When It Rains It Snows

Actually, it tornadoes! It was a big week for the following reasons: (1) Had to finish 3 projects, one linear algebra exam, and one standard homework. Most computer scientists can tell you how much work a project is worth, and two of the projects were codin. (2) I'm probably moving! It is not working out with the roommate. I'll move to a studio apartment within 5 miles of school in an area called Kirkland, hereby referred to James T Kirkland. (3) I got a cold! (4) I'm on antibiotics! My roommate has a staph infection and has spent time in the emergency room, so I am trying to avoid it. (5) I'm a criminal! Missouri has summoned me home for a speeding ticket I paid for once already in April. But, they refunded the money and sent it to a higher court, because it was technically in a workzone. So, I'm going to try to settle all that from up here, not only to save travel moneys but also it'd be bad if I got pulled out of school for a week. (6) My mp3 player died! The new one given by my pa is not immune to laundry cycles. I have already replaced it, so no worries.

But, if you know me, you know I don't let a bunch of noise like that get me down. One of my projects was to make my first 3D model (The background with the beach, sun, and people is a real picture, so don't freak out). My graphics teacher likes the military, so we made a hummer. Yes, I know it's beautiful, you don't need to tell me.







Oh yeah, earlier this week in the halls of Digi I walked by Chris Taylor, the well-known mind behind Total Annihilation and Dungeon Siege, two games I'm not that into but I do recognize his feats. Also, I have some goods friends that think he's cool, so I get to be all braggy.

I don't know if I talked about what it's like to have one foot in the industry yet, and I guess I'll do that now, because Mykl made me laugh this morning. If you don't care, feel free to skip, because it this is long. The game industry is full of people that all know each other, and also celebrities that only exist in the game community. Before, the industry just seemed like a far off-place full of people I'd never meet, and these people made my games. Kind of like the people that make movies or TV. But now, professors talk about these people like old chums, and even the professors have done some important things. I have one professor that is a big name for doing technical stuff for the Xbox, and one that was a producer/designer for Lucasarts and worked on such games as Monkey Island and maybe Maniac Mansion. One didn't make games, but he says that 3ds max uses his algorithm for binary compounding (trust me, it's neat). One thing that I did not forsee for some reason is that some of my peers have already worked in the industry. I talked to someone who recently finished working on Halo 3 (We got to see it early, as I may of mentioned). I talked to someone from Valve, and also Artificial Studios. There's several people who work at Microsoft as they're taking classes too. So, it is weird to meet faces behind games, or just programs that I've used. For example, imagine meeting a person who was on the development team for cheeseburgers, which has developed itself into an icon in your brain and you assumed must have appeared from nothing.

Also, the Nintendo store rawks, I went there the other week. There's all sorts of swag I've never seen anywhere else, and Nintendo games are there we've seen up to 2 weeks early, and we get everything cheaper. I'm not sure what regular people have to do to go to it, but see what you can do.