It's Dai Time

Katie & Scott & Simon & Cecily.

Author: Scott (Page 99 of 104)

Day 6: habits

February 17, 2009 / / 0 Comments

There are many activities in life that I don’t remember starting to do.  When I was a kid, I had much better dental hygiene.  I would always brush twice a day.  At some point, I just started being lazy and would often skip brushing.  It’s become such a bad habit now that it feels like a chore to brush my teeth.

The same (but opposite) with gaming.  Sure, the first console I owned was an Atari, but it wasn’t something I played with regularly.  I didn’t own another one until the Dreamcast.  Sometime during college or shortly afterwards, though, gaming started becoming a really central part of how I got my entertainment.

This is all to lead up to the fact that I don’t know why I develop certain habits but I wish I could tap into that part of my mind, because there’s one habit I haven’t quite developed yet that scares me.  That habit is backing up my data.

Currently, most of my whole documented life, post high-school, is on this computer: my resume, my college essays, my taxes and finances, my wedding photos, everything.  In a second, due to a lightning strike or a hard drive malfunction, I could lose it all.  This terrifies me.

And yet, I don’t have a really adequate backup system in place.  I buy hard drives, cheap as they are now, only when I need storage space and have never really set up a mirror of the most important data so that I have at least two copies of things.

A week ago, my external drive, which holds all of my media, started giving me write errors about once a day.  Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet, order a set of hard drives, and learn a bit about RAID.

If backing up life was just as easy and inexpensive, how sweet would that be?  Had a rough day?  Get distracted while driving and have an accident?  Just restore your life to your last backup.  As long as you’ve been backing up regularly, you won’t have to go back too far.  Then, just do it again.  Except better.

Unless, of course, LOST is right and you won’t really be able to do things any differently (spoiler!) and will only have to relive the mistakes you made all over again, just in a different way.  That’d be pretty depressing.

Now, a few more thoughts about habits before I leave you for today:

  • Speaking of habits, learning the guitar will make a new one for me: clipping the nails on my left hand much more regularly.
  • I need a haircut.  For some reason, I never feel like getting one, although I don’t dislike the actual hair cutting at all.  I think it may be because I feel like sitting still for 20 minutes while someone cuts my hair is wasted time?  It doesn’t make any sense, I know.
  • I need to drink more water, too.  I go through phases where I’m really good at hydrating myself and times like now when I’m not.  Bottled water does make it easier, but it’s such a foolish thing to purchase.
  • Writing an entry each morning is fast becoming an entry and helps me start the day.  It’s starting to feel pretty good.
  • That said, my blog posts used to be funnier and I think the language used to feel more natural.  Maybe in time I will return to my former glory.

Day 5: what i do at work (part 1)

February 16, 2009 / / 0 Comments

I do not get President’s day off, so I’ll be working today.  I worked a bit yesterday too, because our deadlines are getting close and there’s still much to do.  I don’t mind going overtime when I have to, if it means making a better game in the end, and despite the somewhat cyclical nature of stressful times, I really like my job.

But what do I really do?  Ask me when we first meet and I’ll tell you that I’m a “producer on the Sims 3” – but what does that really mean?  If you’re not in the game industry, it won’t be immediately clear and almost 2 years into the job, I’m still doing my best to put into words the actual responsibilities and day-to-day tasks I do.

In general, what is a producer?  A producer is…someone who makes sure stuff gets done?  Someone who attempts to keep in mind the big picture and overall quality of the product?  Someone who tells people what to do?  Someone who produces?

Those are all somewhat general and stereotypical answers that I’ve either spouted at one time or another or head other people say.  Like most generalizations, they’re not entirely accurate but tell a bit of the story.

For me, the best thing I can compare it to is directing a show in college.  A producer is a bit like a director, but (at my level, at least) with less power.  As a producer, you often get to see all the pieces of the puzzle that everyone else is making so you can ensure that they all fit together nicely.  Although very little of what I actually do (in a labor sense) ends up in the final game – much like when the curtain rises, the audience doesn’t see any of my work directly – a producer has a lasting and large influence of the overall way that a game is presented.

For example, let’s say you fire up a game for the first time and are presented with a menu screen.  You start a new game and get a short tutorial.  No, I didn’t make any of the art assets for that menu or tutorial, nor did I do the coding to make them behave like they do.  But a producer (probably in conjunction with a designer) ensured that the tutorial played well and taught you what you needed to know in the right amount of time.  We probably considered how the main menu would affect the flow of the start of the game.  We take the feedback from focus tests, the marketing department, and other members on the team and try to turn it into coherent and specific changes that improve the game.

In summary, a producer must – while working on bugs and spreadsheets and a bunch of little tasks – always keep their eye on the main goal: making the player happy while retaining the original intentions of the design of the game.

Day 4: babies

February 15, 2009 / / 2 Comments

I had a small post-birthday celebratory day yesterday.  Katie made me a delicious maple cake, and people came over and played Halo and Rock Band (3 and 2, to be precise).  I also bought a beginner’s acoustic guitar, then promptly proceeded to snap the first string by tuning it too tightly.  Sigh.  All in all, a good day.

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Since about high school, I’ve always thought that if nothing else, I’d make a good father.  I know, pretty arrogant, right?  It’s because I love the idea of babies and of children and of being one of very few people that another human being trusts and learns from so completely.  Also, I like to think I’m kind and caring and patient and all that generic good stuff.

That is, I thought I’d be a good dad until we got cats.  You’re supposed to clean the litter box for cats every day and it’s sometimes hard to believe just how much a cat can excrete.  I don’t clean it every day.  Perhaps when we first got cats, we did so daily for a few weeks.  Now, in Sims terms, I only clean it out when it starts affecting my environment – not, ideally, when it’s affecting our cats’ hygiene.

Translated into baby terms, this means that I’d let a baby sit in a stinky diaper for several days before changing it because the smell actually started to bother me.  Now I know what you’re saying: “Babies and cats aren’t the same!”  To which I reply: yes!  You’re right!  Babies are even harder to take care of!

I have no doubt that if and when I have a child, I will love it more than I love our cats.  Still, there’s a nagging doubt that perhaps my behavior toward our cats is a harbinger.  I can only imagine a scene where we have two kids: a big fat one that licks everything and a small crazy one that sprints around the house for no good reason.  And we just sit there, taking pictures of them and chuckling.

Day 3: love

February 14, 2009 / / 0 Comments

A few random thoughts before I get started here…

  • Am I the only one that thinks Isla Fisher and Amy Adams kind of look similar? (After looking on Google Image Search, I find two things: yes, it’s probably just me, and there are many more “sexy” pictures of Isla Fisher than of Amy Adams.)
  • I (finally) beat Gears of War (1) last night with Mike Yin and I’ll admit there are few things I enjoy as much as playing a co-op video game with someone I know in real life.
  • Any first-guitar-buying tips from anyone?

OK, let’s do this thing.  It’s Valentine’s Day, a day that elicits strong emotions in those both getting lucky and those forced to endure these tough economic times without a romantic partner.  I’ve only had the (good?) fortune of only falling in love twice in my life, which makes things easier.  I can’t imagine having to go through the experience a large number of times because, unless you subscribe to a very different set of social mores, you can only really hold on to the last time you fall in love.

And it may sound corny and a bit Jerry Maguire-ish, but you know when you know.  There may not be a specific moment in time when a flash of light reveals your romantic destiny to you, but there’s certainly a feeling in your heart and thoughts in your head that aren’t quite explainable.  It’s like the feeling you get when you do something right, even though no one’s watching.

Another question I used to get when we first got married was: “how is being married different?”  With us, it wasn’t too different.  Compare our relationship when we first started dating and how it is now, though, and there is a difference.  I don’t think one is better than the other, but there’s a primal sense of “the hunt” right before a relationship starts and in some ways a sense of victory right after if you were the one who initiated it.  Now, there’s much more of a sense of familiarity and comfort.

It’s like a job hunt.  Initially, you’re very nervous and want to make sure you present your best face at the interview.  When you start, you try to fit in, see what other people are doing, see what’s acceptable.  Soon, you’re shooting finger darts and flying monkeys at co-workers and making slightly inappropriate sexual innuendos you’d never dare say when you first started.  Or, is that just where I work?

Let’s finish up with a someecard, a site which I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with.  (A small warning: most of their cards are what you’d call “not safe for work” so be wary of visiting the site in conservative climes, such as a public library.)

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