… wow. There’s really not much more I can say. Game of the Year, for me. Beats out Bioshock, which I was pretty sure was a lock. The game’s mechanic is so astonishing, and the game has so much *character*… and it simply does everything perfectly.

The characters are incredibly memorable, the puzzles are awesome, and man… perfect.

Minor spoiler, if you haven’t finished the game. Not really a *spoiler*, per se, but involves events near the end of the game.

Today, at work, we bought a small cake. We put the cake in the second floor kitchen, and took a picture. Framed the picture in a portal. Went up to the third floor, took a picture of a dude eating lunch. Framed that in a different portal. Took the picture of the dude, put it in the second floor, near the cake. Took the first picture, put it in the third floor kitchen, where we took the other picture. Wrote “The cake is a lie” over and over on a piece of paper. E-mailed the team, from “Aperture Science Research Facility” that there was cake in the third floor kitchen.

Big fun.

So… what’s up?

A friend and his family came in from Boston over the week, which was nice. Reminds me how many people I don’t keep up with on any sort of regular basis. Just weird, with essentially one group of people I still consider friends, most of whom I haven’t seen in 8+ years outside a day or two here and there at weddings.

Ah, well.

Got what amounts to a title change at work, recently. Sort of weird – one of those “New Year’s Resolutions” that’s come true in about half the time I thought it would take. Next year, I’ll resolve to become wealthy enough to retire, or something. It’s sort of a mix of good and bad. On the good side, I’m learning a reasonable amount – the new job’s a challenge, because it’s a mix of doing what I really like to do (designing games), and something I’m not terrible at (I think) but don’t really like to do all that much (manage people).

On the bad side, there are issues I won’t really talk about here, and there’s also the fact that the company’s major strength isn’t in organization and management. As a result, it’s hard (no, it’s impossible) for me to say, learn from someone whose *process* I really respect and admire. It’s not like a mentored position where I can learn under someone, grow to trust them, absorb the knowledge, and then step into the position. Instead, it’s more like, “Oh. Okay, here you go. Good luck with that.”

I think I’ll be able to deal, but thus far, it’s been odd. Essentially given the ability to do something I like to do, placed in the middle of an incredibly volatile political minefield. It’s a weird situation, for sure. Still, another goalpost knocked down. In terms of career pursuit, this is essentially the end of the road. This is as high as I want to go in my field. It’s a strange feeling.

From Niralth:

20 Years Ago, I…
1.) almost moved to San Diego
2.) didn’t fit in
3.) was incredibly busy

15 Years Ago, I…
1.) had found a community
2.) formed some of my most lasting friendships
3.) wanted to get away from high school

10 Years Ago, I…
1.) had just met my future wife
2.) was abjectly miserable
3.) was lonely

5 Years Ago, I…
1.) wasn’t sure what I was doing with my life
2.) was content in my relationship
3.) had just bought a house

2 Years Ago, I…
1.) knew what I wanted to do with my life
2.) found something I was really good at
3.) had the first person I’d consider a close friend die unexpectedly

1 Year Ago, I…
1.) got married
2.) went to England and France for the first time
3.) fixed the DAMNED ROOF LEAK

Yesterday, I…
1.) began to take control of my job, instead of letting it control me
2.) had an evening with my wife that was remarkably like the first evenings we spent together
3.) saw part of my neighborhood blossom into something new

Today, I…
1.) put some of the work stuff from yesterday into action
2.) went swimming
3.) will probably finish watching Heroes

Tomorrow, I’ll…
1.) play some Halo 3
2.) cook something
3.) do some laundry

In Five Years, I’ll…
1.) be done with renovations on the house
2.) have a kid
3.) be as happily married as I am today (which will be more work, ’cause of 2.)

So, it’s been a touch since I’ve updated the blog. What’s been up? Not much, really. Work is work – kind of a mix of fun, frustrating, interesting and stupid. I guess most jobs are, but whatever. FINALLY finished watching Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica (eh, it was alright), and starting to get through Heroes (which, as of maybe halfway through the season is awesome). Halo 3’s out, which is obviously pretty big news. It’s more Halo, which is more or less exactly what I wanted. Multiplayer’s super fun, single player’s more of the same, but much prettier.

People have been complaining about the graphics. It’s almost funny, except it’s also kind of tragic. Halo 3’s about as good as I can imagine Halo looking. The people’s faces and lipsync aren’t all that great, I’ll admit, but the environments, the scale, the textures and the Master Chief all look *spectacular*, and there’s a lot of really nice lighting effects that look *right*. They don’t look next-gen for next-gen’s sake. They don’t have random bloom. They aren’t brown. They’re very impressive, but remarkably natural, and subtle looking (even if they aren’t natural or subtle). The game looks great.

The sad thing is, what it really shows is that people aren’t thinking about graphics based on some absolute. The bar’s been raised by games like Gears of War, and it’s only getting higher. The problem is, there’s only a few companies that can deliver graphical quality like that. Most game developers simply don’t have the resources to even do half, or a third of what Bungie or Epic can do – and if gamer’s expectations are so high that something like Halo 3 can be classified as unattractive, it really speaks volumes about how difficult it is to keep up with the Joneses these days. Literally, I guess (and if you get the reference, you’re at least as big a nerd as me).

Have you ever heard a presidential speech with more straw men and logical fallacies than Bush’s speech today? “Some say (something ridiculous). I say (obviously desirable whatever)!” The entire speech was basically nothing but straw men, bullshit spin, and utter nonsense. I’m sure there are some outright lies in there, as well – 36 nations helping in Iraq? Come on.

But the most stunning thing was simply how far we’ve fallen. Political speeches are often distorted – that’s not something new – but I’ve never heard a speech that I found more desperate, or blatantly, utterly devoid of sincerity as today’s address. The Democrat response to the speech by comparison was so straightforward and free of the idiotic condescension that Bush seems unable to avoid that it was a breath of fresh air.

It’s amazing that this is our “leader.” I doubt he could lead a row of ducks.

So, over the last week, as a couple of you already know, I built a stone path in my backyard. Ei-Nyung, Sean, and a friend from work helped out – Sean and M. helped move more than two tons of rock from the driveway to the backyard, and Sean helped move another whole mess of gravel. Without the help, there’s no way it’d have been done in time, but with the help, the path was finished in a week (to within two hours).

It’s basically a path of bluish-greyish gravel and pinkish-orange stone that runs from the base of the backyard, in lazy S-curves all the way up to the loquat tree in the back. I used our electric tiller to create the pathway, then poured down two coats of gravel, placed the stones, poured on gravel to fill the cracks, soaked the thing with water, then added more gravel where it’d settled.

On the slope between the first and second tiers of the backyard, I found some rebar and a collapsed retaining wall that had to be removed. Over the course of about two days, I dug out the wall, used an electric jackhammer to break up the concrete, and a sawzall to cut out the rebar to the point where it was well below the surface. I used the tiller to create a smoothed out slope, soaked the dirt with water, and jumped around on it to compact it at least a bit.

All in all, it’s turned out pretty well – it divides the backyard up neatly into more manageable chunks, makes the whole thing much more accessible, and lends it some much-needed perspective. That is, it used to be that you could look at the backyard and have no idea how big it was – now, when you look at it, you can see from the path how far it goes back.

It was definitely a week well spent. The project was immensely satisfying, dramatically improves the back yard, and though tiring, was really … fun.

Not something I want to do again for at least a while, but there’s still some gravel to haul to the back. Maybe another hour or two of work, just to clear out the driveway. Good times.

So, I’m a little torn. On Saturday, I had a pretty good customer service experience. I walked in to the Apple store for a Genius Bar appointment I’d made the day before. I explained my problem, the guy helped me quickly, courteously, and the problem was resolved absolutely to my satisfaction. Everyone was very friendly, the atmosphere was great, and overall, it was a really pleasant experience. So far, every time I’ve had to bring an issue to Apple’s attention, it’s been handled very gracefully.

On the other hand, I’ve never had a laptop with this many physical problems. So far, the case has spontaneously cracked in three places – once on the wrist rest near where my right wrist sits, at the edge, and this time, in two places – on the bottom part of the case near the front left on the side, and again by the USB port on the same side.

I haven’t been treating this laptop any differently than I did the VAIO I used to have, but that thing’s case was magnesium, and I could probably have dropped a truck on it without it breaking. So, on one hand, Apple’s customer service is stellar, but on the other hand, Apple’s products force me to use the customer service, so it had *better* be stellar.

I don’t think this really evens out, unfortunately, it’s really a tick not in Apple’s favor, in the same way that the new extended warranty for the 360’s RROD problems isn’t really all that positive a thing for Microsoft.

That said, I’ve had the laptop for a couple months now, and I *really* like it. The physical design of the case is really leaps and bounds above any other laptop I’ve ever used. While the Macbook was in the shop, I used Ei-Nyung’s ThinkPad, and it really felt quite alien. The keys felt really odd, and it just had all these bits and bobs that made it look … inelegant.

I hope that this is the last of my problems with the MacBook, but I’m not gonna cross my fingers. I’ll definitely have to get AppleCare for this thing before the year’s up.

—

On a totally different note, the project I’m working on is chugging along nicely. About halfway done with two steps in the process, with one step starting tomorrow. I think I’ll have it done by the end of the week, but we’ll see. I think the last step is going to be a bit more time consuming than I think, even though I think it’ll be pretty time consuming.

It’s freakin’ TIRING though, and damn, it’s hot these days.

Started a project. I don’t want to say specifically what it is, ’cause I want to surprise the ‘rents, who are coming to town next week. It involves a ridiculous amount of physical labor, though, and holy moly, it’s tiring. It’s coming along nicely, but honestly, I wouldn’t have expected I’d need a jackhammer. Thanks, S&H! Without that, the thing I was able to do today probably would have taken two solid days alone. Yeesh!

So… what’s up these days, anyway?

1.) Car: The paint job on the car’s basically stalled – I’ve probably legitimately got two full coats to go, with an additional two edging coats. It’s not a huge amount of work, but work’s been really tiring recently, and I just haven’t had it in me to actually spend the time to finish it up. I’ll knock it down next week for sure.

2.) Work: Nothing much going on, really. The good thing is…

3.) Time Off: I have next week off. I’ll knock down the car paint job, and I’d like to do something else with the time as well – something I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. I was thinking maybe I would try to make a path in the back yard, and do some weeding in the front yard. Not terribly impressive, but whatever.

4.) Games: Finished Bioshock – the game was pretty extraordinary. Without giving anything away, it was 95% awesome – the problem is the 5% that failed to follow up on that initial 95% was so obviously absent that it really felt … missing. Great game, great structure, and it really has something to say about games. To me, it’s easily the best statement about interactivity in games that I’ve ever seen. Super Puzzle Fighter HD is coming out tomorrow, which I’m pretty psyched for.

Other than that… yeah, I dunno. Not a hell of a lot else going on.

So, I just read something interesting on Kotaku – they were talking about how basically at Leipzig, Nintendo gave them a booth tour that showed them that what was the “gamer” crowd is no longer Nintendo’s target market.

Now, I think that’s great – I think it’s utterly astonishing that Nintendo’s gotten grandmothers and such into gaming. Amazing. And a lot of companies are thinking, “Oh, man! We didn’t invest enough in the Wii! Spend spend spend!” But what’s interesting to me is that if Microsoft sells 6 million 360’s to people who will buy, on average, say, 15 games, Nintendo sold 7 million Wiis to people who over the last 10 or 20 years have bought a grand total of one game. Wii Sports.

Now, I don’t doubt that Nintendo will find the Nintendogs or the Brain Age of the Wii, and they’ll sell a ton of those to grandma & grandpa. But the EAs of the world who are thinking, “Crap! We’ve missed the boat!” – what happens to them? The people who’ve bought the Wii aren’t going to be interested in Medal of Valor 8. They’re just not. And if EA or whoever expects to sell to this crowd, I shudder to think what’ll happen when they realize that these are people who will buy maybe 1 more first party game in the course of the console’s 5 year lifespan and not a damn thing else.