So… very… tired…
Work has me flat out. Flat. out. It's Sunday night, 11pm, holiday weekend, going on my 13th hour here. It's been like this for the past few weeks. Some days longer. Much longer.
This year has been particularly bad trying to final our games. not just my projects but across the board. Just one of those years. Always trying to do too much. Not enough time.
This year we re-wrote pretty much the entire game. 14 million lines of code. That's a lot. Twice as much as last year. Had we known, or had I known, I would have made significant changes to the budget. Mind you, we blew past our budget by... well, lets just say several times more than I make in a year.
But the end is near. Well, not near enough though. NHL 11 hits the streets Tuesday. The game is good. It's awesome being associated with a title that gets high critical acclaim. NBA JAM will be on the streets in October and that too was a cool project. Right now we're working through NBA Elite. We'll get there but boy it's been work. I haven't played basketball games for... years. But this game is fun. Completely re-written gameplay with new control scheme. I'm not sure how the hardcore NBA simulation fans will take the changes but it's putting the basketball video game genre in a new great direction. And it could use it. Really badly.
On Tuesday, I'm heading to the great state of Louisiana. The low cost test centre we use on our hockey and basketball titles are in Baton Rouge. This was a tough year for them as they've been forced to grow probably a little faster than anyone was ready for. This week is their post mortem session and I've been invited down since I'm their primary customer. I think the conversations will be good though I've got quite the agenda I want to discuss. I'm not sure if they are going to be ready for it. Believe it or not, but I can be a real hard ass sometimes.
HOWEVER! On Thursday night, we're heading into New Orleans. We have sponsor tickets into a pre-NFL concert with the Dave Matthews Band and Taylor Swift then an evening in one of the French Quarter's fine establishments watching the Vikings take on the home town Saints. Woot! Because I booked my ticket late, I couldn't fly directly into Baton Rouge so I'm flying in and out of New Orleans. With this event on Thursday, I changed my hotel for that evening to one directly in the French Quarter. Lucky me!
Oh, and i had a birthday. Yet another one. The great part of the day was Rachel surprising me with tickets to Bard on the Beach (Much Ado About Nothing) and having my friends there as even a bigger surprise! I got out of work early (6pm... that's VERY early) so just being not at work would have been good enough. But this was a thousand times better.
Well... now I'm even more tired. I'm going to be here at work for a couple more hours at least. Sigh.
I hope you are least enjoying your summer...
Visualize This
So I came across an interesting talk on TED the other day. Yes, I know all the talks on TED are interesting but this one really spoke to me. David McCandless hits the nail on the head when it comes to visualizing data. He refers to graphically representing information as almost another language which is so true.
In my job, I'm responsible for communicating both up and down the food chain. Primarily up. I have people who in turn communicate up to me. I'm constantly harping on my people about the importance of visually representing the information they are trying to communicate. I'm big on clear, accurate, simple, colourful graphs, charts, displays, etc. I don't communicate well with numbers and words. I don't know if it's a form of dyslexia but even while I'm having a conversation with a colleague that pertains to any form of data, I need to visually represent that data in my head. I'm often, if not always, instinctively grabbing several colours of dry erase markers and going up to the whiteboard to 'draw' our conversation.
Now, i know this presentation is on how visualizing data can put greater perspective on information and not necessarily how visualization is necessary for better understanding. I, on the other hand, can only comprehend information through visualization. So when McCandless starts to go through his slides and talk about how this opens up opportunities for communication, I could completely connect with what he's saying.
It's possible if not probable that everyone is like this. I know there are people, even on my team here at work, that can 'talk numbers'. I envy them. And they don't understand why I send back their reports and ask them to add 'more colour'...
The Genius of this is Staggering
I believe this pretty much exemplifies the thought process of the moral majority. I saw this movie as a child and thought it was a catchy tune. I watch it now and see deeper truth. We're bred on fear. We're manipulated into our beliefs by charming charlatans all out for their own best interest. They come in the form of advertisers. Of politicians. Of religious leaders. We see this and tap our foot. We should see this and realize that we should think for ourselves. He's not even making any sense!
Well that's just swell. And so's you're old man!!
Bardwell & McAlister Spotlight
Went to a moving sale for a photo studio on Saturday. They were selling the stuff they clearly don't use anymore... for many reasons. And they've been around for many years.
I was hoping to get some stands and softboxes to put together a mini home studio but the only decent stock they had was sold before we got there. However, they did have this keg style modeling spotlight with barn doors on sale. I have no idea how old this is but it works! And... it's cool!
And it was cheap. Very cheap. At the very least, we could gut the insides and turn it into an actual lamp which our loft desperately needs.
Anyway... that was the highlight of our weekend.