·:[ Stuff and Nonsense ]:·
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CIMG0046

Originally uploaded by Russish.

Tonight we’re submitting Beta on my current project. At this point I’ve got everything in that needs to be in for the build, and am doing the oh-so-glorious “hurry up and wait” that I love so much. It basically entails sitting around, playing the game, and waiting to hear back from Test when they find a bug or problem that needs to be fixed.

At this point I’m really worn out (see the picture at the beginning of this entry), but we’re definitely in the home stretch and I’m really looking forward to next week (for various reasons). I’m excited to finish this project and get it on shelves (which actually isn’t going to happen until the end of the year, I think), and I’m excited to take some time off, rest up, and begin afresh on the next project.

I’ll likely be on a DS project, which is exciting and a welcome step. It’ll be a lot of learning (there’s a new scripting tool to learn, plus I’ll probably have to learn Maya to be able to white box levels), and I’m eager to take the lessons I’ve learned from this current project, which was my first project as a solo designer.

The last several projects before this one were taken over from other designers, either because they quit or moved on to something else and I was the natural choice to fill that role. It’s been different being on a project from the beginning to the end, with a new team, with all that entails. I learned a lot from this particular game, and I can’t wait to go and put it into action.

But first we gotta get this thing out. And it sounds like the new build is done, which means I’m back to testing…

(See the PhotoShopped version of the picture that my coworker sent around to our Spam e-mail list in my studio after the cut.)

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There’s a new reality show being created by Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg called On the Lot, which has amateur filmmakers doing a series of projects, with people getting cut each week in standard reality show format until the winner gets a development deal with Dreamworks. I have a few friends back home who have a film they’ve entered into the contest, and I’d love it if as many people as possible would be willing to watch their movie on the site and vote for it.

The film is called Plastic Fist, and it’s located here. You’ll need to create a login to vote. You can sign up here.

Thanks in advance!

(And I hope you enjoy the movie… I thought it was pretty darned funny, myself.)

Valentine

Originally uploaded by Russish.

I spent Valentine’s Day working. No big deal; there wasn’t anyone in the area TO spend it with, so why not? It actually turned out to be a fine day, with a not-unbearable amount of the usual “wish I was with that special someone”-ness.

So tonight, Friday night, we get dinner at work (as we’re working late yet again, the joys of being in the final stages of a project) and tonight we ordered from Chili’s. This is how the chicken I ordered came. I thought it was sweet, and it was good to get one Valentine this year, even if it did come two days late and from a restaurant instead of a lady.

Maybe Chili’s is a lady restaurant? I should call her…

Royal Russ

Originally uploaded by Russish.

I was (still am) working late tonight, and so as usual the company provided dinner. Tonight my producer decided to get Red Robin, so I got my usual: a Royal Red Robin Burger, extremely well done; if I can’t write on the table with it, it’s not done well enough.

(I’ve learned that if I ask for my hamburger to be well done, they usually leave it on the grill for about two seconds longer than they do a rare burger, and that’s not well done. I want it browned all the way through, no pink left. The only method I’ve found to make this even a remote possibility is the hyperbole I used above, and even then it’s a remote possibility that it’ll come out how I like it.)

When my producer came back with the food, they had marked my box appropriately, I thought.

I’ve recently decided, for a number of reasons, that it would be good and beneficial to make use of this site for its intended purpose, namely blogging. Possibly that’s because I noticed that in a couple of months I’ll need to renew my domain registration and realized I hadn’t actually posted anything here, well, ever. Possibly it’s because I’ve begun to read a few of my relatives’ and friends’ blogs on a regular basis and realized it would be a good way to socialize with them.

Mostly, at this particular moment in time, it’s because I should be doing some work right now but hit a mental wall and needed to do something to clear my head and unbefuddle myself and came across this post on my brother Rik’s blog while browsing around, which inspired me to try to do something permanent each day. This is permanentish.

Now that I’ve spent a good half hour or so setting everything up here, finding a halfway decent theme (although it’ll probably change a bit over the next few days/weeks as I continue tweaking and personalizing everything), and posting a real post, I’m going back to work. Talk to you in the future.