Let's take a break...

... from blasting out awesome concepts, to blast out some words instead.

Here's a really cool thing: Remember the arcade game Asteroids? Well this is Asteroids For Real. Yes, those little colored dots zipping by the blue circle are actual asteroids zipping past the actual earth a few years ago.

We have a lot of company out there. Note that we currently have no little space blaster ship to chop those flying rocks up so they can't hurt us. Note that this here (I visited it in my comic, too) is a very small version of what flying rocks can do. Big ones do this. REALLY big ones do this.

Probably a bit more important to keep track of these rocks than, say, attacking other people because they're different, hmm? Good thing there's a small number of smart, dedicated people actually doing something about it.

Meanwhile, things continue down here on the surface. Still busy at work with pitch stuff and various interface elements of The Game. It's raining here in SoCal today so I drove my car to work, which is always... slow. I probably could have ridden my bike, it wasn't raining that hard, actually less hard than it did last night on my commute home. I brought my rainsuit yesterday so this time I didn't get wet at all, unlike last week.

I have been trying and trying to get some time in playing video games, but these past couple weeks it's just been impossible. The major thing that's going on that I'll tell you about when it's done is still going on, and will run into this weekend, so I don't know when I'll get any stick time... I'm actually starting to jones for it. Maybe I'll commandeer a PS2 here at work at lunchtime and play something... anything!! I'm still like 2 years behind on games, sigh.

I did get a new toy, one of those RAZR phones from Verizon, with a Bluetooth wireless headset. It's all pretty cool. The phone is small and thin and light, and the wireless headset is pretty excellent. The phone works by voice command, so I can hit the button on the headset and say "Call Mom" and by golly that's what the phone does - and I don't even have to take the phone out of my pocket or backpack. Bluetooth is good within 30 feet distance, so now I can talk on my phone at home without holding the phone to my head or being stuck to a wire. I can leave the phone on the charger in the living room and be anywhere in the apartment with the headset. Those crafty engineers, they keep coming up with really awesome toys...

And of course, yes, it flips like a Star Trek communicator. Bless ye, Scotty, for bringing us the future right now... :)

Well, that's what's new and exciting, at least that's what I can talk about at the moment. There should be an Artblog update later today.

Oh I'm still here...

Life continues, mostly going rather well. Still, I seem to be pretty grumpy this evening. Though technically I completed all the work I needed to do today, and apparently to the satisfaction of those above, I really don't feel like I got much done, nor that I did it well. There's no real reason for me to feel this way, yet I do. Ah well, I can't have perfect bright shiny days every day, can I.

Let's see, what's up. Well, at work we're developing new pitches still as my work on The Game I Can't Talk About winds down. April is likely to be the last month of work on that. With all these pitches going on the hope is that we'll win and begin another new game shortly thereafter. I'm not worried, this company has proven itself quite well and we shouldn't have any trouble getting more work. The Pirates game is almost done and should be out a few weeks before the movie. I need to get a burn of it so I can play it, heh!

Outside of work, well, all's well with The Girlfriend - we are now past 6 months since we met, which is my longest relationship in more than 10 years. And I was in no sort of reasonable shape to be in a relationship for those entire 10 years, believe me. Now that I'm "myself" again - or probably more accurately, have figured out who "myself" is - I can do okay. I used to think I was horrible at relationships, with some good reasons... but I'm doing all right this time, and I'm happy about it. TGF seems to think I'm pretty good at being her boyfriend, so I'll stay the course! :)

I have to finish up my taxes, but I'm going to wait until the last week, since I've done the federal part and found that I will have to send in a check - not a big one, but there's no point in sending it until it's necessary. I should get the state part finished this week sometime. TurboTax is awesome! I highly recommend it. TGF used mine to do her taxes, took her about 1/2 hour and she's all done. Good stuff.

Saturday I went to the Wizard World comic con here in LA, where I hung out with my old friend Gabe from NJ, who I only see at comic cons these days. We got to spend some good time hanging out, and there were many other people there that I know of course, so it was a cool social occasion. We wound up closing the Figueroa Hotel bar, which is pretty much normal for a night out with comic nerds, heh... of course, I threw off my sleep schedule so today I feel like crap. Ah well, I don't do so many late nights anymore, so I don't recover as fast. Out of practice!

Sopranos is back on TV. Which is great. However, I didn't see much of Season 5, and neither did TGF. Today she bought the DVD set, used, at a great price, and now she is watching all of it. Apparently Dave Lee Roth is playing poker with Tony, how about that? I did see about the last 3 episodes of Season 5, so I know how it all wound up, but TGF doesn't - so I advised her that she ought to watch it before we start watching the new season. Fortunately, I have HBO On Demand, so we can watch it any time we want! Yay for new technology!

Um, what else. Bike is fine, Camaro is running great, I took it out this weekend for several trips. In fact, tomorrow is the day I designate as the Camaro's birthday, as it was built during the 3rd week of March 1967. Unfortunately I can't afford to buy it a present yet this year due to unforeseen expenses... yes, the traffic ticket ate the money I was going to use to buy the new starter and maybe do some work on the brakes. Sigh. Such is life.

I guess that's it. I have to work on the comic tonight since TGF and I have a date tomorrow night, and I need to do laundry and go to the grocery store for a few things. So I guess it will be a busy evening. Off I go...

Whirlwind continues

OK, yeah so no posts lately. Last week was super-duper busy at work, I wound up staying late 3 days in a row to meet deadlines for these new pitches we're doing. it definitely could have gone better in terms of time management and stress! I didn't even get the comic done last week.

It's over now and things are more calm. We are still working on the pitches but thankfully the presentation that was supposed to be this week has been pushed back, so Kevin (my concept colleague) and I can spread the work out over a few more days and relax a bit.

Otherwise things are pretty much the same as they've been. The Girlfriend and I spend a bit of time together doing fun things, like this weekend we went to the Hammer Museum to see the Masters of American Comics art show, which was pretty excellent, though I was disappointed to find that many of the artists I wanted to see were exhibited at the MOCA downtown. Still, seeing George Herriman and Milt Caniff and Charles Schultz originals up close was pretty impressive. I may try to get downtown on Saturday to see the rest of the exhibit, though I have a number of plans for Saturday what with the art show (see Art Blog post), wanting to do some recording, and needing to hit the Art Store and clean and do laundry and... well you know, all the things that fill up a Saturday. Perhaps I can push a few to Sunday. This weekend will be mostly a "Me Weekend," as TGF and I call such things, where she and I stay apart and have our own personal time with little or no contact, though we'll get together for the Valley art show and maybe hit the MOCA together.

I passed 25,000 miles on the motorcycle last weekend, so I've been around the Earth once on it! Of course almost all those miles have been tacked on within 20 miles of my apartment, but still, 25K is a lot of miles. And on the bike, a lot of good, fun miles! :) The bike is handling it all very well, it still runs perfectly and starts instantly no matter what the weather conditions. It has been utterly reliable with absolutely zero major maintenance problems. The only thing that is a consistent problem is that one of the taillights keeps popping out of its socket - but there are two so there is still a working tail and brake light, so it's not a safety issue. I don't think I could have asked for a better motorcycle, really. Well, maybe a better seat, but I can get a different one.

I guess I don't have much else at the moment... there is a major development coming up as I hinted, but I think I'll keep quiet about it until it actually happens. No need to jinx anything.

So, back to work. No shortage of stuff to do here...