Playing for a Living

More Pictures!

2005-12-04T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I finally have access to more pictures from my niece.

http://community.webshots.com/album/511374130HpXjTt

Personally I think she makes a very cute pumpkin.

And so it begins.... again

2005-12-04T13:09:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I start work again at my new job. I'm moved into my new place in Champaign and finding my way around here. My new apartment is pretty sweet, certainly bigger than anything I've ever had, it's weird having all this much space for just myself. I'm not 100% unpacked yet, but I'm close, thanks in large part to my mom coming out and helping me unpack on Thursday and Friday. I've also got a washer&dryer coming for installation on this coming Saturday, so hopefully I don't need to wash anything before then :-)

Oh, I'd also like to point out that Insight cable are a bunch of douchebags. Since I had my sweet new HDTV I bought just before leaving California, I decided to get the HD cable to go along with it. First, you they won't let you get *just* HD cable, you need to get DVR as well. Don't get me wrong, DVR is sweet, and I'm having fun with it, but it's a larger upgrade than I really wanted. Second, their basic HD/DVR package even though it's $15/mo, doesn't come with ESPNHD, which is really one of the few reasons to get HD in the first place, I mean HD friends is still friends, but a game in HD is really better. So I got the extra package that includes that for a few extra$ a month, cuz I'm a sucker. I'll probably drop that after the basketball season, as I'm not really into baseball. Maybe I'll pick it up for football again next year. Here's the kicker though, when the guy came to install it, I was informed that they won't provide the wires(either component or HDMI) needed to carry the HD signal to the TV. I have to go out and buy them... which I haven't done yet cuz... DAMN are they expensive, HDMI = $40+ for a 3ft cable. Comcast was way better... they gave me the componet wires(well I had to return them when I left) and their basic HD package was only $5/mo w/o DVR, AND it included ESPN. *sigh*

Oh and to top it off, my cable internet wouldn't work when the guy left, and he said to call the customer service center and they'd get it working. I call and they said their people were busy and they'd call me back. I called every hour for 3 hours and they said I was on the list and they'd call me back.. fuckers. Eventually after nearly 4 hours I called and got put through immediately to a support guy instead of the 'we'll callback bitch' and he transferred me to level 2 support where the guy fixed the problem in <2mins.... was it really that hard? No, i never recieved a callback.

On another note, i'm totally picking up a cold. It's mostly a sore throat, but a bit of stuffiness as well... not exactly ideal for starting a new job, but it doesn't seem to be too horrible and i'm doing everything i can to fight it, so maybe it won't cripple me for the first week of work. Speaking of colds, it'd friggin cold here. Ok, so it's not really that unseasonably cold(a bit, but nothing dramatic), but apparently living in california has had its effects. I'm not exactly bundling up in multiple layers and my heavy parka to go out, but i'm also colder than i remember being. I'm sure i'll get used to it about the time it starts to warm up.

Homeless no longer

2005-11-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

Well, i won't be in a few weeks. I went to Champaign this weekend after attending the Notre Dame - Navy game. I've got an appartment on the outside of town that I think is pretty nice. I was suprised how many places were full this time of year, I figured they'd be itching for new tennants in the winter. Anyway, I upgraded to a two bedroom from my old one bedroom places. Thanks to the fact that housing prices aren't completely retarded in champaign, the two bedroom place costs < 2/3 of what my 1 bedroom place cost in cali. I'll be moving in there the first of December, so i've got a few days to get setup before going to work on the 5th.

Otherwise, not too much going on here, the job search has stopped, so i've really got nothing to do. As I said, i did make it up to ND last weekend for the game. Stayed with Tim&Pam at their new place. I even helped them setup the Tivo that the other groomsmen and I bought them. I actually didn't venture to campus at all outside of the game... odd, but i had fun haning with the new couple, so no real loss.

Pikachu I choose you!

2005-11-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry for the lame pokemon reference, but it was all i could think of at the moment.

Anyway, i made my decision and I let everyone know today. I'm taking the position with Volition in Champaign, IL. Looks like my start date will be Dec 5th, so I've got a month to plan the move and do everything. I think a lot of the decision was based on that I spent more time there and I felt like they really got to know me and wanted me there. The offices seemed like a nicer working environment with rooms with 4-8desks along the walls instead of a grid of cubes. Also, they seem to want to put me working on gameplay/AI stuff right away but raven wanted me to work on tools for a while first. While Raven seemed like a cool place and made a lot of top-notch games, I think this is the right choice based on the information I have. I'd heard a lot of good things about Volition before i left california and hadn't even heard of Raven, so thats something.

So i'm heading up to Notre Dame this comming weekend to take in the Navy game, and i'm going to head to Champaign while i'm there and check out appartments to try and find a place to live there.

I'll try and keep you updated.

Jobs Jobs Jobs

2005-11-03T17:42:00.000-08:00

So as I said in my last post, i've been very busy looking for jobs. Eventually I've gotten 3 places to fly me out to have an in person interview.

A few weeks ago I went to Midway in Chicago. Honestly I wasn't really impressed with them, It seemed a lot like my old job and they wanted me to make another sports game, which i pretty much want to stay away from. They decided not to make me an offer and thats alright with me because I didn't expect to take it anyway had they made one.

About 10 days ago Raven Software flew me out to visit them in Madison WI. My dumbass however missed my flight. I had just gotten back from Tims wedding and had been flying a lot lately, so i was tired of sitting in the airport and decided to cut my time to show up about 45mins before my flight... except i got caught in traffic. Awesome. Thankfully there were lots of flights and I caught one about an hr later and showed up only about an hour late. Obviously this isn't the best way to make a good impression on an interview, but they seemed to shrug it off pretty well. The bad thing was that I was only scheduled to be in madison for about 3.5hrs and interview for 2.5 of that, so minus an hr, i only interviewd for an hr and a half. The interview went really well and it seems they make some pretty sweet games.

On tuesday i flew to champaign IL to interview with Volition. I had already taken a programming test for them about 2 weeks before that, apparently I passed and they wanted to bring me out. This interview was just about the oppositie of what I had with Raven. I flew out tuesday night, they took me out to dinner and put me up in a hotel. I went to their office early on wednesday and interviewd ALL DAY with about 15 different people doing coding problems and talking with everyone... a very stressful day for sure. Afterwards I went out to dinner with some more employees and ended up being invited back to the office after dinner to play some poker, which was a lot of fun. I flew back this morning(6am flight, damn 4am wakeup calls). The interviews went really well and they seem like a great place as well.

What I didn't mention earlier is that on monday I got an offer for a job from Raven. Apparently the short interview and me missing the flight wasn't a major drawback for them. Then just this afternoon, a few hours after i got back in town, I got a call from Volition with an offer from them as well.

So yeah I've got a lot to think about. I'm almost certainly going to take one of these offers, but I don't want to rush into anything either.

Exhausted

2005-11-03T17:26:00.000-08:00

Yeah, i've been slacking on the updates, but man have I been busy. I guess thats when i should be updating more huh? Oh well, you'll take what i give ya and you'll likes it that way.

So... what HAVE i been doing? Lots of job searching to be sure, but thats not all. I don't think i've been in the same state for longer than 3 days in the last 3 weeks, but I guess thats what happens when you live a world away for just over a year.

The biggest event was Tim's Wedding. Tim got married to his girlfriend/fiance of 2 years Pam, and showed what a horrible judge of character he is by asking me to be in the wedding party. The wedding went off wonderfully, Pam looked beautiful(what she sees in that goof i'll never know) and they're happily chilling in Hawaii. Congratulations to the both of them. It was great to be there for them, but also to see a bunch of old ND buddies that I haven't seen in far too long. There was much beer drinking and celebrating. Good times for sure.

Also, I made it up to Michigan for Halloween weekend. Got to hang out with Matt and Meg a lot, stayed at Matt's place the first two nights I was there. Josh threw a killer halloween party that I went to, dressed as a Beer Ref(tm) of course. I was loud and annoying, i guess thats normal, but this time I had a whistle and a flag. Got to see all kinds of old friends which was great. I even got to meet the new people who have taken my place in martha's lab after my absence. It appears I left the place in good hands. Finally we kicked the keg and Josh coerced me into drinking some of his tequilla. It went something like "hey, do you want some tequilla, i've got some".... that bastard. How was I supposed to resist that? Well I didn't which was probably a mistake and I spent sunday very hungover for most of the day. I spent sunday night with pshea and crashed at his place. I'm disapointed we didnt' get to hang out a bit more, but he was busy with school and all, and i'm unemployed... i guess he wins that battle.

Also, I've gotten to see a ton more of my niece Cara. She's much better in person than in a photo, but those would be nice too. Sadly her father is a doofus and hasn't been taking pictures like he promised. I plan on going over there sometime soon with a camera and hijacking the house for a bit. Maybe i'll get more pictures for everyone then.

Home again

2005-10-03T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well I've made it back to ohio and the parents house safe and sound. Before the trip, i decided that if i made it back with no tickets or accidents that it was a success, and by that definition, success was acheived. I also got to see some pretty cool shit and had a nice trip. I wasn't initially planning on seeing yellowstone and the grand tetons, and almost even skipped the tetons the day of, but ended up going, and i'm very glad i did. The views were breathtaking, i'm sure the pictures don't do it justice, but here they are anyway.

http://community.webshots.com/album/466836913bfTrPm

So now i'm looking for a job. Doing exactly what, I don't know, but I've got a bunch of leads for new stuff in the video game industry. I need to start looking at other computer industry jobs as well, not quite sure where to start.

Next step: The Future!

2005-09-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

hmmm seems I haven't updated this since the night after I lost my job. Well, to be honest, i've been busy. I decided that I'm heading back to the midwest. I don't know exactly where yet, but within a few hours driving distance from home for sure. Toward that end i'm moving back in with the parents while I look for my next job.

The movers came on friday morning and picked up all my stuff and now i'm sitting here in a folding chair with a keyboard on my lap typing this. I'm heading out tomorrow morning early to start my cross-country drive. I'm not taking the most direct route... it's a pretty small detour(on the scale of the trip at least) to go check out a few cool places i've always wanted to see. So i'm going to check out yellowstone, the Badlands, and Mt Rushmore, and possibly Devils tower. I'll also probably stop to check out the arch in st louis while i'm driving through. I'm leaving early tomorrow and I plan on being at the parents house sometime friday.

As for jobs i'm not really worried. I know i can find something. I've had a few phone interviews, one company is already going to be flying me to chicago on October 4th... i don't think i actually want that job, sounds really similar to the one i just left(basketball video game, possibly more AI related though), but it'll be good to put the interview shoes back on again if only for practice. My boss refered a recuriter to me, and an ex-coworker sent me another one, so i've got two recruiters who were flooding me with so many job openings that I told them to back off and wait until i moved, even with that, i still have this chicago thing, and a few other phone interviews lined up.

Rather than being worried about getting a job, i'm still majorly worried/confused about what job I actually want. I know my next job doesn't have to be what i'm going to do for the rest of my life, but i'd sure like to stay somewhere longer than a year, and be happy while doing it. I don't know if i want to stay in the games industry or go elsewhere, i'm certainly going to look at both.

One thing to note, leaving here isn't like leaving anywhere else so far. When i left for ND, Michigan, and to come here, my last night was spent out with friends doing something together. Here, i'm sitting at home, after going to watch the ND game in a bar with the local alumni club, people i didn't really know that well. I can honestly say I don't think i'll miss anyone here, at least not much. I had co-workers that I liked for sure, but no one that i'm really going to keep in contact with. I'm sure thats mostly my own fault as much as anyone else's... but it's something to think about for the future.

The end

2005-09-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

Well, thats it. I just got fired today. Apparently the 100hr+ weeks and the living and breething the job wasn't enough for them to contiune to under pay me for my work. I'm freelance baby and i'm outa here.

In all honesty it just wasn't working out. I had pretty much decided i was going to quit soon, just kinda sucks they got me before I got them. I had no problems with the people I was working with, they were great. However, I just wasn't meshing with the management. They continually put me in bad situations with really high expectations, that I honestly don't think anyone but the most experienced veteran could have achieved. My objectives were generally unclear, and their biggest complaint was that i didn't do enough to go 'above and beyond' I didn't 'thrive'. But I don't know how I can go above and beyond when i've got to spend 60+hrs in a normal week on fixing errors and adding requested stuff, let alone 100+ during crunch time.

Whatever, i'm sure i'll write more later. Honestly I don't know exactly whats next for me, but i'm probably going to be moving back to ohio at least for a little while... try to find a job, maybe still in the industry, maybe not.

Cara Maryann Taylor

2005-08-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

http://community.webshots.com/album/421077408rZABXl

8lbs 6oz, 21"

Born early Friday August 12, 2005

Momma and baby are doing fine.

I'm an Uncle :-)

GTA and Hot Coffee

2005-07-29T12:14:00.000-07:00

This issue has been all over the place so I figured i'd add my $0.02.

For those of you living under a rock i'll go over the basics:

The video game Grand Theft Auto 3: San Andreas was released in October of last year and has been one of the best selling games in the world since that time, millions and millons of copies have sold. When this game came out it (rightfully) recieved an M rating or equivilent anywhere it was released. This game is definately not for children. It contains gang violence, drug use, sexual content and pretty much anything else negative you can say about it. However it's a GREAT game. I've played it through completely, and while i haven't unlocked everything, i would like to go back and do so sometime soon. As much as I liked it though, theres no way i would think about giving this to play to anyone under at LEAST 15, probalby older, and i consider myself pretty liberal about it. Theres a reason we have these M ratings and this game is all of those reasons. On the box it lists the reasons for the M rating: 1. Blood and Gore 2. Intense violence 3. Strong Language 4. Strong Sexual Content 5. Use of drugs. Yes, thats right, it was already rated as having Strong sexual content.

Now for Hot Coffee. This is a hack which is pretty easy to aquire on the internet. It allows you to access content on the game that is not available through regular play. The only way to get this to work on your PS2(and maybe xbox, i'm not sure) is to install a mod chip which is already illegal. Obviously easier on your PC. By installing this software you are breaking your EULA(end user licence agreement). Sure people do both of these all the time, but that dosen't make them legal. Through this mod you can access a sex mini-game in the game. I have seen a video of this game on the net, though i've not tried it on my copy(i'm not modding my ps2). This game is VERY poorly rendered, likely because it was never finished. The woman is skin toned but has no discernable features below the neck, she could very well be wearing a tight skin-colored leotard for all you can see. The man is fully clothed. They are very obviously supposed to be having sex, in multiple positions. This scene is completely consentual sex as the person you're doing this with is your girlfriend in the game and theres no signs of anything else non-consentual.

Well once this mod was found out, crap hit the proverbial fan. 1) ESRB(entertainment software raitings board) changed the raiting to AO(adults only). 2) Senator Clinton has started senate hearings and pushing for laws regulating video games. 3) Some grandmother in flordia who bought the game for her 14yr old grandson is suing rockstar. 4) The game was just banned in Austrailia.

1. ESRB. While I question the choice not to give the game an AO rating from the start, I can hardly see how this puts it over the line when the game was already listed as having strong sexual content and included things like pimping out hookers, having sex with hookers in your car with the car moving and moaning sounds, having sex off camera(with the camera shaking) with this same girlfriend and highly suggestive lines/moaning going on, along with the ability to beat down cops with a huge purple dildo. I want to stress that this content is NOT accessable in the game without hacks. you can hack 'the sims' to show all of the characters naked and it dosen't get an AO rating. However, perhaps this game deserved an AO rating from the start, but i tend to think it was caving to pressure, but whatever.

Because of this rockstar is recalling all the unsold games and is working on releasing a new version where the content is totally removed. Probably what they should have done in the firt place. I assume this was a feature that was supposed to be part of the game, but they thought better of it close to the end of production and rather than taking the time to completely remove it, they just cut out the ability to get there and never finished it. This was most likely way easier to do than completely removing it and i'm sure they were pushing to get the game out as fast as possible.

2 Legislation against video games. There has been a lot of hatrid for video games comming from lawmakers for no other reason than they're new. Most people over 40, or even more so, over 50 don't play video games, and see them as something that only children do. The problem is, a very large(possibly majority) of gamers are over 20 and many over 30. This is not just entertainment for kids anymore. Just as there are R rated movies that you shouldn't let your 8 yr old see, but are still very good movies(the Godfather for example), there are video games like this too. They're made for adults not children.

As far as i know there are absolutely no laws in this country about selling R rated movies to minors or even allowing children into R rated movies in the theater. Theaters/stores do this voluntarialy. Besides very few kids are going to have the $50 needed to buy this game themselves, rather in most cases the parents are buying them for their kids. The parents are either woefully uninformed or don't care. If they don't care, then thats their problem, but how can someone be so uninformed and stupid that they would buy a game named after a felony, which has gotten tons of publicity, clearly rated on the box with warnings about violence and sexual content, and not know it could be objectionable.

Basically this is a pollitical move to appear more 'family values' oriented to the older population who are much more likely to vote than those of us who are younger. "won't someone save the children" A law against selling them to children really wont change much because in almost all cases, the parents are buying it for their kids. To me this is the equivilent of a parent buying Basic Instinct or Eyes Wide Shut for their kids. If they want to, thats their problem, but you can't blame the video store or even the producers of the movie for it. Yeah, they shouldnt' be sold to children, but why aren't there people pushing for laws about R rated movies?

3) The grandmother suing. I pretty much coverd this above. This woman bought the game for her 14yr old grandson and had no problems with all the violence and sex already in the game, but as soon as the game was able to be hacked to show more sex, well that was too much. Because you know, her grandson didn't do the hacking, rockstar came and did that for him and forced him to watch. Either she's a total moron(i doubt, at least totally) or she's trying to make a quick buck off the contriversy. I like how she's suing on behalf of everyone who bought the game... because I know I want her voicing my opinion.

4)This is just stupid. you can still buy hardcore pornography in Austrailia yet not this game?!?! My brain can't even get around this point.

SO... in conclusion, yes rockstar made a mistake by not deleting this content from their game immediately, this shit is always found. But people lets be reasonable, this wasn't "Carebear hugs 5" it was "Grand theft auto" People need to lay off games as the scapegoat for all their problems. Video games are better than a lot of other passive enterainment.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-johnson27jul27,0,1432940.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions
Sure, kids would be better off ouside exercizing or doing their homework, but its a lot better than sitting motionless infront of sitcom after sitcom for hours. Games at least require you to use your brain.

Telemarketers Rule

2005-07-01T08:22:00.000-07:00

So since my most recent move, i've never put my new phone# on the do not call list. Yeah it's my fault, maybe i'll do it soon, maybe not. If I had I wouldn't get entertainment like this.

So last night as I went to bed I noticed I had a message on my answering machine. Of course it was from a telemarketing thing. I've been getting more of these since they've started using a lot of computers to make the calls. Automated messages etc. Though i still get some real people selling me things on occasion.

Occasionally I get once of these calls that's automated but instantly wants to transfer me to someone real. I guess that makes sense, no need to have humans deal with non-answers and instant hangups. I think my answering machine has been transfered as real a few times, but cuts out before it gets anywhere.

Last night An automated message decided to transfer my answering machine and to 'please hold for an agent' It rang and clicked a few times, then I got elevator music, at this point i started to realize what i had. A few seconds later, I got "We're sorry, all of our agents are currently with other customers, we appologize for this inconvience, please stay on the line for the next available agent" and then more lobby music and my machine cut out.

I just sat there shaking my head. My answering machine got put on hold... my ANSWERING MACHINE... seriously wtf. First 99% of the world is going to hang up at the computer message, but then putting them on hold?!? who's gonna actually sit through that? You don't call me up and put me on hold... wtf. If I was going to buy whatever the fuck you're selling I am sure as hell not gonna do it now.

I don't know.. maybe i'm just tired and overworked but thats about the funniest thing that's happened to me in quite some time.

COOKIES!!!!

2005-06-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

I would just like to point out that Meg rules. She sent me cookies. Not just cookies, but TWO kinds of cookies, both delicious. PeanutButter&Chocolate chip and Oatmeal Chocolate Chip.

I would just like to take this moment to discuss raisins, since meg was smart and beautiful enough to avoid the folly of adding raisins to her oatmeal cookies. Raisns have been causing troubles for a while and it's damn well time they stopped. Now don't get me wrong, I love raisins, when they're in the proper place. By themselves, in trailmix, granola bars, or even chocolate covered at the movie theater(though this is questionable).

However, raisins do not belong in anything that goes in or comes out of the oven. Its that simple. Get your ass out of my oatmeal cookies, and stay the fuck away from my cinnimon bagels, and don't even get me started about breads.

Keep the raisins in their place and we'll all get along.

Thank you.

Parents!

2005-06-07T19:06:00.000-07:00

So like a whrilwind of free goodies and sighseeing, my parents came to visit memorial weekend.

They flew in thursday evening and out on monday morning. Very good times. As much as I like california and my job, I miss my family. The more I get around and the more people I meet, the more I know that I'm lucky to have parents that don't suck. Oh sure we have our fights, and had troubles in the past, but they're honestly good people and they care about me. Sure they can be losers at times, esp my Dad who I think is in the dictonary next to Dork, but they mean well and are lots of fun.

We went to Muir woods, walked Pier 39 and that whole area, saw Alkatraz or "The Rock" as I prefer to call it, went to Sonoma and Napa valleys, and saw a Giants game. Also I gave the parents their first In&Out experience. They agreed they were the best fast food burgers around, which is good or I would have had to defend their honor.

My parents are just nuts... they wore me out completely, and it didn't even phase them. After friday where we did Muir Woods, Alkatraz, Pier 39 and more i was dead tired... I got up Saturday morning for wine country and i was sore and still tired. When I met my parents, they had gotten up early and ran on the treadmill and did the stairclimber for half an hr. This pattern kept up all weekend. Freaks I tells ya.

The highlight/lowlight of the trip was getting drunk with my dad off wine tastings in Napa/Sonoma. My mom was DD and my dad got quite drunk and silly, i was tipsy, but nothing like my dad. It was amusing until he decided that we needed to moon another car that was tailgaing us then cut us off. Yes my dad mooned people.. thankfully he was in the back seat and I didn't have to see it. Of course in my half drunken state I may have slightly encouraged it :-)

Overall the weekend was great. I got to see a lot of things I just haven't gotten up the will to go to by myself and I got to see my parents which was great. I don't think i'll be home again until thanksgiving, but i'm going to really try to make that this year. Also i got a bunch of free meals and a pantry cabinet in my kitchen out of it, so thats a bonus.

E3 and LA

2005-05-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

So I cut out a bit early from work on Wednesday hoping to beat some of the rushhour traffic, which I did for the most part. I got out of Oakland without any troubles but I did sit in some traffic on 580 after that. The drive was a bit longer than I expected, but I got through without a problem. I wasn't really happy about driving through the mountains in the dark though.

E3 stuff:
E3 was pretty damn sweet. Certainly bigger than I expected. I had no idea you could construct such huge and elaborate booths indoors just for a conference... Man they go all out. I saw previews of the Xbox-360 and PS3. They were mostly pre-rendered crap and very little gameplay, so that kinda sucked, but the pre-rendered stuff looked really good. I was disappointed to not see anything about the Nintendo revolution.

I got to play the godfather, which was pretty cool. Honestly it didn't seem all that original, more of a GTA clone with some new features and set to the mafia. Starcraft Ghost looked like it actually had potential as an FPS, though I didn't' get to play it. I'm looking forward to Civ IV, but all they had was a video and no demo. The video was really funny though. I screwed around for a couple hours at the Nintendo section, but there wasn't really much new there... Donkey konga 2, more Mario party. The only new thing I saw was the gameboy micro. I wasn't impressed. It was just too small. It looks like an old school NES controller, but significantly smaller, and the screen only takes up a very small part of the object. Yes, it'll be portable, and it'll play all the GBA games, but the screen is just too small for anything but holding it 6" from your face, and even then it sucks. I played a bunch of other games including a new Castlevania game which was a lot of fun, the new dragonball fighting game, a new ratchet &clank, new katamari damacy. There were tons of other ones I'm sure.. but really there weren't many PC games in the set which was kinda disappointing, as really the PC is my favorite gaming system.

Otherwise the show was a huge production and quite an experience. Lots of booth babes, I got a decent amount of pictures. I got to play, and beat Phil Laak(current world poker champion) at poker. Yahoo had set up a table where 10 people would play at a time, well 9 and Phil. I got in and lost in 4th place at the table, Phil went out early by going all in and I folded my 2,3 offsuit. So yeah, I technically didn't beat him, but I did place higher at the table :-) The top two people at every table he played(which was a lot) got to come back to play heads up against him later, I was hoping to make it to that, but no dice. The conference totally wore me out, I don't think I could have done 3 days, or they would have at least been short days for sure. 2 days was good though, I saw pretty much everything I could handle, and there's no way I saw enough in one day. I'd love to go back next year.

Matt, Joe, Vicki:
I got to hang out with these three crazy people on Thursday and Friday nights. We went out for dinner both nights which were both good... The pizza was excellent on Thursday. Thursday night we headed to see the new star wars movie. Definitely the best of the 3 prequles. There were parts that still sucked, the dialog between anikin and padme still made me want to gouge out my ears. I didn't like how quickly anikin subverted himself to the emperor when he decided to join him. But nothing nearly as bad as the first two.

Friday night we went out just to 'see the sights'. Tried to go look at the Hollywood sign, but it was dark and we were far away because somehow the people living in Hollywood have no idea how to actually get CLOSE to the sign. Then we went to the whole walk of fame and saw a bunch of peoples stars. I looked upon Ryan secrest's star with contempt and was going to spit on it, but a bunch of people were busy walking on it at the time. We saw the hand and footprints infront of the Chinese theater. That was awesome... Adam Sandler just had his made and it was still roped off. We went into the Kodak theater and saw all the Oscar winners on the wall, that was cool. Otherwise we just sat around and shot the shit as it were.

Everyone seemed to be doing find and I was extatic to see them all again. I did get into an argument with Joe about which Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles movie was better. I say the second one is better on the merrit of humor, he's very strongly opinionated about the first one being better. While I agree it's still a good movie, I'm more entertained every time I watch the second one.... I'd love to hear everyone's opinions of that in the comments :-) Personally I just think Joe is a ass ranger monkeyfuck to steal a phrase :-)

LA traffic:
LA traffic is a thing to behold. It doesn't behave like traffic anywhere else I've been, and it's not like I'm not traveled. The thing about it is that the cars never actually stop, they just slowly move along at 2 or 3 mph. Also, with the retarded confusing spiderwebs of freeways they have, often times you need to merge across 5 or more lanes of traffic in a matter of much less than a mile.. normally this would be a problem, but not in LA. Everyone just lets you though... its great. I think they know that the freeways suck and they're going to have to do it later too, things do just work out better when everyone is nice.

After E3:
Once I got back to work from E3 I've gotten a TON of work dumped on me, so I'm going to be quite busy for a while. Hopefully I'll update more on this later, but I think I've put out enough for one day.

Whirlwind of work: The pre-E3 crunch

2005-05-22T09:53:00.000-07:00

So yeah. I haven't been writing much i know. Turns out i was just really busy. And by really busy, i mean "damn gina".

First, the conclusion to the dentist series. Joe vs The Dentist IV: The Final Cavity. not much of a saga here. Pretty much the same as always. got the last cavity filled and i'm all healthy dental wise now. Apparently he just finished reading a book about the MIT blackjack team and was facinated, so spent the whole visit talking about that.

Why was I so busy? In 2 letters: E3. Well a letter and a number. There was a bunch of things we had to get right so we could present at E3. Everything from adding new things to fixing bugs that came back from the testers. I spent two full weekends in a row there and during the week between i put in at least 11-12 hrs every day, some days over 16. Yeah, it sucked. But everything got done and the game made a pretty solid leap forward. Not that there's no work to do now... yeah, got plenty of that to do.

Overall, the extra hours don't bother me. I knew it was comming and it was only for just over a week. There are other times during the year, and well the two days before I left for E3, where i did almost no work and just hung out all day. I can leave work early if I need to, or come in late. I think it's a pretty fair tradeoff, and still a fun job. During work on tuesday afternoon we ended up playing a game of settlers of catan in the confrence room, because reallly... why work :-) Sadly people had to leave before it was over, but it was fun anyway. Also on wednesday, Khoi brought in the DVD for TMNT2: the secret of the ooze. One of my classic childhood favorites, so we grabed lunch and brought it back to the office and watched it with lunch. Good times.

Keep your internet tuned here for the next update gentle blog readers... E3 and LA post to follow soon.

Joe vs The Dentist III : This time it's dental!

2005-05-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, back to the dentist again yesterday, another cavity filled. Lots of joy there. I've still gotta go back one more time to fill the last one. But thats not until a week from thursday.

Otherwise life is going pretty well. Work is certainly busy with lots of stuff being pushed hard for E3 in a few weeks. I've got a new intro screen in with dialog for that, so thats cool, along with all kind of other various tasks. Speeking of E3, i'm really looking forward to that, I think everything is all setup on that task. I'm really looking forward to having the parents come out and visit at the end of the month, as I haven't seen them since christmas. We've got a bunch of fun stuff planned for the weekend.

I don't know if i've mentioned this here before, but my older brother is going to have a baby girl... Well techically his wife is going to have it, but you get my drift. She's due in august, so i'm gonna have a niece.

Finally in the far off future of late october, Tim Dysart asked me to be a groomsman for his wedding. So i'm gonna fly to the east coast somewheres to do that. Conneticut i think. Congrats to Timmy on finding his very own Mrs Robinson :-) j/k Looking forward to seeing the whole ND crew again.

Joe vs The Dentist Rd 2

2005-04-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

Back to the dentist again today. Got my first set of cavities filled. I've still got to go back 2 more times... lame. The cavities are all over my mouth and he only wants to do 1 quadrant of my mouth per visit, so that means more visits for me. My teeth are a bit sore, but nothing too bad, i didn't have any real problems eating lunch so thats good, but I am getting a bit of a headache now, i'm sure it's related.

Regardless, I have to say that I think this is most likely the best dentist i've ever had. You know how much it sucks getting a novicane shot in the gums... well not this time, He used some sort of topical numbing stuff before he used the needle and went real slow with that. I'm not saying it was pleasent, but i barely felt it at all. Also, every other dentist i've had always walks away and does something else while they're waiting the 15mins for you to get numb. Instead he sat there and talked with me the whole time. Nice guy. Turns out we're both on book 6 of the dark tower "susanah's song" so we discussed the series up to that point.

While it dosen't make going to the dentist anywhere near a pleasent experience, I think its about as good as it could reasonably get. (obviously things like going to the playboy dentist or 'dentist who gives out lots of cash' would be way better, but not counting things like that )

E3 is me

2005-04-23T01:10:00.000-07:00

Well I finally got everything setup to go to E3 this year. The last piece came in the mail yesterday, my name badge for the show. I'm driving down wednesday night after work and staying until saturday morning. Sadly the old ND crew won't be in town, apparently they are all going to be away at some confrences all that week. I will hopefully get to see Joe and Vicki while i'm there, maybe they can give me a sweet hollywood tour. Of course this whole thing isn't for another month, but its nice to know i've got everything setup.

Dentist Woes

2005-04-14T10:45:00.000-07:00

So I finally made it to the Dentists. I haven't been to one in 1.5-2 years. I know it's bad, but there were lots of factors involved including the family at home changing dentists, me moving to michigan then to cali. Not really making excuses, i still should have went. Anway, I finally went to a dentist here. A couple of my teeth had been a little sensitive and sore lately, so I thought i probalby had a cavity or two.

One of my coworkers/friends recommended his dentist and he and his staff seemed very nice. I've never really had a problem with dentists though. Lots of people seem to fear them or really hate them, I never got that. I'd much rather sit in a chair 2x a year and get my teeth cleaned and have a few things fixed if they come up than need a root canal later or even dentures. Of course i've never had that many things go wrong, so maybe that could cause the hatrid. I don't know.

Anyway, after taking the x rays he examined my mouth and said he could see 2 cavities but wanted to look at the xrays to be sure while i was getting my teeth cleaned. During my cleaning he came in and said "you don't floss do you" Apparently I've got a bunch of little cavities in between my teeth that are 'flossing cavities' for a total of at least 6. LAME. I've only ever had 4 cavities in my entire life and now 6 in one shot. Looks like i'm going to be spending some more time at the dentist's office :-(

Bluffing

2005-03-15T17:15:00.000-08:00

I recently got into an interesting conversation on a message board about bluffing as in poker. Is there a difference between bluffing and flat out lying? For example in poker would saying "I have pocket aces" when you don't (or even if you do) be a bluff?

IMHO bluffing is making actions or statement which could lead you to believe something is the case without actually saying it. The differences being a bluff is never something that is flat out false. Also, a bluff is a signal that if your opponent wants to look at that information they could infer the state. Your opponent must want to gather that information and do the infering themselves.

Opinions?

I've fallen and I can't get up.

2005-02-28T12:09:00.000-08:00

Well it's more like I was pulled, but whatever.

I've fallen into the World of Warcraft addiction that I wanted to avoid. I'm playing pretty consistantly with 4 other people from work. We've got a solid group that stays together most of the time and we do pretty well. The problem is this makes for even more playing because everyone is trying to keep up with everyone else, the only way we can all stay about equal to eachother is to play ALL THE TIME. Good thing I haven't had much else I've needed to do during the past week and a half. The game dosen't seem as great as the amount of playing i've done would indicate, as I don't see myself playing it forever and lots of the quests etc are getting repetitive... but while playing i totally lose all sense of time *oh, 6 hrs went by?* The main drawback is it's pretty much impossible to play for <2hrs in a session (at least if you want to accomplish anything, thankfully it's easy to quit whenever if you need to), so if I would just want to screw around for 20mins it's not an option.

Outside of WoW, I've gotten a few things done. I got my taxes done which I had to get H&R block to do because of the whole Ohio,Michigan,California thing. Looks like i'll be getting a good amount back though. I got a bad haircut which is awesome. The place I've gone to 3 other times that did a good job was closed for 3 weeks for some reason and I didn't want to wait. Yeah, mistake. It's starting to look better now, 2 weeks later, stupid haircut.

Work has been good and busy. I think things are starting to gear up towards E3... I should be able to go, but we're still waiting on details for tickets etc. I'm totally looking forward to that, always wanted to go to E3.

Games games games

2005-02-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

Yes I like to play games. I work on them during the day, and after work I go home and play some games to relax. It's kinda sad really, but I guess it's better than spending my free time watching TV. Ok, so I do watch some TV, specificly The West Wing, I was into the apprentice, but this season seems to suck, so i'm probably gonna dodge the rest of it. Otherwise, just Notre Dame stuff and some comedy central. I think I watch less TV than most people.

Anyway, i'm still working my way through GTA: San Andreas. I've gotten to and through san fierro (aka san francisco) and it's pretty darn accurate, there are landmarks and areas of town that I recognize and the street layout and hills are pretty true to life even if scaled down. I still don't get the addition of all the airplane missions... they're easily the hardest missions in the game, the controls are terrible and this is GRAND THEFT AUTO not grand theft plane. The air missions are usually lame anyway.

A separate game thats influencing my life even though i'm not playing it is World of Warcraft. I kinda swore it off before it came out because I could see myself getting lost in it. At least half of my office are fanatics about the game, and thats pretty impressive considering the amount of games we go through here. From what I see and hear it seems quite impressive, and i'm pretty sure i'd like it. A few of my better friends in the office were holding off on playing it and that helped me keep away, but they've just started and are constantly pestering me to join. Playing in a group with real friends, all starting and leveling together, is without a doubt the best way to go and makes me think about joining up. I haven't missed a blizzard game since Warcraft2. But I did just buy myself a playstation2 and I should probalby use that... get more games for it etc. I'm currently wrapped up in GTA, and there is the cost issue... not that big, but it's something. So yeah, i'm not sure whats gonna happen there. Not really sure why I posted all this... if you wanna influence my decision the comment box is below :-)

Outside of that, work has been busy but pretty interesting. I'm getting the dent on my car fixed on Monday. I need to go see someone about getting my taxes done(stupid multiple state stuff is confusing). Thats about it for me.

Guess who's Back... back again...

2005-02-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts. As the previous update said, I was without internet for a while at home and really busy at work. Of course I've had internet since Monday now and work calmed down around wednesday. Why haven't I posted? Well 1) I'm lazy, if this is some kinda suprise to you, then you don't know me very well. and 2) I've been playing a lot of GTA: San Andreas... Grove Street For Life!

So I'm in the new place. Not *quite* done unpacking, but really close. I'm gonna try and finish that up today. Its nice, but it is smaller. Not as much open space in the living room, and the kitchen is lacking in storage space, but it's bigger... not sure why i need that much open space w/o cabinets in my kitchen, but c'est la vie. The garage rules... and i'm going to have a few peeps up for the superbowl, and they'll actually have a place to park!! Having my own washer/dryer is nice.. gonna start a load here soon. I don't have to worry about everything being full or stuff getting locked up after 10pm... or that pesky paying for it thing. So, i'm hooked up with everything, things seem nice, hopefully i'll stay here for a while... moving sucks.

Work has been going pretty well. I think i've been living up to expectations this time.. i've been making mountains of changes to the code. It's interesting when out for lunch with co-workers some of them comment... "dude, you've got like 300 files checked out, what are you doing?" Now i'm working on some smaller things, but it's cool. The company is definitely interesting with the Licence deals, and moving to take2 and everything.

I've also been playing a LOT of Settlers of Catan lately. A couple people in the office discovered it and bought boards. I won the first two games I ever played with them... so i've gained legendary status as the best player, but I've been at best average since then, but the status somehow remains.

Well, that's the general life update.. hopefully i'll get back in line with posting more specifc/frequent updates cuz those are always more fun.

I'm alive!

2005-01-25T15:08:00.000-08:00

In response to the requests.. ok one... for posting, i'm giving this short announcement. I've been busy moving. Now that i've moved(all went well) I do not have access to the internet at home and will not until the 31st or so. I've been really busy at work, so not much time to post while here.

More later I'm sure.

Geek, Dork or Nerd?

2005-01-12T22:09:00.000-08:00

Ah, the big question. Some people think these are all the same, some have different definitions for each of them like me. I figured i'd post my definitions of each of these, well because I feel like it.

The first and the easiest. A geek is someone who knows WAY too much about a subject, particularly when it comes to science or technology, but not always. I tend to think pretty much all graduate students are geeks in there subjects, at least a little. Think Professor Frink from the Simpsons.

Nerd I associate with more of a lack of social skills and a way of life. The guy who lives in his parents basement and never comes out, or the guy who runs the local D&D club, or owns the comic book store is a nerd. Think Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons

Dork I find hardest to define. I associate it with 'lameness' (is that a word) Generally someone trying too hard to be cool and completely failing. I think most parents when they try to 'fit in' with their kids are being dorks(ie trying to use 'the new slang') Kids that don't fit in but aren't in the other two categories above can also be here. Think High School aged Homer from the Simpsons.

I'm a card carrying geek and proud of it. I've been known to nerd-out on occasion, hell i've even played D&D, but its not normally my thing. I try to avoid being a dork, but I think everyone falls into it once in a while.

I'm sure other people have their own definitions, and possibly their own opinions of me, but this is what I mean when I say the terms. I'd love to hear what others think, whether you agree or have your own definitions.

Half Life 2

2005-01-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

Well, I just beat Half Life 2, don't worry, i'm not going to spoil anything here. It kept me entertained for over a week and I played a lot. They say it's only 15-20hrs of gameplay (at least i think thats what its supposed to be) But that seems wildly inaccurate. It MIGHT be 15-20hrs if you ran straight through, always knowing where to go, and didn't stop to explore anything, and never died. But hey, that'd be no fun.

It was without a doubt the best FPS game i've ever played. Nothing completely revolutionary, better physics, gravity gun, sweet graphics. But it all meshed together with amazing polish. It just felt right. The story was superb and the voice acting incredible. I actually hated some people and wanted to kill them, while actually careing about meeting up with others. There were many "OH COOL!" and "OH SHIT" moments, just like with the first one. The main drawback was the loading times were REALLY long... like 1min+ on my machine, which admittidly isn't top of the line anymore, but I heard they were equally as long on new computers as well. The graphics scaled well to my 2.5yr old computer... I ran just about everything on medium, or 'on' if it was an on/off button.

I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the FPS genre, and to those who don't like the genre, it'd be the place to start if you ever want to try an FPS game. The way it drives you through the story is great. The game guides you to where you need to go naturally by having people call or push you, or stuff blowing up, or whatever. The key is, even when you know the game is pushing you in a direction, it dosen't feel like they're doing it just to limit you, but instead it's part of the story.

Anyway... 2 word review. Great game.

Responsibility... it'll screw ya in the end

2005-01-02T23:34:00.000-08:00

So, As I mentioned I sold my car. Yay me!

I had promised myself back in november that I wasn't going to get a PS2 until after I sold my car. I turned down several good times to buy it because i figured the $200(console+game) could come back to haunt me if I got stuck with my car for too long.

Thankfully, my car was sold, AND I got some gift certificates for christmas to even help with the price, so my goal for today was to go pick one up. Turns out they're sold out anywere within 25 miles(probalby more but havne't checked that far). So no playstation for me..

From now on... screw being responsible.

Holidays

2005-01-02T23:17:00.000-08:00

Not that anyone noticed it, but I got back to california last monday night. Had to be at work on tuesday morning. I actually got stuff done this week, though the office was pretty empty and those who were there didnt' seem all that motivated.

Christmas went pretty well. Got to see the entire extended family. Was home for 5.5 days... could have used a bit more, but there's certainly a limit to how long I can live in my parents house anymore. I hadn't hit it yet though. Leaving was tough, as it made me remember how many more friends I have at home and how relatively alone I am out here.

Had a huge snow/ice storm wednesday night(i got in that morning). My dad said it was worse than the blizzard of 78. I can't really say since i wasn't alive then. There was like 2+" of ice on top of everything. Tons of people without power because all the lines broke under the weight. Thursday morning I did get to drive around our front-loader a bit to help clear off the driveway. It was cool that we had it because no snowblower was gonna make it though the ice shell. I could walk across it without falling through to the inches of snow below. It was a lot of fun working the shovel and pileing the snow. Sadly, the snow was not appropriate for building snowmen or snowball fights or anything really, so I missed out on that, which is probably the only snow I'll see till next year.

Nothing spectacular among the christmas gifts, though i wasn't expecting much anyway. Some gift certificates, the last 3 books of the dark tower series, a piece of carry-on luggage, gift certificates... all good stuff, more than I expected. Everyone liked the rice-a-roni i got them :-D My dad still dosen't believe that I brought it all the way from san francisco.

Broke up with Kristy officially the night before I came back. Sad about that, but I think it's better in the long run. Yes, we did break up at the end of july... kinda, but it was always up in the air, best to have things resolved. Hopefully we can keep the friend thing up, but we'll see how things go.

Flights went well. Just a note to anyone who somehow hasn't seen it but still wants to go. A Shark Tale sucks. Hard. Completely predictable, theres a bunch of adult references that aren't funny, but kids won't get... i dont' know who they were trying to apeal to, but they failed.

New Years Eve didnt' amount to much. Stayed in and drank/played video games with Gordon, a guy from work. It was fun, just not real exciting.

Done and Done

2005-01-01T18:18:00.000-08:00

Finally, I've sold my car. It was less than i had hoped for, but still a huge profit over what the dealer was gonna give me for it, even after subtracting the registration/smog/advertizing costs.

It does give me some free cash now. I can finally buy that playstation2 i've had my eye on. It also makes me a bit more comfortable with the move and whatever fees come with that. It's also a huge load off of stuff i've got to worry about. Now I've just got to setup everything for my move, and deal wtih whatever comes at work. maybe I should start packing....

More on the DMV

2004-12-13T22:57:00.000-08:00

Ah yes.. my continuing quest with the DMV, how I love them so. I checked my mail on saturday and I had a package from the DMV. "Oh," my eyes light up "What could this be? Perhaps the title they promised me?" I tear open the envelope and what do I see? No title... not ever for me.

Instead I got a check. I guess my first talk with the DMV people was correct in that they won't do expidited processing for me. So they refunded my money. The check was issued the same day they cashed my original check. Seems an odd process, but whatever. I had no idea if this would mean a further delay on getting my title or not. I guess i'd just have to wait. If I didn't get anything by thursday, i'd call.

What may be obvious by the tense used in the last paragraph, the ordeal is finally over. I recieved my title in the mail today. This means I can finally sell my car. maybe I can even do it before I leave for christmas. :-) I got the evelope and opened it at the mailbox then danced a little jig. Finally I can sell my car. Now I just have to find a buyer that still wants it.

Work work work

2004-12-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a few days and interesting updates have happened at work. I seem to be getting thrown into the NBA team pretty quickly and I think things are going to work out pretty well there. I spent most of today in meetings of one sort or another and I should be getting a list of things to do soon. I think the requirements for this are going to be much more specific so hopefully i can know what my goals are and achieve them. Like I said... positive news.

On the negative side... For those of you out of the loop:
http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/14/0121244.shtml?tid=98&tid=10

Needless to say this is a HUGE HUGE HUGE deal. Yes, i'm not on football anymore, but this affects the entire company in a major way. I honestly can't say anything about it. But something is surely going to come of this, but what.... i leave that speculation to you gentle reader.

A second chance

2004-12-07T21:14:00.000-08:00

It appears i'm on my second chance now, as i've messed up the first one.

I'm no longer going to be working on Football and I'm moving to basketball. It seems that the work i've done so far isn't up to expectations. It seems to be mostly chalked up to me not having enough video game experince, but it's still a failure on my part. Yes, I probably could have done better, but it's not because I didn't try. I think a lot of it has to do with how the problems were presented to me. I was told to fix each small individual problem, and they kept giving me bigger ones. In that order to try and ease me into the codebase and everything, which makes sense. The problem is, as I got to the final problems it became clear that I had been puting bandaids on a gapeing chest wound and it needed an entire gutting and re-implementation.

The problem is, it was already too late and I had months of work into it by that point. I fixed pretty much everything I could without major re-writes. My boss asked how it was going I said I was fixed with everything but a few problems I mentioned, and that they were going to be major major work to fix. He said he'd talk to some of the lead engineers that i'd talked with about the problem and put me on another project to start, so I let it go. Now apparently I didn't pursue the problem well enough, and I should have been more motivated about fixing it.

I think the thing boils down to they put me in over my head to start, and i failed to make the leap required to hold on. So they're trying to put me somewhere where I can try and get experience easier while still being productive.

blah blah blah... i'm going to be changing job descriptions to working on audio triggers and overlays type things for basketball. I'm not quite sure of the specifics yet. I'm on second chance water now, so I can't afford to screw up.

Moving time again

2004-12-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

Looks like i'm going to be moving again.

Not far, only a few miles up the road. I got a 6 month lease when i came here because I didn't want to tie myself down. I only had a weekend to look for places to live and obviously couldn't look everywhere. The secretary at work, well ok, i don't think she's a secretary, but she sits at the front desk and basically runs the whole office... anways she told me about her place and how she loves it. I went over and looked this weekend.

All I have to say is wow. It's pretty much strictly better than my current place. For $20/month less rent, I get a REAL GARAGE!!! which is sweet for the new car. 2nd, it has a washer and dryer in the apartment. So no public machines and I can do it anytime I want. And C, I don't have to pay for water. I lose my walk in closet, but I can easily deal with that. The rest of the apartment seems about the same size... so no real loss there. I mean it *could* be a bit smaller, i haven't taken measurements or anything but it looks about the same.

Still, I hate moving.. i don't want to pack everything up again. it's gonna suck. At least there won't be a moving company involved this time.

A special circle of hell

2004-12-05T21:10:00.000-08:00

Dante described the circles of hell long ago. The problem is, he did this before the invention of the DMV. Whoever created the DMV, and whoever maintains this mess of bureaucracy, as well as many of the workers deserve their own special circle. I'm not sure what the punishments should be, but it'd have to be bad.

Why do I bring this up? I've had a most special experience with them lately. For those of you not in the loop, I recently bought a new car. A 2005 Nissan Altima. It's great, but that's another post. Anyway, I wanted to trade in my old car, but the dealer was only going to give me $500 for it when the blue book is $2500.... yeah, that wasn't happening. So I want to sell my old car.

I look around and ask people, can't seem to find out if I can sell an out of state car in California. I finally call the DMV and ask them and the answer is 'you should get it registered' they never said I CAN'T sell, it but they repeatedly dodge the question.

Me: "Yes, I *should* but is there ANY WAY I can sell it without registering it?"
Them: "You should get it registered"
repeat....

So I decide to give in and do the registration. It turns out this is the biggest mess in the history of... well something crappy. It turns out to get the car registered, it has to pass a smog test. But they can't do the smog test until it's registered. Yeah, catch-22. Their sweet answer to this problem is you have to go to the DMV... wait in line, then they *Start* you application. You have to pay all the fees etc, then they put you in the computer. THEN you can go get the smog check. THEN you come back, wait in line again and get the registration finished. It seemed this wasn't completely uncommon, so it wasn't that hard to figure out.

I started this process, paid the $130 to register, paid the $70 for the smog check, and went back to the DMV. I figured while I was there I’d ask about what I needed to do to sell the car, any forms or anything else I needed to avoid future confusion. I was told I would need to sign over my California title, which I would get in 6-8 weeks.

Umm problem.

Wasn't I there to get my title now? No, they have to process that forever, for some reason that escapes me. I would really like the money ASAP, I've already put the add out for the car, and I really don't have a place to park it.

I ask if there’s any way to get 'expedited processing' because I know crappy bureaucracies normally have something like that. After avoiding the question a few times, she says yes they do, but I "should just wait" because it seemed somehow it was more trouble for her(again, I have no idea HOW this was more trouble for her, but she acted that way). It was $15 for "72 hr processing" which I thought was quite worth it. So I say that I’m going to do that. She walks off into the back room and comes back 5 mins later with an envelope and a pamphlet and shoos me along my way. I ask what I need to send and she tells me it's in the pamphlet. Of course I’ve already read the massive one page pamphlet and it lists a bunch of forms that I *might* need by number. Of course that number makes no sense to anyone who didn't actually invent the numbering system "Ahh yes. form 237BQ! of course!" Of course the pamphlet mentions about 8 times that the fee is $15.

I give up on getting more information, but I ask for the other form that I needed to mail in once I sell my car. She gives a sigh like I’m bothering her and hands me a form. I only find out 4hrs later that yes... it is the SPANISH FORM! Thankfully I found a PDF of the same form on the internet and as my last hurrah of spite, I shall fill out the Spanish forum in English. Yeah, I’m sweet.

So anyway, back to the getting of my title. I take photocopies of everything I have and stuff the originals in the envelope and send it out that day. That was 18 days ago. At the 2 week point I get fed up because it's obviously not '72 hr processing' anymore, and call some people to see what the deal is. I explain what I did, and the first response I get is, "I don't think we do 72 hr processing when you still need licence plates, why didn't you get them at the DMV" Of course the lady at the DMV said they can't give me the plates unless they do the normal slow processing, while she was throwing the pamphlet at me and shooing me along. Of course the lady on the phone wasn't sure. I then ask if they've even started it yet, as my check hasn't been cashed. She says she can't find anything in the computer, but sometimes that takes a while, so I should call back in another week. If it's not in by then, it's probably lost in the mail.... in their pre-addressed envelope. sweet.

I did find out on Friday night that the check has now been cashed, so I’m going to call back tomorrow and see what the deal is. I'm sure they'll claim the mail just took over 2 weeks to get there... when Sacramento is just over 100 miles away. There's still nothing I can do about it but sit and get screwed. But I want to see what they're going to do, as they've taken my $15, so they BETTER be doing some speedy processing.

I mean all i want to do is sell my car.... *sigh*

God I hate the DMV

Back in the saddle

2004-12-04T21:10:00.000-08:00

Thats right everyone I have returned!

Something significant enough has happened to force start the blogging again. I'm an Uncle. Or, well, I will be in August. My older brother just informed me that he's having a kid. They just found out yesterday. Eric has always been the "no kids... EVER" guy, so it's kinda amusing. I think he always wanted kids, he just wouldn't admit it, i think it became a running gag. Nonetheless, it's early and there's still a long way to go. But congratulations are certainly in order. I'm looking forward to being an uncle!

I've got lots more stuff I should be blogging about, so maybe instead of dropping it out in one huge post, i'll try and update more. Hopefully it'll keep start the juices flowing.

Mo-Cap Mo-Cap Joe-Cap!

2004-10-25T21:42:00.000-07:00

Had me my first motion capture session today. Quite an experience.

For those of you who don't know what motion-caputre is, it's when you get a person to dress up in a special suit with a bunch of things like pingpong balls attached all over it, and have them do actions in a room surrounded in cameras. All kinds of software then converts their movements onto a virtual skeleton and then we can create animations out of it.

As I've mentioned, I've been working with the officals, and we've gotten to the point that the only thing left to make them better is to shoot new animations that work well together as a group. So thats what we did. A producer, an artist and myself made up a shot list of the things we wanted over a few days and setup a time to use the mo-cap studio. We got someone to dress up and be our model/bitch for a few hrs. Then the mo-cap guys and us had the guy go through the movements we wanted.

It was a lot of fun. It's kinda cool giving directions to someone doing this stuff. Things like "no, that run looked way too normal" and "wow, that's the best ref-walk ever" were said many times, as well as more mundain things like 'you need to be lower' or 'don't turn your hips so much'

It's gonna take a few days for the animations to get through processing, then through the artist, to me so I can start using them, but it'll be pretty sweet when it does. Now i've got no excuses for not having the officials look perfect. I don't know if we're going to be able to add everything memory-wise, but we shall see..

Bad Joe.. bad.

2004-10-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been keeping up, so i scolded myself in the title. Anyway, I've been really busy. Trying to look for a new car, as my old ride just isn't cutting it anymore, i'm getting nervous about it randomly dieing on me and since I don't know too many people out here, that could really really really suck. So I started looking at a few new cars, started getting excited about the Acura TSX, which is really sweet. Then, as always, crap just never works out.

You see, I have lots of school loans. When I say lots, think small house. Anyway, I was planning on consolidating these and paying on a 25-30yr schedule, probalby paying off much earlier, but at least standard payments to start. Well, it turns out just over half of my loans are not able to be consolidated because they're the wrong type. This means instead of having one huge loan over a long period of time, I have 2 loans over a shorter period of time. This equates to a few extra hundred dollars a month in loan payments. LAME. There go my ideas of an Acura. That is if I want to pay rent and eat in the same month.

So now i'm looking at a Nissan Altima. A nice car, but just not the same. So I'm trying to check out insurance stuff and actually buy the car this week. Busy me.

Research

2004-09-28T18:30:00.000-07:00

After finishing up a small change to some behaviors on monday morning, it was time to start to tackle my next task. To do that I had to spend the rest of the day doing "research" or something like that. I spent the next few hours fast forwarding through old NFL games on my VCR.
Speaking of my VCR, I haven't yet come up with a cool Marx-esque name for it yet, so any suggestions would be appriciated.
Anyway... I was trying to figure out how the refs actually do things in a game once the play is over. Do you know how hard that is to see on any televison broadcast of any football game in the last 20 years? Ok, so I don't really know about 20 years, but definitely recently. They always cut to a replay, a highlight, the coach or some lame interview, or the cameras just follow the lonely runningback or reciever back to the huddle so we get to watch him walk. sweet. I so need to go on a company sponsored trip to a niners or raiders game.... cuz really how am I supposed to get my work done without that. Yes I was at a football game earlier this year, and I did look for some stuff that I was currently working on, but I didn't know that i'd need to know this. Yes, I PLAYED football for twelve years, but seriously I was busy you know... playing the game at the time... didn't really pay much attention to the officials. Well, there was that one time I got called for "aiding the runner"... but thats another story entirely.
So after a few hrs of this, an officemate comes by and wants to go outside in the parkinglot and throw the football around. Four of us decide that this is valid 'research' for the game and join him for an hr or so. I mean, if it was a baseball.. or god forbid a frisbee, it'd be much harder to justify, but football, that's work.

Games are big

2004-09-19T17:25:00.000-07:00

And by big I mean really big. But they're also tightly controlled. First, my game is literally Millions of lines of code.. multiple millions. I've never worked on a project before where it's literally impossible to know the whole thing. No one knows everything, but you can find someone who knows just about anything, you just have to know who to ask. I'm slowly working up my knowledge... i'm pretty solid with the refs now and am going to be moving on to other areas.

Second they're big in raw size. The source for our game is literally many gigabytes. It's so big that we can't actually put it on the hard disk of the dev kits we have.. instead we have a program that streams the information that's running on our computer to the game as needed. Which is pretty cool if you ask me. I'm happy I didn't have to write THAT.

Every byte in the final game is tightly controlled. My previous requests for new animations some of which were less than 1 K, still haven't been completely approved. Even with them accepting "you can't do what you want without them"... their inclusion is still unsure.

I've never really had to worry much about memory before when programming, other than for sending things over a network. It's a new twist for me as a programmer.

Animations

2004-09-19T17:19:00.000-07:00

While making improvements to the game I've come across the task of needing new animations for the game. I told my boss why I needed them etc, and he hooked me up with one of our artists. The whole idea of having an artist to 'do your bidding' is quite fun :-) Even though I'm not an artist, I get to do all kinds of judgements 'art-wise' with my stuff. I get to say things like 'make his arms move more' or 'that just dosen't look right.. do it again' Kinda scary really. I think I did really well though, as the new stuff looks pretty sweet if I do say so myself.

I'm ALIVE!

2004-09-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry it's been so long since I posted... At the end of the day i just never really feel like posting. Life has been pretty decent. Getting used to living out here, and the job is quite fun, I'll follow this 'general life' post with a few work updates.

Anyway, it rained this morning. Which shouldn't seem like such a big deal, but really it is here. I've been here for a month and a half and that's the first time it happened. It wasn't even much, but it was still wierd... like we have angered the gods or something :-)

The apartment is nice. It's different living alone, as I've never really done it before. It can get kind of lonely at times, esp when I don't have any good friends out here yet, but I'm working on that. I went to a few events this weekend, so I'm not a total loser, and I'm getting to know some people from work better, which also means I have people to go to lunch with. That brightens up the days a bit.

Any fall that Notre Dame is winning is a good fall for me, so I'm doing well in that respect. After a terrible loss to BYU and some lowered expectations we've come back to win the last two games and will likely be in the top 25 when it comes out tomorrow. Making it back to ND for the Michigan game turned out to be an adventure in itself. I had plane tickets and was planning on going with George, but he backed out to stay an extra month at his internship. This meant that I was stuck at the Detroit airport when I needed to be in South Bend. Due to some fortunate turns in luck, I ended up getting a ride down with Pshea, and also got his dad's ticket. Talk about great seats... 35 yd line 6 rows up, behind the Michigan bench. Spent the nights at Bmoore's place and it was cool to see him again. Got to hang out with tons of old friends, it seemed everyone was in town. Just about everyone seemed jellous of my job, which makes me feel kinda good(should it? or is that an asshole move?)

My early analysis of the team. Our defense looks great, have been causing lots of turnovers... though our secondary looks a bit weak. Special teams are a bit shakey, had a punt blocked, but some other good plays. Offensively, I think we're ok, and going to get better as the season goes on. Bradey Quinn is comming into his own as long as he gets some time to throw. We found Walker who appears to be doing great. Our offensive line still needs some work though. Hopefully we can keep it together and pull out a great year.

Oh, I've also been reading Questionable Content by the recommendation of Matt. The backlog is VERY short, and it's totally worth the time. Some of the funniest stuff i've read in a very long time.

I'm not useless

2004-08-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official. I just submitted my first change to the game. Its in the repository and everyone will have to deal with it :-) Ok, so it's not big. Hell, it's pretty insignificant, but damnit, it's my first one.

Ok, a little more of an update... you've earned it.

After I was moved to work on the ref stuff, I was eventually given a list of things to fix/improve/change. I had to write up what I was going to change/ how I was going to change it, a plan of attack, schedule for doing it, and all kinds of other stuff in a Technical Design Document (TDD) and submit it before I could start on anything. So I've spent the last week looking at more code and laying out what types of changes I was going to make before I went in and started tinkering, which is way more fun. I submitted that yesterday and was told to forge ahead and start making changes.

I finally had a fun day at work yesterday because I was actually writing code and testing it. I ended up staying an hour late because of the 'let me change one more thing' syndrome that I often aquire. The best thing is that I have more of this lined up, as I have that whole list of changes to make. Ok, so the changes I'm making now are minor and probably very few people (if anyone) not looking for them will ever notice. I probably won't be nearly as thrilled with things this small in 6 months or a year, but for now, they're what I need. Hopefully, by then I'll be working on bigger things anyway.

Its a great feeling to look forward to going to work, even if you're tired an want to sleep another hour. "I want to sleep more..... but I really want to finish off X at work.. ok, I guess i'll get up".

My job is Sweet

2004-08-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

My job is sweet.

Yesterday afternoon I got to sit down with one of the designers and try to figure out what we really wanted to do with the system I'm working on. We started playing the game and doing replays and nitpicking the movements of individual characters. Of course this was alternating between watching a video tape of a real life game and trying to catch behaviors that we want to mimic. Also thrown in there was playing of the competition's latest game and seeing what they do differently.

This took a few hours and was just incredibly cool. We had to find things that we were doing wrong, but then think of WHY they were doing that/what was going wrong, and how to fix it. Fixing it dosen't even mean doing it perfectly, but just what to do to make it look right. It was also fun to really analize what real people were doing in the situations, because I would have never thought they actually did this little hunched over quasimodo run. Also it was fun watching the competition's game and realizing they totally sucked. They just did a couple things right and the animation was slighly prettier, but overall they were idiots.

Now i've got sweet goals like move this guy here. or make him run to x after y happens, which I should totally be able to do.

Genius Redirected

2004-08-16T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well, I had a 'project' that I was supposed to be working on over the last few days. While it wasn't really the most exciting thing, I viewed it as a chance to learn code and just jump onto something to prove I could actually do work. Honestly it was only AI related in the vaguest sense of the term.

Today the lead man on football came back from vacation and changed all that. Now I have a real area of the game to work on that is way more exiciting than my old project. I get to fix/redo a whole component of the AI. Obviously this is a much larger project and I'm going to have to start with small improvements. But now I get to learn how to use art and animations in the game, as well as do something that I think people playing the game would actually notice. I'm way excited about this as it's one of the things that first came to my mind as a 'cool area' when I first decided to take the job here.

Now, we return you to your regularly scheduled hrs and hrs of staring at code.

C'est Fin!

2004-08-16T16:18:00.000-07:00

Finally my move is complete. The bastard movers finally came and dropped off my stuff late last night. By late I mean they didn't leave until midnight. I ended up just throwing a sheet on my bed and crashing soon after. Other than the disgusting/horrible/evil/unexcuseable/etc./etc delays, the stuff showed up without much damage. My halogen lamp refused to work, but the driver 'bought' the broken lamp off me for $40... I know I only paid like $20 for it. So I need to go buy a new one. Also some minor damage on my crappy desk, but nothing a bit of glue and screws can't fix.

Now the task of unpacking... that ought to take a while.

Also, I got my car today as well. Getting back in MY car after that nice new rental, made me realize what a POS it is. *wants a new car*

debugging a game

2004-08-12T16:56:00.000-07:00

Using a debugger on a video game is quite interesting. I think it'll be easier to understand if I explain my setup slightly.

First, I've got my computer, this is where all the code/debugger and all sorts of other great things reside. Connected to my computer through the network is my dev xbox(yamo)... similar to a regular x box but obviously made for what i'm doing/networked etc. It's hooked up to a small TV that I have on my desk.

To start debugging I need to connect my computer to yamo and start the program through MS visual studio. This starts the game on the xbox as if I had put in the disk and hit the power button. Then I play the game until i get to the situation where I need to walk through code and my breakpoints hit. Then it becomes a task of alternating between the computer and the xbox controller, jumping into functions(computer) and selecting options from the menu(xbox) etc.

While it's really quite similar to normal debugging, but just separated onto two systems, it just feels quite different. It's also quite cool if I think about what i'm doing. I'm sure the wierdness will slowly go away, but I hope the coolness does not.

... back to playing/working :)

My first moment

2004-08-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about coding is the moment of revelation.

The first thing one has to do when looking at a pre-existing piece of code is to figure out generally what it's doing and why. Not only the existing functions, but the control flow as well. The larger and more complex the code the harder this is to do. Sure you can understand what a small function, or a few lines are doing without this understanding, but you'll never be able to actually work effectively with the code without it.

In my experience this knowledge always comes in a burst of understanding. "Ahhhhhh! THAT'S how they do it!" After hours or days of pouring over code that just looks like unrelated pieces, suddenly lots of it fits together and you go from being completely stupid about a piece of code to being able to read with purpose.... finding what you need and learning much more quickly.

After a day and a half of looking at source code I just had my first moment of revelation... actually faster than I thought after seeing the size of the project and the fact that it's standard C instead of anything object oriented, which I haven't worked with in a long time. It's only a small part of the code, and i'm sure there are many more revelations to come, but it's a start. It's boosted my confidence that I can handle this job and I'm going to be ok.

The Phone shall be gabbo

2004-08-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

I finally got my xbox dev kit up and running. For some odd reason it seems my xbox is named yamo. Ok, technically it's yamoxbox but that dosen't count. I've decided to keep it named that way even though I could change it. I belive I will begin calling all my equipment by Marx-esque names... the phone shall be gabbo

I'm Here... kinda.

2004-08-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

So it begins.

Today is my first day at work. I'm in a rather large office with two other people who are also relatively new to the whole industry (6 and 3 months in) as well. I have a nice large desk, with my very own XBox development kit complete with a tv. Of course I have my computer as well. Everyone seems pretty busy today, so i'm not getting everything done. I'm downloading all the source and trying to get a build to run. While doing that, i'm looking over some documents and things like that. It looks like my paperwork is going to be done tomorrow.

The big problems are still with the move. My moving company sucks and I still don't have my stuff. After pestering them today I get a message saying that they're yet again delaying the delivery date for my stuff even though I have two signed contracts with a 'Garunteed Delievery Date" filled out for 4 days ago... nice. Looks Like i'm going to be without until at least friday. What really irks me is that they informed me of the *first* 5 day delay only 10 hrs before they were supposed to deliver... I mean it's not like they didn't see it comming. Then, it appears the only reason i found out about the second delay today instead of tomorrow afternoon is because I called and bugged them today. They mentioned giving me a discount on the price, but since i'm not actually paying for it, it's little comfort. I believe the HR people here are going to talk to the moving company tomorrow.

Overall Cali seems pretty nice. I'm getting to know the area a bit better, but I really need to meet some people, it's tough when living at a hotel. ugh.