Diana's Big Grad School Adventure

2009-06-05T19:12:00.000-07:00

More press:

Kotaku

IndieGames.com

2009-06-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

Pluff is getting press!

PC Magazine (This is a repost of the Gearlog article)

Indiecade

Here's the video from the LA Times article:

2009-06-04T14:14:00.001-07:00

omg pluff is at e3

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2009-05-08T18:19:00.000-07:00

Pluff is officially set up, debugged, and running for the 2009 IMD Thesis Show. WOOO!

2009-04-10T01:22:00.001-07:00

Papercraft Pluff!! Seriously, papercraft is hard. Do not attempt without infinite levels of dexterity and patience.

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Pluffseat

2009-04-02T01:05:00.001-07:00

I think this was meant as a prank, but I honestly love it. Pluff as carseat cover...brilliant!

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2009-04-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

Holy crap, I wrote and defended a thesis. Now I just have to, you know, actually finish the project so they'll let me graduate. In the meantime, here's the paper. Yes, I am getting a degree in a program that lets me cite Calvin and Hobbes as a legitimate source.

2009-03-20T03:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Guy Who Broke Into My Car A Couple Hours Ago,

Okay, seriously? REALLY?! You broke my back window and stole a pair of white and pink rollerskates and a car stereo that is probably as old as you are. That is dumb. You're going to get approximately sixteen dollars street value for that stuff. I am absolutely certain that the cost of the broken window is at least ten times what you'll be able to hawk my stuff for. You didn't even bother to dig around and find all the porn that is still in the backseat from my birthday, idiot. At least that might have been amusing for a few hours. Instead, you have rollerskates that I guarantee you can't wear, a radio that's old and not good, and a burned copy of the Rogue Traders' last album. The Rogue Traders make terrible Australian pop music. So, you know. Enjoy that, I guess. Dick.

Hoping you die in a fire,
Me

P.S. I covered the window with a trash bag so the car won't get rained in or sprinkler'd on or pissed in by one of your dumbass hobo friends. Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to parallel park when you can't see out your rear passenger window? Seriously, go find a fire and die in it you dumb sack of shit.

2009-01-25T23:36:00.000-08:00

Obviously, I'm not updating much. Sorry about that. BUT, here's a nice picture of where I sit. So any time I'm not blogging, you can imagine me sitting in that little black chair there, probably glaring at the stuffed blob on my desk and wondering why it won't just build itself. Oh, and go ahead and imagine it much messier, too. This picture was taken during the December showcase, so I had cleaned up for visitors ;-)

2008-12-27T23:31:00.000-08:00

Out of curiosity, I made a quick list of all the games being played by my family members (I was personally involved in a lot of these) in the last few days. I started the reckoning on Christmas Eve, and concluded it tonight. The extended family played the following:

Guitar Hero
Left 4 Dead
Portal
Bioshock
Webkinz
Sorry!
Monkeys on the Bed
Pinochle
Pictionary Man
Trivial Pursuit
Left Right Center
Advance Wars
Chrono Trigger DS

Add to that the games my brothers and I have been playing at my parents' house:

Fire Emblem (Wii)
Okami (Wii)
Wii Fit
Lego Batman (Xbox 360)

Sometimes people ask me why I chose games as my profession. I tend more to wonder why it took me so long to figure it out :-P

2008-11-15T15:53:00.000-08:00

My friend Kristin wrote this, and I wanted to share it with you:

Look, if you're anti-gay marriage, I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise.

I mean it. I'm not, and I'm not going to try.

It doesn't matter that there isn't a legal argument I couldn't shoot down in about three seconds. It doesn't matter that there has been tons of research done on the subject of homosexuality. So don't think I'm not invested just because I'm not arguing with you, it's just that people who are against gay marriage are not really interested in things like law and science, so it's a waste of my time to try to present them as valid argument.

It's not even worth it to bust out my biblical study skills, if I thought that would work. The invention of the printing press occurring some 400 years after the death of Christ aside, it is totally pointless to bring up the clusterfuck that is Leviticus. And when you get angry about my saying that, I don't even see the point in bringing up the irony in your wearing polyester and eating a hot dog at the same time. Or the fact that homosexuality amongst women isn't even mentioned.

And I'm definitely not going to bring up the larger pictures, the idea that religion should be enriching, not destructive, that society abandons bad traditions all the time, and that nuance in law in something we already practice with a little thing called gun control, and how that means we can tell the difference legally between a six shooter and an Uzi.

But I will tell you this.

You know that grandparent you had? The one who got you kicked out of your 5th grade graduation because they declared loudly that they were not sitting next to the colored people? Who never got taken to Denny's again because they wouldn't take beverages from the black hostess? Who died alone on Christmas because everyone thought it would be too annoying to have to deal with them and Aunt Sally's new black fiance?

In 50 years, that's going to be you. Happy unending loneliness!

She's right. This is a subject I feel strongly about, but I don't often argue for it for exactly the reasons she mentions here. Either you already believe gays deserve the same rights as everyone else, or you don't and you won't be convinced by any argument you hear. So I'm going to say this once, and then I'll leave you to believe whatever you want to believe.

I believe that gays are people, no different than anyone else. I do not believe that they are inherently sinful, or at least, no more so than any of the rest of us. I believe they deserve the same legal rights as any other citizen. If everyone else gets to be married under the law, then so do gay people. You wouldn't stand for someone deciding that gays don't have free speech...why is this so different? Either they are citizens or they aren't.

However, I think that this is sort of a moot point, because I don't believe the government should be involved in the institution of marriage. There should be something called a civil union, and it should cover the legal rights and responsibilities of becoming a domestic legal entity, and it should be applied to both gay and straight partnerships. Taxation, insurance benefits, power of attorney, inheritance, all of these things are things the government should define, whether you're a man and a woman who love each other, two men who love each other, or permanent roommates who just want to make sure someone they trust gets to sign the forms at the hospital. You want to get married? Find a clergy member who will marry you. Some churches will refuse to recognize gay marriages, and that is fine. Hell, most Christian churches (particularly the one I was raised in) would refuse to marry me because I am no longer a member of any congregation. I accept that; they have every right to believe as they do. But if that is how they feel, then they are probably not a community I need or want to be a part of.

I believe that the church has a right to get involved in politics, in the same way that charities, special interest groups, and commercial entities do. A church, if you want to think of it this way, is merely a non-profit special interest group, and as such it has the right to represent the interests of its members in the democratic process. We have a separation of church and state in this country, but I don't think we violate it by having our churches help us to get our message out. However, it's crossing the line when a church, any church, spends millions of dollars in a state where it holds very little sway, to interfere in what should be a local election. If this had been a federal election I would understand, but it defeats the purpose of having local entities if we're just going to wander into other people's jurisdictions and tell them what to do anyway. I'm looking at you, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

It's crossing the line when you consider how much good that money could do in what should be the church's primary mission: helping people in need. Gay people don't want your help, churches. I'm sorry, but they don't. You have the power to do a lot of good in this world, but it's not any more right to use your influence to deny gays the right to marry than it was to forcibly convert natives in the Americas, or establish an Inquisition. If Christianity truly is about love and acceptance, then how about a little more loving and accepting, and a little less fire and brimstone? I remember being taught as a child that even a murderer can be forgiven, although if you equate homosexuality and murder, chances are you and I have nothing to say to one another. In any event it's God's place to judge, not yours or mine. As someone who has strayed from her church, and is likely to stay that way, I am here to tell you that you are losing and may have permanently lost young people like me. Going out of your way to deny rights to people I love? Not helping your case any.

There is a Prop 8 protest happening in Los Angeles today, and in a lot of other cities across the country. You'll notice that I'm sitting here writing a blog post instead of out in the street with a sign. Please don't think that this is because I don't support the cause. It's just that I haven't made up my mind that protests are the right course of action. It's a complicated issue, and mistakes were made on both sides, and if you know me at all you know that I like to weigh all sides carefully before taking action. However, I do believe that an opportunity will come for us to enact legislation that protects equality and the rights of all citizens. I hope that when that time comes, I will be able to vote for it knowing that my loved ones will, or would if they could, do the same.

2008-11-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

I am hopeful.

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/individual/#CAI01

But I worry.

2008-11-04T07:22:00.001-08:00

Holy crap, it is incredibly hot in my polling place.

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2008-11-04T04:03:00.001-08:00

A classmate of mine did this mod in the Half-Life 2 engine. His thesis is a series of these, basically short interactive vignettes that operate in the same space as political cartoons. Can't wait to see more!

2008-10-31T03:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone!

Okay, I know. I haven't actually written a post in quite some time. That is my bad, for sure. BUT, I have added some new little thingies to the blog that will at least give you some idea of what I'm up to and thinking about. I've been using Utterli for awhile now to upload pics from my cell, and that is nice. I'm now also using Twitter, which I am trying to update a few times a day. Nothing big, just whatever happens to be bothering me/making me happy/keeping me occupied at the moment. And then finally I have a feed of my "recommended items" from the many websites I read every day. These tend to be things that amuse me, but they're also articles about things I find interesting, important, frightening, or just that I want to share.

And of course, my Flickr page is always a good place to go. I have an album there where I'm documenting the things I build for my thesis; if you're ever wondering just what nerdery I've gotten myself into now, that is the place to look.

So there you go. Hopefully I can still let you all know what I'm up to, share the things I want you to know about, etc. even when I'm busy/lazy/distracted by something shiny and don't get around to writing a full blog post.

Which is not to say that I don't love you. Because you know. I do. Muah!

2008-10-27T21:17:00.001-07:00

happy birthday jamie!

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2008-10-19T14:47:00.001-07:00

Lily and Gabe cheers. Gabe with glass, Lily with pitcher. Awesome.

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2008-10-19T02:23:00.001-07:00

Gabe <3 Ramen

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2008-10-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

I buy all my music from iTunes these days, except for bands I want and can't find there, in which case I go elsewhere. I have a LOT of DRM-locked music, not to mention 3.5 seasons of Battlestar Galactica and a couple other random things. Now, up until recently, I would have agreed wholeheartedly with the above comic.

But see, here's the thing. I have some iTunes-locked music that has been corrupted during multiple hard drive transfers, and I've been kind of sore about it, because I assumed that I couldn't replace it, which is pretty much common wisdom. After the xkcd comic, I figured what the hell, and emailed iTunes telling them what had happened. I got an email this morning saying "Oh, hey, that sucks. Here, we checked your account; everything you've purchased that we still sell, you can go ahead and redownload free of charge."

Blink blink. WHAT?! You can DO that now? Granted, that caveat about "what we still sell" is key, because there are some songs I can't replace. Then again, I downloaded them three years ago, and they were kind of obscure then. I guess what it comes down to is, I found out today that Apple isn't entirely evil. I may not agree with DRM, and it's generally a pain, but as it turns out Apple is willing to be accomodating if you ask nicely. Who knew?

2008-10-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

Well, so my birthday was yesterday. I'm a quarter century old now! I would love to tell you all stories about my eventful birthday, but um...well, so we went to a local bar that on Tuesday nights hosts an event called "Porn Star Karaoke." Which is exactly what it sounds like. Porn stars, doing karaoke. Clearly, this is not the sort of thing one expounds upon in a blog that one's extended family, former classmates, and probably a ton of random people on the Internet read. I mean, think of the children.

Suffice to say, I had a great time. And thanks to everyone for the cards, phone calls, texts, presents, and general well wishes. Love you!!

Pssst...once I get the camera back from Kristin, I'll post photos to Flickr. Just don't tell anybody, okay?

2008-09-22T22:34:00.000-07:00

Couple things.

One, play this, because it is adorable: http://www.gameroo.nl/games/light-bot

Two...okay, I lied. It's just the one. But seriously, go play it. It's not a huge time sink, and it introduces computer programming logic without, well, introducing computer programming at all.

2008-09-17T23:27:00.001-07:00

in honor of my roommate

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2008-09-14T16:18:00.001-07:00

SO hot

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2008-09-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

hot

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2008-09-14T12:34:00.001-07:00

disneylaaaaaand

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2008-09-13T02:47:00.001-07:00

See, the story here is that Lily's garbage disposal clogged. So we attacked it with a plunger.

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2008-09-13T02:42:00.001-07:00

This is what we do on Friday nights.

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2008-09-05T01:10:00.000-07:00

I know, I'm a bad person and I never update. But I promise, it's because I'm working, not because I don't love you guys.

If you're bored and feeling particularly geeky, you can check out the stuff I've been tinkering with lately for my thesis: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/sets/72157605351547595/

2008-08-31T21:17:00.001-07:00

The oddest things happen here...

What you're undoubtedly straining your eyes to see here is a picture of a stage, with a replica of the Eiffel Tower and some can-can dancers, complete with the dance numbers from Moulin Rouge blaring from speakers on either side of the stage. On the ground running past are a whole bunch of people in matching orange-red tshirts, running in what I guess must be some kind of marathon. All of this set up across the street from the thesis space...at 9 o'clock, on a Sunday night.

Yeah, I don't know either.

2008-07-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/29/fast.food.ban.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

That's my neighborhood they're talking about. The Jack In the Box in the picture is about a block from the lab where I work :-P

2008-07-24T22:20:00.001-07:00

This is Amanda. She works with me at Double Fine. I haven't figured out how to get pictures off my cell phone except to send them here, so...look! A picture of me and Amanda! Woooo!

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2008-07-05T20:06:00.001-07:00

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2008-07-05T16:31:00.001-07:00

Grandma=Minnie Pearl

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2008-07-03T00:43:00.000-07:00

Lily and Drew came up to visit last weekend. We went on a scavenger hunt organized by one Collin, my former Moss House roommate and one rad dude. The scavenger hunt involved finding as many things on the list as possible and taking their picture. Most required that you do something silly, or go someplace fun. It was a great way to explore the city, and also look like idiots in public, which as everyone knows I love doing. Pictures here, with captions explaining what scavenger hunt item they represent: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/sets/72157605950452265/

2008-06-02T10:31:00.001-07:00

Nice shirt, Jack Black :-D

2008-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

http://kotaku.com/5011670/grants-awarded-for-inspiring-health-games-research

The games press is starting (finally) to talk about the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grants that were awarded a few weeks ago. If you scroll down in the article, the one I designed is listed (the one from USC, obviously). Very cool to see that, especially when press about games is almost always in the flavor of "OMG GAMEZ MAKE PPL KIIIIIIILLLLLLLLLL"

2008-05-25T17:59:00.001-07:00

Parking in San Francisco is an adventure.

2008-05-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Best. Animated GIF. Ever.
Courtesy of Mike Rossmassler, who apparently is enjoying his summer break.

2008-05-11T16:27:00.001-07:00

Hey all.

So, if you're wondering where I've been lately, I was mostly doing this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sklathill/sets/72157605007035899/

"That looks like the thesis show!" you might say. And you would be right. An unlikely series of events led to the thesis show falling back into my lap about a week ago, which meant that I had a week to get the show up and ready to open last night. The bulk of the heavy construction was done, but we still had a ton of light construction, set design, set dressing, sewing, etc to do, not to mention publicity materials and getting those out. Yeeeeeah. It got done, and we even managed it without an all-crew mandatory all-nighter (a first for this event I might add), but oh MY am I tired. So, that's the update for today. Thesis show went up, it is going very well, nobody died, and now I'm going to catch up on my sleep. I move to San Francisco next Sunday, so I'll probably have updates for you then about the new city, new apartment, new job, etc. See you all then!

2008-04-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

Google Docs is awesome, for those of you who weren't aware.

In other news, I thought you all might like to see what's in the works for my thesis. Below, if this works the way I think it will, is a little widget containing the slides for my presentation on Thursday, and below that are links to my thesis proposal paper and my directed research proposal. I don't think the docs will be editable, but if they are, please don't. That would make my life difficult :-)

Hopefully, if all goes well, I'll do my presentation on Thursday for the faculty and my classmates, and then there will be some minor edits to my two proposal papers, and then I'm good to start production in late May. So, let's see if this works:

Thesis Proposal Paper

Directed Research Proposal

2008-04-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

So I'm getting vibes that I haven't updated recently and should probably do that. Here's a rundown of where things stand in DianaLand:

-Liberty Under the Law: This is the educational game where I'm working as a tech producer. Production is going well; I expect we'll have a working prototype sometime in May (working meaning you can play a round and everything does approximately what it should). We have some early implementations of the interface working in Flash, and I've been working with our server programmer to get the database side of the game up and running. Our deadline for having a full level complete is in June, at which point Corporation for Public Broadcasting will tell us if they intend to fund a full version of the game or not.

-One Week Project: This one was awhile ago, but I realized I never wrote about it. So in the second semester of the second year in my program, they have you do this project called the One Week Project. Basically, they give you an object as a prompt, and you have one week to build some kind of interactive experience utilizing that object. This year, the object was a handle, so we all had to build something that either had a handle in it or had otherwise clear affordances (if an object has very clear affordances, you know exactly what you're supposed to do with it, like how a handle is clearly meant to be grasped and pulled). For mine, I built a voodoo doll from canvas and foam and filled it with press switches, then wired that to a microcontroller (like a very dumb computer) that was hooked to my laptop. The way it worked was, when you pushed a pressure point on the voodoo doll, something ridiculously Looney Tunes esque would happen to a cartoon character onscreen. Rocks might fall on him, he could get hit with an anvil, he could catch randomly on fire, etc. It went over pretty well. I might get to show it at SIGGRAPH, which is a big deal graphics conference that they have every year; we'll see if that goes down or not. Here's a pic of the doll, and his onscreen counterpart:

-Thesis Prep: This semester, we've all been thinking, prototyping, crewing up, and writing proposals for what will be our master's thesis projects next year. I've done a lot of research and prototyping, and I've decided to do a game where the controller is a stuffed animal. I found this type of electronics that people call e-textiles, which basically means using threads and fabrics made of conductive materials to build electronics that are soft, bendable, wearable, etc. I think that this type of electronics would be a fantastic way to make something as soft and cuddly as a stuffed animal interactive, without adding a bunch of stiff hard stuff to it. I won't go into full detail about the project here, but if you're interested, I'm keeping photos of prototypes here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/collections/72157604523950739/ and there is a web-viewable copy of my in-progress thesis proposal here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddgscz8c_112rfhkxqf2
I have to pitch my thesis next Thursday, and given that it's approved, I'll start development on that over the summer.

-BrinStar: BrinStar is a networked Flash game that we're doing in my advanced game development class. We've been working to make a game where two teams compete to conquer planets in a solar system by beating the high scores of arcade-style games hosted on each planet. It's been...an adventure. I wrote a lot of the code that handles the network connections and stores all the necessary info in a database for retrieval. I might also be building one of the planet arcade games, we'll see if it's needed or not. The art style is kind of Monty Python, with cutouts and weird non sequiters, and the music is just brilliant. My friend Jamie wrote us a theme song that's part Gene Roddenberry and part...well, Jamie singing in a silly falsetto voice. It's pretty awesome. This game is due to be exhibited next Wednesday, during IMD seminar (the class where the whole department gets together to look at what each other have been working on).

-Thesis Show: Yeah, remember when I said I wasn't going to work on thesis show this year? That was a big fat lie. Well, not a lie, but a declaration I made before considering my financial situation. Sigh. So for this year, I am NOT running the thesis show, but rather am just a member of the much-reduced construction crew. We hired an architecture student this year, so he designed all the stuff and is helping us build it; what a DIFFERENCE that has made! We get about twice the construction done with a third of the people in the same amount of time, because we aren't just making it up as we go along. Very nice. So I'll be doing construction for a few nights a week until the show goes up in May. Tomorrow is hanging drywall, woo!

-Summer Plans: I've been interviewing with a couple of different game studios to do a summer internship, and on Monday I accepted an offer from Double Fine Productions in San Francisco. This is the studio that did Psychonauts, for those who have played it, and they're currently working on Brutal Legend, a heavy metal and Norse mythology inspired game where you play rock music and swing a big axe to combat against demons and...sounds kinda familiar, don't it? Basically, when Brutal Legend was announced, I figured that it was the bigger, better version of Ragnarokk and so I wanted to work for Double Fine. I flew up there for an interview on Monday, and WOW are they awesome. I got to play an early version of the game, and the owner/lead designer of the company, Tim Schafer, sat down with me to chat about my work and his for awhile (this would be the equivalent of a film student getting to sit down with Steven Spielberg and watch Raiders of the Lost Ark or something). I'm pretty excited to start. Of course, this means that I will need a place to stay in SF for the summer, so I put down a deposit on a sublet in an apartment about four blocks from the beach, near the zoo, and right by a muni station so I can take the train to work. I'll have some friends in the city; my friend Mike from USC is doing an internship on the other side of the bay, one of my roommates from Bradley is in the area, and I've got a friend at Google, so she's within a train ride as well. Needless to say, I am chomping at the bit to get this semester over with and get started with summer!

Man, I feel like there is more stuff I'm forgetting, but these are at least the major high points since the last time I updated. Hopefully ya'll are well and getting more sleep than I am. I'm going to try to get home at some point this summer to see people, so if you are going to be around, drop me a line!

2008-04-15T12:44:00.000-07:00

If you ever wondered why I assiduously avoid the "making games for girls" thing, this is why:
http://www.missbimbo.com/

2008-03-29T15:17:00.001-07:00

Lol

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2008-03-29T15:15:00.000-07:00

We are in grad school

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2008-03-29T13:37:00.001-07:00

My friend Devin made me a balloon animal companion cube. Win.

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2008-03-06T02:21:00.001-08:00

Bun tsu is unsure about slumbers mcworthington, so she chews on it. awwww.

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2008-03-05T17:53:00.001-08:00

So I found this thing called Utterz that lets me send pictures and text from my cell phone directly to my blog. I'm giving it a shot; maybe I'll be better about blogging if I can do it whenever something fun happens. The picture you see is my desk in the ZML at school. It's, well, a desk. That I work at. Not terribly interesting, but there you go.

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2008-02-19T04:19:00.000-08:00

Hey all. For the rest of the road trip story, check below. You'll notice that the look of the blog has changed; I built Lily a website over the weekend, and it made me itch to get in here and change up the colors and stuff. Anyway, since I haven't done a post all semester, I thought it was about time I did my usual rundown of all the stuff I'm working on right now. So, without further ado:

Ragnarokk: Yep, Ragnarokk is still in production. We're scheduled to be working on it all semester, and it will be displayed as part of this year's IMD Thesis Show exhibition in May. There are some screenshots, as well as music from the game, at PlayRagnarokk.com. Developments this semester include revising the art style, fixing everything that's still buggy or straight up broken from last semester, and the addition of an intro cinematic and hopefully an epic sea serpent boss battle.

Thesis Prep: As you might know, my MFA is a three year program. The first two years are spent in coursework, and the third year is devoted to the production of a thesis project. This semester we're taking a thesis prep course, where we figure out what we want our theses to be, do some preliminary research and prototyping to see if our idea is feasible, and do a proposal at the end of the semester to get faculty approval for the project we settle on. I'm still working out a lot of the details on mine, but I know it will be a game, it will be multiplayer, and if at all possible it will involve players facing each other instead of a screen. I have some thoughts on how I can make this happen, but I'll do a separate post about that later, when I have a better idea of what I can/want to build. I am pretty sure that there will be custom hardware involved, since I'd like to do away with being tethered to a PC/console and a screen. I will probably regret this by, oh, say September of next year. Ah well.

Interactive Design/Production: How ambiguous can a course title be?! This class is, as near as I can tell, devoted to giving us techniques and tools for designing and building...stuff. So far, we've designed our own memorial monuments (mine was a holiday), made objects that were designed to be put in a fire (I experimented with household chemicals to see if I could produce colored flame...I couldn't), had drawing lessons, and learned to build models using foamcore and glue. This class is always interesting, because I just have no idea what we'll be doing from week to week. One time, the professor came in and has us all play patty-cake for five minutes before we could start class. He wanted to establish a "good energy" in the room, he said. This is how I know that I'm in art school :-P

Experiments in Interactivity: This is another one of those "learning to build stuff" classes, although it focuses more directly on technology and interactivity. Our first assignment was to make an image or video for use in the Zemeckis Media Lab, a room where three of the walls are covered with a long continuous projection screen. I had a Play-Doh landscape with a little Lego guy in a Lego car that drove from one wall to the next all the way around the room. Our current project is being done in groups of four. My group is making a set of fun audio tools to be used in ZML, since that's the main lab for IMD grad students. One lets users who log into the classroom chat room (we run an AIM chat during large classes, where people can post relevant comments and Google links during lecture) generate sound effects by typing keywords in. "Crickets", "wompwomp", "laughtrack", things like that, just stuff that it would be funny to have access to during a discussion. Another tool is the one we're calling Grand Entrance, where you carry an RFID transmitter so that when you enter the room, a receiver knows that you walked in and starts playing theme music for you. We haven't built it yet, but my entrance music is totally going to be "Stayin' Alive" by the BeeGees. I love the idea of making an entrance to that song every time I have class or something in the lab :-)

Advanced Game Production: This is a class that's designed to just let us make a really cool game. We're making a game to be played in ZML, so we can take advantage of having the three projection walls. The game is designed for 6-8 people, and will use all three walls. Two walls will have a series of planets on them, with the last wall containing maps of the solar system. To play, users are divided into two teams who are competing to conquer all the planets in the solar system. You conquer a planet by going to that planet and getting the high score in an arcade-style game that occurs on that planet. You can also go to a solar system screen to see how your team is doing in terms of territory conquered, and you can play a "macro" game where you fly a little rocket to one of the planets in the solar system and harass the person who's trying to play the arcade game there by bombing the planet (making the arcade game harder). There's about 8 people in the class, and I am of course the only girl :-P We're making the game in Flash, which makes me extremely happy, because Flash is a tool I know something about (as opposed to the Torque and OGRE game engines that I didn't know at all). I'm actually not going to be very involved with the creative vision on this one, nor will I be producing. I'm going to be the network programmer, of all things, because I'm the only one who's used Flash in that way before. Should be veeerrrryyyy interesting for awhile but I think I've designed us a system that will work well to keep all the different screens and minigames and everything coordinated. Wish me luck!

Business of Games: This class is...interesting. The guy teaching it, Tom Frisina, is an exec at Electronic Arts, the largest publisher/developer in the video games industry. He's been teaching us a lot about corporate game culture, what it's like to work and do deals in that environment, etc. Of course, for any of us who aren't interested in working at a huge company like EA, or who aren't going into video games at all, a lot of this information isn't all that directly applicable. But Tom seems to know EVERYONE in the games business, and he's really great about helping students network and get internships/jobs at their chosen studios; he regularly gets people interviews with like, the owners and executive producers at studios, rather than the HR department or whoever. So we're all really nice to him :-) The way we see it, if we sit through the class and only half the content is relevant, well, at least we got an amazing business contact out of it. Plus some of the projects for the class are fun. Right now we're designing and pitching a game, as if for funding, based on a comic book series. My team has Preacher, a story about a Texan preacher who gets possessed by the forbidden child of an angel and a demon(granting him superpowers, of course) and then decides to seek out and confront God for not taking better care of the world. His vampire best friend and sharpshooter ex girlfriend come along for the ride, because what else would they do, I guess. It's a...challenging story to make a game of, to say the least. We have two weeks to design a game based on the comic, figure out how long it would take to make that game and how much it would cost, decide how it would fit into the current marketplace and who its target audience are, and develop a pitch presentation that we'll give to the professor and a couple of guest judges. We're pitching next Tuesday; here's hoping we win, or at least don't get last!

Liberty Under the Law game: I'm actually not sure what this game is about, haha. I know it's supposed to help teach high school students about American government and the Constitution, and that the initial prototype is being developed in Flash. I also know that Activision, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and KCET (the Los Angeles PBS station) are sponsoring it. The director of the project came to me and asked me to do Flash work for them, because the two developers they have are new to Flash. You see, I have developed a reputation in my department as a Flash expert; I should point out that I'm not actually a Flash expert in any sense of the word, I just know more than everyone else because nobody else has learned it yet. At any rate, I accepted a paid position as the team's technical producer, which basically means that I'll be figuring out how the game should be built and then providing technical assistance/tutoring/advice to the people who will actually have to build what I spec out. If you know me at all, you know that I am a pretty big fan of NOT coding, so I rather like the plan we have going here. I start next week, once the team leads get back from the GDC conference.

Thesis Show 2008: Just kidding. I'm not doing the thesis show this year, because it was such a major commitment (read: pain in the ass) last year. I liked the paychecks, but I could do without the 60+ hour weeks (in addition to classes) all through the last month of the semester. I may be called in to do some advising or light management near the end, but that's about it. Huzzah!

Man, I didn't think I was doing that much until I laid it all out. Sigh, isn't that always how it goes? Anyway, as per usual, I'll update on most of these projects as the semester progresses, so check back from time to time to see how things are going.

2008-02-19T01:49:00.001-08:00

Yeah, I know. I'm a bad, bad blogger. I totally started the semester and stopped updating in the middle of the road trip story. Sorry about that :-/ Below is the rest of the road trip stuff, and then I'll go ahead and do another post later about what I'm working on this semester. Then we'll be all nice and caught up. Won't that be fun? Of course it will.

EPIC ROAD TRIP 2008: DAYS 3 and 4

So here's the Monterey Non-Smoker's Motel, where we stayed in Albuquerque. This was by far our favorite hotel of the trip. It was cute, and really clean, and the people who ran it were a sweet eastern european (we think) couple who'd clearly been running this place for ages. The room had a mini fridge and free wireless, and the bedroom was furnished like something you'd find in your grandma's house (I'm pretty sure the sheets were a pattern Grandma Sharon used to have, actually). If anyone is ever in Albuquerque, I'd definitely recommend this place.

For Day 3, we didn't have as much driving to do, so we decided to hang out in Albuquerque for awhile before heading out. We went down to the old part of town for lunch and shopping. You can see me here being very excited about lunch, which we ate at this great place on the main square. It was built in what looked to me like an old spanish mission and the food was SO GOOD. I had a "Navajo taco", which basically just meant taco stuff piled on top of grilled flat bread. I don't think it had anything to do with actual Navajos, but it was awfully tasty. There was a pitcher of excellent sangria, as well as fresh sopapillas with honey for dessert. I'm pretty sure that if I lived in Albuquerque, the staff of this restaurant would all know me by name. We also popped into a leather shop, a few souvenir shops and a really cool candy store. A lot of the candy was homemade, and it was all awesome, so we bought quite a bit. They had prickly pear gummies and stuff like that, plus a back room with, um...adult themed chocolates. We didn't exactly take pictures of that part, but it WAS extremely funny.

After lunch we got back in the car and headed for Phoenix. Here's a shot of the kind of countryside we were driving through. Mostly scrubland and lots of hills and rocks, although it was strange to see snow on the ground in the middle of what otherwise looked like fairly standard desert. We stopped along the way in a small town to get provisions, and found this place that boasted Native American silversmiths on site. That sounded neat, so we went in. It was so cool...two floors of cases full of handmade silver jewelry, a lot of it set with gems or shells. Sure enough, there were two or three artisans just hanging out and making stuff. The quality was good, and a lot of the pieces were beautiful. I have no idea why, but everything was half off the marked price, so we ended up with a silver ring for Lily and an opal-and-silver bracelet for me for under $100. Yay for souvenir jewelry!

So, these two pictures require a bit of explanation. See, along the highway right before the Arizona border, we drove by the most amazing billboard ever. It had dinosaurs on it, and it said "We sell knives and swords." Um, dinosaurs and swords? Of COURSE we were gonna stop. What we found was the Knife City Outlet, pictured above. No dinosaurs (still not sure what the deal was with the T-Rex and whatnot on the sign) but they sure did have knives. And swords. And batons, and machetes, and nunchuks, and brass knuckles, and basically all that stuff you can't buy in states that are concerned about their citizens having formidable arsenals. Drew got a set of practice nunchucks (how he plans to learn to use them I just don't know) and I picked up a butterfly knife because I think they're neat. The lady running that shop really knew what she was talking about, too. I am pretty sure that she could conquer half of New Mexico just using the contents of her shop. Oh, and the picture of the dinosaur up above there? Yeah, there's a series of dinosaur statues just out in fields along the freeway. They look really cool when you see them at sunset like that, when it's harder to tell that they're fake. I have no idea what they're there for.

So eventually we got to Phoenix, where we checked into the hotel and then met up with my friend Janelle (Janelle Tassart, from high school, for anyone who would know her). We had a late dinner at the worst sushi place ever, and then headed out to a bar she recommended. OH MY was this place magical. It was called Graham Central Station, and I am pretty sure it was built in what used to be a supermarket or something. It was in a big shopping center with a Rite Aid and I think a Verizon store. The place consisted of four rooms, each roughly the size of a small high school gymnasium, and each with a different theme. There was a "dance club" room that played hip hop (with go go cages, an absolute must), a country music room (complete with line dancing floor), a karaoke room (with staff who would act as your backup singers/dancers if you wanted), and a "retro" room that mostly played 80's music and had a light up dance floor. Each room had its own bar, and probably themed drinks on special although I wasn't really paying attention. The clientèle was...eclectic, as you can imagine. There were hip hop and country line dancing fans of course, plus people ranging in age from 21 to I'd guess around 55 or 60 in every single room, as well as all variations of single, dating, married, etc. Some people did like we did and drifted from room to room, although most tended to choose one room and stick with it. The exception of course was the karaoke room, where people from the other three rooms went when they were too drunk to know they'd look silly doing karaoke. We spent the evening wandering from room to room and just marveling at all the excellent people watching to be had. Then we toddled back to the hotel and crashed for the night.

In the morning, we packed up and left Phoenix for our last day of driving. We decided that since we were getting back to the west coast, the appropriate lunch choice was In-N-Out. If you have never been to In-N-Out, well first of all you should probably come out here so I can take you. For those in Illinois, think Steak N Shake steakburgers, but the fries are way better and the burgers come in varieties like "double double animal style," all ordered according to a code that isn't on the menu, you just have to know it ahead of time. It's pretty much the tastiest fast food ever. So we did that, and then got back on the road.

Right before the California border, we stopped at a gas station. We did that a lot, since the Aspire only has a ten gallon gas tank. At any rate, across the street was a guy selling flags. We went over hoping to find a pirate flag (there were several...I got one that says "GIVE ME THE BOOTY"). We found the little number pictured above; it's the best flag ever. For serious. I mean, it has a wolf, and an American Indian (is that the PC term now? I'm not real sure), and a groovy blue-to-purple fade in the background...you just can't go wrong. It's since been hung across the fireplace in Lily and Drew's living room, and it looks exactly as ridiculous as you think it does.

And that's about it. The drive through California to LA was boring and uneventful, and seemed to take forever. We got home around sunset, dropped all our luggage where it needed to be, distributed souvenirs to Lily and Drew's roommates, then went out for REAL sushi (in a different car...we were real tired of being in my car) and went home to bed.

And thus ends the story of our epic cross-country odyssey. It took four days, about 2000 miles, roughly 120 gallons of gas, a new chunk of exhaust pipe, and heaven only knows how many beverage and junk food purchases at at least a dozen gas stations across the country. Am I glad I did it? Hell yes. Would I do it again? Um...maybe in a much bigger car :-)

2008-01-13T00:33:00.000-08:00

Sorry folks. The hotel last night didn't have internet, so I didn't get to do a post for yesterday. We got back into LA tonight, so I will upload pics/stories from days 3 and 4 of Epic Road Trip 2008 sometime tomorrow. See you then!

2008-01-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

EPIC ROAD TRIP: DAY 2

Whew, what a day! We left our hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma at around 10am, and arrived at our hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico around midnight (including time difference). Loooots of time on the road. Some highlights include:

Muffler trouble: Somewhere in Middleofnowhere, Oklahoma, the car suddenly started running VERY loud with lots of vibration. We pulled over to the side of the road and discovered that a big hole had formed in one of the pipes in the exhaust system. Drew knew exactly what it was...I mostly just know that it has to do with the muffler. Luckily, we were half a mile away from an area with like, three mechanics, two auto supply shops and a Wal Mart. Woo hoo! The repair turned out to be relatively easy (and cheap!) so we only were there for about an hour and a half. Whew!

Steeeeeaaaaak: So, there's this place in Texas where one can acquire a 72oz (that's 4 1/2 pounds) steak, and if one consumes that steak in an hour, one gets it for free. The Big Texan, pictured above, is pretty much the best road house ever. The servers all dress like cowboys and prairie women, they have free limo rides to the hotel (big white cadillacs with steer horns on the front), and yes, the 72oz Steak Challenge. Naturally, Lily wanted to try this, because she loves to eat and also loves steak. Drew, not to be outdone, also decided to try it. I decided that I like my digestive system functional, so I elected to eat a normal sized steak and document their event instead.

The Rules: You have to finish your entire meal (that's the 72oz steak, a baked potato, a salad, a side of fried okra, and a dinner roll) in 60 minutes. Nobody can help you eat or cut your food. You have to sit up on a stage so that everyone in the restaurant can see, and so that everyone can make sure you're not cheating. If you don't finish, you lose. If you throw up, you lose. If you have a mouthful of food at the 60 minute mark, but it's not swallowed, you still lose.

This is the full spread, at the start of the challenge. It is approximately a metric ass-ton of food.

During the challenge, everyone in the restaurant stopped by at some point to check in, see the food, and wish the competitors luck. Some guys were gearing up to do their own challenges later in the night or week, so they stopped by several times to see how it was going. Note the stage, the timer in the back, and the garbage cans by each seat (for any necessary sick-ing).

Unfortunately, the challenge was too great for our competitors. They both made a valiant effort, but in the end, the human stomach isn't designed to hold 4 1/2 pounds of steak AND a whole mess of sides.

The results: Drew ate all but 15oz of his steak, which comes out to him eating approximately 3.5 lbs of steak. He also got about halfway done with all those sides. Lily had 37.2 oz of steak left, so she got about halfway through the steak. She also managed to finish all her sides. Good job guys!

After picking up some Pepto Bismol for the road, we got back in the car and headed for Albuquerque. We stayed in a really cute little motel, the Monterey Non Smokers Motel. I'll have pictures and stuff about this adorable place in the next post. See you all then!

2008-01-09T21:46:00.000-08:00

EPIC ROAD TRIP 2K8: DAY ONE

Man, this day took forever! We got up at about 8, had breakfast at home (Mom made gooey butter cake...yum!), and then packed our massive amounts of luggage into the car and headed out. After running about a million errands in Peoria, we got on the road, headed south on 55 toward St. Louis. To give you an idea of how much stuff we have in the car, here's a picture of me in the back seat:As you can see, there is literally a Diana-sized space in the back, with the trunk, the floor, and the rest of the back seat covered in luggage, a cooler, etc. In retrospect, we probably should have planned for all of us to NOT have three weeks' worth of luggage each. I'm getting strong hints that I'll be riding in the back a lot, haha. Also in this picture is Lily's hand, continuing with our theme of taking at least one picture a day where one of us is pointing and laughing at something.

55 is pretty uneventful, so I slept the whole way down to St. Louis. Also pictured here is Slumbers McWorthington, a stuffed cat that I got for Christmas and our mascot on this trip. It's a little bit creepy how real Slumbers looks. We like to leave him in the back window to see if anyone notices the kitten mysteriously sleeping in our car :-)

The White Castle Odyssey: So one of our goals on this trip is to eat iconic American food at every opportunity. Lily is from Los Angeles, so she was pretty eager to try White Castle, since they don't exist in California. I suggested that we find one in St. Louis, since I knew there were several in that area. Now keep in mind, I fell asleep somewhere along 55S, and therefore was still out when we arrived in St. Louis. I woke up to find that we were sitting in a White Castle parking lot, with both Drew and Lily looking rather concerned. I looked around and realized we were surrounded by burned buildings, shady people, and just generally a crappy neighborhood. I asked "Um, guys? Where are we?" They told me St. Louis. I inquired further "Um...this looks like East St. Louis. Is that where we are?" They said yes, they had headed east once they got in the city. I had to explain that East St. Louis is notorious as one of the worst urban areas in the country, and that we did NOT want to be there. Eep! Apparently, when we got into the city, they didn't want to wake me up so they just put "White Castle" into our GPS unit and followed directions. Needless to say, we didn't stick around. We did another search in the GPS and headed for the next closest White Castle. Turns out this one was in an even worse area than the last. So we decided to head back to the freeway, get out of the city, and THEN find a White Castle someplace in the suburbs. This ended up being a much better plan. White Castle #3 was in the city, but in a much nicer area. We sat near the window so we could keep an eye on the car, just to be safe. Mission accomplished: we got a whole mess of tiny burgers and then built a pyramid out of the empty cardboard boxes (picture's in my cell, I'll upload that one once I figure out how). We have certainly learned our lesson: do not just follow the GPS!

The rest of the day has been uneventful. It's about 6 hours from St. Louis to Tulsa, and I slept through just about all of it. We're leaving around 9 tomorrow morning, hoping to be in Amarillo in time for a late lunch, then pushing on to Albuquerque to stay the night. It's gonna be a loooong day, with an expected 12+ hours of car time. Expect many pictures, as I'm going to need something to keep me entertained. Have a good night everyone!

2008-01-09T21:26:00.000-08:00

EPIC ROAD TRIP 2K8

Hey all. For those who missed it, for the next four days, my friends and I are driving from Illinois to Los Angeles, following the old Route 66 path. We'll be taking pictures and collecting stories as we go, and uploading at night (assuming all our hotels have internet access, of course). So, some preliminary details:

The cast: Lily Cheng (friend from USC), Andrew Stiegman (friend from USC), Slumbers McWorthington (a stuffed cat), and me

The car: Ford Aspire
Pictured here when I retrieved Drew and Lily from O'Hare. As you can see, Drew finds the size of the car rather amusing. Probably because he's as big as it is.

The Route: The old Route 66, which is now several interstates.
We'll be staying in Tulsa, Albuquerque, and Tempe, and stopping in Amarillo long enough to have a gigantic steak. Mmm, steak.

We're planning to stop along the way as we see things that strike our interest (world's largest ball of yarn anyone?), as well as eat as many iconic American foods as possible. Just to bring you up to speed, Lily and Drew got in yesterday to O'Hare. We stopped at a Portillo's to enjoy Chicago style hot dogs, then headed for Pekin. Went out for Chicago style pizza for dinner (in Peoria, but close enough), and stayed the night at home. I'll talk about each day of the actual road trip in separate posts, so check back to see our progress and what ridiculous things we've discovered!

2007-12-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

I leave for the airport in two hours, and will be home sometime tonight. I'll probably want to sleep for a day or two, but after that who wants to go out and play? Or stay in and play. I'm okay with either :-)

2007-12-16T21:47:00.000-08:00

At the lab, working on Ragnarokk. Grabbed a screenshot I thought you all might enjoy. This is what happens when the player casts the fire spell:

Hehehe. School is awesome.

2007-12-11T03:48:00.000-08:00

Some links:

Ragnarokk website...because I do so adore web design :-P
Altepehua Plot...a lot of content is missing, but this is the basic sequence of events

And some pictures:

Screenshot from "Cante, Florezca". This is the title screen, minus links. Once we have an installer built, I'll link to that so you can download and play the game.

This is a spread from the atlas for my world, Altepehua. As you can see, the atlas is based heavily on a history textbook. I'm almost done with it, and will link to that once it's posted as well.

This is a screenshot from the Spatial Palimpsest project. This doesn't look like much, but the code behind it is much cleverer (I promise). What you're seeing in that placemark is a Flash widget that is pulling photos and data from Flickr, and playing audio hosted on a separate web server. The placemark is also time stamped, so you could potentially see a different one of these for different dates on the timeline at the top.

2007-12-05T04:09:00.001-08:00

WOW I'm tired.

2007-11-19T20:04:00.000-08:00

Holy crap! A post! I know, I'm shocked too. Try not to faint.

Quick update on how things are going, and then I'm off for Thanksgiving. I won't lie to you, this is as much an update for me as it is for you. I figure if I write it all down in one place, that'll help me figure out where I'm at with all my projects :-)

-RagnaRokk: Oh my, this one has been a time sink. We're making progress, it's just been very up-and-down. All of the music is written, which is amazing. We have a heavy metal arrangement of Ride of the Valkyries that is probably the best thing I have heard ever. Side note: I now listen to heavy metal on a regular basis, for fun. I find this as surprising as you do. Anyway, the art is coming along and looks AWESOME. There was a major delay on the programming side of things, but this past Thursday three more engineers joined the team, so that was a major relief. I've learned that baked goods, particularly homemade pie, are an excellent currency when dealing with engineers. They will work for HOURS if I just bring them the occasional slice of pie or cookie. After Thanksgiving I am going to just stock up on flour, butter, and sugar, as I foresee many many loooooong nights in our future.

-¡Cante, florezca!: Polyphony (the flowers+music game) has a new name to go with its new look. We've taken the art style and changed it so that it looks a lot like cubism. It's kind of trippy, but I really like it. Gameplay is all in place, all the static art (the stuff that doesn't move) is in, and the composer is working away at our music. All that's left is an interactive tutorial to teach people how to play and some animated scenes that tell the game's story in between levels. Piece of cake, right? :-P

-Spatial Palimpsest: This project is, I believe, new to the blog. We're using a combination of Google Earth, Flash, and Flickr to create a method for people to document how their areas change over time. Basically, what you'd see as a user is a map in Google Earth with landmarks on it, and each landmark would be tagged with time data. So if you're looking at, say, Hollywood Boulevard, and you click on Grauman's Chinese Theatre, you could see photos and information about the theatre today, and then slide a time slider to see that same location as it looked in 1920, 1960, etc. What we're hoping to do is develop a process for how to do this kind of historical documentation, and then create a tutorial that would teach others how to do it. Dunno if it will go anywhere after it's done, but it's been interesting to do the programming for it.

-Altepehua: This is my alternate history for North America, that explores what would happen if Europeans didn't reach North America until like, 1800. I've laid out how I think the timeline will progress more or less, and am working on details of how the rest of the world works (like, why DIDN'T Europe arrive on schedule?). I've settled on my presentation format as well: the major portion will be a chapter from a high school history textbook, written as if the events in my world are actual history. There will also be corollary materials, like a sample exam and some in-class exercises, that will allow for inclusion of more world details. I will be spending the next two weeks or so writing text and creating info-graphics. Should be...fun?

-Health game: My boss and I have been working on a concept for a game that addresses social issues related to genetic blood disorders. I know, weird. Think of it like a documentary film, except instead of making a movie, we're making a video game. So far it's mostly just been a lot of research into other games that have tried similar things, but I think it'll end up being kind of cool. I just found out that the latest version of Flash will let me make programs for my cell phone, so I'm going to have to try that out and see what I can get it to do.

Hm...I think that may be it. It doesn't seem like that much when it's all laid out like this, but MAN I've been busy. Anyway, hope everyone has a great holiday, and I will see a lot of you this week!

2007-10-11T02:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally raided my camera and updated Flickr. So the pics from my birthday (some of them, at least) can be found here. A lot of the rave ones were blurry, so I posted the ones that were easiest to make out.

In other news, we have a promo poster for RagnaRokk, and it's pretty great:

Other than that, things are moving along at their usual crazy pace. Will try to post again soon. Night all!

2007-10-07T02:24:00.000-07:00

So, by preordering Hellgate: London, I got myself a pass into the game's beta test, which is going on right now. I have to say, I am REALLY REALLY EXCITED to play the full game. I know some people have been complaining that it's too much like Diablo, but guys, DIABLO WAS AWESOME. There is nothing wrong with more Diablo. That said, this is TuathaKane:

Tuatha is a Templar Guardian. He is 7 feet tall. He carries a flaming sword, and he kills demons with it. He is without a doubt the best MMO character I have ever created.

So, long story short, those of you who are planning to join me for Hellgate: London, get excited. It is lots and lots of fun.

I know, I owe you guys a post about last weekend, and I'll get that up tomorrow night after my meetings are done. So, you know. Everyone who doesn't care about Hellgate will have a more interesting post soon ;-)

2007-09-30T18:39:00.002-07:00

Stories (and more pictures) later, but for now: http://flickr.com/photos/dihughes/1465103555/

2007-09-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

Hi there!

Just a quick update before I toddle off to bed:

-Ragnarokk (the viking game) is going rather well, though we had a bit of a setback this weekend. Turns out there's another student game out there that uses the guitar controller, and it's called Ragnarawk. Their game isn't really very much like ours, but just to be safe, we're going to have to change the name of our game. If anyone has any brilliant ideas, send 'em my way!

-My intermediate game class project has taken shape, finally. The game is called Polyphony, and it's...well, it's a bit odd. You have this plant, and depending on what fertilizers you put on it, different kinds of flowers will grow out of it. Now, different types of flowers correspond to different notes, so the idea is to get the plant to grow the right flowers in the right order such that they form a given melody. Sound trippy? Yeah, that's because it is. I was in a meeting the other day, thinking to myself "Okay, so if I were to add a square flower to a triangle flower, that would make...a star flower?" And at that moment, I realized I had lost my mind. Oh well. Shape/botany math aside, here are some of the images from the game (drawn by yours truly, unbelievable as that may be to anyone who's ever seen me try to draw):
This is roughly how our music/shape system works. Basically, if you've ever seen shape notation (used to be used in protestant hymnals back in the day), then you know where the concept for this comes from. We have our first playtest of this game on Wednesday, so my partner and I have furiously been churning out art and code for the past week. Here's hoping we're ready!

-I'm working on another presentation for the Game Deconstruction Group. This month's selection is Bioshock, which if you've spoken to me in the last month, you know is my current favorite game ever. I have until late October to build the presentation, so I'm taking my time in getting the research put together.

-My world building class is chugging along. This is the class where we spend a semester just coming up with a fictional world, and really getting into the details of how that world works. By the end of the semester, we've assembled something like an atlas, with maps, descriptions/pictures of the inhabitants, descriptions of the ecology, etc. My world is called Altepehua, and it's an alternate history story. The basic question that created Altepehua is, "What would happen if Europeans hadn't reached the New World until the late 19th century? How would the native civilizations have developed and spread, given an extra 400 uninterrupted years to do so?" In other words, how would the Incan, Mayan, and Aztec civilizations have grown and changed if Europeans hadn't basically annihilated them? I'm reading a lot about the history of these cultures, and trying to project how I think they would have changed (and interacted with each other) if left to their own devices. Those who are interested can read more as the story develops here: CTIN-532 Class Blog

Well, it's 3am, and I still have more Polyphony art to do, so I should probably stop procrastinating and get to it. Hope you all are doing well, and be sure to check back next week for pics of my birthday adventures. We're going to a pirate themed restaurant (like Medieval Times, but with pirates) and then to an all night techno festival in downtown LA. I am quite sure there will be massively entertaining stories and pictures from this little outing. Until then, hasta luego!

2007-09-13T21:51:00.000-07:00

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0913/p01s04-ussc.html

I walk down the stretch of road in this picture literally every day. I am amused.

2007-09-10T03:39:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot!!

Remember that green screen shoot I worked on in June, and couldn't say what it was? Well, the site launched about a month ago. Head over to www.cluckhere.com to check it out.

2007-09-10T02:38:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! Did you miss me? I bet you did.

So, the semester has started. True to form, I was busy right up until classes started, and then jumped right into classes and projects and extracurriculars. Here's what's on tap:

Internship at Fox: Wrapped this one up the Friday before classes (good thing, seeing as how working full time doesn't mix well with school). I'm really happy with how this internship went. Learned a lot, had fun. They must have been happy with me as well, since they hired two IMD people to replace me, and asked me to stay every day until my last day. Might go back next summer, we shall see.

Game Deconstruction Group: A professor of mine invited me to come and present for this organization, largely composed of important game industry types. Basically, the idea is that these guys are busy people and don't have time to play every game that's out there, so they invite intelligent, game-minded students to come in and present games they ought to know about. For my presentation, I played Maple Story, a Korean (and now US) MMO, and led a 2 1/2 hour discussion on it. The game itself is kind of lame, so I don't recommend you go out and get it, but the presentation went really well. I made some great contacts, and they've invited me back to do another game later in the semester. A guy from Yahoo games also said that if I ever had a Flash game, he'd feature it on the Yahoo Games site, so you know. Woo!

Thesis Space: I'm still employed as the site manager for the IMD thesis space. This mostly consists of telling thesis students they're not allowed to knock down walls and making sure they don't paint said walls tangerine orange. It kind of sucks to be the bad guy all the time, but eh. At least I know that when it's time for the thesis show, the space won't be a total disaster.

Intermediate Game Design: This is the first of two game classes I'm taking this semester. It's a production class, which means I'll have built a game by the time the class is over. My partner and I are talking about making a serious issue game; we're tossing around the idea of an RPG-style game where you are a homeless person in Los Angeles. This is still in a really infant stage, so stay tuned to see how it develops.

Advanced Game Design: Yes, you read that right. I'm taking Intermediate and Advanced at the same time. Why? Because I'm nuts. The game for this class is the one I've mentioned here before, RagnaRokk. We worked a lot on the game over the summer, and I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far. If anyone is interested, head over to www.playragnarokk.com/wiki to see the design doc, some level concepts, and our source/concept art library.

World Building: This one is mostly a creative writing exercise. By the end of the semester, I will have constructed an atlas for a fictional world. I have no idea yet what my world is going to be. I'm supposed to commit to a broad world concept by Thursday. Anybody got any ideas?

Experiments in Interactivity: I'm still not real sure what this class is going to be about. It seems like it's mostly theory, but by the semester we will have built something. We just don't know what yet. We're thinking of working in the interactive environments area, so that could be fun. If nothing else, the prof for this class is really trippy and fun. I'm pretty sure they invented the idea of the doddering academic just so we'd have a way to describe this guy. So even if our interactive something doesn't turn out, at least I got to talk to the fun prof for a semester.

New house: As of the first week of August, I'm living in a new place. One of these days, I will clean my room and kitchen so I can take pictures and post them here. For now, I can at least describe the place. My room is pretty big (three queen beds long by two wide...I have a queen bed, so this is the easiest way for me to describe the room's size, haha). I have a closet that runs the entire length of the room. It has a motion-sensitive light in it. This closet is epic, I'm telling you. One wall of the room glass sliding doors, leading out into the garden in the back. I can basically barbecue out the back of my bedroom. I find this immensely satisfying. The house itself is nice; one story, five bedrooms, two bathrooms. The oven in the kitchen could be bigger, but we've got two refrigerators, so I'm not complaining. I live with friends from IMD, as well as Renae (my roommate from last year). We're pretty happy with the place so far.

Archery Club: Yeah, this one kind of came out of nowhere. A friend of mine is the VP of the USC archery club, and he talked me into coming shooting with them last Sunday. I thought it was a one-time event. I was incorrect. I am now a card-carrying member of the USC Archery Club. This means that once a week, my friends and I drive out to the archery range, some nice people give us bows and arrows, and we shoot at a wall made of phone books for a couple hours. Sometimes there are targets, sometimes it's just that big wall. So far, I'm actually not terrible. I can hit a balloon from about twenty feet...when I concentrate really hard. I figure I've only been twice, and am bound to get better. They told us at practice this week that we can bring in our own targets next week. I have access to a large-format poster printer. This should be hilarious.

New computers: Yep, plural. Once per degree, the USC financial aid office allows students to apply for a budget increase so they can get a computer. I cashed mine in this semester, and got myself a Sony Vaio laptop (it's red and adorable), several hardware upgrades for my PC, and a nice pair of wireless studio-quality headphones. I now have a nice portable machine that I can use on campus and in meetings, and a super badass tower at home for video work and (of course) video games. Plus, no more rolling over my headphone cable with my computer chair 23983459240523450924 times a day. Speaking of games, if you aren't playing Bioshock, you should be. It's absolutely fantastic. Also, Dad, Chris, Kelson, and I are going to be playing Hellgate: London come November, so if anyone is interested in joining us (it's an online game), pick up a copy when it comes out and I'll tell you what server we're on. Some of my friends from school will also be playing with us, so I expect it will be quite the raucous good time.

Whew, I think that's the long and the short of it. Hope everyone is well and happy, and let's hope it's not another month before I update here!

2007-07-26T19:57:00.001-07:00

Hey folks,

Sorry for the paucity of updates around here. As usual, things come up and Diana goes elsewhere. I'm sure most of you are aware, but there was a death in my family about two weeks ago. My grandfather Ben (Dad's dad) passed away on July 9th. It was a blow to the whole family, and I think to his community as well. My Uncle Mike put together an absolutely fantastic montage of photos of Grandpa...you can check it out here should you be so inclined: Ben G. Hughes Memorial. I'm not really a writer, but Grandpa was a teacher, so for me, the best way I can remember him is to remember all the things he taught me growing up. For those who knew him, I'm sure he taught you a lot of the same things and plenty more besides. And for those who didn't...you missed out.

Baking is the most important way to get ready for family coming to visit.
Put the charges on the ions!!
Any damn fool can play if he's got the cards.
Sitting next to Kelson means you will always, ALWAYS get your aces trumped. Grumbling about this is customary. Shouting for help from his mother will not do you any good.
Christmas is the most important holiday of the year.
Collecting things is fun...showing off the collection is even more fun.
Playing with little kids is fun...even if they are little monsters.
The computer is a toy as well as a tool.
It's a pain when someone else plays with your toys and puts them where you can't find them.
ABBA is the best band ever. Period.
Mama Mia is the best musical ever. See above.
Singing/playing all the right notes is okay, but singing with attitude is far more important.
The birthday song should never, ever be sung in key.
If your coffee gets cold, just put it in the microwave. This can be done several times, with no bad effect on the coffee.
All Hugheses are smart, talented, attractive, and fun. This is a direct result of Ben's genes and careful influence.
It is perfectly acceptable to wear black socks with sandals and shorts, so long as the socks are pulled up as far as they will go.
Suspenders are sexy. Yes they are, shut up.
Don't be condescending when speaking to children. They're smarter than they look...and probably smarter than you are.
There is no such thing as a stranger...there are only people who haven't seen pictures of your grandkids yet.
Board games are fun, card games are better. Really, though, it's just important to sit around a table to eat, tell stories, and play with people you like.
Baking is essentially chemistry. That's why it's so fun.
Organic chemistry, however, is not fun.
It's okay to like science fiction. It just means you're smart.
Families should always be expanding. If nobody is having babies, start adopting other people's kids.
When your baby teeth fall out, they don't come back in.
Teenagers are difficult to be around, but deserving of as much understanding and support as we can give them. Embarrass them in public whenever you get the chance.
Laughter is the best medicine. It is also an excellent hobby, form of exercise, and method of communication. Laugh more.
Pets (read: cats) are the same thing as kids. All should have their portrait tucked in your wallet.
Friends are like family. Treat them as such.
Stories are meant to be told. Often, and to whoever will listen.

2007-07-05T19:16:00.001-07:00

Whew, okay. Summer? Not as laid-back as it should be. Lots going on, with highlights below. Also, I updated my Flickr with pics I've shot on my cell phone, so have a look if you're so inclined. Now then, what I've been up to since last we spoke:

Internship with Fox Interactive: Last week, I started a 40 hr/week summer internship with the division of 20th Century Fox that handles video game licensing. Basically, this group authorizes others to use Fox's properties (like 24, the Simpsons, Family Guy, etc) to make video games. The work I do generally involves looking for potential studios for us to work with (and playing their games, when possible), reading/doing preliminary evaluation on game pitches from outside studios, and playtesting games that are in production. It's a pretty sweet gig, and I'm having a good time so far.

Green screen shoot: Went home a couple weeks ago to spend two weeks working on a shoot for the Iona Group in Morton, IL. My former professor, Jim Ferolo, hired me on for green screen work. I can't really talk about what the project is, since it hasn't launched yet, but we did a week-long shoot on green screen, with digital effects and editing going on right there at the studio. For reference we basically shot and did very basic effects on the equivalent of a short feature film (about 120 mins) in a week. It was...difficult, but I think the site will be really fun. More on this after the site launches, which should be soon.

Transformers: Okay, I am a nerd. I think we've long since established this. I also have very nerdy friends. Therefore, it only makes sense that we went to see Transformers, on the day it launched, at the LA theatre that actually had the cars from the movie. Hooray for the Arclight! Pics below:
Optimus Prime is awesome. I will beat up anyone who says otherwise. Also, LA summer weather is hell on my hair :-P

Best Hummer H2 ever. I don't normally approve of Hummers, but I will make an exception because this one is a Transformer.

Bumblebee was my favorite in the movie, but this car was a little less awesome than the rest. Probably because it wasn't as massive and custom, and it lacked the Autobots logo that was featured on each of the others.

Touch panel: A project I've been working on since I started at USC is almost done. We've got this touch panel that drives our media lab, and all year we've been trying to redesign its interface. It took forever to get our hands on the code, and then another chunk of forever to get the graphics ready (partly because thesis show happened in the middle), but the project is almost done. Here's a screenshot of what it looks like:

This screen is used to route any digital source (a computer or laptop, for instance) to any of the projectors in the room, or to the plasma TV next door. Kind of cool, when you think about it.

Las Vegas: Did a weekend in Vegas this past week with my friends Ryan and Lily. It was pretty fun, and I didn't lose nearly as much money as I could have. I preferred to invest my dollars in things like show tickets and food. We had a lot of fun (read: ate too much and drank too much), and didn't take any pictures, which is exactly how Vegas is supposed to be.

That's about it, for now. I'll be working at Fox and at USC for the rest of the summer, possibly with some travel in there, and then classes begin at the end of August. I'd like to say that the blog will be updated more often, but let's be honest--my updates are sporadic at best. Hope everyone is doing well, and GOOD LUCK to Grandpa Ben, who will be in surgery tomorrow to recover from a heart attack and unrelated aneurysm in Springfield. I'll be thinking of you!

2007-05-26T21:30:00.000-07:00

Okay, so many many things have gone down since the last time I posted here. The semester ended, the thesis show happened, I got an internship, etc. In the interest of keeping things straight, I wrote several posts (see below) relating what I've been up to when I'm not here entertaining you fine folks. The only thing I didn't cover in the below posts was a post-semester rehash, so I'll do that here:

Film class: Heaven save me from film classes, man. I mean, I know technically I'm in a cinema school, but I'm definitely not in a cinema program, so why all the film classes?? Anyway, so I took another film class. We made a movie in two weeks that we were supposed to make in a semester (got a B+, too...not too shabby considering). We shot approximately a bajillion photos for a photo book assignment (most of mine can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/dihughes/sets/72157600270334839/). And we met for 8 hours a day on Saturdays for the first half of the semester to listen to one Bruce Block teach us about making films that aren't ugly. Neat.

Game class: My first game design class is done. This is the class that we did Butterfly Effect and Guitar God for. Our latest effort, Photo Op, was a rousing success. People wore silly hats, ran around like idiots, and had their pictures taken. Good times were had by all.

Writing class: Writing for Interactive Media was a fun, fun class. I never thought I'd like a writing class, but this one was interesting and gave me a chance to do writing projects related to games (so, you know, awesome).

Seminar: Meh. I'm glad seminar won't be required next year. It was interesting, but you can only listen to so many people talk for 2 hours about their work before it gets repetitious and boring.

Visits: Several people came to visit this semester. Meg was here for a few days, and bless her heart, we did my homework for about half of that. Granted, my homework involved wandering around Hollywood taking pictures and going to thrift stores to buy costume pieces, but even so. It was awesome having her here, and I promise, next time we'll do ONLY fun things.

Colin came to visit while Meg was here. Shenanigans occured. We went to a shady-ass Wal Mart and a shady-ass grocery store to get liquor, and came back to my place to watch movies and enjoy said liquor. Amuuuusing.

Lejla was here for a weekend. She was even more neglected than Meg, sorry to say. I was drowning in thesis stuff, so we didn't really get to hang out much. She will be back this weekend, though, so hopefully we can have a little more fun.

Drove out to Vegas for a weekend to see Mumsy and Daddums. We saw the Producers (yes, the Hoff in a dress was exactly as awesome as I had hoped). We went down on the strip. We gambled a bit in the casino. I got more than 6 hours of sleep two nights in a row (since this was at the height of thesis insanity, I was really excited about the sleeping). It was a lot of fun! I wanna try Vegas again when I have more than a weekend, though. Who's up for Vegas this summer? :-)

2007-05-26T21:07:00.001-07:00

Games!

Got a few games in the works at the moment. They include:

RagnaRøkk: This one should be crazy fun. It's basically a platformer adventure game (think Zelda, God of War, etc) that you play using the Guitar Hero controller. The premise of the game is that you're a viking, and the gods have given you the ability to use rock and roll as a form of magic so that you can save the world from various monsters and demons. Levels will be built around different metal songs, with the action of the level corresponding to what is happening in the song. The story will be heavily influenced by Norse mythology, with visuals that are appropriate to the Norse and heavy metal genres. A huge challenge to build, but it should be a lot of fun. The game is my friend Mike's thesis; I will be signing on as producer. I'm also taking this as my Advanced Game Project credit, so that'll be nice.

Errantry: This one is by far the strangest of the games I'm working on, in terms of premise. Basically, you're a knight's herald, and your job is to tell stories about your knight that make him look better than all the other knights. Think Geoffrey Chaucer in A Knight's Tale. The game is played on the Wii, and uses a tarot card based system to determine how stories are told. I know, trippy right? I'm only on this one for the summer, helping with tech testing on the Wii and helping to choreograph the motions that players will be expected to be able to do.

Tenth Power: This one is another thesis project, this time for my friend Garrett. Again, I'll be on the team as the producer. Tenth power is a more traditional computer game, in terms of the controls used (PC, mouse, etc). It deals with world building and scaling, as well as getting the player really connected to the world they're moving through. The player starts as a tiny bit of energy, and as they move through the world, they grow bigger by powers of ten (so energy, then molecule, then cell, then insect, etc) As the player collects resources, they have the option to put them into their character or the environment; as the environment is fed, it grows more colorful, it fills with sounds, more creatures appear, etc. Should be a lot of fun to see how this one develops.

484/489: In the fall, I'll be taking Intermediate Game Project. The end result will be a game...the rest is up in the air at this point. I'm hoping to build it in Flash, as I'm already familiar with that environment. Stay tuned for future developments.

2007-05-26T20:52:00.000-07:00

Summer plans!

Internship: Yep, I got myself an internship. Because, you know, I get bored and twitchy when I don't have enough to do. The internship is with Fox Interactive. I'll be doing game-related stuff, including reading proposals from outside studios, playtesting games that are in production, and helping to market proposed games internally. There is also the chance that I will be answering phones, managing appointments, and picking up lunch. Should be interesting.

Working for Jim: Because the best employees are the ones you've trained yourself ;-) Jim Ferolo was one of my professors at Bradley. I'll be home for two weeks in June helping with a green screen shoot and then digital work on the resulting footage. I have no idea what the project is about, other than it's green screen and it's for Tyson Foods. It should be a good time, as I'll be working with Jim and a couple other folks from my Bradley days.

Going home: When I'm not working for Jim, I will be at home in lovely Pekin, IL. If you're going to be in the area from June 2-17, look me up. We will go have rambunctious fun.

Craft projects: Yeah, okay, these are really nerdy. I'm doing some modifications to my Nerf guns, including paint jobs and some mechanical changes to make them work better. I'm also doing cosmetic mods to my DS Lite and possibly my PS2, because I was so pleased with the skins I got for my Wii.

Kristin: Kristin will be here for the bulk of the summer doing a couple of internships. I am quite sure that wacky fun will ensue. Stay tuned for pictures and stories.

Moving: First week of August, my friends and I will be moving into our new place. It's a cute little house, and everyone will have their own bedroom. I'm pretty excited, as this will be a return to a more Moss House style arrangement, where I actually know all my roommates. Also, rent will be a lot cheaper. And I really like cheap rent. I'll post pics of the place once we're moved in.

Pre-production: See the "Games!" entry for descriptions, but I'll be working on pre-production for a couple of games this summer. Basically, we'll be doing tech tests, working out schedules, getting a lot of the scoping issues worked out, etc. for the games we're doing in the fall.

2007-05-26T20:20:00.001-07:00

Thesis show!

Many pics can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/uscimd/pool/

This was basically my life from the beginning of April to mid-March. We took a warehouse-type work space and turned it into a gallery/exhibition space for our thesis students. As production manager, my job was basically to make sure all the space modifications and individual project construction got done. This meant everything from painting to building walls to covering windows (no sunlight allowed...ruins the lighting for all the projectors) to gluing styrofoam to the walls (yes, we really did this. fun fact: 8'x4' foam insulation panels can be affixed to the wall using liquid nails and they are an excellent sound dampening material). I used every skill I ever learned in OM (ha, OM, remember OM guys?) and growing up in a house that was always being remodeled, plus some I kind of made up as I went along. My crew was AWESOME. We had a bunch of undergrads and grads from various cinema programs, as well as some of my IMD classmates, working together for hours upon hours on end. It's a real miracle nobody died, either me killing them or them killing me. There came a point where every six hours or so, someone would go around handing out energy drinks, bottled water, and ibuprofen. I was putting in 50-60 hours a week, and I had several crew members who had at least 30-40 hours a week. And, just for fun, in between wielding power tools and coordinating crew, my boss and I also did a lot of the graphics and web design to promote the show. Obviously, construction was INSANITY.

Then, when construction was over, we had an exhibition for a week. For those who have been to an art gallery, this was similar, except that every piece was interactive (many were games), and we had people stationed around the exhibit to explain how to use each of the installations. The installations varied; we had a dance floor you could play games on, a costume that gave you feedback on how well you moved, an MMO where you were a crime lord, an interactive movie, and so on. Each one was a different student's thesis project. We had regular exhibition hours during the day, and then on certain nights there were receptions. There was an opening reception, a USC alum reception, a closing reception, and several salons. These were always an interesting venture, as they involved dressing nicely (twice I wore a dress and heels...ew), making small talk, and keeping an eye on staff and guests to make sure everyone had what they needed.

Now, finally, we're in the tear-down phase. The space has to be put back to rights so that next year's thesis class can use it as their workspace. A lot of the major cleanup is done. I have a few organizational and storage issues to take care of, and then the next class can move in. In the meantime, my boss and I are working on policies that will govern next year's workspace rules and show construction, based on what we learned this year.

In all, the show was a success. We got everything done that we wanted to, the thesis students' work was displayed to good effect, and nobody died. I also made enough money to pay my rent for the summer, which is always neat. It sounds like I will still be site manager for the thesis space for awhile; at least until December. It remains to be seen if I will be production managing the actual show next spring or not.

2007-05-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

This is where I've been lately...

I'll post pictures once we're a little closer to done.

2007-04-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

Took some pics, thought I'd share:

This is Tommy Trojan. He stands in the central quad near the student union and bookstore. I think I can say with absolute certainty that everyone who has ever walked by him has tried to look up his skirt. They are all sorely disappointed, as the sculptor appears to have abandoned anatomical correctness to protect Tommy's masculine dignity.

This is the entrance to the Leavey Library, the biggest library on campus. It's pretty, and it has a reflecting pool, and...uh...yeah, I never go there.

Bought this at a thrift store today for $4. In case you're not nerdy enough to recognize it, that's a rancor. As in, the big nasty monster Luke kills at the beginning of Return of the Jedi. I named him Pork Chop. He and TMX Elmo hang out on my bookshelf. Sweetness.

2007-04-04T02:15:00.000-07:00

Haven't been here in awhile. Sorry about that. Life is...well, it's insane. Highlights include:

-I got an Easter basket today! Well, it wasn't really a basket, it was more like a recycled Amazon.com box, but that is SO NOT THE POINT. It was full of chocolate and Life Savers and dollars and these neat marshmallow eggs that you draw on with non-toxic markers. FREAKING SWEET!! And it was waiting in front of my bedroom door when I got home from work tonight. I was all tired and cranky and depressed, and then there was this treasure trove of sugary goodness to make me feel better. Family is the best! Thanks Grandma Sharon!!

-The thesis show. Oh man, the thesis show. To give you an idea, here is my calendar for April:

All that stuff in red? That's the production schedule. And it's only about half filled in. Awesome. I'm sure I'll get more detailed about this later, but for now, let me say this: I put in ten hours today, and all we did was plan. No building, no painting, just making lists and calendars and schedules. Tomorrow, I'm going to the Garment District to shop for felt; we need approximately 150 yards of it. I could be wrong, but I believe that may be a metric assload of felt. I'm kind of excited to see the textile peoples' reactions when we ask for this stuff.

-My immune system is insane. Last week I discovered a marble-sized lump on my neck, about as big around as a nickel. It didn't hurt, it wasn't discolored, it was just HUGE. Went to the doctor, who put me on some serious antibiotics on the theory that the lump is an inflamed lymph node reacting to some illness I can't feel. Seems to be working; the lump is getting smaller. I will kind of miss it. My friends named it Mulder because we had decided it was an alien. Ah well.

-Shooting a film for Visual Expression sometime in the next two weeks. Good thing, since it's due in three weeks. We're making a five minute short about a painter who slowly goes color blind. No dialogue, no onscreen text, no lyrics to the music, just visuals and instrumental music. Film school is neat.

-Anti Easter! Since my friends and I can't go home for Easter, we decided to have an anti-Easter instead. We're going to dim sum for brunch, and then watching Halloween and Christmas specials and eating Easter candy. Naturally, the festivities take place on Saturday, not Sunday. It should be pretty epic.

-Meggles is coming to visit!! She'll be here in two weeks. I can't wait!

-Colin is coming to visit!! He'll be here in two weeks. I can't wait!

-Lejla is coming to live here!! She'll be here in three weeks. I can't wait!

-Dave is coming to live here!! He'll be here in...uhm...more than 2, but less than 4 weeks. I can't wait!

-I'm going to Vegas! We've confirmed that when Mom and Dad are in Vegas later this month, I'll drive out to meet them for a couple of days. Hooray for me, I get to see the Hoff in a dress!

Okay, I gotta go pass out, since my ride to the Garment District will be here at nine. He promised me coffee. We'll see if he delivers. Hope you all are doing well, and for those of you who're still in school, I hope the end of the semester is being kind to you. For the rest, happy Easter!

2007-03-15T21:05:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting in the lab on campus, rebuilding a laptop so it will be usable, and I thought I'd do a blog entry. Isn't that neat? Sure it is.

-Got the Production Manager position at work. Apparently, nobody applied, so my boss appointed me (despite my objections). It's going to be a MAJOR commitment for the next two months, but some decent paychecks and experience (and hopefully connections) will come of it, so we'll see. I'll be managing a team of 10-20 people, and I get an assistant (okay, not really. there is someone with the title of Assistant Production Manager, which really means I will do all the yelling at people and he will do all the paperwork). The laptop I'm rebuilding is for me to use during this project, so I guess that's a nice perk. Would be nicer if it had more than 256Mb of RAM in it, and REALLY nice if I didn't have to rebuild it...

-Went swing dancing with Renae and some animation people last night, and had a sweet nerd celebrity sighting. Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy? Well, apparently he is quite the avid dancer, and he was at the same club we were. AND, midway through the evening, he grabbed me and we did a turn on the floor. Very cool! Didn't have anyone take pictures, because I'm smart like that, but we did snap a few of Renae when it was her turn, so at least we can prove he was there with us. Hooray for nerd celebrity sightings!

-There is a possible Las Vegas trip in the works for April. Mumsy and Daddums will be there so Dad can attend a conference, and if I can get away from the thesis show for a few days, I will join them. See, David Hasselhoff is playing in The Producers right now and, well, I just can't pass up an opportunity to see the Hoff in a dress. I'll repeat that. The Hoff. In a dress. Singing and dancing on a stage. In Las Vegas. NICE.

I think that's all for now. Developments tend to move more slowly when school isn't in session, but I'm sure things will pick back up next week. Which reminds me: if you aren't doing anything right now, IM me or call me. Because it's still break, and I'm still BORED OUT OF MY SKULL. Thanks :-)

2007-03-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

Some things:

-Head over to my Flickr (link in the right hand column) for pics of the Chinese New Year parade and some Roman reenactors (like Civil War reenactment, but with fewer guns and more centurions). Here are some samples:

-300 is the manliest movie ever. Seriously, I think the world's testosterone supply is depleted. Either that or it's now larger than ever, because this movie spontaneously generates more. The only way it could have been manlier is if each audience member had been handed a bacon-wrapped steak on entering the theater. Also, if you can see it on an IMAX screen, do so. It's AWESOME.

-I'm on Spring Break until the 18th. For heaven's sake, entertain me, because I will not be doing anything interesting.

2007-03-06T02:04:00.000-08:00

So it looks like I haven't posted in a few weeks. Whoops a daisy! Here's a rundown of what I've been up to instead of posting here and entertaining you all:

-Mom and Grandma came to visit! Yaaaaaay! They were here for a little over a week, so we did a pretty good sampling of what LA has to offer. Shopping (hooray for Mommy and her Visa!!), trying new restaurants (hooray for In N Out and Sushi Dan!), a rainy afternoon at the spa, driving around to see the sights (and almost falling off a couple mountains, haha), etc. The weather didn't cooperate enough to make the beach fun, but I guess there's always next time. Good times were (I think) had by all. It was nice having them here; I probably won't get to go home for another few months, but at least I've had a dose of family to tide me over for awhile :-)

-Game class! After three weeks of iterations, playtests, and refinements, my group submitted the final version of our prototype board game. I think it turned out rather well, considering how complicated our concept was. If you're particularly bored today, head over to http://evolveyourpresent.blogspot.com for our group's production blog. We kept track of all our testing notes, versions of the rules, game art, etc over there, so if you're curious to see how the process works, this is a decent illustration. Hey look! Pictures!

Our logo for the project, done in about ten minutes by yours truly. Probably could have been snazzier, but oh well. We weren't being graded on art.

In every game design class that does prototyping, you will see at least three variations on this basic setup: a board with a hex grid on it (attached to a piece of foam board), a deck of cards made with printable Avery business cards, and pushpins. Ours was slightly more ambitious in that it provided a cheat sheet to each player.

With the prototyping assignment complete, we've moved on to feature design. We're supposed to design an addition or new feature for an existing game. My partner Mike and I are calling ours Guitar God. It's pretty straightforward. Guitar Hero + real guitar = AWESOME. It's so obvious, I can't believe no one has done it yet. The fun thing about this project is that for the team that has the strongest presentation, the prof is going to try to bring in someone from the game company we're pitching for, and they will see and critique our presentation. I don't need to tell you how awesome it would be if someone from Red Octane came in to see Guitar God :-D

-Thesis space! No, it's still not done. The basic setup is done (it's a livable workspace for the students), but now we've moved on to prepping the space for the thesis show. I'm learning all kinds of things about electricity, hiring moving companies, and the kinds of personnel one hires to put on a thesis show. Speaking of hiring, it sounds like if my boss can't find someone to fill the Production Manager role, at least some of it will fall to me. This is a nervous proposition; I feel like I'd be up for the challenge, but I think I'd like it a lot better if someone else were in charge. Say, someone who's actually seen an IMD thesis show before (because I definitely have not). More on this as it develops.

-Writing class! Man, I love this class. I think Andre said it best: "i feel like i get too much credit for bullshit work sometimes." Basically, I sit down, I blab all over a Word document for awhile, and I get an A. Good deal! The last assignment was to write a concept for a theme park or similar interactive space. Mine was a variation on Tomorrowland. Instead of presenting one version of the future, it presented four: Brave New World, Star Trek, Firefly/Serenity, and The Matrix. The idea is to present four very different ideas of what the future might look like, each with a semi-plausible explanation of how we'd get from the world of today to that particular future. It's probably too cerebral to be commercially viable (I'm asking people to come in, pay attention, and draw comparisons and conclusions based on four possible future visions), but it was fun to write. Next up: take an existing source (a book or film, etc) and reimagine it in a new medium, extending the story and the world as you see fit. I'ma play with Orson Scott Card's Enderverse, see what I can come up with. Probably a game, since Card himself is already writing the movie script.

Whew, okay. There's more to tell, but I should probably go ahead and write my Enderverse paper, seeing as how it's due tomorrow morning. Hope you all are doing well and keeping warm.

2007-02-10T16:23:00.000-08:00

Was flipping through my camera, found some pics from the last week that I thought I'd post:

So here's Mike, me, Jamie, and Andre celebrating our victory over a board game. Shadows Over Camelot (which, by the way, is an EXCELLENT game) is a game where all the players team up against the game...and the game usually wins. We were really, really proud of ourselves for winning. I believe I mentioned in a previous post that playing and critiquing board games was homework for one of my classes. Turns out this is a weekly assignment. Mike, Andre, and Jamie are my usual group for this activity. As you can see, we're all very, very cool.

Do you know who this guy is? That's okay, I would be extremely surprised if you did. His name is James Kiefer, and he's head of game development at Mattel. He came to our game class and talked about the process of designing board games and getting them to market (and of course, getting them to SELL). Apparently he will be coming to our last class to see our final projects, and if he sees something he likes, that group will be given the opportunity to develop their project further at Mattel (or with Mattel, or with Mattel's blessing, or something...I'm a little vague on the details). Neat!

Ah, here are two members of my game design group with our latest prototype, Butterfly Effect. As you can see, Lily is thinking EXTREMELY hard, and well she should. We're developing a board game version of what would eventually be an MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game...think World of Warcraft). The basic idea is that it's animals versus plants, with each side competing to control the most territory. As the patron god (or goddess) of your side, you have the ability to place resources on the board, Risk-style, and battle your opponent to take their territory. The twist is that you can do these things both in the present and in the past; whatever you do in the past will change what is happening in the present. It's an interesting premise, in theory. In execution, getting the mechanics of it worked out is a PAIN. I liked this better as a hypothetical computer game. Then, we could just say things like "well, then there would be magic on the server, and BAM, what you did in the past would be reflected in the present!" Oh well, we're having fun with art supplies and dice, and that is definitely something.

2007-02-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Spent the afternoon/evening in San Diego today. Al, Mike, Andre and I decided to take a mini road trip to attend a panel on serious gaming (professional gaming, the economies of game worlds, etc.) at UCSD, Mike's undergrad. It was a pretty good trip. The panel was interesting, if a bit esoteric at times. Highlights from the trip included:

Ralph Koster, of Star Wars Galaxies and Ultima Online fame, gave a response to what the rest of the panelists had been discussing. His remarks were insightful, particularly his argument that the line between games and play is largely an artificial one, and that games inherently create structures and rules that are very difficult to get out of (one reason why innovation is so hard to create in games). After two and a half hours discussing such things as virtual economies, the social ramifications of gold farming, and the different playstyles of different nationalities of MMO players, Raph's impassioned and accessible style was very much appreciated.
Lev Manovich, a well-known new media theorist guru type, attended the panel, and joined in the discussion afterwards. Most of you will not know who that is, and no harm done. However, for those of you who've done the Bradley Multimedia thing, and have taken Ed's MM250 class, remember The Language of New Media, a blue and white book that was really dense and sometimes hard to parse? Kinda read like the author wasn't a native English speaker, or was just an uber-scholar type or something? Yeah, this guy was the one who wrote it. And as it turns out, he is both not a native English speaker AND an uber-scholar type.
We got to meet Mike's sister, which was cool. She's a great deal of fun, and I am quite sure that the Rossmassler siblings are far cuter as a unit than my brothers and I will ever be. (sorry guys, but it's the truth. we're way too devious to ever be that adorable)
Al's battery died. And I discovered that Californians do not have the "always be prepared" mantra drilled into them the way that Midwesterners do. I swear, we must have checked with 5-10 people (including Al and Mike's sis) and NO ONE had jumper cables. Also missing was a flashlight (so we could, you know, see the battery we needed to jump) and the owner's manual for the car. I was both amused and appalled. Man, I remember when I got my license, the FIRST thing my dad did was take me out to the driveway and show me how to check/fill all my car's fluids, change a flat, check tire pressure, etc. I thought everyone did that. Apparently, we Midwesterners are far more pragmatic than our Western brethren, who simply call AA when these things happen. Who knew?
CALIFORNIA BURRITOS. Holy crap, these things are amazing. They're burritos with carne asada (steak), salsa, shredded cheese, and french fries in them. At $4.45 each, they are basically the perfect food. I was sad to learn that they are only available in San Diego. I guess this means we will have to go to San Diego again.

2007-02-03T16:33:00.000-08:00

That is all.

2007-01-29T22:37:00.000-08:00

I was walking on campus today and saw a couch in a tree. I don't know anything more about it than that, but I thought I'd share.

2007-01-28T10:39:00.000-08:00

So it's been over a week, and that means it's time for me to do a blog post. Not entirely sure what I should post about, as nothing extraordinary has happened lately. So...let's try a "how things are going" summary.

-Classes are excellent. My writing class is entertaining, my games class is pretty damn great, the Saturday class is...well, as good as a Saturday class can be, I suppose, and seminar is not unbearable (hard to top Zemeckis, though I am sure they will try...eventually).

-Original Fin (the game I'm working on) seems to be progressing, though I admit, this is through no action of mine. I'm still learning the Torque Shader Engine (a program for creating 3D games) and holy CRAP it is confusing!! There's just code and models and collision eeeeverywhere. I've been having limited success in sorting it all out; I'm hoping that this week I'll at least be to the point where I can put code in and get a meaningful result out. Maybe even a useful meaningful result. Wouldn't THAT be crazy?

-Work is going well. We're finally able to mess around with the touch panel interface in ZML (a process they've been trying to make happen since...well, way before I got here). Hopefully, we can get the software on the thing redesigned and user-friendly in the next month or so. That will be a major accomplishment for all involved. In other news, I am finally going to get some professional help with the thesis space. Not that I'm not up for a challenge, but I am most excited to have a real contractor person who can recommend things like soundproofing materials and flooring. Trying to pick those out on my own has been...confusing.

-Found myself some new gamer things to do. One of the many Mikes I know is reviving a USC Game Design Club, so I'm lending what help I can on that. Our first event for the semester, Wiimbledon (yes, a tournament of Wii tennis) was a success. Through Wiimbledon, I met the USC Gamer's Network guys, who apparently have a LAN every Friday night. I am so there. It's not even funny how there I am. Or, will be, you know, on Friday.

-MY WII IS HERE!!! I absolutely adore it. It's all skinned (thanks Grandma!) and awesome and great and stuff. If you have a Wii, I am going to require your number, so I can find you online and steal all your Mii's.

-Mom and Grandma will be here in February, and there's rumblings of a Meg/Janelle visit sometime in...March? April? Marpril? We're working on it. The point is, I am ridiculously excited to have people here. If you're not Mom, Grandma, Meg, or Janelle, you should probably go ahead and get in touch with me about coming out for a visit. We don't have real winter here. Think about it.

Okee, that's all for now. Hope all is well amongst all of you. Drop me some comments once in awhile. I will tell better stories if I know what you want to hear about. :-)

2007-01-18T22:53:00.000-08:00

Look, everyone! I own a dress! A dress I wore! Out in public! Try not to faint.

2007-01-18T13:45:00.000-08:00

NOTICE:

It is not snowing in LA, and I'm pretty sure it didn't snow yesterday either. It's 69 degrees and sunny today. It DID snow in Los Angeles County, but remember kids, there are mountains in LA County.

So for all of you Midwesterners who were...concerned for my comfort, rest assured. My weather is much nicer than your weather. ::grin::

2007-01-11T15:17:00.000-08:00

Hi all! I'm going to go ahead and briefly summarize the last three weeks so that I can describe this week in detail. I am pretty sure I saw most of you over the break, so this shouldn't take long.

1. Finals ended well. All A's and passes, leaving me with a solid 3.8 GPA and a couple projects I'm pretty happy with.
2. Christmas was lovely. Saw a lot of the family, drank a lot of booze and ate a lot of cookies and meat, and got some excellent swag. Highlights include hanging out with the fam (saw some of the Childs side and ALL of the Hughes side), playing Guitar Hero with everyone I could get to play it, my Tickle Me Elmo (see the archives for video of this little guy), and catching up on my sleep.
3. New Years Eve was fantastic. Chris and I joined a bunch of my friends from undergrad in Chicago for a bar party and a night of drinking in our hotel. Mistakes were made, as were a lot of ironic toasts to "dignity", and we had an all around fabulous time.
4. Break was excellent. Saw a lot of people, worked on stuff I needed to work on, and in general got life under control so that the new semester could start.

Okay, recap over. Let us get to what's in store for the coming months:

-Original Fin: A video game I'll be working on this semester. The core team has been working on this bad boy since September, I believe, so I'm coming in halfway. A good opportunity to get experience in using the Torque Game Engine, as well as just general experience in working on a 3D game. When this thing is ready to send out to festivals, I'll have programmer credit as well, so that's always nice.

-Interactive Writing: Taught by Paul de Meo (he wrote the Rocketeer! zomg!), this is probably the first writing class I've ever taken where I'm actually looking forward to the work. We'll be learning to write for games and related media, with lots of suggested reading and playing (yes, he recommends games as homework) to go with in-class discussions.

-Game Design Workshop: Exactly what it sounds like. We meet for lecture and lab once a week and go over all the pertinent aspects of game design (rule systems, art, that kind of thing). Taught by Chris Swain (one of our head game profs) and Dan Aray (creative director at Naughty Dog Games...Banjo Kazooey and Jak and Daxter are their top titles). I'm VERY excited for this class. Looks like it's going to be fantastic. This week's homework: play a board game with classmates and put together a photo essay about the experience. AWESOME.

-Seminar: As with last semester, seminar is a class "taught" entirely by guest speakers. Basically, IMD brings in interesting people and has them tell us about their work, their current projects, the state of our art or the state of the industry...whatever is relevant to us at IMD. Last night, our first seminar speaker was none other than Robert Zemeckis (of Back to the Future and Polar Express fame, among many many others). He is teaching a motion capture class at USC this semester, using the techniques he learned/developed on Polar Express, Monster House, and his latest one, Beowulf. The lecture last night was a general overview of where this type of filmmaking stands, and we got to see production footage of Beowulf, which was pretty awesome. It was interesting to see what gaps existed in Bob's knowledge (he had never heard of the uncanny valley phenomenon, for instance, and had no comment for our questions about the copyright issues of motion capture filmmaking), as well as what his vision is for this art form in the future.

-Visual Expression: The jury is still out on this one, as we haven't met yet, but I will say this: It's a seven hour photography and film class taught on Saturdays. Again, I'll withhold my opinion until we've actually had a class, but I think we can all agree that this will probably be my least favorite class.

-Relocation: Sadly, Renae and I have decided that we can't stay at our current place next year. It's really, REALLY nice, but the rent is just too high. The realtor who found us this place is working with us to find something a little more reasonable. In addition, we'll be adding Al and Mike (friends from Interactive...their pictures are in this blog someplace I'm sure) as roommates, which should be tres fun. Bridget, the realtor, has a couple places for us to check out early next week, so the search has begun in earnest. Here's hoping for something WITH Internet and WITHOUT bars on the windows!

-Employment: Still working for the lab manager in IMD, though my focus will probably shift as things get going. I'm still working on the thesis space project from last semester, trying to nail down things we couldn't get done last semester (flooring and locks, mainly). In addition, I expect I'll be working pretty heavily on the spring thesis exhibition when that starts ramping up. Plenty of opportunities to play with power tools and yell at electricians...whee! I'm also considering a couple of on-campus internships, but I haven't decided if I'll apply for any or not. The work sounds interesting, and I of course like being paid, but the schedule may not allow for any more commitments. We shall see.

I think that about covers it. As things get really moving, I'll be able to elaborate on all of these projects and classes, and of course, I'll post pics whenever possible. Hope everyone is well and enjoying their January (whether you're on break or getting back into the swing of work) and I shall talk to you all again soon!

2006-12-12T04:24:00.000-08:00

So I'm in bed, settling in to go to sleep, when I hear this rhythmic banging noise. At first, I assume a hobo is amusing himself; they do that from time to time. But it's too steady for some drunk guy with a bucket, and it keeps getting louder, and pretty soon there are other noises going along with it. So I get up and go out on the balcony to see what on earth is going on.

Turns out there's a parade going down my street. At 4 in the morning.

They've got a statue of the Virgin Mary (the traditional one you see, with the big halo around her...usually Our Lady of insert-name-of-place-where-Mary-has-supposedly-appeared-here, I think) in the back of a pickup truck leading the procession. She looks very majestic, I can tell you. There's a guy banging QUITE loudly on a big drum while another guy drags the drum along on wheels, a group of women dancers wearing some kind of robes and I think maybe playing little chimes or bells (the bells might have been on their jewelry), and another group of dancers in what I can only describe as country line dancing costumes...shiny pants with fringe down the sides, shirts with fringe, cowboy hats, etc. Bringing up the rear is a pickup truck with some kind of loudspeaker in the back playing distorted music I can't even begin to identify in terms of title, genre, or instrument. All I know for sure is that it is very loud. Several other cars trail behind, hazard lights dutifully blinking. There's a traffic cop overseeing things; apparently these folks did their paperwork and got a permit. Groups of people gather on the sidewalks to follow this little procession; some have flowers, others have candles, most look cold and not real thrilled. Some of my neighbors are out on their balconies and porches as well, bemusedly watching the show go by. All I can think is how I wish I hadn't taken the batteries out of my camera (although the wireless Guitar Hero controller was clearly the priority at the time) and how I wish my roommates were awake to reassure me that I'm not hallucinating.

The parade keeps going, and I eventually am cold and go back inside. I look up "hispanic holidays" in Wikipedia and sure enough, under "Public Holidays in Mexico," I find my answer. Apparently December 12 is Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, "the day that Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared on Tepeyac hill to the native Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin." Extra credit to anyone who calls me and can correctly pronounce Cuauhtlatoatzin. Wikipedia goes on to note that this is not an official holiday, which I guess means the post office is still open.

So there you go. A little slice of life living in a hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. We may not know what the hell to do with Christmas, but we've got Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe ALL FIGURED OUT.

2006-12-04T14:57:00.000-08:00

So yesterday, we (Interactive Media) had a game day. A nice break from classes/finals/work/projects/stress so we could all just hang out and play video games. It ended up being a 12-hour marathon with at least 40 participants, all of the next-gen consoles and tons of games, a LAN for first-person-shootering, alcohol, food, and hijinks. HOLY CRAP it was fun! Lots of IMD kids in attendance, as well as several roommates, significant others, and Animation students who came along to see what the fuss was all about (and probably to see where all the noise was coming from). Some highlights:

Wii Tennis! Now, I had never so much as held a Wii-mote before yesterday, but this game was extremely easy to learn. My doubles partner and I won 7 best-of-three matches in a row! Lots of fun, and despite what you see in the picture, nobody got hurt. Also, hooking a Wii up to a projector is probably the best idea ever. Having a wall-sized screen made playing the sports games a lot more fun, and easier than trying to play them on a regular-sized television.

Wii Bowling Tournament! Yep. $5 buy-in, winner takes all. Again, lots of fun, even for people who'd never played before. I was pretty excited to take 5th. Stiff competition from those bastards who've had their Wiis for a couple weeks now.Guitar Hero 2! Also Guitar Hero 1! Despite the competition from the Wii, I think Guitar Hero was still the most popular game in the room. People would patiently line up and wait until their turn to rock out and impress the crowd. Multiplayer mode is DEFINITELY the best way to play this game, especially when you have an appreciative audience egging you on. The new version sets it up so that one partner is on lead guitar and the other on bass...really great, especially if you've got one person who's more skilled than the other. We had some people who'd never played before, some who had played but not in a setting like this, and others (see above) who were...seasoned pros. Gold stars and many accolades to Al Yang for his enthusiastic showmanship, Mike Rossmassler for not getting killed while playing with Al Yang, Dave Horowitz for knowing when to bow out gracefully, and Renae Radford for picking up mad skillz on her first Guitar Hero outing.

Well, that's all for this post. I feel like I should be posting more, but I suspect you would all quickly grow bored with different variations on the theme of "classes, finals, projects, stress", so I'm trying to post when I've got something interesting to report. Check back in a few days for a rehash of all the finals, including descriptions of just what I'm working on when I'd rather be sleeping or doing my laundry (that second one is a lie...I never want to do laundry).

2006-11-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

Oh man, I can't wait for tomorrow! Flying is a pain, but then I get to be at HOME for an entire week. A bit of a breath before the storm, as it were, since the finals push will be in full swing when I get back. At any rate, if any of you are going to be in Pekin/Peoria this week, give me a call. I would love to see you.

In other news, I finally got my hands on a copy of Guitar Hero, thanks to my dear friend RJ. He wasn't all that dear before he loaned me GH, of course ;-) I had played it before, but never for any length of time, so I was never any good. I'm still not any good, but I'm having SO MUCH FUN with it. For those of you who've never seen it (I'm assuming most of the aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents fit in this category), here is a picture:

The guitar there is the controller. So you're mimicking (poorly) the real motions of playing a guitar. Guitar Hero is to playing a real guitar what Dance Dance Revolution is to real dance: not all that close the real thing, but it resembles it enough to be entertaining anyway. Seriously, if you've never played GH, give it a try. It's hilarious. I'm hoping to be at least not terrible at it by the time Thanksgiving break is over...there's a Guitar Hero 2, you see, and I would very much like to have it.

Okay, that's all I've got for now. For serious, folks, if you're going to be around next week, give me a shout. If I don't talk to you beforehand, I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving!

2006-11-15T16:50:00.000-08:00

If you're still confused about what it is we try to do in Interactive Media at USC, NPR just did an interview with a couple profs in our program. Have a look:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6484624

2006-11-15T02:07:00.001-08:00

I don't think we watch this clip nearly enough:

2006-11-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

::whining:: Is it Christmas yet?

2006-11-10T23:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, two major projects this week and then school will be CALMER for yours truly. Everyone cross your fingers that the film shoot tomorrow and the machinima shoot on Sunday go well!

2006-11-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

Oh my, what a week. Highlights:

-Midterms are over! A thousand huzzahs! This doesn't mean I'm free and clear, of course, but at least things are moving at a much more manageable pace.

-The thesis space is almost done! I have to get someone to install a cabinet, have the plumber finish installing the kitchen sink, and do some inventory, and the project will be complete. Thank goodness...I was getting very, very tired of getting up at 7:30 everyday to go let the electrician in.

-Narcolepsy! Just kidding. I have been sleeping a lot, and it's not usually my idea, but it's not like I'm falling out of my chair in class or anything. I simply have developed the ability to stay asleep well into the afternoon on days when I don't have class until evening (sleeping through multiple alarms, and sometimes even phone calls, in the process), a habit I feel I need to reverse. Perhaps a new alarm clock? Or a monkey trained to tell time and poke me when it's getting late? Ooo, that would be cool...

-New projects! A couple more student films (one all me, one as part of a crew) that I think will be very fun. Both are in the planning stages, and will be in production in the weeks ahead. We're also starting a new scripting language (Processing, if that means anything to anyone) in my survey class. As much as I dislike scripting, I'm glad to be getting back into it. We're going to be playing with Arduinos, which as I understand it, are primitive little boards with processors and a tiny bit of RAM. Not sure what we'll do with them, but I suppose that's part of the fun.

-Halloween! Oh my, Halloween. People in LA don't fuck around when it comes to celebrating Samhain in style. My friend Al and I went costume shopping yesterday afternoon, and after visiting at least 7 places (all practically out of stock of EVERYTHING) we reached the conclusion that Halloween is not to be taken lightly around here. A bunch of us piled into Al's car later that evening and drove over to a friend's place, from there to walk what I swear must've been two miles, to get to West Hollywood. For those who are not familiar with the event, Halloween in West Hollywood is huge...locals were telling me that it's typical for about 500,000 (yes, half a million) people to show up, and from what we saw, that seems about right. I have never seen so many half naked people, elaborate wigs, applications of body glitter, or fake wounds in my entire life. It was so freaking great! We were down on Santa Monica Boulevard, which was blocked off for a stretch of about ten blocks. There were stages with sound systems and DJ's about every two blocks, and tents with food and drinks (no alcohol, which was kind of surprising), and most importantly, there were people EVERYWHERE. The pictures are amazing...I will post them to my Flickr once I get them uploaded.

All right, that's all for now. I have class in twenty minutes and my hair is still wet, so I should probably get on that. Hope you all had a great Halloween, and that life in general is good.

2006-10-21T20:28:00.000-07:00

Normally I think the whole "take a picture of yourself while looking in a mirror" thing is silly and overdone, but the technique does have its uses. That said:

California-friendly haircut!

It feels good to wear my hair down and not die of the heat. Also, getting your hair cut at the cheapo salon is nervous business. Now I know why I always shelled out the bucks to get it done at the nice places at home. Oh well.

2006-10-20T19:09:00.000-07:00

He-Man + She-Ra = incest (boo!)

2006-10-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

SQUEEEEEE!!!

HUZZAH FOR T3H BASESB@LL!!!!!!!11!!!!ONE!!!

2006-10-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of upates around here, folks. Midterm season is in full swing and that means most of my energies are focused on school. A quick update on what I'm up to:

-Vagabond/GWH shoot: Did a four-hour shoot in a hotel room today as a class excercise...yeah, I don't know. Basically, every crew got the same scene and the same basic setup (hotel room), but otherwise we were free to do as we liked. As producer/assistant director, I've been much busy getting things ready for the shoot...arranging props, auditioning actors, paperwork, paperwork, also some paperwork (you'd think the USC cinema school was actually all about supporting the paper industry). Now that the shoot is successfully completed, I basically just have to collate all that paperwork and turn it in. This has been roughly a three-week prep process, so I'm glad to see it go off basically without a hitch.

-Interactive Media Design Midterm: We're supposed to "experience an interactive presentation"...which basically means anything from going into Second Life to visiting a particular website to attending a gallery show with interactive pieces on display. I'm going to a japanese arcade. Then I write a paper about the characteristics of the arcade, and remix the experience using some other experience as a model. Have I started this one yet? No. When is it due? Monday. I am amazing.

-507 Film #2: In addition to the Vagabond project, I'm supposed to be in production on my second short film. And by supposed to be, I mean I have the camera, I have a concept, and I haven't shot anything. Essentially, I am trying to come up with a way to pare down this project, because the concept I have would be much better served by filming it NOT during midterms. Anyone have an idea for a short film that can be shot in an afternoon or two? Send it my way.

-Critical Studies Midterm: This one's easy. I just have to write a paper addressing and exploring one of the concepts we've talked about in class. As I am the queen of BSing, especially faux-scholarly BS, this will be a snap.

-Thesis Space Setup: Aaaaalmost there...trying to coordinate the plumber and the electrician so that everything gets installed in the order it needs to go in. Working on finding a source for rubber flooring that would be ridiculously expensive, and tracking down a locksmith who can install a more secure lock system (ie. no more keys that anyone can copy at their leisure).

In other news, my film class sucks. You'll notice it got two major project mentions in the above breakdown, and that's not including the 8 hours of lecture a week. I don't mind taking a film production class, I really don't, but I'm getting a little tired of the time commitment involved. There is no reason for a class that is only loosely tied to my major to be taking up 15-20 hours a week of my time. I guess it would be different if I hadn't already done all this before. The film students get all excited about location shoots, learning how to work in crews, ::gasp:: editing on the compyooter, etc, but this is pretty much old hat for anyone who's survived Bradley Multimedia. In short, I want this class to either A) take less time, or B) not be required for game students. Okay, rant over. Hope all is well with all of you, and I will check in again once things settle down a bit.

2006-10-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

I went home this weekend! It was amazing! More on this later, but quite frankly, last week/weekend took a toll on the state of my bedroom, my clean clothes supply, and my workload. Suffice it to say everyone who should have been surprised was, I got to see everyone I wanted to see, and I successfully got my fill of autumn. See you all later.

2006-10-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Best. Shirt. Ever.

2006-09-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

Who loves her mommy and daddy? That would be this girl. These both arrived at my house within a half hour of each other yesterday afternoon:

Birthday cake, yaaaaay! This one is particularly delicious. White cake, lemon filling stripes, raspberry filling stripes, white chocolate shavings on the outside. I'm going to go into diabetic shock, as I plan to eat nothing but this excellent cake for the next week or so.

DS Lite yaaaay! This shiny new toy means I am no longer the loser kid in class who doesn't get to participate in nerd time between lectures. I think I'm going to do something obnoxious like bejewel it, since it doesn't come in fun colors.

In other news, in case anyone didn't get the memo, it's my birthday! Translation: people have to be nice to me and pay for my drinks. Huzzah! On tap for the day: Redondo Beach, Spinto Band show (I have never even heard of these guys, so this'll be fun), and party at Paul's. If you're reading this and you haven't called me today, you should. I like hearing from you. I'll even be good and refrain from rubbing it in if you call while I'm lounging seaside.

All right, I'm off to begin the pre-beach sunscreen ritual. If I remember, I'll try to post pictures and video from our karaoke outing last night. Incredibly priceless stuff.