xanadin

Been a while since I've said anything on here. Guess I've just been busy. Hell, between work, playing guitar, and playing all of the new video games that are coming out lately I haven't had much time at all. I guess that's good though - keeping busy is always good.

So tomorrow is my last day at my current contract position... because I got a blue badge (full time) position at M$!!!! Couple people from my old team switched positions so now they had a head open and I snatched it right up. I wasn't sure if I was going to take this position, but when they came back to me with the offer (nearly $90k/year + amazing benefits) I just couldn't pass it up. I'm not sure how long I will stay at this position though. I mean it's a great opportunity and all, but I really want to get back into real development, not dev support. Writing code for my current job makes me realize just how much a software engineer I really am. I just wish college courses would have been this fun (I might have stuck with the CS degree then :P).

I ended up going to a formal dinner with one of my friends. It was her company christmas party (I know, a bit early in the year, but whatever). Apparently I met one of her friends there and she was into me. Honestly I didn't really remember her at all (I think I was on my 6th martini by the time I met her heh). However, my friend Missy (the one I went to the dinner with) told me and so I finally went on a real date for the first time in *gasp* going on five years. I think it's going well - we're hanging out again tomorrow night and Thursday night. Jenny, her name, is a really amazing woman, and I hope I don't end up fucking shit up with her. I've always been so bad at gauging how fast to take things, so I'm just gonna go with the flow and if I'm not going fast enough for her, hopefully she'll take some initiative.

Anyways, this is turning out to be a great year. Perhaps the best year of my life. I might have a skewed opinion considering what last year was like, but oh well, I'm going to enjoy it while it's good.

Bed calls... zzzz..zz.zzzz...z...z....

I'm sad. It has been a while since I've had that much fun, and it dishearting for it to come to and end.

But there will be next year!

I had a blast though. Right now I'm too tired to comment on everything, so I'm going to take a break (work doesn't start until Wednesday - yay!).

I'll post about it later.

Oh yeah, I need a fucking camera.

Wow. Just fucking amazing.

So I'm standing in line for the keynote speech (from Wil Wheaton) and I start chatting it up with the woman from IGN. To make a long story short, she invited me out to dinner with her friends, which just happen to be the lead game designer for LOTRO and DDO and the producer for The Matrix Online. I was in fucking heaven. Industry pros sitting there talking about the game industry and listening to my ideas. It was... surreal.

Wil Wheaton's speech was incredible. If you get a chance to see the recorded podcast, do (his openning line was "Jack Thompson can suck my balls!"). Then Jerry (Tycho) and Mike (Gabe) had a long Q&A which was insane as well. PAX is really a con for gamers, by gamers. I just cannot describe how I feel right now (on cloud nine comes close I guess). I'm also too drunk to continue posting, so I will let you know how day two goes tomorrow.

I must have looked at this page a have a dozen times in the past couple of months. I'm always scared of what I'm going to write. I mean I can do all of the self-reflection in my mind, but when I write it down it somehow has a realness to it that I just can't forget about.

And here I sit again, clamming up, afraid to write what is real. GOD! What am I so afraid of? This is just a stupid journal.

So I lost my job recently. upper management decided that the new India team has picked up enough slack, and they do not need me anymore. Well that's bullshit! They need me... stupid fucking management bullshit. I feel so bad for my team, because they have to pick up a set of technologies that really no one else knows a goddamn thing about. Oh well, at least I get a good reference from them all.

That was last Tuesday, so of course I was freaking out. My rent is fucking nutz, and Mark can't cover it all and still afford food, bills, etc. But apparent Microsoft experience looks _really_ good on your resume, especially to Microsoft. So I have a job lined up already - I start Monday. It's another MS contract position (a dev position), but hey, it pays well (omg $38.23/hr). There was some hassle getting it though. This contract is through a different agency, and my old contract sez I'm not supposed to take contracts with competing agencies for 6 months. Luckily the new company is a lot bigger than the old company, so the old company is going to complain, which will fall on deaf ears. Really though, I don't give a shit, as long as I get a pay check.

What's important though? I've been awfully lonely lately. I've been feeling mildly lonely for a while now, but last week when an college friend came in for a visit, it hit me really hard - I had (have?) a crush on her. I just... want someone to tell me it will be alright, you know? Someone that isn't legally supposed to say it too.

This is where I clam up again. So many thoughts racing through my mind. Perhaps I will talk about it later... for now I think I've dumped enough.

www.blizzard.com

'nuff said.

OMG!

I hate political bullshit. One of the product teams for a technology I support is refusing to give adequate documentation and samples for the technology making my job harder than it should be. So I had to engage my manager and it is just a bunch of hoopla that I don't want to deal with. But such is office life, no?

Been a while since I've written anything here. Just been busy I guess. Overall, I would say that I'm VERY happy right now. I just bought a Taylor Big Baby acoustic guitar. It sounds amazing, and I can't put it down. I'm amazed at how buying a good guitar will make it easier for you to learn how to play it (good action makes a world of difference). So right now I'm on a kick of rehashing everything I've ever learned to play before and picking up some more acoustic songs. I'm trying to also buckle down and learn the theory behind guitar too: learning all of the string open notes, learning what exactly chords are and how they are formed, fingering exercises (playing scales), picking exercises (omg I hate learning to pick correctly), and just in general learning proper technique.

One of my friends here just bought an Ibanez electric, so we're trying to jam out together. Unfortunately he is not at my level of skill, so I'm trying to reinforce what I'm learning about technique by giving him some pointers about how he can improve his playing. He is taking most of what I say with a grain of salt, and I don't blame him; but I think we had a very productive night tonight - I started teaching him how to play Blackbird. It's a fairly easy song to play, but it can be quite challenging for beginners. All I know is that when I learned to play it right, I was giddy for months and it really helped boost my confidence. So I'm hoping he will pick it up quickly and we can move onto learning more difficult things. Perhaps we can pick up a drummer and a bassist and start a band! :)

Other than being glued to my guitar, not much is new. I think it is time for bed anyways.....zzzzzz..zzzz.z.z..zzz..zzz.... ... .. .

It's 1:33am, 4/21/07.

I am fucking baked off my ass, and drunk to boot.

So, yeah.... successful party. Kind of.

There was this one bitch (really pretty young girl), that every one seems to follow around. Well apparently she just broke up with her boyfriend, and was finding solace on one of the cocks of another guy that came to party. So she was feeling pretty bad (even though she hated the prick she was dating), and decided that she was going to the bar instead. So this guy and all of his friends and her friends left (which was like half of the people here).

I'm not really that pissed, but that's fucked up. You don't come to someone else's party, and kill it just because your fucking emotionally psycho atm. I mean it would have been one then if she would have been like, "Yeah, I'm taking off, I'll see you guys tomorrow." But no, she was like, "Yeah, I'm going to the our favorite bar, everyone come with me." So rude. I guess that's what life is like when you're always the center of attention though. FUCKING CUNT!

No, not mad at all.

But at least everyone that stayed had an awesome time.

Good times! ^_^

So I'm throwing a 420 party tomorrow. It wasn't supposed to be a 420 party, just a party celebrating the fact that I have furniture now and that people can come over without sitting on the floor.

But someone was like, dude, that's going to be on 4/20. And now everyone that's coming is expecting to get fucking hammered (drunk/stoned/hopefully-nothing-else). I wish I had somewhere for them all to sleep (at least comfortably), but I guess that will be their problem. Although, if they're cute enough, they can sleep with me. ^_^

Oh yeah, I have furniture now. I got a nice futon couch/bed and a really nice comfy chair from Goodwill for like $100. I also picked up a dining room table with 4 chairs for $40 from craigslist.com. I know it all sounds kind of shady, but all of it is really nice (now if it only matched :P).

So tomorrow night there will be booze, bud, darts, twister (mmm, drunk hotties playing twister), music... and hopefully fun.

I bought a baseball glove today. It's a cheap one, but it's not bad.

I think I'm going to use baseball to try and get back into shape. There is a seniors league around here that I want to try and get into next year. It seems that seniors refers to anyone 21+ that isn't in the majors - so I guess I'm a senior... wondering if I can get a discount card or something heh...

I really like pitching, so I think I'm going to train for the that most. I mean I'm not going to be heavy duty into training or anything, but there are certain things about pitching that need to be focused on versus other positions. Of course there is arm training - not with heavy weights either. But more of pitching comes from the legs and hips than just the arm. A good pitcher knows how to get velocity out of the twisting of the hips to reduce the strain on the shoulder.

So anyways, I read up on it and the key things to do are sprints (to train stamina), multidirectional lunges (for lower body strength and flexibility), and multidirectional shoulder exercises (need to train all the muscles in the shoulder to prevent dislocation). And of course other regular exercises - it is recommended to do a lot of medicine ball stuff, and keep all weight training on the light end.

So I need to find someone to train with. I know I won't be able to do all of this alone, especially the actual baseball training - its hard to play catch alone. So time to petition my friends and co-workers!

I've put it off long enough: I'm writing a book.

It is going to cover my developing philosophical theories on video games. In particular, I want to discuss a pluralistic theory of video game analysis. So far I have about 75 papers and 20 books to read as background research for Ludology (academic video game studies). That doesn't count the philosophical resource I am going to need. But it is something that I am very passionate about and very excited to do. I am not, however, going to look forward to spending lots of cash printing up papers at the local Kinkos. I would the printer at the office, but I think printing off a few thousand pages might get someone's attention, and I don't mean in a good way.

I started the outline this afternoon. Here is what I have so far...

Section I – Philosophical Grounding

To gain anything from a discussion, the parties involved must be speaking the same language. For the most part, Ludology does not have a very philosophically diverse lexicon, so this book would not be easily approachable by non-philosophically trained Ludologists. As is the case with many books on theory, it is important that the author ground the audience in the fundamental frameworks that they are using, and this book will be no different in that respect.

The first three chapters introduce some key philosophical concepts that will provide the reader with enough background knowledge to, hopefully, feel comfortable with the discussions in the rest of the book. The first chapter briefly goes over metaphysics (questions of what is there?), epistemology (theories of knowledge, meaning, and understanding), and logic. The second chapter provides some background on questions of value – specifically ethics and aesthetics. The third chapter ties the short introduction of philosophy together and discusses the primary philosophical framework in which I will be working: pluralistic pragmatism. The purpose of these chapters is not to make a philosopher out of the reader, but, rather, to give the reader a guide in understanding the complex philosophical theories discussed later on in the book.

Chapter I: Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Logic
Chapter II: Questions of Value: Ethics and Aesthetics
Chapter III: Pluralistic Pragmatism

Section II – Unequivocating 'Video Game' (Metaphysical and Epistemological theories)

What is a video game? That is essentially the problem that people have when trying to analyze them academically. Culturally and popularly, the term video game defines many different things. Certainly we can take the phrase literally: a game that has as its primary visual interface a video element. So what is video? And what is a game? This is definitely going down a long path of précising definitions and metaphysical assertions that may or may not be valid. The underlying problem it seems, then, is the equivocation of the words video and game as well as the phrase video game.

I would like to take the second section of this book to look at this equivocation and explore the problems that arise from it. The fourth chapter discusses the etymology of the phrase as well as how a lack of serious philosophical discussion has splintered the dialogue of video game analysis. The fifth chapter examines the various ways of disambiguating the phrase, providing an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of each. In the sixth chapter, and final of this section, I elaborate on my idea of a pluralistic view of video games and the meaning behind the phrase.

Chapter IV: The Equivocation of 'Video Game'
Chapter V: The Pitfalls of Disambiguating 'Video Game'
Chapter VI: A Pluralistic Approach to Understanding Video Games

Feeling better today. I decided that I couldn't spend another moment in my apartment, so I went and saw Reign Over Me. I think Sandler might get at the least a nomination for an oscar. Needless to say, it was damn good, and I'm looking forward to a possible extended DVD version.

As I sit here thinking about what else to write about, I can hear the people living across from me watching a bond movie. It is mildly comforting in a way. I guess it reminds me that there is life going on around me.

Something occured to me on the drive home from the movie: I never really showed all of the people that I've been interested in since Cas and I seperated that I was interested. I guess in my head I just assumed that they must have known that I liked them, even though my demeanor is probably as cold as it gets - hind sight, blah blah blah...

I think I need a drink...

Apparently whatever my friend had was very contagious, as like myself and 5 of her other friends are sick now. I got an hour in the office yesterday, and two hours today... so if I work 10 hours tomorrow, my paycheck will only be $300 smaller (*gag*).

I really can't afford this getting sick shit. But my spinning head is in no condition to try and solve complicated coding problems either. Such are the pitfalls of being human *sigh*

In other news, with my dad laid off and not looking like he'll be getting called back soon, and my mom's job is in jeapordy, I figure I will soon be returning their blessed favors by paying their mortgage until they get financially stable again. Oh, in case you're wondering, thats about $1200 month. My rent is $1230 a month. And if I clear 160 hours in a month, thats about $3200 a month. So that would leave me $800 to pay my bills, buy groceries, put gas in my car, and entertain myself with. Glad I quit smoking...

While there is a hint of irritation there, I am happy to do it though. They have supported me for so long that it is the least I could do. I just hope it wouldn't last more than a couple of months.

Anyways, time to suck on meds and get better.

I think I'm through the worst of it now.

I still crave cigs, but it is more psychological now than physiological.

I just dropped $650 on new rotors and brakes for my car. Need to pay $500 to my parents.... so, broke again (life is beautiful).

Oh, and I walked to work today. In the cold ass rain. It was stupid, and I think I'm getting sick now, as well as having sore shin muscles.

HAHAHAHA!

Smoking without smoking!

Life...

is...

GUD!

OMFG!

DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I decided not to get a new pack of cigarettes this morning.

We'll see how this goes.

Got paid yesterday.

Paid rent today.

Have nothing yet again...

Two more weeks... two... more... weeks...

Although, I did have enough to buy some necessities: all purpose surface cleaner, glass cleaner, disk rack, disk soap, silverware rack, and computer chair.

Oh, and I got my bed, 40 cooking set, kitchen towel set, and bath towel set in the mail today. Me is happy :) (OMG BED!!!!!!111!one1!)

So with my new found cleaning supplies, I proceeded to give my kitchen a good scrub down, including washing the new dishes (sigh, dishes to clean now). The counters disturbed me though. I assume they used some sort of heavy cleaner before I moved in, and decided that rinsing was optional. They felt all greasy and sticky. I had to wash them twice to get all the shit off of them. I'll make sure to return the favor when I move out (note to self: get extra concentrated pine sol for move out cleaning).

The bed is nice, fuq'n huge (one of those extra tall air beds), and it inflates it self (god knows I'd probably sleep on the floor before trying to blow that thing up). And the computer chair, which I am sitting on now, is loverly.

Felt good to be cleaning my own place. Although, I am kind of pissy now, cause my hands smell like bleach :(

Think it's time for a shower though - got my hair cut today and my back and neck are itching like mad.....

I'm about to sleep on a couch at work.

How pathetic am I?

*wishes for cash to buy a fucking bed*

Yay for $0 pay checks.

Fucking staffing company can blow me. Going to have to ask for ANOTHER advance.

Apparently an advance to be paid in full on the next pay check. Thanks for fucking telling me this, assholes.

Only going to get $100 this time, otherwise I won't get enough to cover rent next time.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!