one of my favorite bits in Freeman’s Mind is him rationalizing the batshit level design as Black Mesa making sure to fully spend its budget

“If we don’t spend a billion dollars one year, then we don’t get a billion dollars the next year. And if we don’t get a billion dollars the next year, then we have to go and spend more money on lobbyists to get the laws changed so that we get our billion dollars the year after that! … in the long run it’s probably faster and cheaper just to build a giant nutcracker, write it off and be done with it.”