My Daily Pause

Happy picture time!

2012-02-04T16:22:00.001-08:00

Just felt like putting this up!

Lucas Update

2012-01-30T08:05:00.000-08:00

So my last post was a big long monster of an update to explain as much as I possibly could. I will do my best to make this a practice in brevity and keep this simple and sweet.

How did his procedures go?

He did wonderfully during his procedures. He got a tracheotomy to allow him to keep his ventilator support more comfortably over a longer period of time. He got a broviac line, which is just a safer IV because they run it under the skin. Last, but not least, he got a G Tube (which is a tube that allows them to give him his feeds and medicines directly to his stomach).

Also while they were putting in the G Tube, the heart surgeons wanted to see if they could find his extra vein. They were successful in doing this, and put a small band on it to partially close it off. The idea behind this is that the band won't grow, but he will, so it will gradually close off his extra vein over time.

How has he been since all of this?

So there was some concern from some of the doctors that he hadn't really made forward progress before going and having these procedures, and without that forward progress were the procedures the best answer. In the end they felt they were, so they did them. Since the procedures though, he has made "tremendous forward progress".

He's already gotten off of several medications or switched to ones that can be given in doses instead of through an IV. He no longer has his one chest tube. He is entirely off of his paralytic, so he is moving and awake like a normal baby now. Today he is getting out his PA Line, and they think he'll be able to get his other line out fairly soon. They've even talked cautiously about him getting to go home in little over a month (though we've learned not to be too optimistic and jinxing ourselves).

So overall how are things?

Very good. We've made a lot of progress and couldn't be more pleased with how far we've come in the last week. We know we still have a long road ahead of us, but it's getting easier the more we get to play with him and the better/happier he is.

WARNING: I'm going to post two photos to show where he was, and where he is now. The first you may find unsettling, so by all means, turn back now if you think you might.

As always feel free to leave a comment or email me at dmpaskiet@gmail.com

Lucas

2012-01-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

I've been sharing a lot of information about Lucas and what he has been/is going through on Facebook and Twitter in sort of short bursts. It serves well to keep family members and friends informed about what is going on, but it can be a bit disjointed. So I wanted to take a minute and kind of put a number of things in one place, as well as where he is headed, so anyone who is interested can be on the proverbial "same page".

We found out on the day we were supposed to take Lucas home that he had a congenital heart defect called TAPVR (Total anomalous pulmonary venous return). So the first question everyone generally has is "What is that?".

TAPVR is when none of the four veins that take blood from the lungs to the heart is attached to the left atrium (left upper chamber of the heart). This sounds bad, and in all honesty it is, but luckily his body compensated for this and he has an extra vein called a "vertical vein" that helps his blood somewhat get to where it needs to go. Unfortunately this isn't an effective system, and if left uncorrected, would prove to be fatal.

The next question just about everyone asks is "Why didn't they catch this before he was born?"

TAPVR effects how the blood flows to and from the lungs. When a baby is in utero, they don't breathe oxygen, and therefore don't really get or need the blood flow through the lungs. So in essence it just doesn't show up on an ultrasound. Also, if it is diagnosed in utero, they have no way of correcting it until after birth. In Lucas' case, he looked like a healthy baby, so at first there was no concern. Fortunately for us, his pediatrician heard a heart murmur while checking him before sending him home with us and had him checked out.

While I'm answering questions I will follow with "How did they diagnose him?"

To figure out what was going on when he came to Children's Hospital to be checked out, they did what is called an echocardiogram. This is essentially an ultrasound on his heart. This allowed them to look at his blood flows, the structure of his heart, as well as a number of other things.

And lastly everyone wants to know "How do they fix this?"

To keep it simple, they cut an opening on the pulmonary veins that came together behind his heart, and they cut a hole in his heart where they were supposed to go and sewed them together. Technically there is a lot more to it than that, but that's the short and sweet version.

So now with a little background, here is what went on with Lucas a bit more specifically. Like I mentioned previously, he appeared to be a perfectly healthy baby for the first couple of days after delivery. We were getting set to take him home when we were told that he had a heart murmur and would have to go from Akron General to Children's Hospital to have it looked at. After a number of hours of tests, we sat down with the cardiologist who explained to us about the TAPVR and that he would have to have open heart surgery.

Initially they put him on the positive end of the spectrum since he was healthy, decent size for his age (8 lbs, 9 ounces), and just so darned cute. We were told that the thought was that he had about a 90% chance of success with the surgery, and though it was scary we were optimistic. They were planning on doing the surgery the next day, Friday morning.

Lucas wanted to make us worry a little more though, so he developed some issues with his kidney function. The doctors decided since he looked healthy otherwise that they would postpone the surgery until that Monday in hopes they could get a better grasp on what was going on with his kidneys. That Friday night, unfortunately his condition seemed to worsen and his breathing became very labored. After some more xrays, ultrasounds, and tests they found out that one of his extra vein structures had become obstructed. This is a very bad thing, and what determines whether a child with TAPVR falls on the "healthy" side of the spectrum, or the "very sick" side.

So the surgeons were called and he was scheduled for emergent open heart surgery to correct the TAPVR first thing Saturday morning. The operation was about 6-8 hours long because it require a lot of prep as well as a lot of steps after the surgery. So we waited in the surgery waiting room with a lot of family and friends (whom we can't thank enough by the way), while getting periodic updates from one of the doctors that watched over the operation. After sitting down with the doctors that morning it was made clear to us that he was no longer in that 90% range, and could very well be in the 50% range of coming through the surgery. To say that thought made this a long day is an understatement.

Luckily every update we got was good and he made it through his surgery without any complications. By about 7 pm that night we were back in his room hanging out with our baby boy and enjoying pretty much the best Christmas present we'll ever get. When they do open heart surgery, the person's body generally retains a lot of fluid and they swell up so they leave their chest open. This sounds a little gruesome, but it really isn't. He had a patch sewn in place and some dressing over top of the area, so you really couldn't tell. After about 5 days his swelling had gone down and they closed up his chest. He just has a thin line now with a couple of really tiny stitches.

At this point I realize I left one question unanswered that may be fairly important, and that is "Why is his recovery taking so long?"

So since his blood didn't flow through his heart how it would in a normal baby, the left side of his heart isn't as big as it normally would be. So once they did the surgery, it had a lot more blood flowing to it than it had previously had. This means it has to work harder than before. Along with this the condition causes pulmonary hypertension. This basically means the vessels in his lungs are really constricted and need time to open up. So now that the surgery is over his body basically has to grow to adapt to the changes. The good side of this is that he is a baby, so growing is what he does. The down side is of course that it takes time.

After the first time going back on the ventilator, the doctors decided to do a heart catheter on him. This basically means they run a wire through one of his arteries and into his heart and use it to get a better look at everything and how his blood flows. This showed them that his heart still had high pressures and needed more growing time. It also showed them that one of his four pulmonary veins connected a little lower than they had previously thought. They think it will need to be corrected at some time, but not until he is bigger and healthier.

To help his body make this adjustment the doctors have put a number of things in place. Some of these are drugs that help his heart work easier, as well as Viagra that helps his vessels in his lungs relax. The main thing is the breathing tube they have him on, which does his breathing for him so he doesn't have to work as hard as he would if he was doing it on his own.

Obviously one of the goals is to get him off of the breathing tube and breathing on his own. Before they do this, they do what is called a CPAP trial. This is just basically them turning down the ventilator support for a short period of time to see how he handles it. A week or so after his surgery they decided he was doing well enough to take out the breathing tube. The first day he did well, but then he started to get worse again, so after a couple of days with it out they had to put it back in. After doing this he started to get much better again and the doctors were very pleased. So at the beginning of this week with the thought that the breathing tube would be coming back out they tried again. He did alright with his first CPAP trial, but on the second one he had some trouble.

So this brings us up to now. Over the past day or some we've had some discussions with doctors about what they think on his progress so far and his path going forward. Their general consensus is that they gave him a short period of time to let his heart adjust, but it hadn't grown enough to handle the load. So would giving him another short amount of time see much change, probably not. So what can be done?

The answer we have been discussing with the doctors is a tracheotomy. Basically they cut a hole in his throat and insert a more secure breathing tube there. This of course sounds bad, but when you weigh everything it seems like the right answer for a number of reasons. First of all, this will allow him to be more mobile. That means mom and dad will be able to hold him, and he will be able to come off of his sedation and be able to act like a baby as well as get treated like a baby. Secondly it gives us an avenue to eventually take him home. The doctors said most likely once he gets it we can expect to take him home in about 4-6 weeks. Of course nothing is set in stone, but just the idea of finally taking our boy home is a huge thing.

The other plus side to this is it isn't permanent. It is something that can be taken out, and will leave just a small scar. Along with the tracheotomy they are going to change how they run his IVs to reduce the risk of infection. So as parents we never want the best option to be "another procedure", but weighing everything it just seems like the best thing to do for Lucas. We're excited to see him awake and able to move around, even if it means a little bit of extra hardware.

So that is Lucas' journey so far and where he is at. I feel like it is worth saying that the staff at Children's Hospital are not only responsible for saving our child's life, but also for saving our sanity. They are some of the nicest people we have ever had the pleasure to meet, and we owe them more than we could ever give. This has been the hardest time in our lives, and I honestly hope no one ever has to go through anything like it. Even once you make it through the phase where you have no choice but to take things day by day, you enter a phase where you're constantly unsure of what the future holds, and when the future holds it.

We've been in the hospital for a little over three weeks now, and it is hard to stay positive, but it's something we have to do. Again we owe a lot to friends and family who have helped us carry this since it all began.

The best thing to remember, is at the end of all this it will be worth it.

Happenings

2011-05-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

A lot has been going on, so unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to keep up with it here. My apologies. I should most likely change the name of this blog from My Daily Pause over to something a bit more appropriate like, My Maybe Once Quarterly Pause (If You're Lucky). Please though, let us put this lack of attention behind us and carry on shall we?

First of all you should check out the podcast that I take a part in. Our latest, Episode 27, can be found for free here: Nothing too specific, we just chat about games and tech and the usual stuff. If you happen to listen let me know what you think.

Aside from that I have gotten back into working on level design stuff. I'm currently about 40% done with a map for Team Fortress 2. The map is laid out, just have to apply textures and put props into place. It's been a lot of fun so far, can't wait to have it done and playable.

Still a long way to go, and some stuff has already changed, but this should give a general idea of some of the look/feel of the map. If you have any feedback/suggestions I'm always willing to hear them. Can't grow without feedback. Also some of the outdoor pictures are a bit on the bright side, this has already been fixed.

Looking Ahead

2011-01-04T15:24:00.000-08:00

So this may very well be the cliché beginning of the year blog post, but I want to take a second and look ahead at what’s going on this year. The biggest thing is that I will be attending my first GDC in March of this year. To say I’m excited would be a terrible understatement. Unfortunately I only have room in my budget to attend as a student, but the career day should be a great opportunity to network and to learn a thing or three.

Being a Game Design student, you hear a lot of tough things about getting into the industry. A quick Google search will probably turn up a number of articles on how to do this, what avenues to take, and personal tales of how many have done it before. Other than school and schoolwork I am trying to immerse myself in a number of projects and pick up extra information outside of the classroom. Ideally I would like to get an entry-level QA position somewhere to not only get some experience, but also have the chance to see how a team operates firsthand. After that I would like to move into a Junior Design position and work my way up.

When I started my Game Design degree, one of the first things I decided to do was to come up with a list of studios that I would like to someday work at. I wanted to do this to be able to better focus my efforts to “break in”, and because it has allowed me to have clearer goals overall. Every time I found a studio I was interested in, I would ask myself a series of questions about the studio to see if it in fact fit on my list, and if so was it high on the list. These questions included location, does the studio put out games I would be proud to have worked on, does the company have goals and standards that align with my own goals and the standards I set for myself, does the studio have high turnover or do they seem to keep people, etc.

As I made this list one studio kept popping up, and not only met my expectations on a lot of things, but more often than not, it far exceeded them. Those of you who know me and have spoken with me recently know that this studio is none other than Insomniac Games. It also turns out that Insomniac Games will have people at the GDC career event. Knowing that I may have a chance to get in front of someone and at least talk to them has put me into overdrive. I know I won’t be the most qualified person they talk to, but I do know I will be the most determined. I am making it a point to be as familiar with the studio and their games as I possibly can before I go in March. Any game they have out that I didn’t already have I went out and picked up. I’ve been playing through them fairly constantly and will probably have over 300 hours in by the time GDC rolls around. I’m also downloading all of the podcasts and listening to them on my way to and from work every day. It makes for a rather hectic schedule on top of school and work, but with any luck my dedication will pay off in some way.

The best part of this is the simple fact that the worst-case scenario is I get to spend a ton of time playing some excellent games and I will game some insight and information if I do get the chance to talk to someone. So I’m rather content in the simple knowledge that I’m going into a no-lose situation.

Learning Hammer

2010-11-10T22:35:00.001-08:00

I've started learning Hammer. So far it's been fairly easy to pick up and there is a ton of info online, which is always helpful. After a little bit of fiddling around I've decided to try my hand at making a TF2 map. Here is my progress thus far:

Feedback, tips, and encouragement is of course always welcome!

Educational Games and Me

2010-11-01T09:13:00.000-07:00

So I want to some day be a game designer. I think that fact has been made pretty clear in this blog. The biggest problem with that is it’s a tough industry to get into, and without experience it becomes even tougher. You need experience to get a job, you need a job to get experience; Joseph Heller would be amused.

So since I live in what is the complete anti-hotbed of gaming activity, to get experience designing games, I have to take action and create the opportunity. Luckily my wife is a teacher, and this offers me a wonderful chance to not only make games, but to also have a viable way of iterating and improving them.

So I approached her with the idea of working together to create a game that would help her students with early algebraic concepts in a fun way. She thought it was a great idea and we got a few general things down on paper. At this point I came to hurdle number one: I don’t know how to teach early algebraic concepts, so how do I expect to make a good game that does just that? So I’ve currently got my nose in about five different teaching and developmental psychology books that the wife dug up for me.

This so far has been one of my favorite aspects of game design. Not only do I get to constantly learn about something that is always evolving, but I also get to learn about another side subject I might never have come across otherwise.

I have also learned, as my wife has informed me, that there aren’t a lot of quality math themed games for middle school kids and above. There are apparently great games for K-6 students, and then they just die off. So if you’re looking for an opening in the market, voila!

So I asked her to show me some of the games that are available, and while I admit some are pretty terrible, there was one that just blew me away. It’s to help kids understand spatial concepts, its mechanic is simple, and yet it can get insanely complicated. I couldn’t stop playing it. It’s called Bloxorz and you should check it out:
http://www.coolmath-games.com/0-bloxorz/index.html

Game Update 10/20

2010-10-20T08:46:00.001-07:00

First two levels are done and things are starting to fall into place. Check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCYfbaEba9U

I recommend watching in HD.

Game Update 10/19

2010-10-18T21:56:00.001-07:00

So if you’ve read my blog at all in the past few weeks you are already well aware that I have been working on a game prototype with the new Unity 3. I’m going to school for game design, but at the moment we’re learning a lot of the principles of it all, and not actually working on games. So I decided to try and dive in and get myself something out of it. Jesse Schell said in his book that when you first start designing you’re going to suck, so go at it and get the suck portion out of the way. So for the past 3 weeks or so I have sucked vigorously, but with a noble thought in mind – to improve.

My game design itself is simple since I am not an artist or a modeler. I hope as it comes out of its prototype stage though it can grow into something that at least appears to be respectable. My mechanic was decidedly simple as well. I needed something I felt I could achieve and that wasn’t too in depth. It was a rocky road, but with a lot of work things have come into place.

So the reason for this update is this: I have one more thing to get into place before the game will be ready to come out of its prototype stage and into its beta stage. This means I get to start actually designing levels for it. My goal right now is to get at least 3-5 done before I throw it up online and let some people play it and give me some feedback. If the feedback is positive the goal will be 20 full levels and then put it back up online in a fuller version.

I still have a ton of work to do, but progress is constantly being made and that makes me very happy.

Feel free to check out the video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fFGbGrRKJw

Extra Life 2010

2010-10-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

So I did the Extra Life charity this weekend a long with a bunch of friends and classmates. I did it a day early on Friday due to things going on over the weekend, but it was still a hell of a time. I wanted to start it off with something a little special, so I fired up an NES emulator and played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was never able to get past the level after the dam, so I wanted to finally beat it and be done with it. After putting in a few game genie codes I was ready to go and finally got to see all of the game.

After that I jumped into a personal favorite of mine, Day of Defeat: Source. I've sunk countless hours into this game, and on this occasion I dropped in another 8 hours. I got 3 more steam achievements out of it which was also pretty nice.

Then I hit up the Red Faction Battleground beta as Volition was having a server stress test. The game is quite fun if you're wondering and I recommend you pick it up when it comes out, along with Red Faction Armageddon, which I also have to assume will be fantastic.

Then it was on to Red Dead Redemption to do some co-op with some friends who were also participating in the Extra Life event. Four hours went by here pretty quick I must say.

Next I spent two and a half hours getting my ass handed to me by Resistance 2. That game is unforgiving. Got to do the Chicago level finally though, and there is a moment in it that just worked so well.

Of course the night wouldn't have been complete without some Halo: Reach, and I put five and a half hours into that one. I finished the campaign, got the "If they came to hear me beg" achievement (which took about an hour), and rocked some multiplayer. I also put a rather funny video up from that.

To bring it all home I finished by starting Batman: Arkham Asylum on hard, and also got pretty tore up in that. Might have been due to my severe tiredness though, we'll see when I get back to that.

All around it was a fun time and I can't wait to do it next year. Hope everyone else that participated had as much fun as I did, and thank you to everyone that supported us!

I raised a total of $212 and the team I was on ended up with a total of $571.

Something Wicked This Way Comes?

2010-10-13T08:55:00.000-07:00

So if you’re into gaming and follow gaming news you’ve probably heard about the EA Louse story that has come out today. I’m not really going to comment on that since I have no first-hand information on it. What I would like to talk about is perception. Perception is a strong thing, and everyone perceives things differently. After reading the story (and as of late a lot of similar stories), I made this comment on Twitter:

“Just as a student looking at the industry you see a lot of the bad and it can be worrisome.”

This was at the time MY perception. You see a lot of news about layoffs, studio collapses, and like the EA Louse post – drama. As all of this comes at you, it can be worrisome and you start questioning yourself. Am I going into the right profession? Did I make smart choices?

So let me say this, it doesn’t matter. In the end making games is a dream and a love I will always have. Even if the industry chews me up and spits me out, I’m still going to be making games. Even if I just put out a small game on my own, that only a handful of people download, I will still be doing it because I love doing so.

Having said that, I do see the positive side of the industry. Every time I put in a game and it puts a smile on my face, I know it did the same for the entire crew that worked on it (no matter how small or large). A game may just be a passing moment to the player until they move onto the next game, but for a designer it is an achievement and a milestone. And that is a milestone I will forever strive for, no matter how worrisome things may seem.

*note: I would like to say thank you to all of those that reassured me throughout the twitterverse.

The Latest

2010-10-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

I've got some more functionality set up and running in the prototype. Things are coming together and so far I'm fairly pleased with how it's working. I tracked down a few bugs yesterday and got them worked out and everything at the moment is solid. So just going to keep moving forward.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNJA7aDRg6k

I'm liking Solarium for a name, thoughts?

Just a Quick Update

2010-10-09T07:53:00.000-07:00

I have a few more features running in my prototype for my game now. All of my objects can bounce around and collide with walls without exploding now. Also I have added in the ability to repel objects as well as pull them in and increase your gravity. I happened upon a new way to possibly do this today, and may test that out to see which way I prefer before moving ahead.

My goal this weekend is to set up pathfinding for my game objects I want to have cruising around the levels. I need to get some homework done first, but I don't think it'll be too hard to get that up and running.

The completely unofficial name of the game at the moment is Solarium. Due to change at any moment of course.

Working on Something New

2010-10-05T17:39:00.000-07:00

So Unity 3 officially released last week or the week before (time flies when you're having fun right?). I wanted to sort of jump in it and get in the thick of things. So instead of continuing what I was doing with the 2D game I was making, I decided to start something new and from scratch. So I did a little bit of brainstorming and sketched out a few things and settled on an idea I liked.

Core game idea:
In the game you play as a planet. You steer yourself through space and try to collect certain items and avoid colliding with other items. Being a planet you have gravity, so when you get close to things, they will come towards you. Throwing realism out the window and adding a bit of fun you will be able to increase your gravity or reverse it.

There is also going to be a slight platforming element to the game, so you will have to collect keys to proceed to certain areas, dodge some obstacles and all that fun stuff.

Look and feel:
I'm going to stay in 2D for this one just because I think it will allow me to focus on the gameplay and the core mechanics I'm after. Plus if I have to create the art assets myself they will be a lot simpler. So it's going to have a simple (yet hopefully sophisticated) look, and sort of an arcade feel.

Here is a quick sketch I did for a test level:

And if you go here you can see a short video of the game in an early prototype stage with commentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCE_kCcg2qA

I should have more shortly. Thanks for reading.

Charity Time

2010-09-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

So I try and get into doing some kind of charity as often as possible. Some of you who know me may even remember last years Mustache Vs Cancer adventure:

And yes, as a matter of fact I do look that sexy all the time. It's quite a burden. However this year due to my wife's pleading, I will not be growing a stache for cancer research, but if you would like to please check it out here: http://www.mustachesvscancer.org/

So this time I found something a little more my style called Extra Life. You sign up to play video games for 24 hours straight and people donate money to you to do so. The money goes to children's hospitals (you can even choose one in your area).

So if you'd like to donate and support me please go to the site here: https://www.hospitalshelpingkids.org/ExtraLife

I've been playing

2010-09-19T21:05:00.000-07:00

For some unknown reason I've felt compelled to play games I've overlooked recently. I've just had an urge to go through my library and put some time on the ones I never really....put time on. At the moment the lucky game is Trials 2 Second Edition (or as I like to call it f@#$! F@#$! F@#$!)

The game is incredibly simple. You have four controls; lean forward, lean back, gas, and brake. That's it and yet the game is insanely hard. I'm about 6 hours in and I'm just getting a go at the medium tracks. I just finished my first medium track tonight with no faults and it literally took me about 1,000 tries. The game never feels like it cheats you though, and when you go down, you go down because you messed up.

So even though it is almost totally comprised of frustrating moments, it somehow remains fun.

If you've never played it, it can be had from Steam for a rather cheap price. Speaking of cheap prices, R.I.P. GOG. I really wanted to pick up Another World when I got some spare money, but looks like I missed it. Luckily someone on Kotaku pointed me here http://www.anotherworld.fr/ Thanks Kotaku!

Got a Surprise Today

2010-09-13T12:25:00.000-07:00

So a package showed up for me today, wasn't entirely sure what it was. Opened it up and this is what I got:

I don't remember where this came from, but pretty stoked it showed up.

Further and Further

2010-09-02T21:10:00.000-07:00

Happy to say I made some decent progress on the level today. A few hurdles were overcome and a few new ones popped up. So I'm just smoothing out what I can while I can. I got almost all of the second floor done today. I might change it around a bit to make it look a little better, but so far it's coming along nicely.

I should get a few screenshots tomorrow, and Saturday should see a fairly comprehensive "What I've got" video. For today though just one fairly random bit:

Just about 99% of everything I do starts out on paper at some point, so I thought it would be fun to put this up today instead of a shiny Unity screenshot. This was what I laid out this morning before I actually started moving more things around in Unity to help give myself a little bit more of a sense of space and direction. Worked well for the most part.

Another Quick Update

2010-09-01T20:26:00.001-07:00

So not much got added to my level today as I was working in some other areas. One thing I did get done though was adding rain with a particle system. Not sure if I'll keep it in, but I like the way it looks/turned out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NTTx50dyjs

Unity Progress Update 09/01

2010-08-31T21:54:00.000-07:00

So I put some more work into my level in Unity today. It's really starting to polish quite nicely now that I'm working on some fine details in the portion I'm in.

Here's what's been added today:

-added a fireplace with fire. Also has a burning sound clip attached to it for ambiance.

-added some statues and pillars around the room to give it a more interesting look.

-added a brazier with a green particle effect.

-added a moving platform that will eventually take the player up to the second floor.

-added tiles that will eventually serve as the backdrop to the second floor.

-added flames to the candles in the chandeliers.

I also put in a collision sound effect so when the pillar falls and takes out part of the walkway it makes a sound. At the moment it's a little off so that still needs tweaking, but it's getting there.

Here are some screens:

Unity Progress

2010-08-30T22:07:00.001-07:00

So since I haven't thrown an update on here for a while, I figured I would take up some space with a check-in on my Unity work. I also recently found a source for quite a few great assets in the mod files for Torchlight (which is a fantastic game you should all own already).

So I just started on this tonight, and I'm not very far. Also, I'm still using the tutorial character for the controllable character until I can make or figure out something better, so bear with me on that fact.

Do Want.

2010-07-31T13:43:00.000-07:00

How to Automatically Backup Your Game Saves With Dropbox

2010-07-26T16:00:00.001-07:00

Valve recently came out with a service called Steam Cloud that automatically backs up your gamesaves and settings to a central server. This is a great tool if you're going to be playing games across several different PCs, or if you lose a hard drive for any reason. The only downside is it's not offered for a lot of games, but luckily there is an easy and free way to backup your game saves.

Step 1: Get Dropbox
The first thing you will need is a Dropbox account. They offer a free account that allows you up to 2 GB of space, which should be plenty for game saves, but if you'd like more they also offer a 50 GB option for $9.99/month and a 100 GB option for $19.99/month. It is available for PC and for Mac (at the moment the rest of this is for PC only, sorry I'll try and work it out for Mac users later if I can) and can be downloaded at http://www.dropbox.com

Step 2: Create a folder in your Dropbox folder for your game saves
Follow the instructions to install Dropbox, and once it's in and ready to go, you're going to want to create a folder for your game saves. To do this, go to your Dropbox folder; the default is in My Documents/My Dropbox Folder, but you might have put it elsewhere. Your Dropbox folder acts like a normal folder on your computer, so all you have to do is right-click and then go to New and then Folder. I named my folder Gamesaves, but you can really name it whatever you'd like.

Step 3: Get Dropbox Folder Sync
Now generally you have to add the files you want to upload to Dropbox, but someone put out a program that will allow you to sync folders across your computer to update in your Dropbox automatically. The program is called Dropbox Folder Sync and you can get it free by going here: http://wiki.dropbox.com/DropboxAddons/DropboxFolderSync

Click the link to download the program, and follow the instructions to install it.

Step 4: Set Dropbox Folder Sync to save to your gamesaves folder in your Dropbox.
For this step all you have to do is run the Dropbox Folder Sync program, click on the change settings icon when the program pops up, and select your gamesaves folder you created in your Dropbox.

Step 5: Find the location of the game save file you want to backup
This is the tricky part as different games use different places to put their game saves. One way to help make life a little easier is to use Windows search function. Go to search and type in the name of the game you are looking for, if any files come up right-click them and select Open File Location. This will open the folder that the file is located in. Then look for a folder that says saves, savedata, or gamesaves. This will generally be where they are at.

Another popular location for game saves is in your My Documents folder. Games that are here will sometimes be in a folder named after the games publisher, for instance THQ or Rockstar. You may also have a folder called My Games inside your My Documents folder, a lot of games will store their data here.

If you are still having trouble locating the game saves, try the forums at the game's official site. Most times if you ask politely, someone will help you and answer your question.

Step 6: Tell Dropbox Folder Sync to sync your game save with Dropbox
Now that you have found the folder that contains the game save you want to backup, just right-click the folder it's in and select Sync with Dropbox.

Congratulations! From now on any time your game save changes, it will automatically be uploaded to your Dropbox. Now if you want to jump back into a game from a different computer, just install Dropbox on that computer and grab your game saves out of your folder and you'll be able to pick up where you left off. You can always check to make sure they updated properly by going into your Dropbox folder and making sure your folder has a green circle with a check mark next to it like so.

Thanks for reading and hope this was helpful!

A Sincere Thank You to Casual Games

2010-07-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

First let me admit that I often pick on casual games. I’ve been known to poke fun at a friend or two for skipping out on whatever we happen to be playing and enjoying a game of something a bit slower speed like Lumines or Tetris. A quick stroll through my steam account will reveal that it does in fact contain a copy of Lumines as well as several other games of about the same caliber and intent, though I will often state, “I picked those up for the wife to play.” Alas, an epiphany the other day made me realize it was time to sit back and give thanks and explain my gratitude for casual games, and here is why.

Trying to decide what to play the other day I realized I had the Crackdown 2 demo sitting on my Xbox and I hadn’t given it a try yet, so I figured I might as well. I enjoyed the first game and was hoping the second would be more of the same mindless fun. While the game loaded a screen came up for a short few seconds displaying what buttons did what on the controller. The amount of information in that one screen was both monumental and terrifying, and it a quick moment it was gone. A moment later the game started and I was off playing it without a hitch. So did I memorize that screen in a few short seconds? Am I a super-genius? Sadly for me, not at all, but if you want to believe that part I won’t be heartbroken. Since I’ve been gaming for quite a while now, certain things, like what controls do in certain styles of games, is fairly second nature for me.

What about new players though? Psychology shows that if patterns are too complex or frustrating we will give up on them and move onto simpler things. So as games get more and more complex are they going to eventually wall themselves off from any new audience? Thankfully because of casual games no. As long as there are simple games that are fun and well designed people will play them. Once they are hooked on playing games in general, they will eventually cross the bridge into the more complex territory and enjoy a wider variety of play experiences.

This doesn’t just happen in video games, most of us jammed away at Hungry Hungry Hippos when we were little, and now we play more complex things like Monopoly or Chess. The only thing is games outside of video games seem to grow up into more universal models, while video games manage to separate their audiences into categories more often than not it seems.

So the moral of the story is: pick on your friends if they’re still playing Lumines, but when nobody is looking crank up that copy of Luxor you bought for the wife.

Trust?

2010-07-09T04:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I received a copy of @Gamer in the mail, which is Best Buy's new video game magazine. It's almost a copy and pasted copy of Game Informer for the most part, but with one shining difference, it has coupons. So the first thing that came to mind was "How well can I trust reviews from someone who is in the business of selling me games?". So I flipped to the reviews section and crunched some numbers to find out. Nerdery ensued, read it if you care about such trivial things.

First @Gamer uses a 5 point scale, or their games are judged on an "out of 5" basis. I decided to compare their reviews to the numbers on Gamerankings.com and Metacritic.com, both of which use an "out of 100" basis. So to get the results to make sense I converted the @gamer scores into an "out of 100" system like this:

5.0 = 100
4.5 = 90
4.0 = 80
3.5 = 70
3.0 = 60
2.5 = 50
2.0 = 40
1.5 = 30
1.0 = 20
.5 = 10
0 = 0

I then went through and averaged the reviews for different platforms to get my final number for Gamerankings and Metacritic. After that I just looked at whether the review for @gamer was higher than the averaged scores of Gamerankings and Metacritic or lower. Here's what happened.

7 of the reviews in @Gamer had a higher score than average, 4 had a lower score, and 1 wasn't rated on Gamerankings nor Metacritic. The games that were rated higher in @Gamer were generally rated much higher than if they were rated lower. The game with the biggest difference was Naughty Bear which was 28 points higher in @Gamer.

Overall the differences for the most part weren't shocking aside from Naughty Bear, and it is their first issue, so the data set is rather small. I still think it raises an interesting question of journalistic integrity though, one in which the magazine itself asks:

Q:Best Buy wants to sell games, do you have to say that everything is good?
A: @Gamer is only a valuable resource in so far as it's a credible source for honest gaming information. That said, being a print magazine, we're subject to the limitations of a page count. Because of this we're going to try to focus on games that are worth your time and money.

So I guess only time will tell.

One last simple note, the last page is all about buying advertising in the magazine and whom to contact and when to get an ad in there. If I was Gamestop I'd be scooping 'em up!

E3 Day One: Microsoft Press Event

2010-06-14T22:41:00.000-07:00

So I’m postponing my ambitious blog about combining interactivity and fatalism to do a more judgmental blog about some E3 things, since this week is well….E3 and all. I caught a few of the press events and I’ve watched a ton of trailers and media on what’s coming and I figure I’ll give a few thoughts on each thing.

First I’ll start with Microsoft’s press event. It’s no secret I spend most of my time either gaming on a PC or an Xbox 360, so I always pay the closest attention (and am probably more judgmental on) Microsoft’s annual event. They had a big year last year announcing Beatles Rock Band, Project Natal, Facebook and Twitter apps, and first dibs at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 DLC. So I figured this year should be just as spectacular.

Call of Duty: Black Ops

So this opened the event, and wow, what a disappointment. I think Treyarch has come a long way don’t get me wrong, but this game drops in November, which means it should be over half done. If the most exciting portion they have to show is two minutes of crawling through a cheap looking tunnel…..you can count me out. My next problem with this is it’s still technically just a slightly tweaked COD4 engine, and I don’t know if I really want to shell out another $60 for a romp through such familiar grounds, especially when Battlefield has proven it can improve upon the multiplayer aspect so well.

Metal Gear Solid: Rising

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not a huge Metal Gear fan, in fact I’m not a Metal Gear fan at all. Sneaking around just isn’t my thing. So I wasn’t terribly excited when this popped up, but it looks different. It has a slicing gimmick, and the game seems to be built around that. The thing is though that this has been done to some degree, I’m looking at you Dead Space and Shinobi, and it works. Some childish part of me loves pulling out a sword and reducing people to piles of limbs, and this seems to do that artfully.

Gears of War 3

Just like summer blockbusters in the movies, certain games come around for one purpose and one purpose only, to be explosive and really damned entertaining. Gears of War 3 looks to accomplish this flawlessly. Four-player co-op has me excited as the last was fun enough with just two, and the Unreal Engine is looking better than ever. This is the game that should have opened the show!

Crytek Game

So this wasn’t really much of a game trailer, but the thought is huge. Take the dev that is putting out the best looking titles the PC market has ever seen, and get them signed to an exclusive game for Xbox. It’s nice to seem them end up with something outside of the FPS realm as well since Crysis 2 should fill that gap nicely. This was the quiet moment that I think Microsoft should be the proudest for in their event.

Kinect

Alright, so this is what Natal has become, and what we’ve waited for for so long. Like anything it has potential, but it would appear that Microsoft killed any hope the core gamer had of that potential ever being realized with their completely insufficient showing of it here. Even the Wii had a few interesting titles at launch, but Microsoft seems to be comfortable sitting safely with the shovelware and the “fitness” games. Throwing out a release date, they were careful to kill any hope they had by not giving up the price point, which turns out to be $149.99, which is about $99.99 more than I see most people wanting to pay for this.

There was also an announcement for ESPN to come to Xbox live free for all Gold Members, and a new Xbox model that is pretty much a slightly smaller and blacker version of the previous one. It has built in wifi and a 250 GB HDD, but aside from that nothing worth writing home about.

I think they had an ok showing, but for the most part it wasn’t very impressive. They tried to focus on the “What we have that’s exclusive to us.”, when they could have had a very strong showing had they included some of the huge titles that are dropping on both platforms.

I think they’ll have a better run than Sony, whom I’m assuming is going to push their lackluster 3D, Wii-clone Move, and premium online service. I do however think Nintendo is going to give them a hard run surprisingly. Only time will tell though.

Check This Out

2010-06-08T00:59:00.000-07:00

So I came across a game the other day that really impressed me. It's a bit abstract and you sort of have to see it through to get the full effect, but if you have a spare 15 minutes I highly recommend you go through it.

Every Day the Same Dream

It sort of reminded me of this:

Which I am a huge fan of.

Press A to Donate

2010-06-04T15:16:00.000-07:00

When I decided to start my quest to learn game design a number of questions from a number of people popped up. The most popular of course was, “You want to do what with you life?” The question that made me think the most though was, “How do I plan on being a benefit to the game industry?” Mind you I’m fairly early in my quest to become a game designer, but I don’t think it’s too early to start pondering a question like this, I mean if I can’t tell a prospective employer why they’d benefit from hiring me, chances are they’re not going to give much thought to passing me by.

So the easiest answer is obviously “I want to make great games. I want to create things on the highest level and deliver a truly unique experience.” That reads to me more like “I saw Grandma’s Boy once!” So how should I respond to that kind of question? The answer I came up with after a lot of thought is:

“I don’t want to make great games, I want to make games do great things.”

We’ve all done great things in games like won races, became a hero, and saved the world, but I think our princess is in another castle. We should stop looking to save the game world and start trying to save the real world; we just need to figure out how.

Things like Child’s Play have shown that when gamers come together they can do great things. Since 2003 they have raised over 5 million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America. Achievement Unlocked?

So how can games and the gaming industry match this? First let’s look at popular games, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which set a record by making 310 million dollars in 24 hours. Imagine if Activision had a program that shipped COD a week early to anyone who donated ten dollars or more to a certain charity. Imagine if any AAA title tried this and how much of an impact it could have on any number of world issues.

How about occasional downloadable content as a reward for charitable donations, or game tournaments with proceeds going to those in need? The methods are nearly limitless. As an industry it certainly isn’t something we’re obligated to do, but going into the industry it is definitely something I hope I can convince more people we should do.

I Wish I Wish I Wish!

2010-06-02T09:55:00.001-07:00

I'd like to take a moment to give a little bit of attention to something I think it an awesome idea.

Come Out & Play 2010

This three day festival takes place in Brooklyn and takes a number of fantastically designed games, bring people together, and lets them play them.

I unfortunately don't have the time or resources to go to this year, but consider it already marked on the calendar for next year.

Open World vs Linear

2010-05-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

I recently started playing Metro 2033, a post-apocalyptic first-person shooter based in Moscow’s metro system. The development team consisted of a handful of people who used to work for another developer called GSC Game World, who were responsible for the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, or as I like to call it S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Attack of the Period Key.

Despite its odd formatting in the title, Shadow of Chernobyl was a great game. It was a survival horror game set in the open landscape of Chernobyl where radiation and anomalies have created both a black market wonderland and a bevy of mutated beasts. It had atmosphere seeping out of every pore of its framework, and it featured a solid storyline.

Metro 2033 is similar in a lot of ways, same dark atmosphere, same fight for survival, same buy and sell item structure, etc. etc. etc. There is one huge glaring difference though; Metro 2033 is an extremely linear, point A to point B game. So having played both of these got me to thinking about the differences in open world versus linear games, and why I prefer to be shoved down a hallway instead of set free in an open field.

First let me start with a frame of reference more people can relate to, Grand Theft Auto. Most of you who would take the time to read this are probably more than familiar with the world of GTA. You’re dropped into a city, given a couple of contacts, and then free to either work through them or wreak your own personal brand of havoc on the city. Like a large number of people when Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, I quickly fell in love with it. I spent many an hour blowing up cars, beating hookers, and gunning down pedestrians who were out on a leisurely stroll.

My problem comes about when Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came out, the follow-up to GTA3. Loving the game before it, I picked it up with high high hopes. After a few hours though I grew tired and bored of it and set it aside. Then the same thing happened with the next few GTA games in the series and I started to wonder why?

My love for Grand Theft Auto 3 is pretty easy to identify, Jesse Schell talks about it in his book called The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses in which he gives examples of ways to look at the game design process and refers to each of these as a lens. One lens in particular offers a lot of insight into why I, and many others, found the game to be so great, the lens of the toy.

¹ Stop thinking about whether a game is fun to play, and start thinking about whether it is fun to play with.

Grand Theft Auto games, and really most open world games for that matter, make excellent toys. They are free of a lot of the rules and restrictions that a player faces in linear games and give players more freedom to just play. Dominos are a great example of this. You can play a very structured game of dominos with clear rules and objectives, or as most kids like to do you can stand them all up on edge in lines and watch them tumble one at a time. The actual game of dominos requires strategy and knowledge of the game’s rule set and can be won, while the more popular stack and tumble method just requires time and patience and there is never a winner or a loser. The good thing about the linear version of dominos is that new variables like new opponents and new house rules can be added to keep the game fresh, but the non-linear dominos can’t be varied from the “set-up the knock down” formula, which gives it a lot shorter lifespan.

So what happened was Grand Theft Auto: Vice City wasn’t a new toy, but an updated toy with a new story. So as soon as I picked it up, I had in essence already played with it in all of its various forms, so it quickly lost my interest. Ralph Koster in his book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design touches briefly on why games become boring.

² The player might master everything in the pattern. They have exhausted the fun, consumed it all.

This is what happens when there aren’t enough new elements added to a game, it leaves the player with a “been there, done that” feeling. Linear games face this problem after the first play through, the story has already been told and the rewards for playing through it again greatly diminish for the player. A common way of combating this is to add different difficulty settings, or collectibles that must be found hidden throughout the game.

So how can open world games improve? In my opinion I see two ways. The first way is for open world games to be designed solely as an open experience. If the designer makes a world and just gives the player a large enough toolset to use on the world, it will stay fresh longer and allow for a greater amount of emergent game play. Grand Theft Auto 3 was the first time in a game I was able to steal a car, ramp it into a bus, shoot a rocket at the pileup, and watch it all explode. If the sequel had given me more tools to use instead of mostly the same tools, the world would have been new enough to hold my attention longer.

The second way I think they can improve is to have a strong story or characters. One open world game I did finish recently was inFAMOUS for the PS3. The story was far from being groundbreaking, but when combined with the strong characters it made for a world that begged to be experienced. Grand Theft Auto’s cookie cutter story of small-time guy does crime and makes it big just isn’t enough. The game should leave you guessing what the next mission will reveal of the story, and where it might take you.

I’ve also heard the argument that the less an open world game gives you to do, the more focused you will be on the story, and perhaps this is true. In inFAMOUS you can’t steal cars or get hookers or do any number of things you can in GTA games. There is an idea that if a game is inherently simpler than it will far surpass a game that is artificially difficult. Jesse Schell calls this Elegance

³ We call simple systems that perform robustly in complex situations elegant. Elegance is one of the most desirable qualities in any game, because it means you have a game that is simple to learn and understand, but is full of interesting emergent complexity.

¹ ³ Schell, Jesse. (2008). The Art of Game Design. Morgan Kaufmann
² Koster, Ralph. (2005). A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Paraglyph Press

Update: May 11th, 2010

2010-05-11T00:21:00.000-07:00

Iron Man 2 Review: Haiku
Saw Iron Man 2
A better film than the first
You should go see it.

I took my Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator test, and according to it I am a Jester and a Sage. This is all fancy talk of course to say that I'm a smart-ass.

This is old, but I have to recommend everyone go and watch Let the Right One In. Do not watch it with the english dub, what the swedish audio track with the english subtitles. It will blow you away. Promise.

Playtesting Round 1

2010-04-27T22:00:00.000-07:00

So lately I've been reading my way through this:It's a great book so far, and it has taught me quite a bit, and lately I've been focusing on two of its ideas, focusing on creativity, and testing out ideas. The problem with trying to test out design ideas is the simple fact that you have to be able to realize them first, and this takes a lot of resources that aren't always available. So I went and did the next best thing and built a paper prototype of my current design idea. Of course I had to simplify some things, and change things around to make a 16-player online game work as a 2 player board game, but the overall concept would be the same, and that's what I wanted to test; would the core idea be fun?
So I ran off to Staples and Toys R' Us and got some materials and set to work. In a little over 2 hours I had everything ready to go and just had to wait for the wife to get home. Once she arrived I gave her a quick rundown of the rules of play and we were off.

There were of course a few hiccups. My 5 figure lego sets only had 3 figures and 2 vehicles, so soldier 4 and 5 were Go pieces and the respawn system had to be adjusted mid-game to allow for quicker respawns. Everything was controlled by the luck of a dice roll, and the level of fun could have been greatly improved by removing some of the rolls and replacing them with some type of mini-game, but overall it worked. We had fun, there were moments of excitement and despair, and when it was all said and done I was victorious, having defeated the wife and brought down her fortress wall. She even said she liked it and would play it again. So despite needing some work, Version 1.0 is so far a success.

One Solid Reason It Needs to be May

2010-04-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

Just sayin.

If Only!

2010-04-15T05:23:00.001-07:00

If only I'd known about the amazing thing that is etsy before the wedding, because nothing says, "You married a classy guy!", quite like Megaman cuff links.

Want a pair? Go Here!

Feed Me a Stray Cat!

2010-04-14T00:13:00.000-07:00

I feel like Patrick Bateman tonight. I feel like I should run, pick up the phone, and call my lawyer.

“Tonight I uhh….I just had to kill a lot of people!”

I’ve been killing people in large quantities for a good number of years now, well over a decade in fact. If I had to run the numbers real quick, I’d say the estimate would be somewhere around….oh….I don’t know, 250,000. That number, believe it or not, may even be a little low. I’ve killed people with chainsaws, knives, guns, bombs; you name it. I’ve killed them in sadistic ways, creative ways, and from time to time in fairly boring fashion. The good news is I don’t really have a lawyer on call, and everyone I killed just respawned 5-10 seconds later.

The thing is the only killing I do is in video games; violent, bloody, gory video games. I’ve answered the call of duty, been left for dead, and earned my medal of honor. I’m quite addicted to the false sense of bravado that is simulated killing and heroism.

So according to a lot of the popular media, playing violent games desensitizes a person to violence, and has a tendency to bring forth violent urges in people. If this is true, I should be a powder keg about ready to blow. The strange thing is, I’m more at peace now than I have ever been. I hardly feel desensitized and the act of killing a real person would probably leave me mentally scarred for the rest of my days. War movies make me bawl like a baby, and more often than not make me queasy.

I’m 27 years old and I’ve never been in a serious fight. Of course I did my fair share of rough housing with friends and such growing up, but aside from the occasional scrape or bruise, it was mostly amiable and harmless. I don’t own any guns and honestly wouldn’t know how to load or really operate one if I did. So the question begs to be asked, what gives?

Have I been playing the wrong games? I don’t think so as I’ve had my hands on just about every game that has ever come under fire for it’s violent content. Am I just a rare exclusion to the video game violence epidemic? I doubt that either since all of my gaming friends play the same games as I do, and not a one of them is on trial for murder.

So are violent games completely harmless? No, or course not. They are simply meant for audiences that are mature enough to understand them. That’s why most of them have a Teen or Mature rating on the box. Parents shouldn’t be buying their children Grand Theft Autos anymore than they should be providing them with pornography. There are lessons to be learned in most violent games, but they are often far too complex for adolescent minds to comprehend.

We’ve somehow lost sight of the strength and value of parenting. We are convinced that children pull their core values from media while their biggest influence, is more often than not, right inside their home. We say the kids shot up Columbine because of Doom, but where were their parents while they made bombs in the garage? We want to take the easy way out, and blame something that can never be help accountable, while we should instead be holding parents accountable.

So going forward I think it’s important to be careful what we set our sights on before we pull the trigger on issues like this, like all that godless heavy metal music!

Image courtesy of Penny Arcade

I am also currently reading this:

Killing Monsters by Gerard Jones

Shenanigans!

2010-04-13T22:11:00.001-07:00

Worth a Watch!

2010-04-12T05:16:00.001-07:00

Pixels by Patrick Jean

The Tetris bit is fantastic.

Dear Capcom

2010-04-10T16:07:00.001-07:00

Please throw out your morals and steal this idea, put it through the sweatshop, and get it into my closet.
Original concept by bmansnuggles @ Deviantart.

There Will Be Much Rejoicing.

2010-03-09T13:09:00.000-08:00

So I'd like to invite everyone to join me in celebrating VW Day. Now I know you're probably thinking, hold up I don't own a Volkswagen, but you've got me all wrong. VW Day is Victory over Winter Day. I understand it's not an official day yet, but I have a feeling if enough of us write to our respective important people, they can probably find time to make it happen somewhere in between passing health care and....whatever else it is that they do.

Obviously you can't put a date on VW Day, because the weather does whatever the hell it wants to do every year. So my proposal is the first day of each year that the forecast is in the high 40s or above for at least 3 days in a row, the first day will be named as VW Day for that year. Then everyone gets the day off, and is free to roam about in the alien sunshine and trade stories with his neighbors of all the battles he survived this winter season, and tell tales of the countless nights spent in the "trenches" of indoors.

The problem as I see it is right now, ANY event that isn't weather related, automatically gets demoted to an uninteresting event for at least a week. Just had a baby? Who cares, have you been outside! Won the lottery? How about that sunshine! VW day would give us a chance to get all that out of our systems in 24 short hours, and let the interesting people go back to being interesting.

So everyone please, write your representatives and tell them it's sunny outside, errr....I mean to get VW Day as a national holiday, or at least in Ohio.

I can move mountains.

2009-02-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we got our keys to our new place. This being only the second time I've ever moved in my life has been quite an experience. For the most part it's gone quite smoothly. No one died, no one was hospitalized, and nothing exploded. There has been a lot of swearing.....mostly from me towards the mysteries of wireless internet. I've been playing a little bit of Brain Age on the DS, and it says drawing things from memory is good for your brain, so this is my visual interpretation of my battle with setting up a wireless network through Microsoft Paint.

So from all of this I have learned that the Wizard of wireless internet's favorite phrase is "You shall not pass!!!". Also my brain age is 47, which evidently is not the age it needs to be for me to be able to blow things up with my mind.

A Moment of Requiem

2009-01-28T19:08:00.000-08:00

Dear Bed,

Tonight I will sleep in you for the last time. We've spent many hours together over the years. I made a fort under you when I was little, strung christmas lights around you during the holidays, and in a fit of glee jumped on you and broke you. Through all of the you stayed strong, even after I had to amputate your legs, you stuck with me.

You taught me how to spread all four of my limbs out to steal as much real estate as possible whenever someone wanted to share you. You taught me how to steal the blankets like a ninja in the dark. When my room was messy you lent me your underside until it was clean.

We had a good run my friend, and unfortunately after tonight it comes to an end. In the morning I will roll over softly to hit the snooze button, eight or nine times, and softly weep to myself, and you will make that weird squeaky noise you like to make when I roll about.

Sincerely, Dave

January: If I wasn't so busy I'd just be cold.

2009-01-24T12:41:00.000-08:00

So we're still in the middle of the whirlwind that is preparing to move. 6 Days and counting until M-Day and we invade our new humble abode. Have I gotten anything done? Oh yes, well....sort of. I got a flat tire on the way to work on Tuesday. So I had to go get a new tire and get that all fixed. I got the gas set up on Monday. Let me tell you about that. It goes something like this:

(Dave dials number on his phone, phone then rings)
Gas company: Thank you for calling Dominion Ohio, if you need to get your service reconnected say reconnect, if you need account information say account, if you need another copy of your statement say statement if you want more options say more.
Dave: Account.
Gas company: Please say or enter your 13 digit account number.
Dave: I don't have one...crap (hangs up)
(Dave dials number on his phone, phone then rings)
Gas company: Thank you for calling Dominion Ohio, if you need to get your service reconnected say reconnect, if you need account information say account, if you need another copy of your statement say statement if you want more options say more.
Dave: More.
Gas company: If you would like to pay your bill say bill, if you would like to request another meter reading say reading, if you would like to talk to an agent say agent.
Dave: Agent.
Gas company: Please say or enter your 13 digit account number.
Dave: .........
Gas company: I'm sorry I didn't catch that, please enter your account number on your keypad.
Pissed off Dave: That's what I need! I need an account number!
Gas company: I'm sorry I didn't catch that, please try again.
Irate Dave: Damn you soulless machine! I need a person!! *hangs up*
(Dave dials number on his phone, phone then rings)
Gas company: Thank you for calling Dominion Ohio, if you need to get your service reconnected say reconnect, if you need account information say account, if you need another copy of your statement say statement if you want more options say more.
Impatient Dave: More.
Gas company: If you would like to pay your bill say bill, if you would like to request another meter reading say reading, if you would like to talk to an agent say agent.
Hopeful Dave: bill?
Gas company: Please say or enter your 13 digit account number.
Unintelligible Dave: @#*$ #*&! @#@*!!!!!!!!!! *hangs up*
(Dave dials number on his phone, phone then rings)
Gas company: Thank you for calling Dominion Ohio, if you need to get your service reconnected say reconnect, if you need account information say account, if you need another copy of your statement say statement if you want more options say more.
15 minutes ago I was a nice guy Dave: Reconnect?
Gas Company: Please hold while we connect you with a representative.
Wishes death upon complete strangers Dave: seriously? It Reconnect was the right answer?
Gas Company: Hi this is Christina how can I help you?
Fake pleasant Dave: Hi there, I'm moving and I just needed to set up a new account for the apartment we're moving to.
Gas Company: I'm sorry you got the wrong department, I'm going to have to transfer you, please hold.
I hope you can see this because I'm doing it as hard as I can Dave: Ok, thank you.

We got the electric set up on Friday, which was much easier and more pleasant, it just involved us getting lost down in the Falls and some of the worst directions I've ever been given. I will say at least they gave us a free light bulb though. I do still need to get a hold of the cable guy who seems to only exist at this point as an answering machine, unfortunately not one that answers the questions that I have.

Next week besides throwing everything I own into boxes, since I've got about 5 things actually in one at this point. I still have to go to the bank and let them know I'm changing addresses, go to work and let them know I'm changing addresses, go to the post office and.....let them know I'm changing addresses, and then I should probably email all of my friends and inform them of my new address. If not I could just fake my own death and save a whole heck of a lot of time, but evidently that requires a plane, a parachute, and a motorcycle which I do not have and you still get caught.

In the meantime there is another terribly addictive game sucking away my free time called Castle Crashers.

Basically you choose a little knight, and then go through and kill anything that wants to kill you, which includes just about everything. You level up, you get new weapons and items, and you have stats. The best part of all this is it's up to four players, which is stupid stupid fun.

So this has gotten a little long, so I should stop and get back to packing. As soon as I have time I will type up the story of the paper mafia and at some point the missed connections story about craigslist. Both are quite entertaining.

Moving

2009-01-18T17:50:00.000-08:00

The last couple of weeks have been spent getting ready to get ready to move, and this weekend marks the beginning of actually getting ready. So over the past two days I've come to a conclusion; I think moving has to be the lousiest way to have fun ever contrived. You're so excited to get into new surroundings with new stuff and "start fresh" that you don't realize all of the flaming hurdles you have to leap to get there. Cleaning, organizing, packing, etc, etc, etc. All of this does not bode well for a severe procrastinator like myself.

There is also the issue of hidden treasure to divert your path and delay you from your final destination of "being ready". Not treasure in the pirates and gold sense, but more soin the sense of crap you forgot you even had. So far I've found a book I'd long accused my fiance of having, half of my fiance's wardrobe, and an assortment of old; and fairly ridiculous, video games. For instance I found this gem today:

So of course all cleaning, organizing, packing, etc, etc, etc, must officially stop so said game can then be installed on the computer and played. Turns out it's an RTS game made by the people who put out Company of Heroes (which I highly recommend). You combine animals to make a odd creatures and then take your transmogrified beasts into battle against more crazy animals (my vote was for the Decepticons). The graphics are bad, and the story is laughable, but it still managed to steal a few hours of my Sunday afternoon nonetheless.

So after wrestling myself free from the time wasting trap of old school video games, I fell straight into trap #2; old pictures.

So I'm not going to post all of them as there are countless photos of just completely random jackassery, but rest assured they exist and they stole much of my time today. Then came the, this isn't funny enough, I should open photoshop portion of the trap.

So here it is 10:00 PM on Sunday night and I still have my one little lonely box packed. Three cheers for last minute efforts!

In Requiem of "teh vag pants"

2008-09-10T10:21:00.001-07:00

So I decided for no good reason to start up on WoW again. Not entirely sure why since Warhammer starts up in just over a week and I still need to get my hands on Spore and Stalker: Clear Skies. Needless to say though, I took again the plunge into depravity. Now when you first start WoW it's a very welcoming place. Everything around you either wants to help you, or is so weak it couldn't do a very good job of killing you. Enemy players are bound by some invisible code of honor that doesn't allow them to attack you unless you strike first, and they rarely live long enough to make it that far into noobland anyways. You're bombarded with Guild invites, help on quests, and a lot of time random enchantments/items.

What happens then you ask if you stop playing long enough to forget how everything works when you're say....Level 44? Well as you can see, you are dead.....a lot. I loaded up the game, brought my trusty character back to life after about an 8 month hiatus, and his lifespan was nothing short of 30 seconds. It would seem when I stopped playing last time I stopped right in the middle of a blood thirsty group of high level bad guys. Oops. So after retrieving my corpse (for the first time), I warped my happy ass back to happy town where everything was fun and safe again. And it seems even though everyone wants to capture as many new players for their guild, a lame duck Level 44 Rogue isn't a very desirable thing. Two days of playing and still not one guild request.

So I think the only respectable thing to do at this point is to head over to Stranglethorn Vale and pop in and out of stealth scaring anyone nearby.

Halt, Hammerzeit!

2008-09-08T23:44:00.000-07:00

So I've been playing a lot of guitar again lately. I forgot, honestly, how therapeutic it can be. It's calming, all of your negativity leaves you and turns to sound. Lately I need that. We started the band, or at least some form of the band back up. That's sort of like a two for one deal, not only do you get all of the negative energy out, but you get a heck of a workout at the same time. Now if there was only a way to do that and not go deaf I'd be set.

There are a lot of politics in a band as well. It's sort of like a miniature high school. This person likes that person, but doesn't like the way that person does this, so on and so forth. Some days it doesn't exist and you just come together and make music, and other days it's right out front and no matter how hard you try you can't get it behind you. Can't say I'm really looking forward to all of that again, but it's one of those things you just have to deal with as it comes.

So anyways, my ears are ringing a lot more lately, but overall I'm in an improved mood and life is cheery and rosy. Feel free to check us rocking out in previous times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3TO_OS34tw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3fII6EViVU

Foto Friday

2008-09-05T08:06:00.001-07:00

New York City

Man on Wire

2008-09-04T10:47:00.000-07:00

Man on Wire

I'm going to try and start covering some of the better movies I see in here, especially since everyone I know says I watch too many to begin with. So to start off with I'll go for Man on Wire which we caught at the nearby art house theater this past weekend. What it lacks in Denzel Washington killing people, it makes up in the form of a very animated Frenchman. Now this may sound like the worst trade off in the history of film (I can hear you thinking isn't their only animation retreat?), it's actually quite amusing and the film would have suffered greatly without it.

It's essentially the story of Phillipe Petit, the aforementioned Frenchman. The whole movie builds towards Phillipe and a gang of people plotting and eventually stringing a high wire across the two world trade center towers for him to walk across. It goes back to give you a glimpse of not only how they pulled it off, but also the motivations for doing so. We get to see a few of Phillipe's earlier stunts and also how he came across the wide assortment of people who helped him pull off the final act of the film. Where this movie lucks out is the simple fact that it's so much of a heist film that you forget for the better part of it that it's any type of documentary. It's not just facts, dates, and impressive archived footage. You could have put any number of Hollywood actors in it and made it into a normal everyday heist movie.

If you get a chance watch this one.