Dr. Horrible
NPR’s All Things Considered had a nice story on Dr. Horrible tonight. This enjoyable, currently web-only, musical was produced during the writers’ strike last year by Joss Whedon. I highly recommend catching it while you still can.
Archive for Entertainment
On Desire
Last week, I was fortunate enough to be one of the few folks who attended the Northern VA IGDA meeting where Paul Barnett spoke to us about desire. Specifically what you can and cannot control to influence your customers into buying your product (in his case a subscription to a MMORPG). That is, to make them desire your product.
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The Venture Bros.
I’ve been meaning to write about The Venture Bros. since I found out about them over lunch during my interview at EA Mythic. I think that the series is quite funny and have been enjoying it ever since I first heard about it. Though I have seen reviews on the ‘net which complain that the show is infantile, others compare it to South Park and The Simpsons as well as Johnny Quest. The last comparison is apt as that is where Venture Brothers draws its inspiration, though all aspects of popular culture are referenced in the shows. My personal favorite episode thus far is Twenty Years to Midnight.
Interviewing at EA Mythic
Ever since I started playing video games at an early age, I always wanted to develop them. I had my first taste of this in grade school when I figured out how to modify some of my favorite games by editing the data files in a hex editor. In high school, I bought myself a copy of Borland Turbo Pascal (and then later Turbo C++) and taught myself how to program–building rudimentary games. For college, my mother really wanted me to become a lawyer so I decided that the best way to get there was to major in political science. While I did well, I just wasn’t really interested in it. So in my junior year I changed my major to computer science. Of course, I had already chosen my university based on their reputation for political science and law and as such the computer science curriculum wasn’t the best.
Since freshman year I had been running a MUD (I had to finagle an account on the engineering Ultrix machines as I wasn’t in the School of Engineering–we also weren’t supposed to be running servers either but I had some crafty ways to hide my work from the TAs). In my junior year I built a raycasting engine and a simple FPS (similar to Wolfenstein 3D). While I continued to follow the game industry and read-up on the newest techniques from folks like Michael Abrash, John Carmack, Andre LaMothe, etc. my foray into game development was still-born. In my senior year I took an internship at the Naval Research Lab and was pigeon-holed into telecommunications from that point on (I believe I’ve finally escaped, though I’m currently working on some very interesting and vital Internet infrastructure).
Anyway, you didn’t come here to read about me and my failed attempts at game development, you want to know about interviewing at EA’s Mythic Studio in Fairfax, VA. Home to Dark Age of Camelot (DAoC) and the upcoming Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (WAR).
Switched from Cox Cable to Verizon FiOS TV
Even though I was the first person in my neighborhood to sign-up for the uber-fast Verizon FiOS internet service (15Mbps downstream/2Mbps upstream), I’ve been waiting to see how their TV offering fared before switching. This past weekend I finally took the plunge.
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My Foray Into the World of Next Gen Consoles
On Sunday morning I woke-up at an ungodly hour to trek over to Target and wait in line for a Nintendo Wii. Unfortunately when I got there, the line was already about 75 people long and I knew Target wouldn’t get that many consoles, so I headed over to Best Buy in Reston. By the time I got there, I was number 70 in line and they assurred us there were 102 Wiis in the store.
