later nerdz; it’s about techgnarlogy

Wow. What a week.

Went home for family thursday morning red-eye. Spent Thursday to Sunday in Ohio. Get back in to the office Monday and, surprise, I’m going to San Diego for work. I’m the one-man-show on the ground. One day, maximum productivity. 6AM fly to San Diego, work full-speed with a team of programmers and HCI people. After one delayed flight that evening, arrive home. Sleep like a rock.

Oh yeah, also last week I launched my TF2 website (http://www.tf2base.com), server (The Satyricon, http://steamcommunity.com/groups/satyricon) and organized two clan matches for my TF2 clan (The Green Panthers, http://steamcommunity.com/groups/greenpanthers).

Team Fortress 2 is AMAZING but I have only been able to play lately by severely neglecting other parts of my life. I can’t wait to return to a sustainable lifestyle.

and it hasn’t even been released yet.

I’ve been reading forums, watching videos, researching how to run a server, playing TFC and HL2. I am psyched for TF2!

The back story is: Team Fortress was a mod for Quake (yeah, the original quake) in 1996. Around this time I was just getting angry enough with playing Descent online. I think my joystick broke or something. Anyway, I got Quake for christmas and instantly was pulled into the online community. Team Fortress was awesome and I eventually joined a clan which I’m still a member of called the Green Panthers. We played for about 3-4 years until Team Fortress kind of fizzled out.

The reason for the fizzle was that TF2 was slated for development on the Quake 2 engine. A lot of new games started being released and people left the bustling TF community for smaller scenes. Half-Life, Quake2Action, Counter-Strike and eventually TFC put the nail in the TF2-coffin. TFC was a terrible remake of Team Fortress called “Team Fortress Classic”. There was nothing classic about it, the player physics were horrible, the game play was completely different and it was full of kids playing. So I never played TFC because it’s an abomination of the game.

Now, almost 7 years later, TF2 is finally going to be released. This Monday the beta begins, which you can participate in by pre-ordering the Orange box game bundle which includes HL2, HL2: Lost Coast, HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Portals, Team Fortress 2 and Peggle Extreme. All that for $45 and you get to play on a wonderful monday TF2 game.

I have almost completely ruled out team-based league play like the days of old. I used to play competitively and join leagues, enter tournaments and compete on ladders. I just don’t have the time for that anymore, or at least neither do my clanmates. We all have wives and kids now. The plus side to this is we also have job experience and money now and I am planning on spending some of both on attempting to monetize a game server that I will host. I’ve been researching dedicated, VPS and shared hosting for a TF2 game server as well as judging the general tone of the community so far. The idea is, I’ll be able to host a server and a bustling web-community just like the days of yore. I’ll be an enabler for all those 16 year old shitheads who won’t come to family dinner because they have a match.

Apple sold 1 million iPhones and I’ve heard they are looking to buy spectrum. Apple party. We are party machines.

Sony’s Rolly looks like one of us. It’s actually an MP3 player that dances and lights up to the music. If it could drunk dial it would be complete.

Work is busy. Don’t ask me for more than wonderful youtube links.

I’m waiting. I hope you can understand, it’s nothing against you. I think you’re great! Every time I see you, I want to touch you as if you were my own, but I have to wait.

You’re a really great device, but, you’re missing some things. I’m willing to work around that. We can work around that when the time is right. It’s just, your parents are asking for too much, I can’t afford what they want for you. I can’t give that to you yet. Right now I can’t give you what you need. But I’m confident in one more year I’ll be ready and things will be great. I mean, things are moving in a great direction and soon, everything will be ready.

In one more year my divorce with the Helio Ocean will be legal and I won’t have to pay any fines. Then we can be joined in contract and things can be right. I won’t have to go behind your parent’s backs and hack you on to another network. Hell, your parent’s can even give us cable television and internet! Eventually, I want it all.

All good things come to those who wait.

Renting is cheaper.

Please, please tell me this is true. Because, look, I invest in the stock market. I am working on a RETIREMENT PLAN. And honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford a 500k condo. If I can’t actually create a working retirement plan while living where the best work in my industry resides, then… what the hell is everyone else doing here? Am I extremely underpaid? (probably) I’m not going to get a jumbo-loan. I’m not going to get a subprime loan. I’d rather be dirt poor than in bad debt and that is why I rent. I want to believe.

Apple wants to believe, too.

But NBC is too impatient in their desire to shakedown consumers. iTunes is already precariously, slowly treading into the black swamp wasteland; The bowels of internet music trading, where consumers are unmanageable savages. They’re converting them one after another.

You give us a few dollars per song, and you get to go to heaven when you die.

An NBC spokesperson was quoted as saying in a New York Times article: “[The iTunes Store] is designed to drive sales of Apple devices at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying.” What they don’t get is that there’s already tons of content out there. If users aren’t getting it legally, they’re still getting it! And that’s the black swamp wasteland apple is treading into, converting savages.

I just read that Palm has closed the idea of Palm Foleo. I don’t know the entire story around this device but it seemed to be filling a particularly empty void in the mobile market. I guess I just couldn’t see myself using this with my phone instead of wi-fi. Why not just release an ultra-slim sub-$200 device with a full qwerty that connects to wifi and can do the basics? Why not a OLPC laptop for business that doesn’t look like kermit the frogs laptop?

I hope everyone had a great labor day. Gotta show the man who’s boss, right? TAKE THAT, insatiable machine! Me personally, I love to work.

I spent my weekend hanging with friends and working on World of Warcraft. That game never gets old and is slowly capturing the few friends of mine who have held off the onslaught. I’m starting a new character with my friend and this time around, I’m actually doing my skills. Fishing, herb gatherin… hell yea, braaeehh.

I also worked on a great meal. My first time making linguine ai frutti di mare. Seafood is great. Long live epicurious.

Burning Man is over and the hordes of spiritualized are returning to the office from the dusted plane. Even though this is the second year I haven’t attended burning man, I feel like I can’t escape it. Enjoy, dear readers, attempting to get actionable communication from them in your meetings today. KFC’s new advertising plan is to ship chicken-smelling packages to office mail-carts near you. “Maybe the sweet sweet scent of KFC in the air will bring burners back to the dollar.” Fuck no, man. “The Burn” totally, like, changed me.

You’ve Changed.

Anyone planning on attending the Mobile 2.0 Conference in San Francisco Oct 15th? Looks pretty gnar for $145 you get to see speakers, eat food and drink drinks. I’m hella down. Hopefully, in the name of Saint Labor’s Labor Day, I can get it expensed. I’ll be looking for ideas for persuading my decidedly anti-open client into using their powers for good and not evil. Wish me luck… or give me advice.

Hooray for work. Get back to it.