As the world turns...

It's been a few weeks since I've update, and I have good reason. I have been SLAMMED at work. I've been pulling 12 hour days for the last month or so and it's been mentally exhausting. I literally go to work in the AM and go home to eat, feed the dog and sleep. I did take a little mini vacation to sort of decompress but it definitely was not long enough.

I can finally talk a bit about what I've been working on and those with a 360 can possibly imagine the amount of work that is involved. Here's a video showing off what I am helping build for the Xbox 360.



So now it's back to the grind. I didn't get to do much over my vacation. I finally had a good amount of extra spending cash for trips and such but I had to take Chino to the vet and it was very expensive. I can afford it just fine but it just left me without a lot to take a trip with. So I pretty much just spent the weekend hanging out, cleaning and taking care of things I needed to.

I am also finally coming out of the black and into the green financially. If you read any of my previous posts you'd remember how financially raped I was due to my room mate not paying rent for 2 months and having to take care of my own bills on top of that.

Good news is my credit is finally back up since the divorce and I got an offer to buy back my car from the dealership to finance a newer model (with better gas mileage than my 2006 Grand Prix) at a much lower interest rate.

Things are now on the up and up and come September I get my big ass bonus. Part of that is going to be used to take a trip, maybe Italy or Spain...or just Vegas, who knows.

I'm also joining a work out program at the Gym I go to, to tone up some more. Lately I've been kicking my own ass at the gym and I'm a sexy fuck. Girls, watch out.

I'll be updating more regularly as things start to slow down here in a bit, but in the mean time feel free to comment or just drop a line to say "Hi".

Oh and I almost forgot...my little project. Things are coming a long nicely actually. Recently my old buddy had linked some old work that Riot Software (an indy game company I started back in 1997) had done. Someday I will share the story, but yes I ran my own game company for about 5 years. After talking with him I had remembered about this intro video 3 of us had worked on in 99. Essentially it was a simple company intro video that would execute when one of our games would launch, specifically this was for GvT. Just a simple 30 second intro. Check it out!



Also a link to the GvT wallpaper that was made by the talented Jesse Justice based on my concepts.


I think the hardest thing to accomplish was designing a Riot Software logo that actually spelled the word "Riot" *and* looked cool. After many nights and attempts, I finally drew a concept on a napkin on a cafe somewhere. I then went home and redrew it and polished it...I think I still have the original copy.

Mo money, mo problems...

How was everyones 4th of July weekend? Do anything fun or exciting? Mine was pretty low key. Honestly I wasn't all that into it this year. Actually I was hoping to have been hanging out with my dad and family in Missouri over the 4th weekend, however I couldn't afford to go.

It appears my room mate could not come up with her rent at all this month which put me in a pretty crappy financial situation and I'm pretty damn irritated by it. In fact having her tell me how wonderful and great her 4th celebration was, while she went out of town, just pissed me off more. I couldn't really do much myself, didn't have the money to really do much...why? Because I had to pay all the rent and bills on my own.

I'm glad she had such a great time, while I sat around broke. I'm glad she shared this with me also. I love hearing about skirting any real responsibility while I take the brunt of the shit allowed her to have such a great time.

uggh rant over.

Anyone looking for a place to live?

Though I did go out with Natalie and saw Hancock, I really enjoyed it actually. Then we went and got happy hour drinks at this new bowling alley at Lincoln Square in Bellevue. This place was actually really cool. I's not your typical bowling alley that wreaks of old shoes and grease. Tis place is damn classy. Reminds me of a place you'd see in Vegas. Any of you that read this, really need to check this place out. They even had Bud Light bottled in Bowling Pin shaped bottles. Lucky Strike

How awesome is that.

I dedicate this to my room mate:

What?!

Ok, the fucking internet just won.

"The sanctity of this blog has been fouled..."

After 8 years of wondering, confusion, wishing, dreaming and endless nights of weeping in the fetal position of my bathtub...it has finally come.

Diablo 3.

Back in 1996 when I began to take my first step into a long journey of working in the game industry, there was one game that took a hold of me and would never let go, even 10 years later. This game had me enchanted, bewildered and under a long dark spell that resulted in endless nights of amazement and carpal tunnel.

The game was a masterpiece. This was Diablo.

From the dark gothic undertones and fables of a strange enchanted world overcome by a menacing evil, to the beautiful soundtrack provided by the talented Matt Uelmen, the game was a masterpiece. I was lucky enough to have been accepted into the very limited beta program for this game. I was stunned at the quality of the game for its time, the online coop modes and the depth of simple gameplay it had offered, was nothing short of fantastic.

This was the first game I ever worked on and I was hooked.

I then landed the arduous task of working officially on the add on pack, Hellfire for Diablo 1. Unfortunately I was not a fan of this add on. It was not an officially sanctioned add on from Blizzard Entertainment. It was simply a hack job that Sierra had put together using existing assets from Blizzard. This was done through the sister partnership that Sierra had with Blizzard as they were both owned by Davidson and Associates, which was later bought out by CUC International.

The add on really took away from the story and changed the feel of the game, I was not a fan of this. I still have my copy sitting on my shelf where it will remain though I hear it's pretty hard to come by these days.

A few years later I was salivating for more and Diablo 2 was unleashed onto the world. This meant I was again slapping my arm to find a vein to inject liquid hot Diablo into my body for years to come. Girlfriends and jobs came and went, but Diablo 2 remained. My addiction had worsened when the Lord of Destruction add on came out for Diablo 2.

However, after my long Diablo 2 career was over I was left wanting more. Where is 3? There were no hints, no suggestions by Blizzard that Diablo 3 was even a possibility. This went on for 8 long years. Yes, 8. I worked on the original over 10 years ago, in fact I still have my original copy from then, including the beta.

After one of the heads of Blizzard, Bill Roper, departed Blizzard it seemed that Diablo 3 was going to be a long wait...and this worsened when the original team, Blizzard North was essentially disintegrated. It seemed that Diablo 3 would never happen.

Until...

Two weeks ago, Blizzard started displaying teaser images on their homepage. It was an evolving image that would change every 24 hours to reveal something else within the image. There was a great deal of speculation in regards to what the reveal was going to be. Websites sprang up all over the place, dedicated to unraveling yet another Blizzard mystery.

On July 28th in Paris, France during the World Wide Invitational held by Blizzard, the final image was revealed, and it showed us that Diablo 3 is indeed coming.

Diablo 3 has apparently been in development since 2004. In fact the game has gone under 3 strong revisions to get it right, which is something Blizzard is notoriously known for.

Now I wouldn't normally make such a long and involved post about a video game. However Diablo holds a very special place in my heart. It was the first game I ever worked on. It was the game that made me want to work in the industry, it was my inspiration of things to come.

And now, I get to endure endless, sleepless nights and carpal tunnel for the 3rd time.

say what?

Commenting is now fixed. Originally it was setup so that only people with Google accounts could log in and comment. This block has been removed so now anyone can comment. Just click the "comments" link at the bottom of any post, type whatever you want and submit.

Voila!

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Well I was finally able to get my brother an interview at the big company I happen to work at. Actually it wasn't all that difficult considering I know he has the skills and the aptitude for the position.

In fact it was rather quick. I had already helped him out with his resume to add some polish and organize it a bit. I had a couple of friends that I forwarded his resume to that happen to work for headhunting services helping to supply jobs for people in this industry. It had been a week and I was growing impatient. Yesterday I sent his resume to another rep and within 5 minutes he got a phone call and an interview scheduled for the next day.

Well so far so good. He showed up early to the interview and from what I gathered from him, it seems he did a pretty damn good job. I really really want this for him too. Granted he's going to have to start from the ground up just a tad, we all did. But the truth is time is getting shorter for him, he's at a point where he should be thinking about a career and his future...as a lot of us know...know one is going to do it for us. Well at least, not all of us are fortunate enough to have that novelty.

We met up for a smoke outside and chatted, showed him my office and such and he seems really excited. In fact I am really excited for him. I really believe in him and I know that if he does this and excels he can do a lot of good for himself and be a happier person for it.

He's a smart guy and he goes for what he wants. I admire his unnerved, and even somewhat cocky approach to life. I once used to have this myself to some degree. I think being shot from the heavens so many times helps develop a healthy fear of flying...and well yeah this is something I need to personally work on.

I want to see him revel in his success in whatever capacity that may be. But I want to see him be proud of himself, see his self worth grow and mature. I think honestly this will be something that will bring us closer together which I believe is long over due.

I try to stay close to my brothers, but I have my own reasons that I have initiated my own personal transgressions with portions of my family. It's a long history and one I will hint at, but does not belong in this post.

He has a great deal of potential I just wish he saw this also. I know it's difficult and people say the same thing about me, and well it's hard for me to see it also. I think that just comes down to us being our own worst critics and it's hard to really see beyond that. I just try to focus on my accomplishments for which most I had acquired on my own the hard way. And with that I wave in complete admiration and appreciation to the giants in the distance on which shoulders I stood to reach my own success.

Now it's my turn to be a giant, and let my brother ride high on my shoulders so he can get a clear view of his own future in the distance.

You've made me proud man, you really have.

Update: yep even more...

So soon I am going to setup a simple alias for my friends and family within this blog. Basically it will be a simple email address, and as long as your phone can send txt and sms messages you can use it.

Basically as part of a personal project I am putting together, it will allow you to share your own pictures with me and everyone else. This pictures will be made public so lets keep them PG rated (or R rated is fine too) and make you it is something you want to send before hitting "send".

I will supply directions for setting this up, it's super easy. Just remember that your standard data plan for txt'ing and charges apply.