(RED)

During my time at Microsoft I was involved in the planning for the just-announced Dell and Windows participation in (Product) Red.

It was pretty exciting to be involved and I really hope it goes well for everyone involved. The companies worked hard to make this whole thing come together and the products are all very good. Plus, you're not paying any more for them than you normally would, so that's cool.

The (RED) program is actually pretty damn cool and run by people who are really interested in changing the world for the better. And I know the people I worked with at MS and Dell feel the same way.

Still Searching

I've had a couple of preliminary phone interviews this week. One that I'm particularly excited about and interested in is a Game Design position at a computer gaming company. I had that call this morning and I had to explain that yes, I had a lot of experience as a Game Designer, it's just that none of it is from the computer gaming industry. I could tell from the, "Oh" she replied with that I'd been written off.

And this was for a position that they wanted only 6 months of computer gaming experience for. 6 months! That's nothing! And all of my design, development, and management experience over the last ten years apparently counts for nothing. It's so frustrating. I don't know what I have to do to convince someone that I am perfectly capable of what they're looking for.

I explained the situation and she said she'd include in the pile of resumes that she passed on to the hiring manager, but she didn't seem thrilled about it.

So frustrating.

Finished

They sat there unfinished for a month or so, but I've finally finished the art notes I needed to do for my recent writing project. It's nice to have that done finally.

Battue Makes a Top 10 List of 2007

The guys over at Dice Tower wrote up a review of Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords and listed it as one of their top games of '07.

They also posted the review to RPG.net, if you prefer.

Hooray for us!

Health

I went to the doctor a while ago and although I didn't really like the him (my regular was busy) he repeated what I'd heard in the past: That my triglycerides are elevated and that means I may develop diabetes if I'm not careful.

I'm not thrilled about that, to say the least.

What really sucks is that I'm having weird headaches and frequently not feeling well and I don't think it's some errant bug. Instead, I think it's early warning signs that diabetes may be settling in and that worries me. I have no interest in developing it. In fact, it was one of the reasons I started on my whole quest to lose weight and get into shape.

In the last year or two I haven't been working out much because I don't have a gym membership and it looks like it's finally starting affect me.

I really am concerned about it so I'm going to start a walking/get in shape regimen to try and head it off. I'm going to have to do it on the cheap since I can't afford the gym, so I'll have to get creative.

To that end, I found a really good article on how to get the most out of your workouts at Health.com. Check it out if you're already working out or even thinking of starting. They're mostly tips I haven't heard before, which is nice.

And wish me luck on the whole diabetes front.

Comics Geekery

I love, love, love Alan Davis' art and storytelling, so I was really pleased to see that ClanDestine is returning to comics soon.

Get a primer at Newsarama.

4th Edition

I forgot to mention that I'm in a D&D 4th Edition game. One of the Sunday crew works at Wizards and he managed to get us into the playtest. I'm under NDA so I can't say much, but they definitely made some significant changes to things.

We've only played one session, but so far it's been a lot of fun learning the new rules (at least in how they apply to Morwen, my half-elf Warlock) and seeing how everything works.

Catching Up

I brought my computer to lunch with me so I could do a quick update.

Julia had lunch with her mom last week on Friday and the idea of moving into a new (as in "newly built") home came up. She did some checking around and we looked at two model homes last weekend and they looked great. Over the last week we've talked about the move a couple of times and there are potential problems, but it looks like the upside is worth the risk. And my girl is pretty condifent that we can do it, so I'm on board.

Also on the housing front; after many (eight) attempts to show people the condo, we finally have someone actually show up last week Sunday. She really liked it and called us the next day to take it. We met here later in the week and she signed the lease, then moved in on Friday. Speedy! That was great because we were worried we'd miss a full month's rent, but we only missed out on only a week-and-a-half.

Other than that I've been working and looking for work because my contract is up at the end of the month. That's not so fun to think about, but I hope to find something good soon. Let me know if you have any leads.

My Thoughts . . .

. . . on food poisoning:

It sucks.

I'm mostly over it now, but damn, Sunday and Monday weren't much fun. I'm still a little tired and headachey, but otherwise okay.

It's very strange to me how something like food poisoning can stick around in your system for a couple of days. I don't know why, but it seems like once the major symptoms clear up that it should be completely gone, but that's not quite the case.

Anyway, that was mostly if you cared to hear what's been going on.

Hmmm

I knew this low-cost car looked similar to something I'd seen before.

Thank The Onion's prescient writers!

I'll posts something meaningful soon. Fret not.

Old Friends

Out of the blue I was contacted by an old friend from Madison. He decided to do some random Googling and found me via my blog (at least I'm pretty sure that's how he found me). It's been nice to catch up with him since I don't think I've had a conversation with him in, wow, like 15 years. It's gotta be something like that.

He was a gaming buddy in college, but he joined the military and moved away shortly before I finished with school and we sort of lost touch. No Internet in those days. And when I say he was a gaming buddy in college, you have to understand what my college gaming days were like.

Thursday we played at Union South from 6:oopm until 11:00pm.

Friday we played at Memorial Union from 6:00pm until midnight (sometimes later if the game ran over and we had a place to take it. I remember one game that didn't end until 7:00am, but that was mostly because we were all very distracted, tired, and goofy.)

Saturday we played at Memorial Union from noon until midnight.

We mostly played Champions, but we threw in pretty much anything else you could think of: Cyberpunk, D&D, Star Wars, DC Heroes, Ars Magica, Torg, Marvel, GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, Rolemaster, our own homebrews, and many more.

There were a core group of us that played together and the guy that contacted me was one of them until he left.

Anyway, a nice bonus to hearing from him is that he's put me in touch with another old friend from those days. So now I'm happily back in touch with them and really enjoying it.

They both play City of Heroes, too, so I may have to hop on again and play with them. I wish I could find more time.

Painted

Julia and I picked up some paint and supplies on Wednesday night, then went to her condo Thursday night to paint the bedroom. The color we'd chosen was a couple shades darker than the old wall color, but it looks great on the walls.

The previous renters are out now, so it was easy to tape the room and paint it in a night. I did the taping, then Julia painted around what I'd taped, then we both grabbed rollers and went to town. The big areas fell before us, then it was time to start on the ceiling. It was tricky, but we managed to get it done with only a little bit of unhappiness on our part. Even so, we're going to go back and try to touch up the border as much as possible.

The bedroom is now a nice, rich brown -- almost like a light-colored coacoa -- which makes the mouldings, doors, and the closet really stand out and look extra clean (because they're white).

The condo was supposed to have its carpets steam-cleaned today, but the cleaner had the flu and had to cancel. He rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.

The place it really going to look great and hopefully we'll have it rented again soon.

2007 Year in Review

The past year was a mix of good and bad. My work life sucked worse than ever, but my life outside of work has been great.

Regarding work, I feel like all the decisions I've made have been the wrong ones; which is more than a little frustrating. You've probably picked up on my frustration in some of my posts here. You know, maybe.

Thankfully, Julia, the house, my friends, hell, even gaming, has been really satisfying, so that's made it a lot easier to handle the crappy parts.

Anyway, I don't really feel like writing any more about all of that right now. Instead, I'd like to run down my yearly recap of the books that I've read. Yeah, that's sort of a weird change of subject, but that's what I feel like doing.

So, here's the list from oldest to most recently read:

The Amber Spyglass, Book 3 of His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Gardens of the Moon by Stephen Erikson

Flashman by George MacDonald Fraser

Shadowrun: Drops of Corruption by Jason M. Hardy

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

I'm currently reading:

Silverlock by John Myers Myers

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin

So, fewer than last year, but it took me forever to make it through The Amber Spyglass. I mean like, six months. I just couldn't get it done.

I never include all of the comics, graphic novels, or gaming books on this list.