Gone to America

Happy Birthday to Eleanor and Vanessa!

I’ve hit the three month mark at R* this time around, and I’m starting to feel uncomfortably like I have a job. I even left early today for no particular reason – I had completed the day’s tasks, but really there was more I could have done. It was just a way of reasserting my freelancehood.

Things are piling up – I have things to read and comment on, a couple of long emails to write, games to complete. I’m even stockpiling the kind of pointless and time consuming projects I used to do when I wasn’t working. I had always thought that I did them instead of work and that work would render them redundant, but I seem to want to do them anyway. I’ve been meaning to noodle around with the Wintermute Engine since reading about it on Steve Ince’s blog. Now that’s precisely the kind of meaningless time sink I would have easily spent weeks on not so long ago, but now I can’t even find the time to get started! Not to mention upgrading this blog from WordPress 1.5 to 1.5.1.1. I haven’t even updated the “Recently Read” section with my last two books.

And as for a redesign, well forget it – although I’m pretty happy with the site as it is. I’m adding a new feature to make up for the current decline in posting – the “Where Am I?” yoke at the side. Ultra mini small blog postings that I can make from anywhere via SMS. There are a few bugs to iron out, but I’m afraid it won’t take me very long. As a project it’s nothing compared to the Great Webcomic of ’04.

I was planning to post over the weekend, but it really got out of hand. On Thursday I met with Julian and Lisa for cocktails and the Howard Johnson’s in Time’s Square which is apparently about to close, and then I headed over to Union Square to catch a late screening of Revenge of the Sith (which I’m not going to dignify with a review). On Friday after work I took part in Anne Marie’s de-emigration party in the Gin Mill. And the Dublin House. And Vertigo. On Saturday I spent much of the afternoon drinking in the Bohemian Beer Garden in Astoria in celebration of m’colleague Ian’s girlfriend’s graduation from law school. After that I headed into the Ear Inn to celebrate Vanessa’s birthday, extensively. On Sunday Vanessa’s celebration’s continued with a lovely meal at her father’s apartment. Much Portuguese was spoken. Myself and Sibyl (a friend of Vanessa’s) occasionally felt we were in a foreign movie – with great food and wine.

On Monday I rested – oh no wait, I worked. I’ve worked continuously for longer than three months before without feeling like I had a job, but it was always on a project with a clear shape. The shape may have been stretched or cut short occasionally, but there was always an end in sight – a release date, a mix. I just don’t know the videogame process well enough to be able to properly determine the shape of my place in it. I came into San Andreas right at the end. I’ve been on The Warriors from a much earlier stage, but it’s a different project. And I suppose I’m really early on in this one, if I really am on it. Work! Money! Let the good times roll!