have time to find any answers.

My question that I can't get anyone to answer is "why not Air?" They stopped talking to me at all after last time. I guess they don't like my avatar or something.

Originally Posted by Komari

I recommend keeping an eye on their TL page found here, and you can see there that they are advancing.

That's not a bad idea, but it's about as exciting as watching paint dry. Have you ever watched people editing text files? Wow, what a party. Count me in on that action.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

What question? "Why aren't you working on the project you signed up to work on?"

Yikes. That's not exactly a good way to manipulate people into doing something you want. And it's wholly inaccurate. You wouldn't want to falsely accuse someone of slacking off on something they're currently working on as best they can while giving them the impression that you somehow think you're entitled to the result yesterday. That probably won't have the intended effect, so you might try to reword that if you think it will somehow help crack the whip.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

...I can understand that real life can get in the way and stuff, but the last change on that page was a month ago... Ah, whatever.

That's applehq for you. He acts like he owns the place and would release a patch consisting of whatever was in the main svn directory at the time he felt like bundling it up. The other people working on the project usually found out about the patch when someone dropped by and asked about it.

As to why he hasn't made another one for no apparent reason, it's a complete mystery. Applehq is a maverick who walks his own path, even if there's no trail.

Originally Posted by Kaisos Erranon

As long as they haven't completely given up on it...

I doubt they have. But if the project's been abandoned I wonder what I'm going to do with this rewrite of the reallive decompiler I'm still updating for LB and LB EX.... Maybe I can convert to a forum spammer or something....

While you're waiting for the paint to dry, I encourage you get involved in something that someone else is waiting for. Theres always stuff to do and people waiting for it to be done. Feed into the vicious circle and stir things up!

R23

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by SealedTime

Well, thanks anyway.

I'll try to solve the problem myself then ^ ^

Reports like these are welcome of course, but not all that critical yet. The official pre release preview patches which I haven't actually tried are bound to contain typos, the scripts are long, and I personally find my eyes glazing over by the third reread.

A typo is no big deal although they can be annoying, but it's still a vast improvement over those funny characters they started out in. But a misplaced brace can render a large section of text as non-printable control characters.

We've all done it. A slip of the finger and it's game over. But odds are its already been fixed the next time one of us plays through the accessible sections of a seen file for the 47th time, reading each and every word. Ugh.

And the patches thus far have not really been releases that we all signed off on. They're simply snapshots bundled up by the selfless applehq, who doesn't think twice about sharing with anyone and everyone.

So thanks, someone messed up, it's probably been fixed, and if not, the offending party will be fired and exiled to Utah or somewhere equally appalling.

Rome wasn't built in day. And it didn't contain nearly as much dialogue.

R23

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by SealedTime

Well, thanks anyway.

I'll try to solve the problem myself then ^ ^

Originally Posted by Komari

Well, the group did say that May 21 and 22 weren't perfect... Maybe that's one of the bugs they were talking about?

You have been the victim of understatement! As far as I know perfection is not on the itinerary. Not unless we get those life-extension shots.

I'm filling up too much space with my wall of text, but in regards to any questions about milestones, releases, patches, mistakes in snapshots and the like, maybe this will put it in perspective:

The Kanon patch was very recently released. I have no idea how refined it is, if it's "done" or just "released." There's a subtle distinction. Do any of you have idea how long I've been waiting for the English patch? It sure seems like at least five years. And I haven't even downloaded it yet.

In all that time I never once asked when it would be done. I played the partial release until the characters went funny again but even though I emailed Haeleth a few times to get info about the tools he developed for the translation and asked for help when I needed it, I never asked about when the rest of the patch was going to come out. It didn't really occur to me to ask.

So in many ways, it's probably my fault that it's only now, all these years later that we can all finally play Kanon in English. I guess it's ironic that here I am again. I wonder if I can break that five year personal best!

Enough from me for now, what do I know? But keep up your enthusiasm for LB, and keep wishing with all your might that the LB/LB EX translation gets done.

It will happen; it's just a question of time.

But for now, why not try the Kanon translation and be sure to let the fine people at ndt know that they have proven that dreams really do come true. Collaborative efforts like that are amazing. Why do people do it?

Whatever their reasons, people like that get a ton of respect from me, for what it's worth.

[Richard 23]

Originally Posted by siletim

Huh, what? I don't remember quitting, much less without telling anyone about it. Our other translator is still active.

Tim, I can't believe you went and quit like that. What hurts the most is having to find out from a third party website. I thought you were just being Silent.

Originally Posted by siletim

I hope you do know, that it's not even a human, it's an irc bot for crying out loud.)

Yeah, but you do have to admit it does have good sense of humor (or humour if you prefer). The stories it can tell!

Originally Posted by siletim

Don't go quoting me on every other forum saying that we're all a bunch of assholes, just because you have a personal grudge against me, thanks.

It must be time to fire the PR guy. I don't really have much confidence in the "asshole" campaign. It's not punchy enough, IMHO.

Truth be told without Tim, there would be very little to complain about. And if you can't figure out if that's a good thing or not, well, duh. It is. You're doing a great job Tim, even if you did quit without telling anyone or whatever you did. And you can quote me on that.