I have a lot of ground to cover. After my post late on Sunday night I haven't had much of a break.

I think I went to the gym on Monday night, but I forget. I may have worked. Oh, I did, that's right. We had another focus group for the new game I'm working on. We wanted to see how kids liked it. The test went well and we got a very good sense of the game's appeal. I think it'll be a big hit with the 6 to 11 year-old crowd. I had a good talk with my boss on the way over about how things were going at work and suggested we move some of us designers around to take better advantage of the levels of experience we all have. Apparently he took me seriously, because he had a talk with the owner that night and told me on the way home that we were going to make the changes I suggested.

That caused quite a stir in the department on Tuesday, but I think it will be for the best. What this means for me is that now I have to learn our most complex and deep game, because the designer of that has been moved to a new, super-secret project. I have lots of reading to do.

Tuesday I left work early with everyone else from the department to go to the Mariners vs. the Oakland A's. It was a very good time. The stadium is beautiful. Even when you're walking around under the upper decks it feels very open and you can always see clear across the field. The place also has some of the best food I've ever seen at a ballpark, including Dippin' Dots. I love that stuff. Oh, and they have garlic fries that are amazing, too. Besides the food, we all had a good time, although a couple of the people had to leave early for one reason or another. One of the guys took a number of pictures, as soon as I can I'll get a shot of the group of us posted here. It's pretty funny. Anyway, the Mariners won.

I gotta say, I'm not a big sports fan, but I have a good time with the people I work with, so it was a good night out. Nice to have a break in the routine.

After the game I came back to work with one of the other designers to finish up the formulas on a new game before he took off the next day for GenCon Europe. We finally wrapped up at about 1:30 and I went to bed. I think he stayed for a while longer to wrap up some things.

Wednesday was more work. There seems to be no shortage of that for some reason. The evening was spent playing a game at a friend's. Again, it was nice to have a break, but it meant I missed the gym again.

Thursday (today) we had a passel of kids in the office because it's spring break for the schools around here. It was pretty crazy, but it went well and everyone seemed to deal with it with a smile. I forgot to mention this earlier, but a while ago we hired a marketing guy who's apparently a big yo-yo guy. He worked for Duncan and he even invented the "clutch" yo-yo (that's the one that only comes back up the string when it slows to a certain point). Pretty cool. Besides the kids, I spent a little time turning some of my files and notes over to the guy taking over my lines and the rest of the day working on dials for my new game. Those are going much more slowly than I would have thought. Bummer. I think I'll get them done tomorrow, though.

Tonight worked some more on a movie idea that one of the guys at work came up with. We've had a blast coming up with ideas for it and we may sit down and try to write it up. It's too fun and is way too fertile an idea for us not to do something with. Plus, with the movie contacts we have from work we may actually be able to do something with it. Yeah, I know; dream on.

Now I'm taking a break from work to write here. Then it's bed time -- though I may read a bit first. Oh, and I picked up some DVDs tonight. I can't tell you how long it's been since I actually purchased a new DVD. I think it was before Christmas. Anyway, tonight I picked up both Dark City and Spirited Away. I'm pretty excited to check them out.

That's all! See you soon.