Ryan
Chasing greatness

Wish I had a bigger update, but I don’t. The job hunt drags on. The first company that responded to my amazing resume gave me a first interview and then dropped off the face of the earth. My hope is running out.

Meantime, a good friend has put a word in at their company, and I’ll be interviewing this Thursday with them.

I’m staying busy with my bookslave job, and little side projects.

One in particular took a few hours to throw together the first version of. A little character generator for the Dice Chucker RPG. Just an exercise in Java, XML, and hopefully will prove useful for later projects as well.

I recently came to the realization that Megan and I are making 1/3rd of what we did while in Japan.  I think back on the year we spent, the people we met, and all of the experiences we had, but I don’t think I’d go back for the money.  It makes me think of drinking too much.  Sure you have fun that night, but the next day your head throws up.

We’ve been setting up our finances as best we can, but for the time being we will be staying with  my family.  It isn’t all that bad though, just how you would imagine it being when you’re 20 somethings living with your Mom.

Tomorrow I am going to take a 5 hour C programming test for Cryptic Studios.  They make City of Heros/Villains.  I know C pretty well, but I doubt I know it as thoroughly as they expect.  Still, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t take the test.

I really need to get my ass in gear.

Oh, I’m wicked excited about Inglorious Bastards.

My wife and I got a car.  It is a 2001 Saturn L300 with 102k miles on it.  So far we are very happy with it and are doing one maintenance item a month until it is caught up again.

We’ve also become recent converts of Dave Ramsey’s.  Sure he’s Christian, sure he’s on Fox Business, and sure he is a little gruff, but the man makes too much sense.  My wife and I are happy about the new direction for our finances, but a lot of people say, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” when I say I am paying off and closing all of our credit cards.  I think about grandparents when I think about credit cards and loans and stuff.  Most of them never really participated in this whole credit card/loan stuff.  They just bought things when they could afford it.  Sure some grandparents aren’t doing well, but most of the ones that I know are doing great because they just didn’t go around getting into debt to get a higher score so that they could get into debt again.

Other than that, I am working again at the old bookstore that I used to haunt.  Nothing has changed.  The company hasn’t gotten any wiser, and the same people are still in the store.  That last part is good because I liked who I work for.  The first part is just foolishness.  We’re in a recession.  Everyone is hurting.  This company’s strategy for dealing with it is to raise prices on their, “Discount cards.”  They also raised the weekly percentage that the lowly workers are required to get.  If you fail to sell enough cards, your hours are cut.

By the way, the board of executives voted themselves raises this year.

I can’t really complain about the job, because it is easy and pretty mindless.  Just have to shut off all the foolishness that comes down from the headquarters.  In the meantime I am applying for serious jobs in game development.  Once I exhaust all of those positions I will move on to security positions, and after exhausting those, I’ll take anything I  can get.

So the wife and I have been used car shopping. I’m sure for a lot of people it is a fun experience. Driving cars all day just for fun.

I don’t work like that. I feel the weight of being well-researched before I touch a car, and then when I drive it, I only want to find what is wrong.

Long story short, our process broke down like this.

The first step was to find a car somewhere. Second was to research it using “AutoCheck” (Think CarFax, but cheaper). Then call about the car and ask all sorts of silly questions to see how much they knew, if they were liars, and if they actually gave a crap. After all of that, we test drove. If it was still good, we took it to a mechanic to get it checked.

After several days of that we settled on a 2001 Saturn L300 with ~102,000 miles. We’re both happy with it, and I’m sure with a bit of care it will last another 100,000 miles.

So I’ve been having problems sleeping lately. That is fine, except I’m tired and cranky during the day. Oddly enough, that is about the right demeanor for used car shopping, which is what is occupying my time.

By the by, the movie, “The Code” isn’t so great. It has got some A-List actors, but it tried way to hard and failed.

So my ideas. First, I thought about creating a website. I’m sure it exists already, and I don’t think I have the energy to do it, but what it would be is a central resource for gamers.

Wow, breakthrough stuff. I know.

What I really want it to function as, is a social networking site for gamers to find other people, their million different names, stats, and games that they have, so they can have a better time playing games with people they like.

So your profile would have bare bones information about you, and then all of the various games you had on various platforms and poll whatever statistic collecting sites there are, for live updates of those players’ informations. That way, everything is in one place and people can check up on friends, rivals, and clans.

The other idea is for a game that I should have made by now, but I didn’t have the angles worked out. Of course it is a zombie game.

Now, there are humans and zombies in a procedurally generated town/city. There is a certain number of humans that can exist based on map size. They are naked and helpless. They have to forage for food, water, and supplies, while being attacked by zombies. Their scores will be based on survival and zombie kills.

The Zombies are endless, but there will really only be a certain amount roaming at a time. The zombies can be either human controlled, or player controlled. The beauty of this is that the zombies serve as a lobby while you wait for your turn to be a human.

Those who wait can see a top down map of everything except where humans are, and jump into a zombie that isn’t in use and run around doing their best to find and kill a human. If they die, the kick out to the map, and another zombie starts.

I have lots of other ideas to make the game interesting by restricting player-to-player communication, and various other sensory issues.

If I were a better man, I would create a team and make this game.