| When last we left our heroine, she was drowning in paperwork.
Remember the 3.5 hours spent on paperwork for 10 pieces of paper?
Today I produced 27 pieces of paper for the same binder in 15 minutes flat.
I've learned to deal.
Hopefully not to the detriment of sooo many young minds. . .
Who am I kidding?
I'm the dance and drama teacher! | comments: Leave a comment   |
| Most of the time, when I get mail from the former residents of my apartment, I just toss it in the shredder. But occasionally I get something that gives off the "important" vibe (something from the IRS, packages, etc) in which case I turn to the internet.
There's something fun about tracking down a stranger on the internet at finding a means of contacting them, be it email or myspace message. Every time this has happened, the person has been very grateful of my snooping so that they can be reunited with their important documents.
Last week I had my first incident since moving to LA - a suspiciously important looking letter turned out to be a check for $130 for one of my unit's former residents. Lucky for me, she had a unique name, so google turned her up pretty quickly (though I did have to make a Plaxo account to get her email address). Anyway, it turned out she still lived in the complex, but in a different unit, and was EXTREMELY grateful that I'd tracked her down. I went over the next day and taped her letter to her door.
Today when I got home, she'd taped a little thank you note to my door, thanking me again and saying I could call on her if I ever needed anything. So nice! Physical thank-you notes are the best thing ever.
Anyway, it just goes to show that having all of your personal information floating out on the internet available to anyone with decent google-fu can lead to good, afterall. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| W
I thought I'd toss up some pictures that were taken recently in my sanity-restoring breaks from work and projects. If you've been on Facebook you've probably seen some of these, but I like having them on LJ too.
Stacey snagged this hat from the the Broadway show where she's asst. head of wardrobe, and I snagged it from her! Shnazzy!
This one is also awesome.
This was our last trip out of the studio -- we just moved to TriBeCa from Chelsea. We had quite a few empty boxes leftover, and luckily I found the most efficient (or photoworthy) method of taking them to the moving truck.
We might have imbibed some spirits after all the movin', and apparently it gave me superpowers on the E train. Not that I'm complaining.
And finally, a shot from the off-off-Broadway show I just opened, Lesser Seductions of History! I did the set design. I was pretty happy with how it came out, and it's definitely a bit different from anything I've designed before. So at the least, huzzah for pushing beyond prior personal experience! (Photography: Tyler Griffin)
Now to draft A Christmas Carol this week before flying down on Friday!
-Willlo | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I often have dreams about games I've made, and of course they're the awesomest ever in dreamland, because they follow dream logic. When I wake up and start reviewing my awesome new game idea, it is usually quickly apparent that, in real-world logic, they wouldn't work at all.
All the same, I try and write them down, because even if they are meant for the land of dreams I occasionally pick out some idea or mechanic or insight that could be useful later. In some cases (like tonight) I wake up immediately after the dream and can not get back to sleep until I write it down.
( tonight's dream game ) | | comments: Leave a comment |
| W
In tech for Lesser Seductions this week... I hope a crapton of blue circles was the appropriate approach. Looks like we'll find out! After that, it's on to figuring out what I'll do for Christmas Carol in Myrtle Beach.
Also, November is National Novel Writing Month. I want to do it, but (the BS excuse) I have no clue what I'd write about and (the legimate excuse) I know once I fly down to SC I won't have time really to work on it for the rest of the month. But check it out. Anyone who does it, I promise to read your novel. Any takers?
-Willlo | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| well, it's over, and what surprises me most in the cold daylight is how many different kinds of hurt there are: I hurt that he won't be in my life, of course, but I also hurt for him - knowing that this is causing him pain too, but more so, hurting for him and his inability to fix himself, his refusal to address the sources of his pain, knowing the kind of awful numbness that he feels. frustration with myself for accepting subpar treatment and then feeling as though I don't deserve anything better, for not making this cut first - but I thought I could lift him up, and I can't do it, at least not right now.
First went wrong is hard to find
We’re paralyzed, we apologize
Our hell is a good life
Last went wrong, where’s my prize under the lights
Can we call it in?
We’ll be on the road
Can we stop?
When we stop my back will turn your face toward the fence
What I thought it was it isn’t now
All this weight, is honest worse
We’re moderate, we modernize
till our hell is a good life
All we know what to forget… how to do right
Coloring in the black hole
Can’t we stop? when we stop
My hands will shake, my eyes will burn
My throat will ache, watching you turn
From me toward your friends
What I thought it was it isn’t now
What I thought it was it isn’t
Punishment to stall what is done
What I thought was in is missing out
What I thought it was it isn’t now
There’s a pattern in the system
There’s a bullet in the gun
That’s why I tried to save you
But it can’t be done
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| So, the controversial Modern Warfare 2 footage leaked out, and now all the world's in a hissy fit. Some are in a hissy fit because they are offended by the content, while some are having a hissy fit over the fact that anyone would be offended by the content. Most of these arguments I've read (from both ends of the spectrum) are from people who work in games. It's a lot of the same bickering over and over, which mostly induces eye rolling in me.
BUT. I think it's a shame, because people can't put aside their bickering for two seconds to look at an interesting phenomenon, which could be extremely useful to us as game developers!
The two ends of the comment spectrum are equally frustrating. On one end is the "how could anyone defend this, it's an abomination!" view. At the other end is the "how could you be offended by this when you play/make other shooters? You are a hypocrite!" The middle is peppered with milder, yet still annoying views, like the ever so common "IT'S A GAME."
When I watched the video, my response was "wow, that's pretty horrid! I hope there's a way to skip it, because I don't think I could play this and I wouldn't be able to complete the game!"
Enter the people who don't understand how I could feel that way when I play other shooters - the implied hypocrite stance. I don't understand this reaction! One shooter evoked an emotional response in me, one did not. You can't control the emotions that you feel, they just happen, you can only control your actions. The fact that one evoked an emotional response in me does not mean I'm a hypocrite, you guys.
ESPECIALLY since that seemed to be the whole intent behind the controversial sequence: to evoke a powerful emotional response. And they succeeded! They did their job, guys, it worked on me. They were TRYING to get me to have an intense emotional response where I may not when playing other shooters, that's why they treated it so artfully.
It just happened that the emotions evoked in me exceeded some threshold, into the repulsion territory, as in "wow, I can't endure that, abandon ship!" It's the same reason I can never watch Boys Don't Cry ever again.
Anyway, what's the thing that everyone's missing which I implied earlier? Well, if people could stop "how dare they"-ing Infinity Ward for including the sequence, and if people could stop saying "I wasn't offended but you were, therefore there's something wrong with you," we could get a good learning opportunity out of this.
You can't deny that this scenario is different than other shooters. People love to bark "how is this any different than x, y, z?" and I'm like, "well, HOW?" Explore the answer to your own question rather than using it as a way to say there's something wrong with that person who felt something. There might be something useful in the answer!
It evoked a strong emotional response, others did not, and I'm not the only case here. Shouldn't we, as game designers, be looking at WHY that happened? How mysterious! Why did this segment have such a different impact on this person? Was it the content? Was it the polish put into the ambiance? Was it the timeliness of the content? Was it some more complex arrangement of attributes that, standing alone, would not have been sufficient to evoke an emotional response? How are the people who had a response different than the ones who had none? Did it hit close to home for them on some level? Is there a correlation in demographic for the ones who did or didn't?
Aren't we always after tools and methods to create more emotional experiences in games?? We should be picking this thing apart and researching it, not arguing and accusing each other of being flawed because someone did or did not have an emotional response to it.
GEEZ, you guys. To hell with the lot of you! Hrmph.
Rant over! | | comments: Leave a comment |
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