Sunday, June 28, 2009

step one

I'm completely tired of Facebook. At first, it was just MySpace with a better code base that didn't take a million years to load each page. Not to mention it had that really smart feature whereby it asked you when you confirmed a new friend how you knew them. If you said "I don't know them" it then asked you "then why are confirming them?" or something. This simple question stopped me from friending a bunch people I didn't know.

Unfortunately, as the popularity of Facebook grew, more and more people that I didn't know - and perhaps more annoyingly - more and more people I do know started asking for friend requests. Eventually it just seemed to become one massive, unending High School reunion. I went to one reunion. I don't need an eternal one.

Anyway, I've had it with Facebook. So, Monday I'm going to dig into my friend list and start purging. If I don't know you, you're gone. If I don't feel like keeping in touch with you, adiĆ³s. If I get I down to where the only people are people I want to keep up with and I still get annoyed with Facebook, then I'll just delete my account.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

inconsistency at its finest

I've been terrible at maintaining this thing, and by thing I mean blog, and by blog I mean weblog, and by "I mean weblog" I mean you knew that already. Mainly, though, it's because of one massive reason or the next. There was a time a number of years ago where I had plenty of time for blogging. I also happened to have a fair amount of time for Minesweeper and for learning how to play Spider Solitaire.

Nowadays I barely have time for lunch. Those old days of Minesweeper seem like a laughable distant other life. I've been working a lot lately. WAY too much lately, to be honest - and that's saying something for me. Sitting here two days out from the end of the fifth game I've completed this year already (five games in 6 months is crazy), I'm really starting to feel some fatigue from it. Monday I start two new games. I need to find a way to pace myself amidst the crazy ... pace (ahem) ... of my job.

One of the things that Amanda and I have been doing is setting up a new habit where I come home every Tuesday at 6:30. We've done this two weeks in a row now and I have to say that I love it. I get to leave work while the sun is still up and I get to reliably know that we'll have some quality time together.

I haven't even had time to write about how I finally got rid of my faithful old Camero, The Green Wind. It died two years ago, and like all good Cameros, it then sat dead in my driveway rotting from the outside in. It was retired gracefully and donated to a breast cancer charity for scrap.

I gotta wrap this up and go home. So ... ::BAMF::

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

i know lots of words

And I use them in this interview with Mixnmojo.com all about the updated soundtrack to The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

Just in case anyone is interested ...

Thursday, June 04, 2009

you can't please everybody

And sometimes you can't please anybody.

For years, LucasArts has been the target of fanrage that came from the cancelling of Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a sequel to the 1990s adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road. Loyal adventure game fans felt that the company had turned its back on them in favor of making a quick buck on Star Wars games.

Anytime we put out a new game, there was a very vocal minority of people who would complain on our forums and across the net saying things like "Who cares about Star Wars!!?! Make more Monkey Island games!!"

Well, fast forward to Monday of this week. LucasArts announces the impending release of The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Telltale Games' Tales of Monkey Island. While the adventure game fans of LucasArts all seem genuinely happy with the announcement, there's now messages like this on our forums:

"I HATE U LUCASARTS Save Star Wars: Battlefront 3 NOT Monkey Island

UGGG THEY NEED TO RELEASE BATTLEFRONT 3 NO1 GIVES A SH1T ABOUT Monkey Island"

So there you go. Make Star Wars: Battlefront? Get yelled at for not making Monkey Island. Make Monkey Island? Get yelled at for not making Battlefront.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

a calipigeous rose by any other name ...

[Thank you Word Power Made Easy and Ms. Von Rembo's 8th grade English class for the blog title today.]

I have a friend that I worked with who told me recently about how he and his wife combined their names when they got married. Not in the most common form by hyphenating, mind you. No, they took part of his last name, glued it onto the first half of her last name, and created a new last name for themselves.

Amanda and I had briefly talked about doing that when we got married. Unfortunately, none of the combinations we came up with sounded very good.

- Yarlin
- Haste
- Haraste
- Yaslin

You get the picture.

Anyway, the other night we were lying in bed talking about it and we realized that we'd forgotten to try taking all of the letters of our names and rearranging them together into a completely new name. Unlike Yarlin, this new approach yielded some pretty spectacular results.

While we missed the boat on being Mr. and Mrs. Hyenas-Trail, Earthysnail, or Ashy-Ratline, I think we definitely should have considered Mr. and Mrs. Nearly-Has-It.

And by far and way, my favorite that I'm still considering, is Mr. and Mrs. Alstarhiney.

Jesse Alstarhiney. It has a certain ring to it. I might need new business cards ...

Monday, June 01, 2009

Monkey Island: Special Edition

FINALLY!

After months of working on it in secret, I can finally talk about what I've been doing at work lately.

Today, LucasArts officially announces The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition!

I'm so happy I can finally say its name out loud after such a long secret wait. It feels like the "secret" of Monkey Island has really just been that it existed again after so long. Can't wait to see how the world responds.