Pause for Station Identification
The new year is well underway. I have a Post-it on my desk that reminds me to eventually re-purpose this site into something I actually post to occasionally. I’ll get around to that ANY minute now.
Maybe.
Anywho, in the meantime, you can continue to stalk me via any or all of the following means:
Standard caveats apply: Opinions posted are my own/do not represent The Mothership, may include salty language and/or bizarre iconography, not liable for fits of Lovecraftian madness, etc.
A story.
My grandfather passed away on Wednesday.
Lung cancer. It took him pretty quickly after the initial diagnosis.
He opted for hospice in his home, which was astonishingly humane and dignified and I can’t say enough great things about them.
For a few weeks, an army of well-wishers came to see him. We visited once a week, usually on Sundays to watch football with him.
Though he faded pretty substantially and was very weak, he never lost his wit, humor and mental acuity. By last weekend, he was at peace with his situation and was ready to pass, but for one thing. He hadn’t gotten a chance to see my brother, Zach, who lives in California.
Zach arrived late on Tuesday and immediately went to my grandparents’ house. He spent a few hours with my grandfather, just talking and getting a chance to connect one last time. By Zach’s account, the talk put him at ease and was one of the best conversations they’d ever had. My grandfather was that kind of guy, even at the end. Soon after, Zach went spend to the night at our Mom’s and everyone at my grandparents’ house went to bed. Or so we thought.
Some time in the early hours of the morning, my grandmother returned to my grandfather’s bedside. They spent the next hours together and just prior to dawn he passed away in his own living room with his wife at his side. It was the right way for him to go. Just him and his beloved Bride.
My grandfather had seen everyone he needed to see, he’d given us all the best kind of comfort and guidance in those last days. We all knew he was ready and that his passing would be cause for celebrating his life as much as it would be for mourning the loss of him. And man, what a life he’d lived.
I can say with pretty firm confidence that lives like his are a thing of the past – great and meaningful and special and blessed, full lives. He helped save the world. He served in the Navy during WWII and – when the War ended – moved into private life and profession leveraging the experiences and relationships he’d built during his time in the service. He got married, had a family and thrived.
He saw the world with my grandmother and filled his home with artifacts of his life and travels. He was a leader of men, unto his last (every time we visited him in the final months, someone from his church would come by, scrambling to figure out how he’d been keeping the parish running smoothly for decades with little help from others). He taught his son and then my brother and cousin and I what it meant to be a man – kindness, humility and the kind of deference to women that never suggests they NEED our help, but rather that they deserve our respect. He also taught us all how to craft a story, tell a joke and – when appropriate – employ subtle, sarcastic humor to make a point. He taught us all to love the Redskins above all other teams. At my wedding in May, he danced with more of the young girls than anyone else in attendance and was widely hailed by those same ladies for his talent on the dance floor. Even after he took ill earlier this summer, he still made sure to hit the links for a few holes of golf (weather permitting).
He also endured his share of tragedy, some unimaginably terrible, but always with faith, grace, decency and calm. This was important to the rest of us, as it served to lead by example and taught us how to face adversity with dignity and humility.
In short, he lived life on his own terms and they were the kind of terms that most of us can only ever hope to achieve. I will always miss him, but am glad that his suffering was relatively brief, his final weeks filled with love, friends, family and fond remembrance. A lot of people say this sort of thing, but in his case it was truly the case – he was One of A Kind in the best of ways.
The cake is not a lie.
Set your Tivos to KILL! No… wait… RECORD! Set them to record.
Why, you may ask?
Because our episode of Ace of Cakes will be airing later this week! Details, details:
Episode DB0706L – “Big Red Squig” airing:
Aug 27, 2009 10:00 PM ET/PT
Aug 28, 2009 1:00 AM ET/PT
Sep 08, 2009 8:00 PM ET/PTDuff suits up to do battle as he and Ben whip up the craziest video game star ever… the Big Red Squig… and meet some uber gaming fans. Geof’s Pinto cake starts leaking fluid on its delivery run and Katie has trouble seeing straight as she does a cake for a video tribute at the Contemporary Museum. Geof clues us into the traits that make us his crack cake delivery staff and spatulas go flying as Video Duff goes to war, onscreen, against his nemesis, the flesh-eating Squig.
Make sure to tune in to see what Duff described as “the best cake he has made on the show.”
Mmm… caaaake.
Who are these two handsome devils?
Protip: You should come to Games Day Baltimore.
Rock-n-roll!
Somehow, I managed to forget to draw your attention to the fact that I am now – officially – a rock deity:
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| From WAR-Misc |
That’s a picture of our office “garage band” – The Hamtouchers – hanging out with members of Blue Öyster Cult (they of “More Cowbell” fame) in our local recording studio.
Why, you ask?
Because we were recording a track together. An EPIC track. A track dedicated to Warhammer’s Slayers (newly added to Warhammer Online).
You can download it here, but be warned – it may melt your face off with ALL THE AWESOME.
ROCK.
Hello, Nation.
FYI
I’m not going to comment too much about today’s events at Mythic, other than to say that I was not affected, but that a lot of very good, extremely talented people were.
I’m sad that I cant be there at the moment to say goodbye to friends, to offer support, just to be a presence in the building.
To anyone affected, if there’s ANYTHING I can do, let me know. Letters of recommendation, an ear to bend, a beer or three just say the word.
To any developers who may be looking for good people, contact me via email or ping me on LinkedIn and I’ll be glad to direct qualified folks your way.
That’s all.
Back… and gone again.
We got back from Korea in one piece. It was fun. A few pics here.
And now I’m in the UK for two days, then it’s off to Spain, then France, Italy and Germany before heading home.
I basically live off of Red Bull and Ambien at this point.Watch Full Movie Online Streaming Online and Download
Anywho, the point of this trip is basically to reintroduce WAR to the European press. Obviously, we’ll be touching on the new stuff we’ve added and upcoming content, but I intend to focus most of my time talking about the changes we’ve been making (and will make) to the Live game since launch. New, sexy stuff is fun to talk about, but at the end of the day we need to make sure folks know we hear their comments and are, in fact, working hard to improve them game continuously.
Hopefully, some folks in the press will take that part of my presentations to heart, but ya never know.
The Twitter Game Dev List
Sam Houston from GamerDNA put this together. It’s a list of Game Devs and studios on Twitter. I found a fair number of interesting folks who I hadn’t been following previously. Definitely worth a look!
Blog Warhammer
So it seems I’ve been derelict in my duties. Why? Because I’ve failed to point out the most-excellent “Age of Blogging” event that the folks at Blog Warhammer are organizing (and that OODLES of sites are participating in).
Some quick advice to bloggers new and old:
We love constructive criticism. Let’s face it – if you’re running a WAR blog you’re part of the most passionate, “plugged in” part of our community. You represent an important part of the “voice” of the community and part of that relationship means voicing concerns. While I usually won’t read ranting or aimless whining, but I’ve always got time for even-handed, considerate criticism of what we’re doing. Be tough, be honest, be fair.
That being said:
It’s okay to be a fan. I like reading about people having fun with our game. While it’s fun for Devs to read about people enjoying their work, it’s actually also an important feedback mechanism. Just like constructive criticism helps us know where there’s room for improvement, positive feedback helps us know what people are enjoying the most and, thus, what sorts of things they’d like to see MORE of.
Make sure we can contact you. We really DO read most of the WAR blogs we’re aware of and sometimes that means we have questions to ask or feedback to offer that don’t belong in blog comments.
So… yeah. Get out there and blog! If you start a new site, make sure to let me know!