New post on my actually active blog (in case anyone hasn't made the switch yet):

A Present for YOU!

There's (mostly) free stuff!!

Tycho from Penny Arcade had an interesting tidbit today on MMOs (specifically, EVE Online and World of Warcraft):

"EVE Online just released another update, and the trailer is pure sex as usual, but I've figured out what I really want from them: a single player experience. The request is bizarre on the face of it, but I've entered into one of those pendulum phases where I don't value the styles of play that persistent games allow. With the assets and technology they've got on hand, they could dish up space opera in a way that reinforces their existing universe and hauls in genre apostates like myself. World of Warcraft gives me the same feeling at the moment. Both games have incredible art, are vast beyond reckoning, and present thoroughly elaborate contexts for adventure and commerce. Last time I was in Lakeshire, I thought... Man. Somebody should make a game out of all this."

It is pretty much exactly the same thing that I feel about MMOs, of course, more eloquently put than anything that comes out of my mouth.  I like the idea of playing games with my friends and other real people, but there just doesn't seem to be much gameplay there aside from what you create yourself (grind, baby, grind!).

I haven't had a whole lot of time for non-work self-improvement lately, since work, and recovering from it, has taken up most of my time.  We are in the midst of transitioning to Agile Development, and while I think it's a (very) good idea, we are hitting a lot of bumps in the road and it's taking a while to get started.

I spent 9 hours yesterday, and 2 hours this morning, in the first kickoff meeting for one of the teams/pods/cells I'm on.  This was by far the worst of the meetings (and I'm one of the team leaders for that team, so I had to be there for the whole thing), but I am in a few more teams as a non-leader as well.  At least no one expects much work to be done during this planning period.  Any small tasks I can knock off in between meetings are just gravy.

Once we get started, things should move a lot more quickly - the only question that remains to be answered is whether everyone will happily adapt to the new process.  My perception is that the engineers will take to it easily, since we were pretty much working in this way already, but some of the more schedule-oriented disciplines (art) may have some more adjusting to do.  I think the biggest benefit will be working on small chunks of the game at a time, in unison, to make sure that every feature that gets implemented is actually completed to a shippable state.  While we may not end up with all of the features we'd like for launch (who ever does?), what is there will be Good.

Outside of work, I haven't had much time for crafting lately.  I'm still halfway through my next set of coasters.  My current knitting project, a sweater for myself, is done almost entirely in circular stockinette stitch from here on out, and becoming incredibly boring - not to mention that it may very well turn out way too big, if I don't run out of yarn, and have to be frogged and started over.  Now that the weather has turned, I just want to spend my weekends outside - last Saturday I ran at the Sawyer Camp Trail, and Sunday I took a walk around San Francisco to see the Haight Street Fair.  This weekend brings the North Beach Fair, WWKIP Day, and Fathers' Day.  Holidays, festivals, barbecues - rinse, wash, repeat, for the rest of the summer.  We'll see how much downtime comes along :-)

An update on my other blog:

I spent several hours this weekend migrating FutureSarah to be hosted by lunarpages.com.  I decided it was time, so I could really customize the site the way I wanted - including adding widgets (BlogRush) to drive traffic to the site, promoting my Etsy shop more heavily, and eventually adding direct PayPal functionality to sell patterns (that have yet to be made).

Style-wise, I am still using a stock template.  A friend is working on a new site design for me, but he has another job that is much more important than my little blog right now.  I'm not sure when it will be done.

Store-wise, I finally got my Etsy shop up and running, with one sparkling item for sale!  There are more to come; I just have to get some more tags made and take the time to list them.

http://futuresarah.com
http://futuresarah.etsy.com

So I'm driving to work this morning, listening to The Woody Show on Live 105 like always, and the regular weekly movie segment with Jan Wahl comes on.  Now, let me make this perfectly clear before rumors spread and feelings get hurt (as if anyone of import actually reads this blog) - I like Jan Wahl just fine.  She and I don't always agree on what movies we like, but she gives true and thoughtful reviews, and sometimes lets me know about a smaller movie that I might not have heard of otherwise.

But seriously - I don't get how she fits on this particular radio show.  This is Jan Wahl, "The Hat Lady."  She rates movies by giving them a number of hats.



The Woody Show is the morning program on Live 105, an alternative rock radio station.  It doesn't fit.  She even acknowledges during this segment that they don't like a lot of the movies she likes - the romances, the artsy-fartsy indie films.  Woody and crew are not blind blockbuster movie-goers either - they have intelligent opinions too, they just skew younger.

This morning in particular, they were taking calls from listeners about what everyone's favorite on-screen duos were.  One guy calls in...

Guy:  Hey, yo, what it do.
Woody:  What it do, dude.
Jan Wahl:  What it do!

Huh?  Something about those words coming out of her mouth sounded so out of place.  Later on in the conversation, they were talking about how Tom Cruise, for all his craziness, can be a very good actor.  She says "... he can bring it."  WTF?  I can't handle this kind of street talk coming from anyone over the age of 40.  It just. doesn't. fit.  I am very sorry, Jan Wahl, if I hurt your feelings.  I actually like hearing your reviews on the radio every week; it mixes it up a bit.  Just stick to what you do best, and please consider dropping the slang.

What do we want?  Peace and quiet!!!
When do we want it?  NOW!!!

I woke up at 6am to the calm, soothing sounds of chanting picketers outside my bedroom window.  It was awesome.  Oh, wait - I mean, it totally sucked.

We live across the street from a convalescent home, and got a message in the mail earlier in the week that the employees of the home would be holding a one-day strike on Friday (today).  The letter made me very sympathetic to their cause, explaining in detail exactly why they felt they needed to go on strike (the home had been sold to a new company, who cut their pay and benefits and refused to acknowledge union contracts).  It did not, however, say that they would be shouting through megaphones at 6am.

If I hadn't been late to bed from GDC festivities, I might have found the situation funnier.  They had a union rep there whose entire purpose was to teach the striking people how to chant properly.  They were marching in circles, holding signs, and saying the most ridiculous things (many stolen from the military, kids' camp songs, and cheerleaders).  I'm not sure who they were trying to piss off - but it worked for me!


I had a pillow over my head for three hours, then finally got up and went to work.  Way to start a Friday!!

I started a new blog in the last week or so - the first step towards building a secondary career as an independent crafter.  There is no design to speak of for the site yet, but I plan to start building content and logging my journey toward becoming a bona fide Craft Goddess there.  Check it out, if you are so inclined:

http://futuresarah.com/

Is it just me, or do other people feel like the Game Developers' Conference has little to no room for journalists?  I get that they want to know about games that are coming out, but that is really what conferences like E3 (min-E3, E for All) and CES are for.  GDC is supposed to be a place where developers go to learn about what we are all up to, not to tell the world about it.  I want a place to learn that isn't overrun with fanboys disguised as members of the press trying to figure out what games are going to be awesome this year.  Besides the keynotes, and maybe even then, this really seems like it's not the place for them.  There are game developers here, but we are not here to hype.  We are here to make better games.  I hope they don't turn this into the next E3.

This all came to a head for me when I was listening to Live 105 on my commute to work this morning, and their weekly game segment with Steve Masters (gottgame-with-two-t's-dot-com!!!) brought up the fact that San Francisco was host to the GDC this year, which was next week, and everyone should be excited about it!!!!!  Maybe I'm just jaded, but I want a little peace in my developent community gatherings.  The GDC expo floor is (or used to be) mostly about tools and middleware, rather than promotion of upcoming games.  That should be a big clue to journalists that this event is not for them.

Anyway - I will not be attending GDC proper this year.  We had one classic pass to share among 5 client engineers, and since I've been to the conference a handful of times before (and experienced the diminishing returns year after year), I decided to let the other engineers who haven't been before have a little more time.  I do have plans to be downtown Tuesday through the weekend, though, to meet with game dev friends who are in town for the conference and network/recruit for my company.  One cannot deny that there is plenty of fun to be had, outside the conference doors.

I watched the Democratic debate tonight after I got home from work/gym, and while I'm still supporting Obama, I feel much better about the possibility of Clinton getting the nomination.  I had pretty much been ignoring all the previous debates and commercials and other propaganda, reading only what came up on my CNN news feed.  I had no sense of what Hillary was like as a public speaker.  Overall, I was impressed with her performance.

I started wondering, during the course of the debate, whether I had chosen the right candidate.  I really tried to focus on the differences in their policies, and not on who looked and acted more "presidential."

Do you remember when Clinton wrote her book, It Takes a Village?  Yeah, I didn't read it, either.  Last night, though, I think I started to understand her philosophy on the purpose of government.  All through the different topics - the current mortgage crisis, health care, entertainment content for children - her policy centered around taking care of America.  It seems she and I agree on what the current problems are, but I don't really agree with the ways she wants to solve them.

In contrast to her ideas, Obama wants to empower Americans to take care of themselves.  While Clinton wants to give us food, Obama wants to teach us to fish.  I am half bleeding-heart liberal, half libertarian.  I see that the government has been making things unnecessarily easy for the wealthy and leaving others behind, but I don't think the rest of the country's citizens need to lift everyone up, mandating what is "good" for everyone.  I think we should enable people to make their own choices and stand up for themselves.  Clinton makes healthcare mandatory for everyone; Obama just wants to make sure it's affordable so anyone who wants coverage can get it.  Clinton wants to freeze ARM rates for existing mortgages to help people who were dumb enough to take those loans; Obama sees that this will make it harder for future homebuyers and cost reasonable citizens money.

Anyway, there is my slightly rambling opinion on the two remaining Democratic candidates.  I like that both of them are advocating great changes from the current administration, and I like that whichever candidate gets nominated, we will be making history.  The greatest feeling I have, though, is that in contrast to the 2004 election, this year I was excited by all of the (Democratic) candidates.  Four years ago, the overriding theme seemed to be to pick the most electable candidate to go up against Bush; it didn't matter which because anything was better than what we had.  We ended up with a nominee that we didn't really care about.  This year, these people are trying to make the change I want to see in the world.  I can't wait to see what happens come November :-)

Yesterday was supposed to be a Good Day.  It started out well - running with momentum from the weekend and Monday, I woke up in the morning and went immediately downstairs to make pizza dough with my spankin' new Kitchenaid stand mixer.  It went fantastically, and was in the fridge before I went to work, to be ready to bake at dinnertime.

A few minutes after I arrived at work, loud things started happening around me.  This is normal - I sit with design, art, and marketing, in addition to being about 10 feet from the kitchen and bathrooms.  Today, however, people were running through the area, in addition to the regular chatter.  The water valve on the urinal in the men's bathroom was broken, and wouldn't stop running.  The men's bathroom has no drain.  The water was leaking out to the carpeted hallway.  Sigh....it was gonna be one of those days.

Someone grabbed a screwdriver and shut off the water to the broken valve.  I'm not sure whether or not it got fixed; I was trying to ignore all the noise and get my work done.  The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful until I heard about this:

Northbound 101 closed at Redwood City



I decided to take 880 North to the San Mateo Bridge to get home instead of my usual route, knowing in advance that all possible detours would be overrun with commuters trying to do exactly the same thing.  It ended up taking me almost an hour just to get *to* the peninsula, and when I got there, I realized that they had closed Southbound 101 as well.  No gym for me.  I went home to get a jump on delicious homemade pizza dinner.

I threw some herbs and tomato sauce together to simmer on the stove while I prepared the crust.  It wasn't quite round, but it was mine.  I dusted my NEW pizza spade peel (whatever it's called, the wooden thing that you use to get pizza into the oven) with cornmeal, just as directed, and put the dough on top.  I topped it with the sauce, cheese, and even some thin-sliced tomatoes and chopped basil.  Beautiful!  The oven finished preheating, and I slipped the pie into the oven.

At least, I tried to.

The pizza was too heavy, or something, to slide off of the wood.  I tried shaking the spade peel, like they do at CPK - all that achieved was getting the tomatoes and cheese to start sliding off.  I grabbed a wide spatula to help slide the pizza.  The dough actually started to wrap itself around the spatula.  I went to dislodge that, and tomatoes and cheese started falling off - onto the stone, onto the floor of the oven, everywhere.  DAMMIT.  I wrestled to get it out of the oven, and yelled to Jon, "I broke the pizza."  He came into the kitchen to look; I think he was holding back chuckles.  I was almost in tears.  I haven't actually ruined dinner (to the point where you can't finish) in a very long time.

I felt silly being so upset over this.  I think it was so hard for me because these were all my new toys - the mixer, the spade peel, the stone - and I was really excited to play with them.  We munched on raw pizza for a few minutes (not too much; I don't know what uncooked dough does in your body), then Jon made some hot dogs for himself.  I was too worn out from the day to eat, though I eventually had a bowl of Cheerios.

I worked on my quilt a little and watched American Gladiators, then played some Boom Boom Rocket (new song pack, yay!) before going to bed.  These things cheered me up , thank god :-)


p.s.  No, I didn't take any pictures of the broken pizza.  It was too sad.

I don't know how much I weigh today - I know where I was last week, then I went to Phoenix to visit one of my very good friends from high school (we are very good friends now - senior year in high school, we were *best!* friends.)  I ate a lot, but most of it was very healthy vegan food.  I skipped the gym yesterday so I could run some errands and clean up the house a bit, so I wasn't able to see what the trip had done to my diet.  This morning, though, I thought I might try on my "skinny" jeans - and they fit!  No muffin top sticking out above the waistband!  WOOOOOO*!!

*I insist that I am not, by nature, a "Girl That Goes Wooo."  In general, GTGW annoy the crap out of me.  This, however, is exciting enough for me that I couldn't resist :-)

I went to ballet class today, after not practicing for, say, two years?  It was awesome - my legs were shaking by the end, but I feel great.  Turns are rusty and flexibility is down, as expected.  Those will come back with practice.  I hope to be able to go to the classes once or twice a week - it just means not being able to sleep in on the weekends anymore....

Yay!

I don't like New Years' Resolutions.  I do, however, love the feeling of renewal that comes on January 1st.  It is naturally a time to reflect on the last year and your life in general, and to evaluate where you are with where you really want to be.

I've made some changes, some experimental, some as quasi-resolutions - we'll see what sticks after a month.

• Shower at night - helps with the morning routine if I don't have to worry about drying my hair.
• Hit the gym (almost) daily - with my new commute, it is very hard to find time to go to the gym for my traditional 60-90 minute total-body workouts.  Instead, I am promising myself to exercise for 20-30 minutes, 5-6 days a week.  I just stop at the EA gym on the way home from work, then shower when I get home (it all works together, see?)
• Go to work earlier - so I can leave earlier, so I can go to the gym before dinner, etc. etc.
• Get better at time management - if something needs to be done, just do it.  I have historically been a *huge* procrastinator, and things like home maintenance typically fall by the wayside as a result.
• "Improve" eating habits - work on portion sizes and snacking habits, mostly.  This is really difficult at work, although of all the things on the list, it's the one that will bring the most benefits if I can keep it up.

On that note, today I signed up with SparkPeople (username "saralah") to help me stay on track.  The web site really allows you to customize how you use it achieve your goals - you can use the tools just to track your own progress, or you can follow diet and exercise plans they've laid out according to your goals.  I'll probably fall somewhere in the middle, tailoring my program to fit my busy lifestyle, and using the site for advice and inspiration.

The time management goal has had some weird consequences....  I get home from work after the gym, have a bite to eat, feed the cats, take a shower, clean up the kitchen and other common areas, and then Poof! the evening is gone.  I have been only watching The Daily Show and then going to bed.  I do miss having evenings to work on my crafts, and I *definitely* miss having time to make and sit down to a proper dinner.  The weird bit, though, is that I seem to have more energy when I'm running around like this than I do when I ignore the chores and take "me time."  I suspect it's something about not stressing about all the things I should be doing.  Hopefully my hobby time will still exist on the weekends.  Although I feel better right now, after having done this for a week or so, my time is being soaked up by just doing the things that need to be done every day - work, gym, chores, sleep.  I don't know if I can keep this up in the long term if there's no time for the extras that make life special.

I feel pretty good about these new habits.  I don't want to change a tremendous amount, I just want to be more energetic, productive, and get rid of that damned muffin-top that sometimes sticks out of my jeans :-)

Just a quick update -

Hawaii was fun...
...pictures here....



...No resolutions...

...and NO MORE DEBT!

Back to work tomorrow :-)

So, earlier I was complaining about how not having a routine was killing my efforts at, um, having a routine.  Problem solved!  I found a job, and today was day 1.  I have spent the better part of today in design meetings, filling out health insurance applications, and installing software on my new machine.  My cubicle is about half the size of the one I had at EA, and I'm not sure yet how much will fly in the way of cube flair.  Also, I am once again crossing a bridge every day to get to work.

On the plus side, I'M GETTING PAID!!  I know a couple of cool people here already from my long years at EA.  This position is considerably more responsibility than I had at my last gig also.  We'll see in the coming months whether I succeed beyond my wildest software engineering dreams, or whether I fall flat on my face and relegate myself to management jobs :-)

Not having a regular daily schedule is fun, but it's killing any routines I am trying to establish - keeping this blog updated daily is one of them. I officially forfeit the NaBloPoMo challenge (but will keep trying to post as often as I can). Boo...

Anyway...Tuesday was my jon  's birthday - I gave him a book and board game both centered around the Cold War. Aww...such a little history buff :-)

Last night was the Simpsons ship party - woo! I won't go into it too much, but it was fun. Four-course meal, open bar, "gambling" tables, karaoke, and fabulous prizes! There were enough of my old team friends there that I didn't mind having to be around the sort of douchey ones I was happy to leave. I did have a few glasses of champagne, though, so I'm feeling it a little today.

I am very sad to have been missing The Daily Show since the writer's strike started. Here was a little something that brightened my morning:

I got an email reply from Company Two today, with the results (sort of) of the programming challenge I did for them last week.  Basically, along with the source, I gave them a nice list of all the improvements I wanted to make, that I didn't because I wanted to get them results in a timely manner.  What they sent back basically said, "do those improvements now."  Sigh.

I guess it's good, because it really will get me a quality game to show off in the end.  I will also end up learning the deeper functionality of Company Two's codebase, which should come in handy if they ever offer me a job.  Also, it's kinda fun :-)  I just thought I had laid that little project to rest for a while, and was all geared up to start sewing today.

In other news, I got my sewing machine back today!  That means as soon as this new business is out of the way, I can get started on my new adventure :-)

So yesterday's post was a bit abbreviated.  I spent all afternoon getting ready for the big event, got there, and realized I hadn't posted in my blog!  And I wouldn't be home until it was already Sunday!  Catastrophe!!  That post was sent via my mobile phone, mid-party.  Internet on my phone is functional, but leaves much to be desired.  I will have to figure out this TxtLJ thing.

Last night was awesome!  Jon and I had a joint birthday party (since our birthdays are just 10 days apart) in the city.  We rented out a bar for the night - for the small fee of a guaranteed minimum bar tab, we got the whole place from 8:00 until closing time, a full sheet cake, and two bottles of champagne!  There were just two problems - a casualty of alcohol in the men's bathroom, and coming in way under the minimum bar tab.

I hooked up my iPod to their stereo system for some loungey musical ambiance, there was pool-playing, fireside-sitting, and lots of drinking.  At the peak of the party, I think we had 50 or 60 guests.  It was a trip, being in a public place, but still knowing everyone around you.  The Cheers theme song floated in my head more than once.  Did I mention, I had a great time?

I am trying to figure out how we came in so far under the tab, and can think of three reasons.  One: looking around, most everyone was drinking beer or wine instead of the expensive top-shelf alcohol.  Two: on top of that, people weren't drinking very much.  Damn you, responsible friends!  Three:  on the way home, some people in the car we were in commented on how they weren't charged for all of their drinks.  They said they asked the bartender why they drank 13 beers and paid for 10, and the bartender said, "Don't worry about it."  Under normal circumstances that is an awesome quality in a bartender, but in this case, Jon and I were on the hook for the rest of the money.  I sent an e-mail to the bar owners this morning, informing them of what was going on (but carefully didn't ask for any money back - despite everything, they did help make the party run very smoothly).

Jon's sister got me Rayman Raving Rabbids as a gift, and I spent this morning playing it.  That game is one of my favorites for art direction, and I think it will hold up as a good party game once I'm done with the story mode.  Thank you Katy!  I love it!!

Nothing else has been planned for the rest of the day, other than sending out a couple of thank you cards, then heading to David's place for some dinner with he and Valeri.  Just two more days until Jon's birthday, and the end of this giant, fun-but-exhausting,  HalloweenBirthdayBirthdayFest '07.

I'm in the city right now, at my birthday party! Wooo! Will post details tomorrow :-)

Today I went with my mom to The Original Creative Festival (ooh, Original!!) at the San Mateo Event Center.  It was smaller than I remember it, maybe because after a while, you start to feel like you've seen it all before.  Oh look, there's the mat-cutting guy...the lady who sells stuffed animal patterns and fake fur...and the lady who sells the sequin patterns and kits to bedazzle your life...  It does get old when you've been to the same expo three or four times before; also when you only were interested in a few things at each show to begin with.  It is so hard to be crafty and fashionable!

The last aisle of the show turned out to be more fruitful than the rest, though - Mom actually bought a sewing machine!  She was already planning on replacing her old Singer, and this thing was awesome.  I won't get into the details, let's just say it was chock full of features, and we both thought it was a good deal.

After that, I found a booth that was selling fabric I actually wanted all over my house.  You know, those super-sleek, abstract floral patterns in bright colors?  Well, I bought enough to make a couple of aprons (which I had already been planning on).  Maybe this will be the beginning of my enterprise.  When I got home, I started looking at online fabric retailers, to see their offerings and prices.  I think, if I sat myself down to do it, I could make a fair bit of money sewing purses and home items (pillows, aprons, etc.) and selling them.  Now I just need to get my sewing machine back from the shop :-P

Tomorrow's The Big Party (TM), squeee!