oddgirl’s blog

My GDC talk is up online. It’s really weird to listen to yourself.

http://cmpmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o1/gdcradio-net/GDCR/gdcr_002.mp3

Maybe I have post-E3 blues, but since I’ve been back, I just am not excited at all about actually going to work. I hate the stuff I’m being asked to do and it feels like a waste of time. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to be motivated about it. Co-workers (and my boss) that normally I like and respect are totally getting on my nerves and I want to just put on my headphones and ignore them all. I just took 4 days off and I’m still basically dreading having to get up in the morning and go in. I’m having fantasies about calling in sick and just staying home, but of course I can’t do that. I’d much rather make soup or bread or do something similarly homey and cozy.

And then this coming Wednesday I have to go down to the corporate office for an entire day of training for a system that I won’t even be using. My current project is not planning to integrate it, and given our timeline, by the time I’m on a project that might use it, it will have probably morphed into something else, thus requiring additional training. Basically I’m attending because it’d be bad PR for my team if I skipped it. Joy.

So that’s what I’m doing up at 2:45 am. Bitching about work. Must. try. to. sleep.

I didn’t get dressed yesterday until around 6 pm. And then only because I had tickets to see ABC – or as the waiter at dinner called them: “that retro band?”. Sigh. I’m old. Tho I think I’ve aged a little better than Martin Fry.

But it was a great night. Dinner with Big-n-Silly, Big Daddy and the gf and then we even had a spot at the show where I could see the band. That was cool.

Today it’s off to Guerneville for H’s hen weekend. Sadly it looks like rain so I guess it’ll be board games and drinking mostly? Or maybe a hike in the rain? Should be a fun weekend – and the last of my travelling for a bit. Looking foward to staying home after this.

an aside: so the Go-Go’s are on the Today show and two things I noticed: Gina is wearing a Trannyshack shirt which is super cool. And they did show it a couple times. And Katie pronounced Jane’s name wrong and Jane noticed and is shooting her daggers. Priceless.

3 days. Dozens of demos. Lots of drinking. Great reviews. More ‘best of show’ nominations. A little tension. A lot of laughter.

I’ve said it before, but being on this team is easily the most exciting project I’ve ever gotten to work on. We may not be saving the baby seals or figuring out how to solve that global warming thing, and maybe I’m just too wrapped up in the hype that swirled around us this week, but it seems like we are doing something bigger and different than anything that’s been done in a game before. And it feels really good.

Now for a bit of R&R. Off to an hour and a half massage in a bit and then some time with my folks later today. And tomorrow back to SF and back to work. If nothing else E3 is a huge reminder about how much there is still left to be done.

I did return from China whole and hale, and fell into a whirlwind of E3 preparations that culminate in the show on May 10th down in LA. Yup. Working lots.

And somewhere in there, I had a birthday and did some camping on Angel Island with my tribe. You can find the pics up on flickr.

I forgot what it was like to work this much. It is simultaneously exhilarating and exhausting. I forget how fucking amazing the game I’m working on is sometimes so it’s been great to have to stop and look at it so much as we prepare to show it.