Saturday, January 31, 2009

unemployed once again

: (

job leads welcome. that's all.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

the disco will find you

Tuesday night, I sit here at my desk at Obsidian, digesting a freshly-devoured turkey sandwich. This sandwich, it should be noted, not only had pickles on it, but also coleslaw - some semi-spicy mustard - a dabble of half-fake mayonnaise, and some healthier (?) cheese substitute that still tastes enough like cheese that i will accept it. All of this, compliments of the fridge which resides next to my desk will i work, every day. Ah hell yes, it is the life, isn't it, folks???

So, I am a bit down lately. Work is taking me out a bit, I review my eleven preceding years in the games industry and realize I still have to make "the big hit." I have had a couple of close calls, that is I have been at some places where if things worked out differently for me I'd be a rather rich man by now. I could have had some crazy guitar hero residuals. I could have had some insane WOW money. God damn, if only I had a crystal ball... But that's the thing. It's hard to see this stuff coming. You never know where your studio is going to steer, nor what will be the Next Big Thing. I mean, to harp on it again, look at freakin' guitar hero. Look at it! That thing could have been made a decade ago! (Oh wait - it was!) Well, there's a clear-cut case of something showing up before it's time and not being properly implemented, but at least someone was on the ball with the thought process. Anyway even at the start of it's current genesis (as opposed to Konami's initial offerings) it still had some hurdles to pass, and a couple of iterations to catch on, but here it is. And now it's just a box with bars that float down it, while zillions of dollars are being made. So.. what, then, IS NEXT?

This is what all my bretheren are scratching their heads on while they cruise on the freeway each day. "Where's the next idea? Who's got the next crazy gimmick that everyone will want to shell out megabucks for? What do we want - what do THEY NEED?" And then, less troubling, how many times can we repackage this chippity choppity and crank it out until the stuff is milked and drained?

Well, I won't get all crazy with this. I am not in this "just for the money" - but hell. I get tired of working my ass off and pouring my heart and soul into this stuff, and years pass, and I'm still driving a beater, dressing like I am homeless, feeling kinda crushed and run-over while the world kind of keeps whizzing past me. It's funny, I can sometimes think of some ways to "get rich quick" but hey - it's pretty hard to just detach yourself from your relatively stable sure-thing routine and put everything on the line like that, especially when we are not living in the most prosperous of times. Honestly - I am so happy and fortunate right now to just have a JOB, and one where the people are cool, the projects are cool, and there's a lot of things that I can feel positive about. Yeah, of COURSE there's problems which make me feel madness. Sure I hate scrounging and compromising things in my life, who doesn't. But the industry is a different beast right now, it's no longer a case of "hum a few bars and I'll fake it." Competition is beyond ridiculous now (look how many AAA FPS titles released in the past few months!) - there's just not really much room for dicking around. 2008 was an incredibly rough year for games, one that really surprised me a lot - and so my guard is understandably up for the new year as a result. At this point - just let me keep doing what I do. I will walk the walk and talk the talk. I won't be a bitch and I won't be a whiny "i wiiiiish things could be difffferent!" Yeah, we all get antsy sometimes (we are people, not robots!) but at the beginning of the day and the end of the day, I pass through the main lobby of this office building - and I always feel pretty DAMN good to be passing in and out.

So what am I playing right now? Well.. COD4 oooorah, and Mappy.

OOorah! I want to put colecovision on my game boy micro. OOOOOrah!

Monday, January 19, 2009

well...

last night (sat night) went out for a friend's b-day, met up downtown... some place called "the redwood" i believe. Interesting joint, quite small and packed. I got loaded rather quickly (it had been a couple of weeks) and licked my friend andy's inner elbow. Something about excessive whiskey is making me perverted, that's good to know. I also think i kissed my friend aaron's hand. Alright, it's official, i am going homosexual at last. AT LAST. I guess i can hack it so long as I keep it to elbows and hands, i guess i could do something with toes also. I don't know all about the whole penis and butthole thing. That's not really kosher for me. Speaking of which, I FINALLY saw a guy at the gym who was wearing a yarmulke as he was working out. That's like.. two kinds of dedication at the same time. I wonder what happens when he swims? Does he wear a raincoat-material yarmulke? Can NASA get on that please? Speaking of THAT, my friend recently wondered "what happened to raincoats anyway, You never see them anymore..." Duh. We live in Soutern California. Who needs a raincoat down here?? I understand the sentiment though. Raincoats are totally one of those things that screams "developed and sold in the 1970s and 1980s," perhaps if the grunge scene lasted a little longer you would have seen a few more of those yellow beasts, maybe it's time to start wearing them out to the clubs. We'll see. The emo kids won't like it - I don't see Hot Topic picking up a line of Twilight Raincoats, but who knows. People will buy anything, no matter how ugly or weird (yup.)

Sunday night, did a lot of sitting on my ass this weekend. I had a lot of stuff I should have done - when don't I - but generally my engines are burned a little lately. Things just pile up, in life, sometimes.. I am okay though. Moody as all get-out but I get my stuff done.. I am working on it.

Mentioned the gym, I have been pretty good about going (almost) daily, it's still a new thing in my life (again) but already I do feel better for it, a little more energized.. it's not too much of a drag to go. I love the one near work, well as much as one can love a gym - that is, they have goddamned cable TVs on top of every single machine, I watched "the Right Stuff" while I was Treadmilling. Not joking. I think I watced "The Grudge 2" the other night (bad movie!) Lots of family guy and CNN. Okay it's all rotten to my brain, but the point is to keep my mind off the fact that I am running in place like an idiot. Oh what has the world become??? What?

The gym in Hollywood is much more of a letdown. A lot more of the older set, nebbishy, ya know.. OC is trim and fit and style-concious. Lots of hotter chicks, I guess.. Hollywood just has like 3 screens on the wall, no big deal (just the weekends anyway) but my iPod is one foot in the grave - as all HD iPods usually wind-up - so I can only kinda listen to music on it before it starts failing and I gotta smack the shit out of it while I am trying to run or whatever, trying not to alarm the people working out beside me. Yeah, the gym. Also, last night was awesome, and I am actually pretty ashamed to mention this in my blog, but ater I finished working out I pulled into the drive-thru of the McD's which is ATTACHED TO THE SAME BUILDING AS THE GYM (are you tired of my caps yet) and bought a damned Big Mac, and promptly engulfed it. I know, I know "what's the damned point of working out then?" but I was going to be drinking - a lot - in no short order so I wanted a big greasery burger down there to lie in wait and soak up some of the whiskey, you know? It's bad enough blowing money on a bar bill, and licking/spitting on my friends (Gay, Gay, Gay), and calling my girlfriend late in the night to talk about.. something, which I usually only have piecemeal memories of, et cetera, but the crowning achievement of all of that is to be hungfuckingover the following day, esp. when it is the weekend, and I need that time to actualy NOT feel like a braindead bag of leopard feces, or something. So, yeah, Big Mac = a worthwhile investment, I stand by my decision.

alriiiight, it is almost 3:30 in the morning, I need to wake up for work in like 5 hrs. I don't know how many hours I actualy slept last night (probably in the neighborhood of six, i'd wager..?) Good night, good week, good luck.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

good night sweet prince, well, it is time to go???

so i want to end my myspace blog? does any "actual" person (besides web spiders) actually look at this anymore... i know myspace is pretty passe'? if i kill it, i will still update the blogger page. does anyone care?
not me, i have a love/hate relationship with the internet at this point. honestly, it's filled with useful/interesting things, and in some ways i have contributed a lot to it. but really i WOULD NOT MIND IF IT WENT AWAY, FOREVER. I miss being a human, and being able to associate with other humans around me, on a human level. the bits and bytes are not terribly conducive to that. if you don't know, even in the slightest, what i am referring to, then u are already too far gone. Sigh.

Monday, January 12, 2009

adios EGM

and so, another great videogame institution comes to an end. Though in many ways, for me EGM has been gone for so many years now, at least the one "of my childhood" - that rough, rushed-out magazine with half-realized misinformation and crappy editing, but all the same it looked very loved by those who worked on it and hey, it SPOKE to me! I would run to the mailbox every month hoping the new copy would be tightly folded in there, waiting for me - i still have a bunch of the old issues in a box in my closet, held together with staples and tape. "Turbografx-16 or Sega Genesis, which is better? First look at Super Mario 4, and Sega Genesis CD-ROM!" Ah the good old days.

EGM as it's been since I've been working in the industry is a whole different affair, but times are of course extremely different - oh, but they are. I don't need to go into it for the umpteenth time, about how games are a much bigger corporate deal than the days of my youth when it was merely a "hobby/toy" type of thing in the eyes of the industry.. Also, it's very important to mention how media/news dissemination has changed rather globally as well. It's no surprise that magazines (print journalism) just cannot compete with online journalism in many ways, though that isn't to say that print hasn't still got an important place (or is no longer relevant). It's sad to see that the online arm of EGM (1UP.com) really dropped the ball in maintaining pertinence alongside rivals like Gamestop or IGN (perhaps they should have followed through with some kind of merger in earlier times) and kept their legacy going - as it looks now, things are just hitting a wall and splintering. That's not to say no good will come of this - a lot of the 1UP/EGM editors have quite high visibility on the games journalism scene, and no doubt many of the more "regal" ones will at least be able to maintain their presence elsewhere, in a way that people can still follow along. Yeah, things like "the 1UP show" and "the Brodeo" are no longer in existence, but they do leave a legacy and some smart and talented people in their wake. Hopefully, time and money will both be on their sides to continue in an appreciable fashion. I mean, I would watch the 1UP show as often as possible, it was far from perfect but certainly a great way to see what was going on arond the industry, in many ways (even if from a very particular view).

It's interesting to see where gaming journalism is going - other than EGM, I'd been a pretty staunch reader of IGN for ages (though as my time became more precious, and IGN became more blowhardy/illegible, I barely look at it more than a couple of times a month these days!). It's hard to argue with sites like NeoGAF, and Gamasutra - between those two, and the aforementioned podcasts, I would generally feel failry well-informed on the state of things across the board, in at least a pretty broad fashion. I still have things to pay attention to, but yeah - I have been spoiled! Please, some one else, rush in to fill the gap...

It was not hard to foretell the end of EGM. I think I made some mention of this in recent blog posts, basically several high-level people have been leaving long-held positions at the magazine/network. It was only a matter of time really (also, the PC edition closed up shop a good 6 months or so ago, as well...) I can't say I am really that sad about the physical mag coming to an end, again it's not the same as it was years ago, all things considered.. but it was nice while it lasted. Good luck to all of those who lost their jobs (it's been a pretty rough season!) and I absolutely look forward to hearing more from those talented folks in the future. I will go on the record here, if we see something else along the lines of a professionally-produced 1UP Show/1UP Yours/Brodeo set of things pop up, I would definitely pitch in a few dollars for a subscription (as opposed to the free model of the past). That would certainly be worth a few bucks to me!

Monday, January 05, 2009

baggeries

people love saying "douche bag." Now it has evolved into "baggery" or even "baggeries" to describe the actions of such an individual. How odd - people are strange. Anyway you will not hear me saying "douche bag" very often, if at all. It just sounds like some fancy french purse to me.

And so, it is nigh on to midnight on sunday night, the culmination of my winter 08 vacation has come (and gone) - for shortly, I will drift to sleep and be awake again, to stare at the breaklights of my thousands of fellow commuters, as we all return to work for another day poundin' the pavement, earning that cashola, trying to make our way to that sublime shangri-la at some uneven point down in the who-knows-where distance of it all. Ohhh, yeah.

And it's sad my vacation has wrapped up, since I had nearly two weeks of time off - it went by in a flash, and though it certainly was not "bad," it didn't feel particularly wonderful. I did have a couple of decent moments though, and spent some good times with me mates, yeh i did. Hell, thinking back to xmas eve already feels like it was a long, long time ago! I guess over the break i just hung out a LOT. I played some videogames (mostly littleBigPlanet). I didn't really get to the gym, as i had planned (still waiting for the damned membership card to arrive in the mail...!) but I did go out and at least walk around (a LOT) and get my blood n' bones moving around some - didn't just sit on my butt the ENTIRE time. I had hoped to do some artwork at home - something - but that didn't come to pass either, although I finally DID get a little inspired today, at last (final day of vacation, figures....)

I also solicited many people for ideas of things to read and got my hands on a little cross-section of books. I made it through a Howard Zinn graphic-novelization of his famous work, which was well-made but of course extremely upsetting (just makes me think "what's the point of ever trying to buy things or watch TV, since the whole universe is basically mean and evil). I did get out and party a couple of times as well - night after xmas (26th) went out to the bar with some friends and got fairly gonzered, then of course out for NYE (though I was probably drunk for all of a half-hour before coming down rather quickly, as I had things to take care of). Went out to the local bar (everyone loves Birds!) on Fri night for a couple drinks with the local fellows, nothing crazy (then of course some rock band to burn off the remaining energy. Till 5am! GEEZ!) Last night (saturday) a friend was in town so we took the opportunity for boy's night out, small patches of which i have vague residual memories of (yep, love those mornings when you wake up feeling like death itself and you think "oh, so it looks like i made it home once again...")

What else to relate - friday and today I did my boyfriend duty and took the lady out shopping, as all men must at times. Otherwise - uh - watched a lot of old twilight zone's on new year's day (marathon on the scifi channel!) and now, sitting here in the dark and quiet night, i must prepare to turn in and resume my "real life," of course. Yeah, of course I am not terribly psyched to get geared back up to the routine, but after a couple of days it will be alright to have my normalcy again. I am just anxious to plow through the next month or so, and get my dreaded "BDAY" past me, oh i dont really like those anymore. but HEY! On the upside, since I have started exercising/eating slightly better, my weight has been dropping - I am down about 5 pound,s which isn't much but I am really a CONSISTENT MOFO so that's a good sign. I want to get rid of this gut and fast -