So, what’s happened since that last bout of euphoria? Not a whole lot, unfortunately. I think I might have caught a cold or something, ’cause I’ve been dead tired the last few days, and haven’t been able to sleep. So, bad combination, that. Led to a couple days of grumpy me. Alas.

Things are still good, though. Work’s went really well today, despite a bout of tired-induced writer’s block the day before. So, tomorrow I’ll get to either start in on a new character, or keep working on my ‘pet’ character, which I’m basically gonna do even if I have to write her entirely in my spare time.

Kinda weird, I’ve got a couple really good games queued up – I’d like to finish Dead Rising, Yakuza, Tomb Raider: Legend, and a fistful of Xbox 1 titles, DS games, whatever. But I’m definitely hitting the saturation wall, where unless something’s essentially a social experience, I haven’t been all that interested in actually *playing* anything. I think it’s just when you’re thinking about a game all day, it takes a certain alignment of the stars to make playing a game in the downtime appealing.

Weirdly, I don’t feel that way about thinking about *working* on another game, but yeah, take from that what you will.

I’ve been taking Mobius to the local dog walk near Beach School. This is pretty different than the dog walk that’s closer to my house – it’s less interesting, say, from a topological perspective, but there’s always a lot of dogs there. So, if I take Mobi to the local dog walk, he’s lucky to find another dog to play with. If I hop into the car, it’s a three minute drive, and there’s never been less than five other dogs. So, he gets to socialize a bit, and meet a whole bunch of new people, which is basically his favorite thing. So, that’s been really good.

Hm. 9:30. Maybe I’ll hit the hay, try to get a good night’s sleep. Hit up the pool in the morning, go for a swim, and settle in to another day of writing.

It’s sort of strange, that my career is now about 80% writing, and only about 20% what I’d consider “design.” Sure, all the dialog trees are essentially gameplay logic, and there’s a good deal of awareness of what you’re trying to get a player to do, or how you’re trying to steer a conversation, or how a particular conversation should reflect how the player’s played. But it’s weird, because it definitely feels like my primary job is the writing, and it’s almost like a secondary job to make sure that the logic and stuff actually works.

Bizarre. NaNoWriMo last year ended up being way, way more useful than I could have ever imagined.

I have no idea what it is.

I was walking Mobius at maybe 9, this evening. It was cool, dark – a little brisk. The walk started out normally, but we walked from the left of the house, down the street, and turned the corner to go around the downhill block. As we’re halfway down the block, a smile spreads across my face. I don’t know why. I can feel my heart beating in my chest – not in a bad way, but each beat feels distinct and clear. I’m smiling like an idiot, now. Mobius looks back at me – he’s a few feet in front, sniffing some bushes, and I start running, down the hill.

I was watching House earlier in the evening, and he started running – something he, as a character, hasn’t done in a long time. And I guess maybe I felt like running because of that. And in the same way, it was something I haven’t done in a long time, and for a good long while (from about mid ’96 to about 2004), I simply *couldn’t*. But I can, now. I can run without pain, and more importantly, without fear. Oh, I’m in terrible shape, don’t get me wrong. But I ran, flat-out, for the better part of the block, and Mobius galloped to keep up with me, instead of the fast walking he usually does when I jog along.

Maybe in that moment, I triggered some sort of “runner’s high,” but I doubt it. I walked the rest of the way home, and halfway up the hill home, again, a giant smile spread across my face, and I couldn’t stop it. I smiled the whole rest of the way home, and if you know me, my default expression isn’t a giant fucking grin. But there it was.

I feel good in the kind of way that I feel like some sort of giant catastrophe must be imminent. Everything’s just absolutely great. I love my wife to pieces. I love my friends. I’m living with a pair of really awesome friends, who bring a lot to my life I wouldn’t otherwise normally see. The friends I don’t live with are *spectacular*, and I love them to pieces, too. My parents seem to be doing well, which is something that’s been a long time coming. My dog is great. The house still has a long way to go, but the potential is *ridiculous*, and when we’re done with this place, it’ll be a *palace*.

My job’s really turned around. I hated the project I was on, but it’s over, and I’m working full-time on something I bring a lot to. I feel *great* about my ability to contribute to it, the direction it’s going, and the fact that I live a convenient distance away, and the work-life balance is good.

I feel… confident. I’ve always felt hesitant about my abilities, in regards to work. Not anymore. I know what I can do, I know I can do more, and that greatness isn’t a matter of “if,” but a matter of “when.” I feel like I can control my own destiny.

I know these feelings are transient, but I think this may be the first time in my adult life where I’ve been almost euphoric, simply because things are just absolutely, positively perfect.

I couldn’t ask for anything more. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

So, finally finished Arrested Development tonight. Awesome show, and I wish I (and about oh, 10 million other people) had caught on to it earlier. Alas, it was not to be. The show went out well, though. Plots were wrapped up, and the end seemed to come togehter in the way that it should have, instead of being abruptly axed like Firefly.

Extraordinary stuff.

Picked up a pair of Shure e2c’s after borrowing a friend’s e4’s. Not cheap, by any stretch, but they’re *really* nice. They fit really well in my ears, and the soft rubber inserts do a great job of, well, keeping EVERYTHING out. I honestly can’t tell a difference between the e4 and e2c’s, aside from the size, and my ears are big enough that there’s no real need for “smallness.”

The office I work in is ridiculously loud. Basically, I work on a wall adjacent to a furniture maker, and as a result, randomly throughout the day, his saw fires up, and runs really loud. On top of that, the HVAC system and my own computer, even, make a LOT of ambient noise, to the point where I’d find myself much more worn out during the day than I wanted to be. Using my friend’s headphones for the last few days has really made me feel better, and as a result, the cost seemed like it would be worth it to me. I had the Apple in-ear headphones, which were nice enough, but these do sound markedly better, and keep more of the noise out. I can’t say whether I’d have noticed in any other environment, but where I’m working, the difference is noticable.

I’ve heard the etymotics are good, as well, but buying them from a local store with a return policy was valuable to me, and so, the e2c’s won the deal.

Good stuff.

It feels like a ball of Silly Putty in my hand. This thought – that one day, I’ll be working for myself, with a group of good friends, on a project that we’re all excited about. I squeeze it, and it resists. The cold, hard mass feels solid. But the longer I hold it in my hand, the warmer it gets. Softer, more pliable. I squeeze it, and it forms to the shape of my hand. I roll the ball around, feeling it – the texture of my own skin embedded in its surface. It feels warm now, familiar. I squeeze, and it seems through my fingers. Not as though it’s getting away, but rather, like it’s becoming part of me.

I put the ball in my mouth, and it turns to liquid. I roll it around, and it tastes like … nothing. Slowly, it takes on a flavor – a dull savory sensation, complex, like something that’s been developing for a long while. It’s barely there, on the tip of my tongue, but I can just almost taste it, and it’s good.

There’s something, obviously – the risk, for one, that makes me hesitate. There’s the fact that I know Ei-Nyung wants stability, and is resistant to this sort of risk. Not unjustly so, and it’s important to her, so I respect that. Hell, it’s not like I didn’t see the impact entrepreneurship had on my parents’ relationship over the last few years. Still, every day I’m at work, it feels like I’m painting by numbers, and every day, it gets easier, less challenging, and less interesting. It’s not even that the project I’m working on isn’t good. I think it could be quite novel – it’ll certainly be an oddball game. But the fundamental fact of it all is that I’d have done it totally, totally differently. And basically, as long as I’m working for someone else, whether it’s EA, and their marketing-driven development, or it’s my current employer, beholden to the client’s desires, I’m never really going to make something I’m genuinely *passionate* about, in part because it’s unlikely that my desires will match with some arbitrary client’s, and in part because frankly, it’s hard to get passionate about making someone else rich. off a creative endeavor that you *know* you’re responsible for bringing greatness to.

The prevailing wisdom is that Edison was right, it’s 1% inspiration and 99$ perspiration. And that’s true – a good idea is only the first step in the process. But a lot of people interpret that saying (in the game industry in particular) that it’s the process of development uber alles, and that the idea is arbitrary – anyone can have an idea, after all.

But that’s not the case at all. Yes, it’s the process of development that’ll separate a good studio from a great one. But after what, three years in development, one thing has become really, really clear to me. There are a *LOT* of absolutely terrible ideas out there that get millions of dollars put into them. And sometimes, you can in fact polish a turd. But I know enough that between me, and a couple of my friends, we have genuinely good ideas. Great ideas. Creative, passionate, interesting, innovative ideas, and now, we even have the process experience to back it up. We’ve individually worked to *put* those various ideas into place, to get them into shipped games that have gone to the market, and been successes in their own right. And contrary to that, I’ve worked with a couple designers who are the exact opposite – so utterly devoid of creative thought, inspiration, passion, or any sense of originality that they might as well be replaced by a herd of robot monkeys. So, there’s a difference between good and bad. I’d even say that I know the difference between competant and extraordinary. That’s not to say that *(* am in that 99th percentile yet. But I’m definitely fighting to get there, and I think I’m finding that I have the capacity, I just lack the experience of developing a concept from scratch on my own terms.

Again, that sounds pretty egomanical, and maybe it is. But I’ve pursued greatness before, and found myself lacking. I’ll never be a great swimmer, for instance, no matter how hard I tried. I’ll never be a great artist, though I spent thousands of hours drawing through high school and college. I just didn’t have it in me – I could *feel* myself hitting the limit of my ability. Maybe with focused, guided effort, I could have become better, but I’d never be great. With game design, it’s not to say I’m that good *yet*, but I’ve been running at a full sprint for the last few years, and I haven’t even seen the wall yet.

And I feel that way about a good number of my friends.

Getting those people together, getting them to realize that the time is *now* and that it’ll be worth the investment, and that we can do it with minimal risk…

Well, maybe that’s the 99%.

So, gardening’s not really my thing. The big point is that I’m basically allergic to grass, so any time I go out in anything but long sleeves, adn start doing stuff, my forearms end up itching like crazy. If I had a brain, I’d actually also use the dust mask with the carbon filters that my dad gave me when they moved. Of course, I’m an idiot, so instead, I thought, I’m just gonna go to the back, and start tearing stuff up until I fill up this green waste bin.

The bad part is, completely as expected, my forearms are patchy, red, itchy as hell. My eyes are watery, and my throat’s scratchy.

The good part is, it basically only took 30 minutes of just ripping stuff up by hand until the bin was full.

Tore up an armful of blackberry vine (though in comparison to what’s *left*, there’s probably six to ten of these bins more to go), a bunch of weeds that were growing in/near the “patio” and basically cleared out the walkway from the side of the house in the back.

Oog. Now, to shower, and get this crap off me.

Spent the last couple hours cooking, and listening to Fischerspooner’s “new” album. Good times. Basically, doing a second French Laundry party (if you weren’t invited, it’s not ’cause we don’t like you, it’s ’cause we have to keep these events relatively small – so, we’ve rotated the whole cast (except us, obviously), and there are no repeats allowed).

So, this time, we’re making the “Caesar Salad” which is a bizarre twist on the regular concept of a salad. It’s basically a parmesan custard, with a little lettuce, and the standard Caesar dressing. Looked weird enough to be worth making, so that’s my contribution to this event. Ei-Nyung’s making Il Flottante, which are these insane merangues – I made the mint oil, creme Anglaise and the chocolate mousse filling, while she dealt with piping and cooking the merangues.

Tomorrow, I’ve gotta make the custards for the … well, I’ve gotta make the whole salad thing, which looks to be about a four hour process, *including* set up time, so about two hours (I’m budgeting from 11am to about 1 to get them done and in the fridge. Whew. Sounds fun.

Pictures on flickr later.

I really like cooking. There’s just something about taking things everyone can get in the supermarket, and turning them into things that aren’t obvious. That’s not to say I’m a good cook yet, but getting there. I mean, mint oil. WTF? Who makes mint oil? NO ONE. That’s because it’s totally ridiculous. But when you tasted the chive oil that we made for the last of these events, it was *TOTALLY WORTH IT*.

This time, it’ll be interesting because we’ve got nothing to do with either of the entrees. Oh – I’m also making a cream of walnut soup, which is essentially a dessert canape. So, we’ll have the salad off as a starter, then we don’t do any service until the end of the meal. Ha! I’m really looking forward to this. This has got to be one of our better ideas – the timing’s really good, because a lot of our friends are anywhere from competant to extraordinary cooks, and we have enough that we can literally “staff” three of these meals, rotating groups. There’s no way I’d spend four hours or five hours cooking a single meal (ok, I have in the past, when making things like ribs). But there’s no way I’d spend four or five hours making what amounts to five or six bites of food, since the French Laundry’s recipes are so damn small. But when you get a bunch of people together, and everyone’s devoted that much time and energy to making another five or six bites, you’ve now got enough food to eat ’till you’re stupid, and the quality of the food is *astonishing*.

Looking forward to it.

fo’ sho. (and if you haven’t seen The 40-Year-Old Virgin, you *totally* should.)

Per Rioting

Your Stress Level is: 49%

You are somewhat prone to stress, especially when life gets hard. When things are good, you resist stressing over little problems. But when things are difficult, you tend to freak out and find it hard to calm down.

Man, I’m so sick of CNN’s bullshit headlines.

JonBenet Ramsey is not national news. It’s just not. It’s absolutely, positively not news when there are two major wars in the world. Nothing PAris Hilton does is news, ever. EVER. A rural boy’s worm-selling stand – not news. It just nauseates me how much the US is caught up in the cult of celebrity and nonsensical “human interest” bullshit, to the point where a years old murder of a girl (a terrible tragedy, but ultimately unimportant on the world stage) overshadows a war, our current disastrous political climate, and all sorts of issues (global warming, corporate corruption, whatever) that actually *matter*.

Fuck you, Fox News. Yeah, your “news as entertainment” angle is, indeed more appealing to the American public. That’s our fault, but it doesn’t make me hate your company any less for exploiting it, and making it the defacto standard for success in the so-called “news” business.

God, I’d be *so* ashamed if I considered myself a journalist these days. How do you look someone in the eye and tell them that you’re a journalist, when journalism, as a whole, is so incredibly pathetic and meaningless? When what once was a noble institution with integrity has been so subverted, so upended, and you let it happen on your watch?

Ugh. It all just makes me nauseated.

Some things, you only learn by really sticking your feet in, and doing the damn thing. I know this sounds totally obvious, but it’s applied to a whole lot of crap recently, and so, though it’s not necessarily a revelation, I think what’s happening is that my resistance to learning by doing is lessening to a certain degree.

* Cooking – obviously, you learn to cook by cooking. You can read about all sorts of stuff, from detailed explanation of the denaturing of proteins, to reading cooking “manuals” like the Joy of Cooking, but basically, you’ll suck at it, without question, until you get your ass in the kitchen and put fire to food. No amount of reading will replace the experience you gain by tasting something, thinking it’s horrible, and trying to figure out a.) where you went wrong, and b.) how you can fix it. Learning some of the fundamental properties at work goes a long way towards making b.) easier, and paying attention while you’re cooking makes a.) easier to figure out. So there’s definite value in absorbing as much outside information as possible, but there’s no replacement for the hands on experience.

* Home Repair – a lot of times, this can be really intimidating. For some reason, even relatively simple crap like fixing the fence took me forever – it required all of screwing in a bunch of L-brackets. That’s it. But so much has gone wrong, and the house, as a complete project, is so freakin’ HUGE that it’s sometimes hard to realize that the baby steps are actually easy. So, putting up trim broke down a lot of the barriers in terms of “hey, with a miter saw, this is really quite trivial.” There’s a LOT left to do, and I can’t do a good portion of it myself, but a lot’s possible. One thing I hope to do is build some sort of bench/chest for the space below the downstairs window in the living room. Hands on, I think.

* Photography – I should really have just said, “taking pictures” at this point because all I’m doing is largely point-and-shoot. But trying to figure out why something’s lit poorly, or how to capture moving subjects, or even what looks good on screen vs. in the viewfinder – it’s just a matter of taking a bunch of pictures and figuring out what works.

I dunno – it’s all so obvious. But between NaNoWriMo forcing me to actually WRITE, and all the myriad random crap I’ve tried to pick up in the last few years, it’s just been good to finally internalize that no one’s gonna show or tell me how to do a huge portion of this stuff, and that learning by fucking it all up a couple times isn’t, for the most part, going to cause any permanent damage. 🙂