designdoc

Settling

2007-06-11T05:20:33Z

So, it's been three weeks at Wizards thus far, and much has happened. I'm still not convinced I'll keep up this blog, but I can scrounge up a little effort yet. We've got a house lined up, but it doesn't close for another month - we're living in a crappy hotel in the meantime. It's nice having some pre-existing contacts already in the Seattle area. Enough Turbine refugees and various industry contacts are around that it's not really all that jarring. The problems at the new job are strange and refreshing. It's not so much that the grass is greener, it's just that I really haven't had a chance to get used to eating it. It's sort of chewy.

I knew things would be just fine in the new job when I showed up and two people were playing LOTRO at work.

Today I was talked into buying a shockingly expensive (by my standards) sport coat. Don't get me wrong, it looks great on me. I just don't think of myself as the sort of person that should or would need to own such a thing. I rely on others for cues as to how the world is supposed to work. I pay attention to the broad systems, not the details. And everyone seemed to think it was perfectly natural that I own an expensive sport coat. Who am I to argue, at the end of the day?

Today was also the day that I got my most expensive haircut, to date. Fifty bucks for a haircut. That's just not right. We went to a mall in Bellevue, and the first place I checked couldn't get me in for a few hours. So I wandered into a frightening salon sort of place. First thing they do, they tell me to change into a robe, and they give me a bar of soap. Like one of those little mini-soap in hotels. Even stranger than that, because it turns out not to be soap at all, but chocolate. I discover this hours later, and it's even more alarming then. Why are they giving me chocolate? I want a haircut. Soap vaguely fits with the theme of personal hygiene. Chocolate? That's just damned random. Tasty, but random.

So they push me into a changing room. There are these tiny little robes there, and I think to myself, I didn't see anyone out there running around without pants. But I didn't really see any customer-types. Maybe the people out there didn't have pants. Maybe this is a no-pants sort of place. If I had known up-front that this was a $50 haircut, the no-pants nature of it may have seemed more intuitive. I err on the side of pants, and I am rewarded for my discretion by not being arrested.

See, I don't like being out of my element. There's a distinct difference between going on an adventure and being thrust into an alien culture by accident. I had no business being in Salonistan. I had no visa, and there was no embassy I could flee to. Just a random detour on the road between me and shorter hair. I bluffed my way through it (naturally) but left feeling that I had merely survived, not that I had learned.

The new house will require exposure to the IKEA virus. Incubation is alarmingly short, and believe you me, it's fatal. We took a trip through IKEA as an information-gathering mission. It was both frightening and beautiful. The Swedish lack only the malign will to dominate the earth. Of course, if they did assemble a global hegemony of reasonable prices and efficient use of space, there would probably still be a could of fiddly little countries left over at the end that nobody would know what to do with.

Packing it in

2007-04-27T02:16:02Z

Today saw me pack up all the stuff I've accumulated at work. I gave away plenty (old Magic cards, my copy of Starfarers) and tossed out plenty of things that had outlived their use. Tomorrow's my last day, but I'll be honest - I've been bordering on useless the last week or so. I've handed off just about everything I used to be responsible for. I'm debating just how honest I'll be in my exit interview; that's tomorrow afternoon. There are some pretty huge problems at Turbine, but less than a day from now, they'll officially not be mine anymore.

Take my stuff, please.

2007-04-23T00:19:34Z

Had a little bit of a going-away party last night. Probably one of the better parties I've hosted - the Wii is pretty much the best party platform ever. Wario Ware with 12 players is more than a hoot. At least three full hoots. The best part is forcing the controller into the hands of non-gamers and watching them deal with gaming made reflexive. The design space available is pretty amazing - motion as gameplay is as compelling as you can imagine, and as natural and instinctive as dancing for us silly humans.

The rules of the party were simple. Drink our booze, put a sticky note on any bottle you wanted at the end of the night, (so we don't have to move it) and you can't leave without adopting some of our crap. Much fun had by all, and a mild-to-moderate hangover today to show for my efforts.

The Scourging

2007-04-15T19:16:40Z

The reality of the move has really started to sink in. Getting rid of huge swaths of crap is a major component - we've been in this apartment for about five years, and it's been like an archaeological expedition going through some of this stuff. I probably threw out fifty empty game boxes. It was like a guided tour of my gaming history. Master of Orion II. X-Com. My original AC disc.

Some quasi-lucky poor people are going to benefit of the largesse born of six and a half years of free black t-shirts. I counted about twenty. All black, free, and with some game or game company logo on them. Last week, a co-worker asked why I tended to dress nicer than just about all of my peers. Well, for one, the bar is very low. And two, I just see it as a minor sign of taking my work seriously. Doesn't mean I didn't dutifully bring back those t-shirts from every con, show, and exhibition. Well, maybe now a tiny bit of good can come of them.

Movin' On

2007-04-13T20:53:23Z

I'm really not a fan of these things. I figure that for the most part, the people who want to know what I'm up to can pick up the phone, or send me an e-mail. The people who I really want to know what I'm up to, I'll do one of the same. But especially now, as I'm getting ready to pick up and move across the country, there's a lot of people in category three - those who I might lose touch with during the tumult, and will definitely miss if I do. For those and more, I'll be kicking off this wee blog.

Who knows, I might even keep up with this thing.

- Nik