My last day at work was August 16th. I immediately went on a multi-day bike ride with my sister, who was in town. And then, keeping with the family theme, visited with my family over the next couple days. Finally, the last week of August, I got some time to really enjoy my unemployment.
I've been blogging my thoughts like a maniac, so you can expect to see an increase in my posting frequency. I haven't actually spent any time playing video games, which might go to support my theory that I like talking about games more than I like playing them. I don't mind this much. It's mostly a timing thing - games take a long time. Hours and hours, and, despite my unemployment, I find myself to be pretty darn busy. I'm not bored, that's for sure. To be fair to games, I haven't really been watching TV, Movies or reading all that much, either.
I also want to point out that I didn't partition very much space to my Windows HD, so I am unable to have many of my steam games installed, especially the big ones (Portal II, Portal). Which is a bummer, because I love those games. The obvious solution is to reformat and re-partition my hard drive, which I am avoiding because it takes forever. But, I may have discovered a workaround for the above problem. I have installed steam on my janky old apple laptop! I have a good 60 free gigs on the thing, and a bunch of my steam games work for Mac! I was pretty thrilled to see this. Working games include: VVVVVV, Portal, Braid, Bit.Trip.Runner, Limbo. Pretty cool, huh?
Of course, now I have a new adventure: seeing what games will actually play on this crappy old thing, and, beyond that, how long they'll play before the computer overheats. Seriously, this laptop gets so hot, it burns my leg! So it is no longer, functionally, a 'lap' top. Anyway, further adventures in Steam, hooray! Next stop: steam for linux (if I can ever get that to work).
I did stop by Kongregate to play some flash games, as indicated in my previous post. Flash games are mostly short-run, so they work better with my current lifestyle. I've also been on a blogging tear since settling into my unemployment. I've produced maybe six draft posts this week. Of course, it remains to be seen if they will see the light of day. These random, multi-topic posts are the easiest. I like doing them, it's nice to just sort of 'check in' without having to make some sort of point.
The way I begin postings usually goes in one of three ways: 1) I come up with a topic and write a few paragraphs, 2) I come up with a topic and write a few sentences, 3) I come up with a topic and write a few pages. Then I sit back and let the post ruminate for a couple of days before returning to it. The first approach is the most reliable- often times the post is nearly fully formed when I finish the initial writing. The second will sometimes develop into a post, if it's an idea I am inspired by. The third approach rarely turns into anything coherent. Sometimes I will chop up a multi-page rant-fest and turn it into a couple different postings, but just as often, the draft sits in perpetuity, never to be finished. It's not writers block in these cases, it's editors block.
Alright, on to the climbing gym, the bike kitchen, the thrift store, the yoga studio, the laundromat and Hamburger Patties, which is closing on September 2nd :(
-D
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Well, that was one hell of a month
Hello friends and family, anonymous readers and adver-bots. How are you? Welcome to August.
I haven't done much in the video game world lately. After reading this article, on designing difficult games, I played a few stages of Adventures of Lolo. I also booted up VVVVVV just for shits and giggles. That game is still fantastic. Today a game called Papo y Yo went on super sale, so I'll have to buy it. And a good friend - who will remain nameless, hint, hint - went and generously bought me a copy of Worms Armageddon, which I have yet to open. I'll be getting to this stuff soon though, with all the free time I have now that I'm unemployed.
Yes, I lost my job on Thursday. Don't worry, I wasn't alone. Maybe 75 other people lost their jobs. The month of July was spent wondering when this was going to happen, as the month of June was spent watching my workplace crumble while we ran around, working our asses off, but were helpless to do anything to prevent it. It was not fun by any stretch of the imagination.
So yeah, no job, which means no money, which means Papo y Yo will be the last game I buy for a while. But it also means a lot more time, which, as they say is money so-- that's exciting. I will have more time to play games and more time to write, and I plan on doing both of them, so expect to hear a lot more of me in the weeks to come.
Of course, this will only be for a little while. I've pledged to give myself at least one week of unemployment ecstasy before I start earnestly looking for a new job. But I may stretch it for a little longer, depending on how I feel. I am still in the planning stages. I hope to do some soul searching in the time between, and I really hope to not be on unemployment when my meager savings runs out.
I did manage to catch World War Z, and it suuuuuuucked. It was just terrible. Pointless. Bad dialogue, bad action, bad plot. I really need to read the book now, because, the good news is- it's completely different! I suppose the one decent thing about the movie was that it was kind of fun to watch fast moving zombies pile up on one another. There was a sort of concept that the zombies were just one big disease, like influenza or HIV something, and it was just these mad gobbling bacteria, moving like a single large creature. That idea is cool, and if there had been more exposition and less wasting my time I might have enjoyed the movie. Why are so many movies roller coaster rides now? I do not recommend. I do, however, recommend this fun little rewrite of the movie.
I also saw another movie, a kid's movie from the 80s. It was called "Cloak and Dagger" - and this one I recommend. For one thing, there was more exposition in the first fifteen - twenty minutes than the entire World War Z movie. Another is that Dabney Coleman is in it. And a third thing is that the little kid actors aren't bad. Also, it was fun, and interesting. I really liked this movie, I recommend it.
One last bit: I just read Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake." I also recommend this book. I was hooked within a couple pages. Without giving too much away, it's a post-apocolyptic novel. However, it also does the flashback thing. When the flashbacks started, I was annoyed because I wanted more of the present. Then I ended up really liking the flashback portions, and then I just wanted to do nothing else, but read this book. I would think about it while I was at work, or riding the train. I love it when a book or game is so good that I find myself daydreaming about when I get to read it again. Oryx and Crake - I highly recommend it.
-D
***next day update:
I watched the movie Prometheus last night. I'm going to spoil a little bit of it by describing the plot flow. But that's all I'll spoil. Anyhow, at the beginning, the movie takes its time, and I really appreciate it. The scenery is beautiful, and the character introduced is likeable and interesting. The movie progresses slowly until about halfway through, when the action picks up. At this point things seem to change so fast, and characters start throwing out conclusions, and performing actions that don't seem to have justifications. It's very strange that a movie that showed so much patience would ultimately show too little. Anyhow, I recommend the first 30 minutes or so, but I can't really recommend the rest.
I haven't done much in the video game world lately. After reading this article, on designing difficult games, I played a few stages of Adventures of Lolo. I also booted up VVVVVV just for shits and giggles. That game is still fantastic. Today a game called Papo y Yo went on super sale, so I'll have to buy it. And a good friend - who will remain nameless, hint, hint - went and generously bought me a copy of Worms Armageddon, which I have yet to open. I'll be getting to this stuff soon though, with all the free time I have now that I'm unemployed.
Yes, I lost my job on Thursday. Don't worry, I wasn't alone. Maybe 75 other people lost their jobs. The month of July was spent wondering when this was going to happen, as the month of June was spent watching my workplace crumble while we ran around, working our asses off, but were helpless to do anything to prevent it. It was not fun by any stretch of the imagination.
So yeah, no job, which means no money, which means Papo y Yo will be the last game I buy for a while. But it also means a lot more time, which, as they say is money so-- that's exciting. I will have more time to play games and more time to write, and I plan on doing both of them, so expect to hear a lot more of me in the weeks to come.
Of course, this will only be for a little while. I've pledged to give myself at least one week of unemployment ecstasy before I start earnestly looking for a new job. But I may stretch it for a little longer, depending on how I feel. I am still in the planning stages. I hope to do some soul searching in the time between, and I really hope to not be on unemployment when my meager savings runs out.
I did manage to catch World War Z, and it suuuuuuucked. It was just terrible. Pointless. Bad dialogue, bad action, bad plot. I really need to read the book now, because, the good news is- it's completely different! I suppose the one decent thing about the movie was that it was kind of fun to watch fast moving zombies pile up on one another. There was a sort of concept that the zombies were just one big disease, like influenza or HIV something, and it was just these mad gobbling bacteria, moving like a single large creature. That idea is cool, and if there had been more exposition and less wasting my time I might have enjoyed the movie. Why are so many movies roller coaster rides now? I do not recommend. I do, however, recommend this fun little rewrite of the movie.
I also saw another movie, a kid's movie from the 80s. It was called "Cloak and Dagger" - and this one I recommend. For one thing, there was more exposition in the first fifteen - twenty minutes than the entire World War Z movie. Another is that Dabney Coleman is in it. And a third thing is that the little kid actors aren't bad. Also, it was fun, and interesting. I really liked this movie, I recommend it.
One last bit: I just read Margaret Atwood's "Oryx and Crake." I also recommend this book. I was hooked within a couple pages. Without giving too much away, it's a post-apocolyptic novel. However, it also does the flashback thing. When the flashbacks started, I was annoyed because I wanted more of the present. Then I ended up really liking the flashback portions, and then I just wanted to do nothing else, but read this book. I would think about it while I was at work, or riding the train. I love it when a book or game is so good that I find myself daydreaming about when I get to read it again. Oryx and Crake - I highly recommend it.
-D
***next day update:
I watched the movie Prometheus last night. I'm going to spoil a little bit of it by describing the plot flow. But that's all I'll spoil. Anyhow, at the beginning, the movie takes its time, and I really appreciate it. The scenery is beautiful, and the character introduced is likeable and interesting. The movie progresses slowly until about halfway through, when the action picks up. At this point things seem to change so fast, and characters start throwing out conclusions, and performing actions that don't seem to have justifications. It's very strange that a movie that showed so much patience would ultimately show too little. Anyhow, I recommend the first 30 minutes or so, but I can't really recommend the rest.
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