oddgirl’s blog

Well, here I sit 10 days after the North American ship date. The game is in the street and people are playing it and posting their pictures and stories. I’m in recovery mode - starting to work and sleep more normal hours, getting my weekends with A. back and trying to see my friend’s a little more regularly.

The funny thing is that I haven’t played Spore at all since before we shipped. I’ve fired the game up to test a few things, but while the rest of the world is playing the game, I’ve basically stopped. I’m playing Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise most nights right now.

I did the same thing with Sims2. Played it non-stop for the last two months testing, exploring. And then boom: stopped playing altogether. The weird thing is that I didn’t really miss the Sims2 afterward, but I do miss playing Spore everyday.

In life news: I’m moving in 9 days and getting married in 24. The list of things to do is long and I’m feeling very, very lazy about doing any of them. I’d prefer to hang out with A or watch the new TV season or romance Whirlms for that matter.

We’re in the home stretch at work. The Creature Creator has hit the street, the new website is live, and we have a ship date in Sept. so we are really, actually, for reals getting done. I’m still pretty much in crunch mode (tho this one is so much milder than Sims2). I’ve been doing a fair amount of press, including an interview at the Washington Post a few weeks ago.

When I signed up for this project I knew it would be a wild ride and it really has been. I’ve gotten to travel to China, Singapore, Moscow and all over Europe and this winter it looks like I’ll be going to Brisbane (Australia, not California). I’ve spoken at conferences and been filmed for Russian MTV. The feature in the game that I have been working could end up being one of the major things that really makes the game different from anything else out there.

After seeing what people have been making in the Creature Creator, I’m really excited to see what they make with the other editors. Well… I’m not that excited about the sporn exactly. Heh.

So for my friends who haven’t seen me in months, I will soon re-emerge to a social life. To my girlfriend who has been patient and generous about making my life easier while I’ve been so busy, I will have weekends back soon. And to the fans, I really hope you like the game when you get to play it.

Here’s an interesting article linking Video game addiction to Aspergers syndrome.

And the facial expressions in this picture are priceless.

My landlord is selling my building and having him showing it all the time is a huge pain in the ass.

Hey! I know it’s been awhile, but hoo-boy have I been busy. I did my whirlwind press tour (5 countries in 7 days) for work and then have just been going, going, going like crazy since I got home. But I’ve missed you, blog! Sorry I’ve been such a poor correspondent!

The big news is that we finally have a ship date - Sept 7! That finally gives us a pretty clear end in sight, but you know me, all internet-y and everything so I’ll still be working on the web site and live features even after we final. Most popular question I get is “What are you going to do after ship?” LOL. I have no idea. Maybe sleep for a month?

Even though it’ll be the middle of the madness, I’ve booked a trip to Kauai with the girlfriend in June. For all the traveling I’ve done in the past 3 years, the last real, more-than-a-long weekend, vacation I had was Puerto Vallarta in 2005. We’re going to stay in a condo and be able to cook some which I’m excited about.

I haven’t really told you much about my new place… other than it’s in the East Bay. I have definitely been having some adjustment issues, but I’m adapting and getting used to a much slower, much more pseudo-suburban way of life. Even joined a little neighborhood gym over here and started working out again. Not a day goes by where I don’t miss living in the City, but this is actually turning out to be the right place for me for now.

Cheese, on the other hand, has not adapted well. I’ve been putting him out at night, but he cries to come in which is annoying to say the least. Trying to get him on a schedule has been pretty trying. But his bout of ruining stuff and attacking A’s feet seems to be on the wane. We hope.

Let’s see…. what else is new? Work is good, but stressy. Living with A is good, but occasionally stressy (but we did realize that the Hawaii vacation coincides with our anniversary which is coolio). I’m not seeing my friends as much as I’d like to, but that goes with being in crunch (yes, I officially am in crunch, FYI) and having a relationship. Gotta pick yer poison.

Still trying to find some time to play games - getting harder and harder, but currently:

XBox: Mass Effect (and some Rock Band)
DS: Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
Wii: Haven’t picked up Smash Brothers
PC: Still playing WoW occassionally
and surprise! I’m playing a game on my PSP! Dusted it off and plugged it in for Patapon

Hugs,

-oddgirl

Been here for about 23 hours and here’s my bullet points:

• Security at the airport was kinda lax. While waiting around for the driver to pick us up, we saw at least one guy just walk right around the metal detector. I’m less worried if about my shampoo being over 3 oz. now.
• There is a lot more neon here than I expected to see
• Very few people here speak English. Very few. And I don’t speak any Russian.
• The subway is hard. I flunked out of subway today: We bought tickets and initially failed to figure out how to use the turnstiles correctly (my co-worker’s thighs are now bruised). After getting through the turnstile, one of my cohort got dizzy on the very steep escalator and almost passed out. When we finally reached the bottom we tried to figure out what station we were at and what station we were trying to get to, but it turns out that matching Cyrilic characters on the station wall to the Cyrillic characters on the subway map is really hard. Finally gave up, rode the long escalator back up and took a cab.
• Cabs in Russia are not terribly legitimate. I think basically we got into a guy’s car with him and he drove us where we wanted to go for 500 rubles.
• Snow is beautiful
• I love pubs
• My co-workers are very fun to hang out with
• Moscow is pretty amazing and getting to come here is one of the coolest things to ever happen to me, even though there are other reasons that it has been hard.

For the first time in 14 years I didn’t get to go to Macworld at the Moscone.

Stupid job.

If you know me, you know that flying is not my favorite thing to do. But I also love going places so not flying is not an option.

In the last 35 days of 2007 I’ll have flown about 20,000 miles - still have one more trip before I get there, but I’m close.

The other thing most people know about me is that I really like sunny, warm places. Beaches. Outdoor bars. T-shirts, shorts and flip flops.

All of the travel I’ve been doing has been to cold places. Serious cold. The temperature has not been above 40° in any of the places I’ve been to and the next place I’m going is currently 19°. When I get there on Sunday the high is expected to be 10°.

It looks like this cold weather travel may continue into the new year. There is talk of sending me back to Munich for work. And maybe a trip to Russia. Very exciting. Very cold.

Where the hell are my wool socks?

That’s how I spent my day. Well, about 5 hours of it anyhow. After a rough night: sleeping, waking up, dozing, waking up to chat with A. before she left Leipzig for home (we shared a time zone for about 15 hours), and then sleeping again, I walked around Gamla stan in Stockholm. It was beautiful, quaint and tourist-y. My hotel is a short walk to the old city and I can see it from my window and since I only have one day of being a tourist it seemed like the thing to do.

So far I’ve found the people here to be very attractive and both not unfriendly and not friendly. Mostly in the tourist area they speak English but only if they have to. Almost all of the signs/menus/historic plaques are only in Swedish and as far as I can tell most places don’t take euros unless they have to. About an hour into my walk I converted the euros I bought at SFO into krona. The exchange rate seems kinda crappy (or I got taken at the tourist trap restaurant I wandered into) my burger and two beers for 217 SEK or about $34.00. And the food was pretty awful at that - although the beer was tasty.

There was a brief snow flurry while I was out walking which was great tho short-lived. I kinda think that if you are going to have to put up with cold weather (it’s 34° now, but it’s only 5 pm) you should at least get to enjoy the beauty of snow. The good news is that I was warm enough in my new jacket, wool socks, and fuzzy boots.

Tomorrow I head to the office around 8 am where I’ll spend basically the next 3 days. According to the schedule it looks kinda grueling - from about 8-6:30 for 3 days straight. So tonight - it’s a quiet night in and early to bed for me.

Yeah - I have been lame-o. I have been unpacking boxes, buying stuff for around the new place and cleaning up after the cat. He did not adapt well in the beginning but he seems to be coming along now and getting into the swing of things.

And looking out at the next 6 weeks or so, I’m only going to be in town for like 4 of them. Much traveling to very, very cold places. Like Sweden cold. Brr. I like the sun and warmth, that’s not in the plans. Supposedly I’ll need something called a “parka”.

In other news, I am amassing a very large stack of very excellent sounding games that I have zero time to play. I’ve started Bioshock, Zelda Phantom Hourglass and Beautiful Katamari and tonight I picked up a copy of Super Mario Galaxy. Given my work and life schedules I shouldn’t have to buy another game for oh… about a year at the rate I’m playing them.

But life is good. My new place is good. I love my puny commute (fastest time: 12 minutes!). And I am actually both somewhat anxious and a little excited about traveling to the frigid places.

I will try and blog more. I promise.

The guys from Delancey St. will be here in about 12 hours to put all my worldly possessions on a truck and take them to Rockridge. I’m not quite done packing yet, but the vast majority of the living room, kitchen and my clothes are ready. Which means that other than unhooking the TV from the DVR and the XBox they can start in the living room while I finish the bedroom and bathroom.

The cat is at a kennel for the next couple days. He’s been freakin’ out but good this week. Hasn’t let me sleep much so I’m really looking forward to finishing up a few things tonight and then crashing hard.

I have a lot of stuff. That’s what I’ve learned in the last 4 days. To look at my apartment, you wouldn’t know that I have so much stuff. But apparently I do.

I also learned that my back can hurt. A lot. Ouch.

The next blog post will be from the new digs in Oakland. Unclear about when the internets will be working there.