Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Good Day!

Back during my sophomore year at Purdue, my best friend and I dared each other to create PlentyOfFish.com accounts (POF being a free dating site). Almost immediately thereafter, we both forgot about them.

Last Christmas, I went on several dates with a girl I'd been friends with for a long while. It didn't work out unfortunately as I realized I couldn't get her past the friend stage in my mind, but it left me much more aware of the fact that I was single. It didn't bother me too much during the semester because I was busy, but since I've come home for the summer, it's been more lonely; especially after one of my good friends moved away permanently.

So, a few weeks ago I opened up the old POF account, completely rewrote and updated it, put in a bunch of pictures, and then waited to see what happened. A cool feature is that you can see who looks at your profile, and when I saw a lady pop up who was here in Indy for the summer, but would be going back to Purdue as well this fall, I decided to take a leap.

After messaging back several times, we met up for a lunch date today. I figured that since it was a constrained time (during her lunch break), she'd have an excuse to head back early, but if it went well, it would leave both of us ready to meet again.

I think it went really well, we met up at a Fazoli's somewhere near where she works, and talked and ate. No awkward pauses, no uncomfortable silences longer than a few seconds. We left cordially and I planned to call her this evening to ask if she would be interested in doing something over the weekend, but before I could, she texted me. I guess something went right, lol.

And so this coming weekend, at the very least I'll have an enjoyable afternoon/evening, and at the very best I might be starting something awesome. Such a good day!
 

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Catstache is Oficial

Well as of two days ago, Catstache Design is an officially registered LLC with the Indiana Dept of State, and the IRS. We're still working on getting our Articles of Incorporation written, but it should be done shortly

In addition, both my partner and I are being hired as sub contractors by another company who needs some temp help, on an hourly basis with pretty good compensation. It won't be under the Catstache name, but it will certainly help my bank account for the rest of the summer.

Lastly, I want to point out that I'm very frustrated with the universe because there isn't a 6th season of The Big Bang Theory out yet. Bah!
 

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Watching a Big Bang

I'd heard good things about The Big Bang Theory (the show) for a long time now, but a good friend had told me it was actually really terrible. I held off on watching it accordingly, but eventually the weight of other opinions has pushed me towards it. After catching a few episodes here and there, I finally decided to go all the way.

My parents have seasons 1-3 on DVD, so I've been marathoning it for the past 3 days while working on my current web project (gotta love duel screens). I'm glad I decided this, because it's great. I'm almost constantly laughing, though I'm finding myself hoping for some personal growth from several of the main characters.

The biggest problem now is that I'm halfway through season 2 already, and there are only 5 seasons! I'll be all out in a few days.
 

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

E3 2012 – Core Blaze First Look

On the final day of E3, Gamania sent a shuttle to drive me from the convention center over to their headquarters in downtown LA to check out their upcoming title: Core Blaze. Given that the only previous showing of the game took place in Taipai, I was pretty excited.

Yes the game is an MMO, and yes the MMO market is utterly saturated. However, Core Blaze has some features that look to set it apart, including weather effects and it's usage of the Unreal Engine 3.

Read my full article at TekGoblin.com.
 

Saturday, June 9, 2012

E3 Recap

As I was getting on the plane to head out to LA, I'll admit I was nervous. I'd wanted to go to E3 for almost as long as I can remember. If it turned out to be a let down, it would have really ruined a persistent dream.

I'm glad to report that not only was it not a let down, it was amazing. And this is a year that everyone says was a quiet year, so it would be even better during on years. Just stepping into the convention center really gets you the first time. The lobby is covered in huge banners .. and I mean huge, 10-15 ft tall and 40 ft wide. The bathrooms had plastic sticks on the mirrors of different video games, and the press lobby they provided for us was full of genuine La-Z Boy couches.

Then you actually go into the convention floor, and the size of it blows you away. It's 3 stories tall inside, a giant warehouse almost. Each company had their own area (areas too large to call booths), and in those areas they built things. Microsoft had multiple 2 story freestanding buildings which press were able to go up in. Sony had a whole second level platform itself. Nintendo boxed in lots of little rooms for interviews and game show offs; an entire complex. Everything had this aura of massiveness to it.

My first interaction was with Halo 4. They were running live gameplay demos, and so I wanted to get there before the line got long. I waited as the opened the floor the first day and rushed over, but even so was halfway back in line and had to wait over a half hour. It was worth it though, and the game looks awesome.

I proceeded to sit down for interviews about Neverwinter Nights, SiNG, Age of Wushu, Core Blaze, and Hitman Absolution over the next few days, but gaming wasn't all we did. One night we ended up driving over to Hollywood to take pictures of the sign and to walk down the boulevard of fame. One of the downsides of the trip came there .. everyone tries to hand you "free" stuff, and then wants tips. They're very forceful about it; we had one guy follow us for over a block, yelling about how we are "playa hatas", until my editor turned and said "you mad, bro?".

Additionally, there are so many homeless people in LA that there are strange differences you wouldn't expect. While we were there, we at one point tried to find a bathroom. Several places it turned out just didn't have public bathrooms. Finally we went to a CVS drugstore. They did have a bathroom, but it was locked and we had to have a manager unlock it for us. And everyone there thought the idea of a public store having open public bathrooms was crazy! It was still worthwhile going over to Hollywood once though, and we did get some good pictures.

Oh and a fun note, Felicia Day, Tobuscus, and Lindsey Stirling were all at E3 ... and I didn't see any of them. Serra, our photographer, did see Felicia Day, even took a picture, but for some reason didn't let me know until after. And Tobsucus was no where to be found when I walked by, despite getting up on the Wii dance stage and rocking out. Ahh well.

On to a happier subject .. swag. I didn't get really all that much, possibly because it was as people were saying a slow year. I did get some great stuff though. 3 lanyards, 5 t-shirts, two Halo mirror decals, severer flash drives, a glass mug, and from Core Blaze, a set of cast bronze miniature weapons, each just slightly smaller than my hand. I wasn't impressed with the game, but the bronze pieces are beautiful.

I think my best memory of the trip was when I embarrassed the girl who was taking pictures for Persona 4. I'd been standing in line for a t-shirt because a friend of mine loves Persona, and the shirts were very limited edition. Line took almost a half hour, and I could see ahead of me the whole time. I watched as each person got their shirt, put it on, and then got his/her picture taken standing between two models in skimpy costumes. The models were both tall, blond, beautiful, etc. The photographer was a short skinny girl who was easily as pretty as both of them, and I found myself annoyed that they were in picture after picture, and she wasn't in any.

So when I finally got my shirt and put it on, I said, "I've been standing in line watching for 20 minutes, and over and over you take the pictures ... lets switch it up, how about you get in the picture and they take it." (Possibly not verbatim but it's been three days) She seemed very embarrassed; smiling but protesting, and stammering about how she wasn't a model. I thought for a moment it wouldn't work, but the two models grinned and one walked over to the photographer, took the camera, and pushed her over to me, and so my picture from the Persona booth isn't between two models, but instead with a very cute photographer, who I hope doesn't hate me too much.
 

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Nintendo Press Conference Live Blogging

Check out our live feed from the Nintendo All Access press conference.


 

Monday, June 4, 2012

E3 2012

After 5 hours of flying, I'm finally in Los Angeles. I got a lucky draw on the seatmate front my first flight, ending up sitting beside two very pretty ladies who looked around my age. After that it went downhill. Both of them went to sleep immediately, and we ran into turbulence ... for the ENTIRE FLIGHT.

The captain never took off the seat belt light, because we never stopped shaking. Motion sickness for the fail. Also it was an old plane, so there wasn't anything cool like TV or movies or food. Not even peanuts.

After 20 minutes in the connecting airport (Phoenix, Arizona), the second flight was slightly better. I sat beside two guys who both happened to be web guys. One was even a Wordpress developer! We had a pretty decent time chatting. And the flight was much shorter, only about an hour and a half in the air. Follow that with a half hour drive into LA, and now I'm at the hotel. The AC is broken and stuck on 64, but too cold is better than too hot, because we have blankets.

Tomorrow we'll be getting up at 5am to head to the Nintendo press conference, so I'll be posting updates here, in addition to writing articles about it for TekGoblin.
 

Friday, June 1, 2012

25 Improved Star Wars Quotes

25 quotes from the Star Wars movies, with cleverly placed words exchanged for the word underwear.

  1. I feel a tremor in the underwear. The last time I felt this was in the presence of my old master.
  2. You are unwise to lower your underwear.
  3. We've got to be able to get some reading on those underwear, up or down.
  4. She must have hidden the plans in her underwear. Send a detachment down to retrieve them. See to it personally Commander.
  5. These underwear may not look like much, kid, but they've got it where it counts.
  6. I find your lack of underwear disturbing.
  7. These underwear contain the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it.
  8. Han will have those underwear down. We've got to give him more time!
  9. General Veers, prepare your underwear for a surface assault.
  10. I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my underwear back home.
  11. TK-421. . . Why aren't you in your underwear?
  12. Lock the door. And hope they don't have underwear.
  13. Governor Tarkin. I should've recognized your foul underwear when I was brought on board.
  14. You look strong enough to pull the underwear off of a Gundark.
  15. Luke, help me take these underwear off.
  16. Great, Chewie, great. Always thinking with your underwear.
  17. That blast came from those underwear. That thing's operational!
  18. Don't worry. Chewie and I have gotten into a lot of underwear more heavily guarded than this.
  19. Maybe you'd like it back in your underwear, your highness.
  20. Your underwear betray you. Your feelings for them are strong.
  21. Jabba doesn't have time for smugglers who drop their underwear at the first sign of an Imperial Cruiser.
  22. Yeah, well short underwear is better than no underwear at all, Chewie.
  23. Attention. This is Lando Calrissean. The Empire has taken control of my underwear, I advise everyone to leave before more troops arrive.
  24. I cannot teach him. The boy has no underwear.
  25. You came in those underwear? You're braver than I thought.

Note: I saw someone post this recently, and they'd gotten it in a chain email, so I'm not sure where it originated from. If you know the author, please let me know and I'll put in a citation.