Easter and Guns.

This week I figured I'd better get started on collecting donations for the Humane Society's Walk for Animals. We were there this weekend and I realized I haven't collected a cent.

Usually we just ask friends and family, but this year we put up a contest on the PB blog, and so far it's going pretty well. Today at the gym, however, I realized I was going to have to figure out how to mail posters and prints to all the donors... Oops.

No big deal, really, but it's just more cost and work for me.

I went out for diner with Natalie on Monday, to hear the scoop on her recent string of interviews. We went to Cafeteria, and she told me all all the good and bad news. The good news is she's lucky enough to be finding plenty of places to offer her a job, but that probably means she'll have to move.

Portal 2 showed up in the mail yesterday. I popped it in and played about 45 minutes of it, and it seems great. It's quite funny already, and I forgot just how magical Portals are. After so long, it's still a bit mind bending backing into a portal and watching yourself come out the other side.

I started writing this a week ago and forgot to finish it. Damn. WTF, me?

This weekend was full of labor. Friday was nice, though, because we met Mary, Francesca and Adam at Quangs. We all squeezed into a booth and it was a nice time.

I had an awesome time at the gym on Saturday, but then I was a bit worn out for the rest of the day. We went to Ikea to grab some things for the new studio, and ended up with a pretty big haul. We took it back to the office and assembled some of it, but then we decided to hit up the store and get a new computer before they closed. We went to Best Buy, since we are planning to get some big ol' monitors as well, but they didn't have the computer we wanted in stock so we just said forget it. There's 2 Apple retailers within walking distance of the studio, so we can just grab it later.

Lindsay was super hungry, and there's a Don Pablo's next door to Best Buy. She decided it would be a good idea to eat there... I'm not sure why. We've eaten there once years ago, and I think we both though it sucked, but there's not much in that part of time and Lindsay wasn't willing to wait. She should have though, because she hated it. Oops. Never again, I guess.

I was supposed to do a bunch of design-work for my brother, because he had a big presentation on Monday. But he was assembling some materials, and I didn't end up even starting until Midnight. I worked until about 4, and I went to bed out of duty. I wasn't tired, but I knew staying up any later would throw me further out of sync with the real world.

I woke up the next morning thinking about it. It was Easter, and I would have liked to enjoy it. But I also couldn't leave him hanging. So I started working and spent most of the day doing so.

I took one break to make some bad-ass chili, though.

Lindsay got sick of waiting around and went to have coffee with Atom. She ended up hanging out for a long time. I finished my work and cleaned up a bit, and then sat down to play some Crysis 2 multiplayer with Ryan (that's probably the last time, it's ok but nothing special).

After a couple rounds, I got a call from Lindsay, who was shaken up because when she left Atom's house and headed to her car, a kid started shooting a gun at a car that was driving down the street. He just took the gun out, fired a couple shots, tucked it and kept walking, albeit it much faster. When he shot, he was about 5 feet from Lindsay.

What the fuck is wrong with people? That shit pisses me off to no end.

So I told Lindsay to call of police, and I didn't much feel like shooting fools in Crysis anymore.

Towers, pet rants and work.

Last night I was in bed and it was late. I had my computer, and wanted to play simple game (since I was in bed and without a surface to mouse on). I browsed my Steam games and didn't feel like playing any of those, so I downloaded the Anomaly Warzone Earth demo.

I had heard some good things about it, it's super cheap, and it works on Mac, so I didn't have to reboot to Windows. Despite it's lame name, that's good enough for me.

It's been called a Reverse Tower Defense game, because you're a small fleet of vehicles making your way through the streets while massive alien towers blast at you. And it works super well.

I'm not a huge fan of Tower Defense to start with, either. They have to have something unique about them for me to be a fan. I liked PixelJunk Monsters a fair bit, with your little dancing player character. And Swords & Soldiers was a fun take on a 2D side scrolling Tower Defense as well. Toy Soldiers was a blast too. But in every case, there's a point I always hit that I just quit. When it get hard. It's not that it's too hard, really, it's that it take too long to get the point where you lose. You make your plan and if it's the wrong plan, there's usually not a ton you can do about it, but you don't know that until you're 10 or 15 minutes in. And I hate that feeling.

But Anomaly is much more reactive. You can change your path, reorder your troops, buy new units and, like PixelJunk Monsters, you have an avatar. He's can't attack, but he can run around to grab powerups as well as throw down concealing smoke, decoys, repair kits and call in air strikes.

So it's a bit like a tower defense game, a bit like a tactical puzzle game, and even a bit action-y, since you can't be everywhere at once.

Anyway, it's really well done, with really nice graphics and slick presentation. I went to buy it and throw the developers a few bucks for their solid effort. But Steam didn't have a record of my credit card... it seems like ever since you have to enter a code to authorize a computer (which it makes me do every time I switch from windows to mac), it takes out all my info.

Since I'm too lazy to reenter it... I guess maybe I won't get that game. If the mood strikes me and I actually have my wallet on me that there's a chance.

Today was busy. I got up kind of early, actually, and got ready for the day. Lindsay and I went out to breakfast, but there were massive lines everywhere. Of course. Sunday morning. We almost resorted to Old Country Buffet, but decided to just grab something at noodles instead. Too bad I was really looking forward to some eggs, toast and bacon.

We ran to target and bought a ton of crap, and then made a surprise trip to the Humane Society. The were having some sort of Rabbit Meet-and-Greet, so there was a large room with about 40 or 50 rabbits running around and playing. There was bridges to climb over, boxes to hide in, and a swarm of people around the perimeter watching. It was really funny, and I'm surprised at how social they all were. They were playing with each other, and running up to strangers to be pet.

We took a look at the dogs and cats, not because we need anymore, obviously, but just to see what's going on in the animal rescue world. I was shocked to see that there wasn't much. There were about 15-20 dogs, but at least 1/2 were spoken for already. And the cats were even more amazing! There must have been 10-15 cats, and of those only 3 hadn't been claimed. Crazy! Usually in the early spring that place is FILLED with cats needing homes. They must have had a good weekend or something.

It's still sad to see some of the older dogs and cats who were put up for grabs. The reasons people leave pets make me really angry. There's a lot of 'moving' or 'landloard issues' but c'mon! Fuck you! You got a pet and you have a responsibility! Figure it out! Move to a different place! Make arrangements to take it!

But maybe there's something more to the story that I don't know (although that's such a common reason that in most cases, I doubt it). But then there's really bad ones, like an 11 year old dogs was given up because "he wasn't active enough."

I swear, if I met the person who gave up an old dog for not being active enough, I would punch them in the dick and the face at the same time.

Sorry, not I'm all worked up. But pet's are obviously a big deal to me and I hate to see people treat it like a joke.

After the Humane Society, we grabbed some materials from the hardware store and went to the studio. Lindsay coated our new desks in polyurethane and painted the wall dividers while I worked on a project I need finished by Wednesday. It's actually went smoothly and was pretty relaxing, so no big whoop.

Cleaning and Shopping.

I had hoped to work on some art today, personal or otherwise, but it was not meant to be, I guess.

I got up feeling pretty good. This week was a long week and it felt pretty good to sleep in, even though I didn't go to bed all that late, surprisingly.

I worked out and listened to the jams really loud. I started cleaning after that, and kept cleaning and cleaning and cleaning. Lindsay was teaching in the AM, but went out with Francesca and Atom and didn't end up coming home until 5 or so. I just cleaned the whole time... I did eat some cereal at some point, too.

When she did get home, we had to go sign our final papers for our taxes. So we drove over to our accountants office on the other side of town.

On the way back, we went to pick up Francesca again and we all went to the Mall of America. I had cleaned out a massive amount of old clothes while cleaning, and decided it was time to get some new duds.

I'm usually pretty good about just getting something here or there, but I've been so busy that I've got nothing lately. And all my ish is junk. So I had a list, mainly consisting of shirts and jackets/hoodies.

I scored big on the shirt and came away with 5 or 6 plus a couple ties, but we were there too late to really find anything I liked for hoodies/jackets. The one I did like wasn't in my size, and it was too late to have anyone check in back for more. So no dice.

I didn't realize I hadn't eaten since the cereal I had in the morning, we eventually stopped for some Sushi, which was amazing. I was totally starving and I couldn't have thought of a better food.

Taxes and Far Cry 2 returns

Today was pretty crappy. Or at least, it started out so.

I had a bunch of work to do, that I was supposed to deliver to a client in the afternoon. Waking up was a pain, but we had a phone meeting in the morning, so we had to get to the office.

I'm not sure why all three of us needed to be involved in the phone meeting, as the client mainly just recited grammatical changes to the text is a book we laid out. But whatever. As we did that, I checked the files I needed to work on, and realized everything was wrong. I had help starting the files, and I was just going to put the finishing touches on and be done with it, but I slowly realized I was going to have to start from scratch.

Just as I was hanging my head in my hands, Lindsay threw a packet on my desk and told me to call our broker and set up our IRA's for the previous year. We met with our accountant the other night to do our 2010 taxes, and the only thing that was left to do was to set up these IRA's. Our taxes took into account the money we would be putting away for retirement, so if we didn't get these accounts set up, our taxes would be way off.

I called and I was told "it's too late to set it up for the 2010 year..." I hung up and tried to get our broker's name, but he's no longer with the company. So I had to deal with people totally unfamiliar with out child-like understanding of finances.

But basically I got it figured out. I set up the account but we had to A) have ID, and Lindsay's Drivers License is expired. And B) Wire the funds immediately. And Lindsay had to teach at 1 pm. And it was 11:45.

So we raced home, grabbed her passport, set up her accounts in the car on the way to the bank, where we wired the funds. After a lot of problems at the bank. They didn't understand what we were trying to do. They didn't understand the urgency. They didn't want to transfer the funds because the IRA wasn't through them. They didn't want to transfer the funds because we didn't have an account number.

I had to call our IRA provider and have them make up a fake account number because the accounts aren't created until the money is in them...

But we did it and I dropped Lindsay off at MCAD before returning to the studio... Too late to finish that project and get it back to the client. So I let them know, but then Lindsay called, because she forgot some books she needed for class in the car. So I drove them back to her.

Now the day was gone. And Twink peed in the new studio, twice. Francesca had thrown him in there because the usual studio was freezing thanks to a wild weather shift. And I guess the dogs got pretty worked up about being along in a new place while we were gone.

Once I was finally back int the studio, it was all good. I cranked on that project and got further than I expected. Francesca and I talked about Jason Rohrer's videogames, which led us to somehow talk about Far Cry 2 and how totally amazing it was.

Once Linday was finished teaching, we all went to Pho Hoa and ate some delicious food. Then we came home. I played through the Lost Hobo King DLC for Stacking, which was super short, but also really good. I'm ok with short DLC, it was just enough to have a good time but not enough to get old.

Then I popped in Far Cry 2, because Francesca wanted to get a mental picture of it.

I spent a few minutes reorienting myself to the game. Then it all came flooding back. I LOVE Far Cry 2. The most. It is one of my favorite games ever. Maybe my very favorite. It is the best, and it is exactly what I want from every game ever.

I put the game down because I was sad thanks to an end-game mistake where I saved at a point where I wasn't free to explore anymore. It's a weird point, because it's unlike the entire rest of the game. So fair warning! Once you go to the Jackal's compound in the finale of the game, don't save over your older saves.

So I lost all the diamonds I'd found, checkpoints I'd scouted, safehouses I'd liberated, weapons/tools that I'd unlocked. Just because I accidentally saved over my most recent multiple saves.

I still had a save that was at about 54% (that's specifically story related, so finishing the game does put you at 100%, unlike a GTA or other open world games that count side-quests and other content).

At the time I first realized my mistake, just after I beat the game, I was pretty bummed. I couldn't go back and loose those hours and progress, even though I wanted to clear every safehouse and scout every checkpoint and do every side mission. But going back 1/2 way through a massive game was too much of a momentum killer.

But time has healed all wounds, and I'm hungry for Far Cry 2 again. I spent a while raiding checkpoints, and looking for diamonds, and even completing a mission or two. And it was grand. The game holds up amazingly well, the world is dense and believable and the lighting is still some of the best I've seen.

If I could have any game in the world, it would be a Clint Hocking-created Far Cry 3 preferably with the destructibility of Battlefield's Frostbyte engine (Far Cry 2's pretty good as far as that goes, but if it could take it as far as the Bad Company 2, that would be even better).

So there's a big, long post about boring crap and videogames. Just like the old days!

Playing catch-up.

Hmmm, a two or three weeks since my last post? What has happened in a few weeks?

I played through, and beat, Crysis 2. It was pretty good. I'm not totally in love, although it was probably the best FPS, singleplayer-wise, I've played in a long time.

I'm always into shooters that are more open. I've never been into the tightly scripted CoD-type campaigns, but lately it's been tough to find anything outside of that mold.

Crysis 2 does a pretty bang-up job of presenting wide-open areas in an otherwise very linear game. The suit powers and weapons help with that, too. There's no 'best weapon' to take, or best course of action, it's just what you feel like doing.

I might even go back, since I think there's a new game + option, just to replay the opening levels with of the freedom and power you get by the end of the game.

But really, the slightly wider corridors really just make me want to go back to Far Cry 2. I swear not a week goes by where I don't think about booting that game up...

We had art in ARTCRANK. That was cool to see. It was a massive party, and there was a lot going on.

Also, CVA arranged a studio visit for about 20 freshmen to visit Paper Bicycle studios. So last Friday a bunch of kids came in and we talked at them for about an hour or so, letting them know what we do.

In honor of the school visiting us, we decided to really bust our asses to get the 2nd studio painted. We started the first coat with a purple that ended up being too dark, so we went back with a much lighter color, using the paint that was left from painting the first studio. That was a full day of suck, but we did it. Besides finishing details, that is.

Also, one friday we somehow decided to get out of our over-worked mindset by doing some Darklands fanart.

We did dinner with the Schons' the other day, and Isara is looking mighty pregnant. It won't be long until we're having some quality baby-time with a mini-Schons.

I'm trying to catch up with SAAC but I feel guilty working on something that's not due for a client. But I'll do it. I swear I will get caught up.

I've also been spending a bit more time getting back into shape. The ungodly amount of work we had to do this winter, combined with the bitter cold has made me soft. So I've got a gameplan and so far I've lost about 7 lbs. I expect to lose another 10 or so before I'm through.

Most nights have been too busy for much but I'm chipping away at Dragon Age 2 when I can. I'm still liking it a ton, maybe because I can't play it long enough to see how repetitive it is...

I got to finish a design tonight. I'm excited, though, because I spent the day working on it, and I was pretty lukewarm on it. But then I switched up the colors (there's only 2) and it made all the difference in the world.

Oh yeah, blog, I haven't been ignoring you for twitter. I've been finding it even harder to post anything over there... maybe I just don't have a ton to say lately...

That was a crazy weekend. Kind of.

This weekend was kind of nuts. On Friday I hit the gym after work, and Lindsay went to Home Depot to buy a bunch of walls, tables and doors for the new studio.

On Saturday, we interviewed a potential addition to Paper Bicycle. He flew in from Brooklyn (not just for us) and we met up with him at Cafeteria to talk before taking him back to the studio and showing him around.

He seems pretty great, but the three of us talked for a bit at Infini-Tea afterward and decided maybe we needed to investigate a couple other options before making any decisions.

Lindsay's parents came into town, and she went out with them Saturday night. I stayed in to work on some projects, play games and relax. I was exhausted from the week and meeting talking business all day, so I just wanted some peace.

The next day we went to Sushi Tango with Lindsay's parents, and then we all went to a wedding. It was a weird, awkward time. It was super religious, there was no dancing (but there were dance lessons to no music) and no one knew anyone. But the food was great.

By the time that was over, I just wanted to go to bed. I should have done some work, but I didn't have it in me.

So today I want to the office a little earlier than usual and wrapped up the project I was working on. I had to turn the project in at a lunch-meeting, so I drove to North Minneapolis and met back up with Wendy, Michelle and Natalie. We were going to go to Black Sheep Pizza, which I love, but Michelle couldn't go. So another co-worker came with. It was fun, and I turned in my project and got another before heading back.

I went to the gym but was in slo-mo mode or something, and spent way too long there. I got back just in time to give Chris S a check before Lindsay gone done with class.

I played another hour or so of Dragon Age 2. I haven't played in a couple weeks, thanks to Lindsay being out of town, and it was a bit hard to get back into. Not only was it hard (I still have it set to Hard), but I forgot what I was doing so it was tough to get up and going again.

I actually turned it off after about 10 minutes and went and did something else for a bit. But I picked it back up and gave it another go, and this time it clicked again. I started winning tough, super-close battles by the skin of my teeth, and talking to companions, and equipping loot... and I was back. Good stuff.

Back to normal

Lindsay came home from L.A. early, early Thursday morning. We ended up going back to bed and sleeping too late.

We eventually made it into work, but no one really wanted to be there. Francesca was already off to class by the time we got there, so Lindsay and I quietly worked a bit, but soon my friend Andy stopped by. I worked with his mom at, and he worked summers in the mail room. Now he's going to MCAD, and we had run into him a couple months ago and told him to stop by.

So he did. He's a really funny guy, and proceeded to sit around with us for a couple hours. I managed to do a bit of work, too. But it was a pretty unproductive day.

I went out for sushi at Fuji Ya with Wendy, Michelle and Natalie, all former co-workers. It was naturally totally awesome, and afterward they came back to the studio for a bit.

I got into the beta for Socom 4, thanks to finally joining Playstation Plus. I'm a sucker, but after loosing all my saves when my PS3 died, I decided I might as well take advantage of the cloud save service. Which you can only access if you joing Playstation Plus. Besides the cloud save feature, the other plus is free games and early access to betas and the like.

So Socom 4. I'm a Socom fan. I liked it back on the PS2, and I still like it. I owned the previous Socom, which was the PS3, online-only Confrontation. It was just so-so, but that pace of shooter is a rare breed, so I'll take what I can get... Socom 4 is already leaps and bounds better, so I'll probably pick it up.

I did pretty well for myself right off the bat, but that's probably because a lot of these kids in the beta have never even heard of Socom before, and don't really get the no-respawn, team-based concept.

I've just played a couple rounds every night or two, because I know any progress I make will just be wiped anyway. But I've also been playing Crysis 2. I almost skipped Crysis 2 and I'm not sure why.

Crysis was always a game I wished I could play. Not really because of the bleeding edge graphics (which is what kept me from playing it) but because I love open shooters that let you approach a situation from a lot of angles.

But from the pre-coverage, Crysis 2 looked much more linear. It didn't take place on a huge island anymore, and the streets of NYC look pretty corridor-y in comparison. And nice graphics are great and all, but the Crysis art-direction wasn't really my cup of tea either. So it kind of fell of my radar.

When it started getting positive review after positive review, I started paying attention. When I found out it is pretty darn open (although by no means is it open world) I decided I should get in on it. After all, I had always hoped the original would come to consoles, so I should be thankful.

And it's good. I'll probably have a better opinion after I've played more, but so far I like it a lot. It looks great, and the multiplayer has me more hooked than I expected. It's no Bad Company 2, but it's a fun game, nonetheless.

When the cat is away...

Lindsay left town to head out to LA for the beginning of the week. On Monday I went to a meeting to get some new work from a client. I got back to the office just in time to take Lindsay and Adam to the airport.

After I dropped them, it was already about 3 or 4 pm. I stopped at Noodles to grab some food, and filled out an interview for I'm Organic. It' the 3rd interview this month, I think, and it's kind of silly.

I feel like I'm known for not having anything to say, but here I am having to answer all these questions. It was fun, though, even though it did take some thinking. I guess I wasn't expecting the questions to be as specific at they were.

While Lindsay was out of town, I had one goal; beat Killzone 3. I've put it on hold for Dragon Age 2, but since Lindsay likes medieval-sword-and-magic-crap and not future-gun-crap, I figured now was a good time to clear that off the deck.

And I liked it. It was a tight shooter, and I like the cover system a whole lot. The graphics ranged from pretty great to probably-the-best-I've-seen-yet. There were moments when I was like 'damn... this is crazy good looking..." but it was also kind of subtle and non as in-your-face as other games. Maybe it's the smaller field-of-view, or the super dense environments, but I feel like it's easy to overlook out stunning it is.

Of course, it was far from perfect. There were a lot of parts where I just died over and over, and I wasn't sure why. Was it unwinnable game conditions, and I was just waiting for a cut scene? Sometimes, maybe. Was it me not knowing my objective or which way I should be going? Sometimes. Was it just poor checkpoints or cheap deaths? Sometimes.

There were a few points where I was just ready to throw my hands of and laugh, but it wasn't too bad. I was able to finish it, on the last night before Lindsay came home, but I probably made myself more aggravated by giving myself a deadline...

The multiplayer is also super cool and interesting, and I did play some of that as well. I really like the unusual class and skills, and I ended up sticking with the Tactician, which no one else seems to play.

Chris C came by on Tuesday to eat some hot dogs at Chris and Robs and take a peek at Kinect. It was a lot of fun, he really liked Kinect Adventures.

Other than that, not a lot happened. I tried to hit the gym as much as possible, and just got my work done. One night I had to stay pretty late to finish a project, and now I don't even remember what that was...

Towards the middle of the week, it started raining. When I went to bed it was thundering and pouring. When I woke up in the morning, there was 6 inches of snow on the ground. Sucky. Crazy.

Lindsay's birthday.

It was Lindsay's birthday this Saturday. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do, but eventually I got the bright idea to check Kitchen Window's class schedule. We've already taken the Sushi class and Steamed Buns class, and both were a blast, so when I saw they had a cake decorating class ON her birthday, I knew it was fate.

I signed Adam, Francesca, Lindsay and myself up a week or two before the class, and went down and got all the supplies needed for everyone. By the time it was her birthday, I had managed to keep it a secret, although by that point she did know other people were involved.

So on Saturday we got up and went to class at 10. The class for 4 hours long, and focused mainly on icing and stuff. Which makes sense, I guess.

It was a lot of fun, though, even if I wasn't in the mood to eat sweets.







After that Lindsay and I went home to open presents, make taco dip, and wait for people to arrive for the evening's festivities. I had gotten Lindsay a Kinect, along with Dance Central (it also comes with Kinect Adventures), so I wanted to set it up before anyone showed up. Chris S, Adam, Atom, Francesca and Mary all came by to eat hot dogs at Chris and Robs and dance in front of scary robot eyeballs.













The best picture of the night was taken towards the very end of the night by Chris S. This is Adam tearing it up like only he can:



Eventually we were danced out. Everyone headed home and we went to bed. The next morning I got up and played some Kinect Adventures before getting ready for the day. The game takes pictures of you, as does Dance Central, but unlike Dance Central, it saves them. If I had known that, I wouldn't have played in my underwear.

But on the whole, the technology worked pretty flawlessly (especially considering we had 3+ people dancing at once, with dogs milling around our feet) and it was a blast. Everyone was laughing, sweating and dancing like crazy, and there were rarely even a hiccup.

Dance Central is easily the stand out game, and Harmonix worked their magic again, with a game that's just as clever as Rock Band.

But maybe more surprisingly, Kinect Adventures is also a ton of fun. It controls a lot tighter than I expected, and most of the games are pretty dang fun. For a free pack in, it's pretty solid and I'm amazed at how much fun I've gotten out of it already.

But Oliver hates it.

Twins?

My brother Justin came to town last week. He was in town for a trade show, so it was a one night ordeal, just up and back.

On Monday all of Paper Bicycle went to a meeting. We are starting a new project for the stationery client that's been crushing us for the past couple months. This one is more reasonable, timing-wise. After the day was over, my brother came by the studio and picked me up. We went to Long Fellow and talked for a while, before heading home and playing some games.

It was actually really nice to just get to hang for a while, without it being a family holiday or something like that.

The next morning we got up early and I went with him back to the trade show. I walked the show while he hung out with the reps who carry his product. I took notes in the show book, but there wasn't a ton I found interesting.

Plus, anything that was a little interesting wasn't particularly useful. Since it was Tuesday and one of the last, and slowest, days of the shows, there were only reps there, and no creatives. And the reps aren't much for leads or contacts...

After the show I took Justin to Cafeteria before sending him home. We must be getting more similar in our age, because at least 3 people mistook us for twins in the 18 hours he was up here.

The rest of the week is a bit of a blur. There was a lot of finalizing the work for the stationery project, which is finally over (I think). We also got our posters for the ArtCrank show, although there we weren't super happy about them. Some of the details fell out, which is our fault, and it made it kind of boring. We got worried it was too textured right before sending it off, so we toned it back a lot. Too much.

But we took some gouache and hand-distressed each one personally. So it's better now. I think.

I've been playing Dragon Age 2 when I can, it's really good but I'm not making much progress. It's a slow going game, and I only get short bursts to play it, so it's probably going to last for a long time.

This weekend is Lindsay's birthday and I've got some cool stuff planned, I hope it all goes smoothly.

How long?

Jeez? How did I get so bad at this? It seems like my start at Paper Bicycle had something to do with it. So I'd guess that it's either because my life is one long thing with no divisions between work/play/home/work and there never seems like a good point to reflect...

Or I'm too freakin' busy. I COULD write a blog, but when I've got emails coming in from 5 people at once who all want something and don't realize/care that there's other demands being made, then it makes writing about Dragon Age 2 seem secondary.

But it's not. Or, it shouldn't be. Probably. Maybe?

Actually, there's been a lot going on outside of normal work. Our upstairs renovation is now basically done; aside from some light painting, it's ready to roll. It was a long, long process (start to finish, it must have been months. Did we even start this year? Or was it in December? I can't remember.)

Apart from that, we created a poster for the upcoming ArtCrank show. Which took longer than expected, but it turned out well (I hope, we haven't gotten the final prints back so I guess there's still room for failure).

I also finished, and printed a shirt for I'm Organic. It was a tough one, only because the design took several revisions, and color was impossible because the t-shirt we were planning on was out of stock at the last minute, so we had to go back to the drawing board a couple times. But it's out in the wild.

I've also been working on 2 SAAC pieces at once, and one is pretty complex compared to my normal work (actually they both are, but I'm still on sketch phase for the second so it might change).

I've been trying to go to the gym more regularly now that it's been getting nice, so between juggling all that jazz left very little time for games. I made sure to fit in some time, but it was usually between the hours of 1-2:30 am.

Oh yeah. Also, my PS3 broke down. Bad. And I had to have it fixed, but not until I went through a super-painful troubleshooting and reconciliation period. I won't go into detail, because it boils my blood so bad, but I will say it took weeks, I lost all my data, and it cost me a lot of money. And it really shouldn't have been that way (well, maybe the money part I understand). But I lost all my PS3 data from the last 3/4 years due to obvious oversights in design by Sony.

I got my PS3 back a week or so ago, and I've played a bit of Killzone 3. Probably one hour of the campaign, and about 3 full multiplayer matches (which are closer to Battlefield length than Call of Duty). It seems really solid. I actually liked the Killzone 2 multiplayer a lot; I thought the classes were varied and unique compared to any other shooter, and the Warzone mode is outstanding. Every game should copy that mode, for real.

But I put off playing Killzone 3 most of the week (even though my broken PS3 had already put it off for a few weeks already) because I was playing Beyond Good and Evil HD. Which is an up-rezed game from 2003 that came out on XBLA for 10 bucks. It's really, really good. I totally overlooked it when it came out (the same day as the Prince of Persia PS2-era reboot). I remember even playing a demo and passing (the demo showcased one of the worse parts in the game, in my opinion). But I've been wanting to play it for a few years now, and I even got a PS2 copy a while back to revisit it.

But as soon as my PS2 copy showed up in the mail, they announced this HD version. So I waited. And I'm glad I did, because I'm sure it made a big difference (not only the graphics, but the achievements). I started playing just to have a peek, and decided to put everything else on hold (like Killzone 3, Little Big Planet 2 and Dragon Age 2) until it was finished. Being just a downloadable game, I figured if I quit and 'lost my place' in the story/objectives, I wouldn't come back.

So even though Killzone is said to only take around 5 hours, I went ahead and plowed through BG&E, which clocked in just under 10. And it was a treat. I mean, it still had some of the hallmarks of a game made in 2003, but I was really impressed. If I had played it when it came out, I'm sure it would have blown my mind.

I stayed up really late a couple of nights this weekend played it. I knew I shouldn't but I couldn't put it down. Good stuff.

I'll talk more about the likes of Killzone, DA2 and more later. I should go to bed because it's now 2 am.

work and fun.

Our stationery project seems like it never ends. In addition to doing dozens, even hundreds of designs, we have to go back and do production files for the ones that get accepted. Every time I think we're almost done, they start up a new category.

When we started it was a crunch because we had to concept/create a bunch of cards. Now we have to concept/create a bunch of cards, but also do revisions to the bunch before, and do production on the ones previous to those.

Thanks to Lindsay and Francesca both teaching, I've become the de facto person to work on this project. Which is fine but it just consists of answering emails, digging through files, organizing designs, concepts and people and overseeing everything to make sure we don't miss anything.

Maybe that's why my posts here have been lacking. I don't really want to talk about it but not much else is going on around work.

We did just secure a new studio space. Or, an additional studio space. So now we have our studio, plus the space across the hall which is a fair bit larger than ours. It will be interesting to see how that works out.

Also, our house is getting SOOOO close to being done with the construction... Within a week or two, we'll be ready to put all this mess behind us and just live in our house like normal people. It will be amazing.

On Valentine's Day I took Lindasy to see Hubble 3D at the IMAX theater. It was super cool. It's scary hot big space it, and some of the images they have recorded are unbelievable. After that we went to Sushi Tango. Amazingly, despite eating sushi 2-3 times a week, we've never eaten there. But when I saw they had Donburi I couldn't resist. But I still had to get sushi, so I ended up getting WAY too much food. Lindsay too. So that was kind of too bad. But it was good and it's part of Happy Hour, so I might have to make Donburi day a regular part of the week or something.

MvC3 at last.

Ha! Well, my last post was a length explanation of why I haven't been posting, and a promise to do more, but then it was what? 2 weeks? 2 weeks?!?! Maybe I'm done blogging? Maybe twitter is a blog-destroying cancer (I've seen a lot of people blame twitter for their failure to blog, so maybe I will too).

But wait! I haven't been posting much to twitter, anyway. So maybe it's something else. I guess I can name those something else's. I already did in my last post.

Anyway, here's some things I've been playing:

Marvel VS Capcom 3. MvC3 is phenomenal. The first night I sat down with it, I pulled out my Fight Stick and got to work. At first, I was clueless. The buttons are a bit strange, but very similar to Tatsunoko VS Capcom (which I own but fully admit I only played a handful of times, mainly due to having to use the classic pad and not a real arcade stick or at least a fightpad.

Basically MvC3 ditches the expected kick/punch set up and just has three attacks, Light Medium and Hard. There's a "special" button, as well. So that's 4 attack buttons. There's 2 partner buttons, as well.

The 3 attacks make building combos pretty easy. I'm sure there's some crazy advanced combos, but basically you can string together some hits by stepping up from Light to Hard. So light, light, medium, medium, heavy. Or something, it's pretty open.

The action is super fast and furious, and it's hard not to laugh at the over-the-top nature of it all. By the end of the first night, I was pretty pleased with the game.

But even after spending some time with it, the 'special' is the button that threw me off. Really it's just kind of mislabeled. It sounds like you should be able to do special moves with it, maybe an instant Hadouken, which would be kind of lame. But actually it's a "launch" button. For most characters, the only thing it really does is launch the opponent 30 feet into the air, setting them up for an air juggle.

The game doesn't explain much of anything, so I had to look online for an explanation of how to complete air juggles. They're easy, really, but not intuitive. Once I got that down pat, I felt great. I had figured out all the pieces of the game and I'm comfortable playing with a lot of the characters. I've raced through the arcade mode with 10 or so characters, and played a bit online. So far I think all my matches have ended in time-outs. Strange.

Adam picked it up too, so I've been playing with him every now and then. He's pretty bad compared to me, if I do say so myself, but the since the game has a ton of weird characters, and it's 3 on 3, I can do an ok job of handicapping myself by throwing a bizarre character into the mix.

I can't wait until Ryan gets his copy and spends some time with it, because he can easily compete on a similar level and it's going to be epic.

Overall I think it's an amazing game, and a total blast, although occasionally the wacky spectacle of MvC3 makes me yearn for the slower, more masterful Super Street Fighter VI, which I'm convinced is about as perfect as games get.

Yeah...

Blame game.

Alright, I was going to do a better job posting. Why? Who cares? I don't know. But I was going to do it. But I didn't.

Here's a few things I blame;

Work!
We had to really crunch on another round of greeting cards. They were actually pretty cool and a lot of fun to make, but unfortunately they were more labor intensive than the previous designs by a lot. We promised a tight turnaround and busted our asses, but still missed it by a couple days (Friday to Monday though, who cares about the weekend anyway?).

We were at the studio until about 2 am many-a nights, so I was focusing more on that then writing blog posts that read "I stayed at my desk for 16 hours today..."

Final Prep for remodeling
We start our final push (I hope) for finishing up the work we've been doing our house for about a year now... We are tearing down walls, installing cabinets and counters, and opening the staircase. Or rather, some dudes we hired are doing all that. Our job is to get the upstairs ready, make a plan for the project, and get the cabinets.

We start actual construction on Monday, so that's gonna suck.

Getting in Shape
With the deadlines we've had lately and the freezing, freezing, painful weather, I haven't got the gym nearly as much as I'd like. I've been trying to make a big push to change that. I've been walking to the gym despite the subzero temperatures, and I've been trying to stay on top of it no matter what. So far so good, kind of.

Dead Space 2
Dead Space 2 is awesome. Totally awesome. Every minute I could steal away to play it, I did. It was actually finding the time was actually pretty tough. Mainly because of our deadlines, but I also refused to play it at the studio, or during the day. I wanted it on my huge tv, in pitch black, for full effect.

I did have a hiccup on the final boss. It was late one night and I came to the end, and playing the boss over and over and over. And I could not win. I was ill-prepared, with the wrong weapons, no health, and no chance of winning. I came kind of close, but I would run out of ammo and be S.O.L.

I got really, really angry. I couldn't believe such an expertly made game could set me up to fail so hard. The last boss is of a fairly painful design anyway; the 'boss' is a one hit kill if they so much as touch you, and you are constantly swarmed with garbage minions. I didn't know what to expect so I had slow, powerful weapons, so fighting the swarm was particularly impossible.

I quit and went to bed fuming, but the next night I re-loaded a save 10 minutes previous, loaded up with the proper tools for the job, and it was a freakin' cake walk. So it sucks I had the problem, but it was no big deal in the end.

I wholeheartedly recommend the game, and I've already started a New Game + and I'm half way through again. So, so good.

etc, etc, etc
So that's the main stuff. But other things of note: I hurt my back a couple days ago. I don't know if it was because I feel on the ice, pushed myself too hard at the gym, or what, but I couldn't sit up in bed, turn my neck, or ride in a car without wincing.

I first noticed the pain a bit on Wednesday, but Thursday it was out of control. While Lindsay was at class, I walked over to Keep In Touch Massage and got a massage. I let pick a masseuse, but it happened to be Norm, the owner. And he was amazing. I like a lot of pressure. I don't think anyone's been able to really give me the pressure I'm looking for, but Norm nailed it. It hurt so, so bad. But so good. I could barely stand it, and he was amazed at how wrecked my back was. there were knots on knots, but he worked them out and even extended my session 15 minutes so he could do it properly.

When I got up off the table, I was amazed. It was like the pain was gone entirely.

Of course, over the next day or so I got some pain from all the toxins that were realized, as well as my muscles tightening up a bit, but I feel amazing.

I was able to go to the Roller Rink that night, which I thought I'd never do in the morning. Adam, Lindsay, Francesca and myself met up with Victoria and her friends. For some skate rink action to the smooth jams. It was a 25 and up night, and Francesca is only 24, so we had to do some smooth talking and the ticket dude wasn't happy, but we made it in.

Today I ran to the gym towards the end of the day. My back felt great and I felt like my work out was twice as good as normal. I might start getting massages a lot more regularly from now on...

Other than that, Stacking came out and it's really cool, Bionic Commando 2 came out and I can't resist that formula, even though it's review a fair bit worse than the first.

Also, my PS3 died. Bad. I will be sending it in, there a box on it's way, but right now it seems like I'm loosing all my data. Sucky. Sucky. Sucky. I've had that thing for 3 or 4 years now, and I have a lot of saves I don't want to lose. I'm hoping I can figure out a way to salvage my data before it comes because it sounds like Sony just wipes it clean from the get-go.

I'm having bad luck with hardware lately.

Alright. I'll be back more frequently again, I promise. Oh yeah, I also blame Twitter. I have been sharing thoughts and stuff there, so check out @teenwolfdude if you really miss my blathering.

A boring story.

Today I went over to Eden Prairie to meet up with some people from the old office for lunch. Turns out it was everyone. Well, maybe not EVERYONE, but all of creative and then some. So I thought I might be able to jump in, say hi, talk for a bit, and leave, but it turned out to be a much bigger deal.

But that's cool. I was excited to see everyone so it was a bonus.

Afterward, I went back to the studio and worked. I worked out for a bit and then played Lara Croft and Guardian of Light with Ryan. We are playing through the game in co-op, but so far we've been doing a bad job. We started weeks, maybe a month or more ago, and we've only made it through a level or two.

So we ran through a level tonight. There's a lot of little challenges or goals you can accomplish during the game; collect 10 red skulls, solve a puzzle in X amount of time, cross a river without touching the water... etc.

We had accomplished all the goals on one level except getting the last 2 Red Skulls, which we could see, but we'd past a critical part of the level that cuts you off from that area. So we decided to run through it again.

The first time it took us 20 or 30 minutes, but i figured if we didn't look around for items, if we skipped all the combat, we could do it in no time flat. Sure enough, there was a goal for beating the level in under 5 minutes. So then we were sure we could do it.

We ran through the level, and learned a few tips and tricks (enemies can't hurt you if you dive, you can also dive right through them) and we made it through the level in 6:42 seconds... but getting the two skulls took some time. We were being swarmed by enemies and couldn't climb to where we needed to get.

So we did it a final time, since we had all items found. We planned our route, rolled the whole way, and pulled it off in 4:12. It was a lot of fun, both Ryan and I were just shouting "go! go! go! left! left! right! up!" the whole time. I always find the whole speed-run phenomenon kind of lame, since I hate stress, but doing it with a friend was a pretty hilarious affair. So that's the end of this story because I don't know why I'm telling it.

Oh yeah, Lindsay's watching Ghost Adventures and I kind of find that show really boring...

Working late.

Well, it's almost 1 and we're getting ready to leave the studio. But that's ok.

I worked on Stationery stuff for most of the day, but I switched gears at around 7 and started working on my brother's projects, which are always fun. I also went on a huge musical voyage, buying songs which led me to other songs which led me to more.

I ended up on some hiphop sites downloading mixtapes. All in all, I got about 100 new songs. So I was jamming out to that pretty hard. I got some food from next door at Cause Soundbar. A burger and it was really good.

I also wrote up tomorrow's paper bicycle blog, so that's taken care of. I've got to get caught up on a whole helluva lot of things, and tonight was a good start (besides NOT going to the gym, which I really, really need to do). It was a good night, I even made a pretty sweet tweet.

You better click that link. You know who you are.

Oh yeah! Also, DOGS in HATS! YES!

How can you resist following @teenwolfdude, now? But only follow me if I know you and you're my friend. I'm talking to one person specifically.

Moto-i cooking class.

Today I found out my former workplace let everyone who was left go... Looks like it was a good thing I left when I did. I feel bad for everyone who lost their jobs, but I know they also expected it. Maybe they didn't expect it that day, but everyone's known it was coming for years now...

After that bad news, we spent a lot of the day brainstorming ideas for a new project we are working on. I also got the new computer up and running with all the software and printer/scanner drivers.

After work Francesca and I went to Kitchen Window. We had a class with the former chef from Moto-i. It was really cool and the food was amazing. The buns at Moto-i are incredible, and that is the main focus of the night. I thought I could never get enough of those dang buns, but I ate so many... so many.

Afterward as we walked home we stopped at Gamestop to grab Ghost Trick (not for me). Once back at the studio, Lindsay picked us up, and now we're watching Ghost Adventures. Sc-sc-scary.

Computer time.

I've was busy last week making stationery. I've become pretty much the only person to work on this big project now that Lindsay and Francesca are teaching. Which is fine, since the rush is kind of over, but it still takes all my time.

I even went in to thier offices Friday morning to get a new project. It's another stationery project, but this one is considerably different than the previous one, style and content-wise. So that's cool.

It seems like they really like working with us, which was made really apparent during this meeting. The last project had a roomful of designers in addition to us, but this time it was just me and one other guy, who's a photographer. So we survived the rest. Good for us? Or is it because we just take the punishment?

After the meeting I did lunch with Natalie again. I wish I could get out there more, but it's so far away. I always feel rushed, so I never actually stop into the office to say hi to the old gang... I should probably do that.

This Saturday I got my computer back. I was relieved that they didn't have to wipe the hard drive or anything. I backed up everything many times over using Time Machine, so it wouldn't have been a huge deal, just one more headache. So it's nice that they sparred me the hassle.

On Sunday we also got a new Mac Mini for the studio. We already had extra monitors, keyboards and mice sitting around, so it was an easy pic. It's now the official studio computer, for use by freelancers and interns. It's also hooked up to both scanners and both printers. So that's a lot of fun. Even thought it's a biznass computer, I still like playing with new stuff.

The rest of the weekend was filled with trips to the gym, Target, West Elm and 5 Guys burgers. I put in some time at night on Dead Space 2 and it's still really good. I'm totally loving it, as expected. It was a pretty laid back weekend. Which is good.

Makin' Sushi

We had the meeting we had been preparing this morning. It was kind of strange, but it was interesting and there could be some interesting opportunities there.

After the meeting, I walked to the Apple store and sent off my computer. It was really sad and difficult, but I hope it will come back without having to erase all the date or replacing the hard drive. I have everything backed up right up to the minute I dropped it off, but it would be way less of a hassle if I didn't have to set everything up the way I like it again.

After work, Lindsay and I had class at Kitchen Window. We took a Sushi Class, which started at 6 PM. We walked to Calhoun Square and found the classroom. It was a full night, so we grabbed a nametag and found a place to work.

We spent the next 3 hours making and eating sushi. Our teacher was a sushi chef at Sushi Tango, and he was a nice, funny guy. Kind of nervous. But we learned a lot and by the end of the night we rolled about 12 rolls (6 each). We got to eat/take anythign we made, so we had A LOT of extra.

We took it back to the studio, and shared it with Francesca and Adam. Even they couldn't finish everything we made.

It turned out really good, though, and I feel like I could probably do it again. It would be difficult to do just thanks to out lack of space/supplies and proper set up, but it's easier than I thought it would be.

We took pictures with my phone, so when I get my computer back I'll probably upload them.

Studio 2.0

We spent all weekend cleaning the studio. My main job was to frame and hang all our artwork, but we also did lots of trashing of old crap and rearranging. It pretty much took all of our time. Adam helped out a bit, too. It was a lot of work, but we finished up Monday night after work.

I don't even remember else what happened, it was a long weekend. But here's some pictures of the aftermath. You can see a post on the Paper Bicycle blog.

But here they are, anyway.















Much nicer.

Freezing

This morning I had a meeting in Eden Prairie pretty early in the morning. I took Lindsay's car, because she was going to need mine to take the dogs to the studio in.

Her car was dead, since we hadn't used it in more than a month, so I had to jump it before I left. I wasn't more than a few minutes late, so that's pretty good, I guess.

The meeting went well, and then I went back to the studio to work for the rest of the day. After Lindsay came back from class, we stayed at the studio for a while. I started to play The Witcher, which I had downloaded the previous night. I've been interested in that game for a long time, and bought it over the Steam Holiday Sale for 5 bucks. But it's taken me a while to clear the space to install it. I only have a small section partitioned for Windows, so I have to pick and choose what games to install. The Witcher was 15 gigs, so I had to delete a couple games to make room.

I played for an hour or two, and it was pretty good. I'd like to play more, but who knows when I'll find the time. But I did totally enjoy it, so I'll try to find some time as soon as I can.

This was a boring post, I guess.

5 games, one mailman.

Tuesday had a slow start. We had pushed out a big deadline, and even though there was more work to be done, I think we earned a little downtime. We actually met with another cotractor, and actually hired him to work on our upstairs. So we start mid Feburary.

Lindsay and I went to early lunch at Pho Hoa. Daaaang was it good. It's been a while. We spent the day catching up with clients we'd ignroed in the madness. After work we went to St Paul to pick up Francesca. It was her first day teaching at CVA, so we met her at Cafe Latte and got some wicked food and cake. I got some Tres Leche and ate the crap out of it.

When I got home, I had gotten 5 games in the mail. 4 from Goozex, and 1 from Amazon. It's been a couple days, and I've almost tried all of them, so here's some thoughts...

Little Big Planet 2: I put this in to get the install/updates out of the way, I dind't really have any plans to play it yet. But the intro started, and it's interactive, so I just went with it. So I played about 10 minutes of it.

It seems more story driven than before, but otherwise it's pretty similar. The graphics look about the same, and the games feels the same mechanic-wise. And although I wasn't in love with LBP 1 (although I thought I would be), I think this will be a solid sequel.

I've seen some the absolutely crazy things people created in the beta, and there's a lot of new stuff added into the creation features, so I'm excited to see what's going to come from that.

LBP is weird because it's almost like I have the game just to see what people do with it, not really because I want to play it a bunch.

ModNation Racers: I put this in the night I got it. I started the update process... and didn't get to play it until the net day. I was only awake for 4-5 hours, so it probably took about 6 hours. Pure stupidity.

This is why I never play you, PS3.

I actually got to play it last night... and I might be done.

The kart racing seems fine. But I already have the Sonic Kart game from last year, and it seems to have tighter controls, better tracks and more clearly defined power-ups than ModNation.

But the point of ModNation is the user-created content. I know. But I'm not going to make anything, and (like LBP) I'd rather play a tight game than a sloppy game that has user-generated content. But unlike LBP, the user content in ModNation Racers has less potential to be mind blowing.

I like the chunky, big graphics (the karts/characters seem HUGE on my TV) and the bouncy physics. But the tracks seem kind of blah.

I spent a little time and made a character from scratch. 9/10 of the stuff you can use to build is locked when you start, so it was a little limiting. I started to make a kart and decided I couldn't care less after a couple minutes. I have no patience for this kind of thing.

I did 3 mission races and 1 online race. None stood out as being particularly fun. And the loading times are TERRIBLE! Like, I'm talking MINUTES. Which is nearly as long as the races! I heard the patches improved load times, so I'd hate to have seen what it was like previously.

I didn't hate the game or anything, but as I turned it off I had the realization "this could very well be the last time I ever play this game..." So yeah.

Dragon Quest IX: I played this before bed a couple of nights and in the car waiting for Lindsay to finish class. So maybe an hour? 1 1/2 hours?

So far, it's... boring; JRPG style. I don't have any real party members yet and I just got out into the real world. I'll keep going for a bit to see how combat changes when I've got more going on.

Right now I literally put it down and just pushed 'A' while I was saving some files on my computer. Snoozefest.

King Of Fighters XII: Not 1/2 bad, I kind of like it! The graphics aren't QUITE what I was hoping for. They're a bit pixelated and not all the characters are as smooth as they could be. They range from looking great to just Ok.

King of Fighters has always been far behind Street Fighter in terms of the actual gameplay, and the same applies here. But it's not bad. In fact it's pretty good.

One thing I did notice is that the Achievements are CRAZY stupid! I got 3 while I played, and that might be all I'll ever get. Kind of annoying. But whatever.

Bioshock 2: What? Anyone who reads this blog (which is me and Jesse, unless if he quit from boredom) knows I played Bioshock 2 a while ago. And I liked it, but wasn't crazy about it. Kind of a grind. So why would I re-acquire it?

Because I wanted to play Minerva's Den, the single player DLC story arc, which is supposed to be phenomenal. It's completely stand-alone story-wise, and it's supposed to out-shine Bioshock 2 (and in some people's opinion, the original Bioshock).

I haven't touched it yet, but I have the highest hopes for Minerva's Den.

So there you have it. I have a feeling I'm going to pass ModNation Racers onto the next Goozex user, give Dragon Quest a little more of a chance before sending it away. I'll keep LBP 2 around to see what the community does. And I'll keep King of Fighers around because I love 2-D fighters that much. And hopefully I'll get to Minerva's Den before Dragon Age 2 takes over my free time.

The final push.

Alright, I thought I was on track. I was going to the gym, blogging everyday, but then we hit a crunch again... sigh. But the end is in sight and we can only go up from here.

On Thursday last week we went to the AIGA event. Chris S, Francesca, Lindsay and myself met up with Mary and Ben and found our way through the U of M campus. I hate going over there, and make a habit of avoiding the area. We are unfamiliar with the halls and auditoriums, and they don't seem to do much to try to point you in the right direction, but we made it.

The talk started out slow, with microphone problems and guests who didn't seem too interested in discussion, but it definitely picked up by the end. There was good discussion and some drama in the crowd (one woman stood up and angrily argued with the panel until a moderator got her to leave). When we left we had a lot to talk/rant/argue about and that's a good thing.

On Friday the construction finished on our upstairs floors. They look really good, but the whole house reeked of chemicals the whole time. We avoided the fumes by staying at the studio all night. I was in the studio alone all day while Lindsay taught, and afterward we me up with Adam and went to Yum. We stayed there for quite a while, until they were closed, then we went back to the studio. I played Nier for a while while Lindsay and Adam looked at dating sites (for Adam, not Lindsay). We also watched a documentary called "The Science of Sex Appeal" or something like that. By the time we left, it was 4 am... too late.

The next day we got up pretty late. We had a lot of work to do for our final-ish push, so we went to the studio as soon as we could. We stopped for Hot Dogs and worked at the studio until 6 or so, when we went to a friend's house for dinner. Our friend was Lindsay's boss at Target and mine at D56, but she and her husband acts a bit like our parents. They tell us how proud they are and they call us "the whippersnappers" when we're not around.

We were supposed to meet at 112 Eatery, but they just got a new dog, and it's their first ever. So they didn't want to leave it alone and we ended up getting takeout from Rainbow Chinese. Which was good too. We ended up staying 4 hours or so, instead of the 2 like we planned. We ended up leaving at 11 PM or so, just to go back to the studio to work until 2 or 3.

Sunday was a business day. We got up and went straight to work. Francesca came with and we cranked on the final group of designs we needed to do. That's about it.

Monday we met with a drywall guy about the next stage in our upstairs renovation. Then we went into the office. We had a new intern starting, and Mary came in to help too. Francesca had them working by the time we got there, so we joined in. 1/2 way through the day we got Chris S to help, too, so we were working at full capacity. We didn't have enough space to go around.

We finished up the bare minimum, and sent off the designs. We still owe some, but we got the critical ones out the door, and on time to boot. Way to go us.

Bad night, mediocre day.

I'm going to try to post something every day again. I got out of the habit, probably thanks to the incredible tedium of my life. But my reader demands more!

Today was kind of ok, but kind of awful. Last night was extra terrible.

Thanks to the dust, construction and constant flow of men in and out of our house, we have to have all the cats locked up... in the 2 rooms available to us. And one cat can't be with the rest, so that's 1 to 4. Which means 4 in the bedroom. And that would be fine, if they weren't LOCKED in the bedroom. They love being on the bed and sleeping, provided they don't HAVE to. But as soon as you shut the door, and all of a sudden they all have places they want to be.

And I'm a super light sleeper, which means I had cats meowing at me, pawing at me, walking on me, chomping food and scratching at litter all night long. I was very angry.

We tried to sleep in as long as we could, but the workers showed up to work on house which forced us up and out.

I didn't get much done at work. I got an alright amount done but a lot seemed to be re-saving files in different formats over and over.

Then we got an email about our deadline. There must have been some miscommunication, or this is currently being some miscommunication, because the deadline is now way sooner than anticipated. Like, impossibly soon.

Not impossible like we'd have to stay up 24/7, but impossible like even if we had 10 people to stay up 24/7 it'd be impossible. So there's that. We're trying to sort that out.

I dropped Lindsay at MCAD to teach, and I went to the gym. I'm trying to go every day I possible can, even if our clients have other things to say about that. But I knew I couldn't go tomorrow, so I was really motivated to go today. And it was fun.

Now we're watching nature documentaries and working. Or rather, I'm writing this blog.

Cat Puke.

Hmmmm. I feel like I should have more time to write these things. I am getting worse, but I guess that's ok. Here's the deal. I cleaned a ton of shit to prepare for our re-doing our upstairs floor. Starting Monday there have been, and will be, dudes here at 8 am sanding and making tons of noise.

Our house is super dusty, dirty and cramped. We can't let the cats out of our room, because they want to go upstairs. So we have the front room and the bed room, 7 animals split between 2 rooms.

All the crap from upstairs in in the living room, kitchen, front room and wherever we could put it.

What I basically am trying to say is that I feel like I'm suffocating every second I'm at home.

And at work I've got a ton of crap to do that super detail oriented, so I feel like I"m suffocating there, too. This year is not starting out as I'd hoped, but once this upstairs project is done I feel like it will be much, much better. At the same time, we should be finishing up this project at work, so maybe it will be like a double rainbow all the way.

In other news, I started (and finished) Singularity. I was probably most interested in it because it was made by hometown heroes Raven Software. It was good to very good. The story was whatever, the graphics were pretty good, but the time-manipulation device is what made the game. There's a ton of abilities, and switching it up and using all of them is what made the game a joy.

Highlight: throwing down a Deadlock (a bubble that slows down time for anything inside, including bullets) on three guys, then running up to each one, shooting a bullet at their head, then unfreezing time to watch them all crumple at once.

It's a very cartoon-y kind of game with crazy sci-fi, terrible accents, silly monsters and a nonsense story. But it was good. And pretty dang short. I played in big spurts after being so burnt out from last week, but it couldn't have taken more than 5 or 6 hours.

Also, this:

Crazy work and crazy relaxation

It's almost 2:30 am. I just got done working out and now I should be going to bed, but I don't really want to.

This week has been pretty crazy. On Monday we went in for a meeting to get some revisions from the first phase of the big project we're working on, we found out some bad news about a shifting schedule. We've got a lot, lot, lot to do in a short amount of time... Even more than we thought, and even shorter than we thought.

Luckily, we had massages scheduled after the meeting. Lindsay had given me the Total Body Elixir Vichy Treatment at Juut. I wasn't sure what that was, but I was game.

It was, and I quote, "a hot oil hair treatment and scalp massage. A facial cleanse, full body exfoliation with smoothing body polish, and foot massage get you ready for your massage treatment. Massage with oil on the front of your body is followed by your vichy water massage on the back of our body. The finishing touch is an overall moisture application to leave you soft and smooth."

It was awesome, basically. It started out with me changing into a robe and slippers, then going into this massage room/bathroom. There was a massage table, but it had gutters on it and towels. There were 5 or 7 jets hanging from the ceiling above the table, and a big hose attached to the wall.

The first stuff was pretty standard, with oils and massages and stuff. Then I was scrubbed head to toe, front to back, with some abrasive salt exfoliation stuff. It felt like really coarse, sharp beach sand and kind of hurt, but also felt really good.

Then I was rinsed off with a large, fairly high pressure hose. It was dark and candle lit in the room, and I had my face buried in the massage table, but it felt like waves on a beach.

Once that was done, the shower started. The jets above me turned on one by one, and soon I was basically in a sensory deprivation chamber. The water pummeled my entire body, and the sound was so loud it was the only thing you could hear. It sounded like a massive rain storm. I couldn't see anything and it felt like I had a 40 pound blanket covering my entire body, but a blanket filled with bugs that was constantly shifting. In a good way.

Before we began, my masseuse set some ground rules. People are known to get claustrophobic in a vichy water massage. If I was uncomfortable, I should raise my hand because it's too loud to hear with all the water running.

I was fine, but I did have a few moments of near-panic or suffocation. A few times I had to lift myself up just to breathe, because my chest has so much pressure on it. I couldn't see, hear or even tell if my masseuse was around sometimes. She would come over and adjust my towels, or shampoo my hair (yes, this was a super-pamper treatment).

But I mentioned feeling like I was in a sensory deprivation chamber because at one moment, I started to realize I had no idea how long I had been under that water. As far as I knew, it could have been 5 minutes or an hour. I started to get a little worried, thinking what if she fell over and died and I didn't know and I was just sitting here under this water and I'd never get up until the hot water ran our or I turned into such a prune I couldn't stand it?

Obviously everything was fine, but for a split second, I was convinced I was in big trouble.

My description might sound terrible, but it's not. It's awesome. It's an hour and a half of totally crazy, relaxing, rejuvenating bliss.

After it was over, my masseuse covered helped me get into my robe and slippers, then draped a massive, heavy blanket over my head. She took me to a waiting area and wrapped me in two more blankets, so only my face was peeking out. She gave me water and tea and left me for 20 minutes.

She said that I couldn't leave or go outside until my blood-pressure had normalized, as the treatment does some crazy stuff. So I sat swaddled in blankets until it was time to go.

Lindsay had only gotten a normal massage, since they only have one area to do vichy treatments. She was pretty jealous when I met back up with her.

From there it was back to the real world. We went back to the studio and made a game-plan for the week. We've got too much to do and it's a bit scary.

We went home at a normal time, since we didn't have the dogs along, and we spent most of the night working, although I took a break to play Battlefield with Ryan and Chris C.

The rest of the days have been less wonderful.

I went to meeting the following day to get brought up to speed with how we should proceed with production files for a project, and it was a long, confusing meeting. Not because the process should be that confusing, because I don't think it is, but because the client was not prepared in the slightest and used examples that were flat-out wrong.

So it was like "this one has this right... but ignore the rest. this one shows how this should be... except it shouldn't be like this at all." Whatever, I got it. Other designers seemed to bit a bit worried, though.

We cranked on stuff until the wee-hours of the morning ever since. Last night we were at the studio until 2:30 or 3. And tonight we were there until 12:30. Which is why I decided to work out when I got home.

I thought I was starting out the new year well by hitting the gym right away, but now we're in think middle of so many deadlines we only have time to work and sleep.

Sucky. But we've made major progress, and I think by the end of tonight we closed the book on a few projects that have been looming for a while. So it feels good. Things are manageable. It'll be a few more days (or weeks?) of late nights, but it's moving in the right direction.

It's a new year.

It's the new year, 2011. Welcome to it.

Our project that we've been busting on is over (well, phase one is over. Phase two starts Monday...). It was super successful, though. In all, we did 32 designs for a pitch meeting. There were other artists submitting as well, for a total of 70 or 80 designs. Of those, 35 were to be chosen to move forward.

We found out that 23 of ours made it to final. Which is amazing. It's about 400% better than I expected, actually. The best part is there's a bonus for chosen pieces, so we will be getting way more than expected. It actually makes the whole thing worth it. If I could do a couple of rush jobs like this a year, I would only have to work 6-10 weeks a year and end up making as much as my income was a couple years ago...

But that's not going to happen, I guess. I should appreciate the flukes when they happen...

Other than that I've been doing some sketches and designs for a new client. It's kind of fun stuff, but I've had a bit of trouble coming up with the ideas I need. It's just a bit too vague and open. I should take that as an excuse to do some fun, amazing stuff. But instead I flounder a bit trying to figure out what's right...

So that's what I was doing on Friday. After work we had Adam come over. I made Sloppy Joes and we celebrated the New Year in an understated fashion. Just the 3 of us, playing Rock Band and eating sloppy joes. We ended up staying up to late, even for New Years Eve. We weren't really doing anything; Adam brought over Epic Mickey and played a bit of it for us. It seemed really not very cool.

Then we played a bunch of Rock Band until our throats couldn't stand it. After that, i played Nier while they watched. I had just gotten Nier in the mail from Goozex, just because it seemed intriguing. It looks terrible, from trailers, and opinions are wildly spit over the game. Those who didn't like it, really hated it. And those who liked it, love it and shower it with praise.

It (the reception, not the game) reminds me of Demon's Souls. And I was in the "I love it" camp, so I figured maybe this was out-there enough to win me over. Since I got it from Goozex I've got nothing to lose. And so far... it's not bad. Well, it kind of is, but I kind of like it. I can see it going two ways: either I'm going to appreciate it more and more until I think it's pretty great (ala Fable 2 and 3) or I'm going to get sick of real fast.

When Adam was playing Epic Mickey, I also started up a new game of Civ V. I went with Japan again, but this time started my Civ much later in the timeline, skipping all the primitive stuff. I'm glad I did it once, but I doubt I'd do it again. Things go so much faster when you have the tech to travel faster and fight more effectively.

I woke up kind of late, but Lindsay was still sleeping. So I grabbed my computer and played my Civ game in bed... for like 3 hours... Lindsay got up really late. But it was awesome. My game is going really well, even though I'm playing on a harder difficulty. This is my second Civ game ever, but I do understand what I'm doing a lot more, which helps a ton.

I"m still playing in a really militaristic way, because I like turn-based combat. But I also don't feel like I know what's going on enough to go for a cultural or political victory. Besides,, I just like fighting and moving my army around the map...

When we DID finally get moving, we headed to Home Depot and picked up about 2 big metal shelving units, 8 plastic tubs and a bunch of cardboard boxes... It's time to take care of the basement. We came home and spent 5 hours or so just cleaning the basement, and it's starting to show some promise. We've got to get the upstairs cleared out because we're re-finishing the floors, but the basement's got to happen first. Or at least be partially started first. So that worked out pretty well, and It's a big relief to have the tools to store the crap we have, instead of just pushing it around a bunch, like we normally do.

After we called it a night, I played Nier for a little while longer. I'm thinking I might get sick of it before I learn to love it. But it's still good enough that I'm not sending off. Yet.