Being a Game Designer

Only in Houston can I be struggling through flooded waters one hour and then driving on dry land a couple of hours later. Going through weather that wet is scarier than I thought, and I think all of the city felt it. Anyway, I just wanted to mention real quick that I finally saw The Village last night and it's definitely Shyamalan's least impressive work but it is still a decent film. I also saw Batman Begins again today and still loved it. What I really wanted to talk about though is this extensive article regarding being a game designer. A lot of kids, myself included, fantasize about making video games some day because it sounds like the most fun job in the world. Almost as fun as like working in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. However, the harsh reality is that you have to really crawl to the top in an industry like video games and you'll only get that far if you're real lucky or real awesome. The people who I've spoken to in the industry make it sound like getting that far is like trying to be a movie star in LA, and I'm sure that's an accurate depiction. Nonetheless, it's really cool to hear the thoughts of these big dogs of game development and a worthwhile read for anyone interested in games.

In this weekend's tech news, I really am starting to feel bad for Microsoft. They're facing another lawsuit, but this time it's regarding the name of their next iteration of Windows being the same as an actual company. I'm sure that they'll throw some of their money around and reach a settlement though, so don't cry too hard. As if that wasn't enough though, M$ has decided to make IE7 exclusive to Windows XP, which could mean big gains for Firefox among Windows 2000 users. I see their logic, but I just don't think it's a smart business move with Firefox clawing for market share. Apparently, it's more important to them to patent smileys for MSN Messenger, which is making them a laughing stock among geeks like me. Google is doing much better though with the addition of a hybrid mode to allow you to see satellite imagery and street names much like in Google Earth. This can only mean good things for their market share in online mapping. They also rolled out the beta for Google Scholar, which doesn't seem like much more than a dumbed down Lexis Nexis but I'm sure that they're still building on it. Lastly, if you think that software (like Photoshop and Visual Studio and such) is overpriced, you'll like this article about how we should take maintenance costs and such into account to lower it a bit.

There's not a whole lot of movie news today, but the box office really took a beating with The Island pulling in a measly $12 million at number 4 (a tenth of the production costs). The fact that Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stayed at number 1 with only a 20% drop ($28.3 million) is a testament to how good it is and Wedding Crashers clung to number 2 at $26.2. Ironically, the new movies this weekend were beat out per theater by indie films Hustle and Flow and March of the Penguins, which is an interesting turn of events. If you want to see another clip from Hustle and Flow you can head over to Yahoo! Movies. They also have some clips from Happy Endings, which I'm interested in because it's Lisa Kudrow in a serious role. I've got to support a UT film maker now and plug a review for Tsui Hark's Seven Swords, which sounds like it'll be another one of those great martial arts movies. Lastly, if you wanted to check out that Transformers footage but didn't a few days ago when I posted, there's a fresh upload of it here.



The real big news today wasn't in computers or movies though, but rather in soccer with the United States barely winning the CONCACAF Gold Bowl! No one scored at all until the penalty kicks in overtime where we scored 3 and Panama (who beat South Africa a week ago under similar circumstances) only got 1. It was a big shocker to everyone, but I'm glad that we won since Mexico couldn't. The last thing I wanted to mention was that I'm appalled that lawmakers want to extend Daylight Savings just because they think people would be happier if it was sunnier and Halloweeners would be happy. I think the original purpose actually was to conserve oil, but I can't see it being substantial.

Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

1. Believing::Seeing is,
   
2. Invasion::of the Body Snatchers
   
3. Boys::Me
   
4. Island::Major tank
   
5. Repeatedly::Firing
   
6. Normal::Normie (see Family Guy)
   
7. Hex::adecimal (sad, isn't it?)
   
8. Tuxedo::Penguins
   
9. Virgin::Steve Carrell (the movie I mean)
   
10. Cereal::Cherrios