PUMPKINS!
Of course, Halloween is nearly here and this past weekend there was the yearly "Life Is Good" pumpkin festival on Boston Common (they also hold the watermelon festival in summer - missed that one too!)... and due to our hectic shopping schedule (I won't go into that -
it was quite an unpleasant day including mucho travel sickness on the part of my travel partners) we were too tired to go along :( Still, a friend of mine did and here are a couple of pictures that in no way communicate the size of this event! I heard that they were going to break the world record for number of lit, carved pumpkins (that is, a cool 30,000!) - wether they did or not I don't know but its one hell of a spectacle! And will all proceeds (food, stalls, crafts, kids entertainment etc) going to a childrens charity it was a great event to be part of I'm sure.
What no David Soul?
OK I'm relaxed after my weekend so no more Friday stress symptoms - yet! Of course, in the games industry things can change from hour to hour so we'll see how the rest of the day goes.
So last weekend we took a trip, well more of a pilgrimage actually, to a nearby town that goes by the name of Salem! Yeah man, Salem as in the movie 'Salems Lot' - a vampire movie if you didn't know -
unfortunately it was completely devoid of a "spooky house on the hill" and I didnt see hide nor hair of David Soul, mores the pity. What is there though is a very nice town completely obsessed with witches and the occult, mostly due to its history in the late 15th century when the town went through "witchcraft hysteria" and acused hundreds of people of witchcraft, many of whom were hanged. Theres a lot of documents on the internet about this time in American history if you care to read about it.
One of the pictures in this blog entry is of one of the actual houses involved in the trials, dated back to the 15th century!
For us it was a great, interesting little town and of course this close to Halloween it was completely over the top with costumes, goths, scary men in monster suits (Karina didnt like that part!) and of course - tourists! In a way it reminded me a bit of York in the UK with all the artsy-crafty stalls and bookshops. Definately worth a visit if ever you're in the area.
Friday topic of discussion
So - for you game development people out there. Games Producers. They have no place on this planet and serve no purpose in the furthering of... anything, right? Discuss. And yes, I'm having a bad day(s)
TFIF! (Thank Fugg Its Friday!) Perhaps now I can get onto some proper updates.
UPDATE: I found this interesting article.
http://tinyurl.com/ygpyd8
I thought numbers 3,5,6,7,8,12,14,15,16,18,19,20, and ESPECIALLY 21 basically summed up my week. Bastards.
The circus comes to town
So while I was poking my eyes out with hot needles at the game, the two girls in my life were enjoying cotton-candy (thats candy floss to us people from the real world!) and clowns at Banknorth Gardens. The Ringling Brothers / Barnum circus came to Boston and the girls went with my boss and her family and had a really great afternoon, despite spending money like it was going out of fashion on stuff for the kids :) So I guess we both saw some clowns that day.
Whats that smell?
Oh, its my Miami Dolphins embarassing me in front of 75,000 Patriots fans on Sunday. Thanks lads. 20-10 - a better loss that I expected but still a loss and still an avoidable one which is probably the worst part. Even the ride home stunk as I got myself next a some asshead who's introductory line was pretty much "George W is my boy!". What a dick. So - drunken Shaun had an hour long "debate" about exactly why all of the UK doesn't actually support the War in Iraq, like Mr. Bush, or really care two tosses for his opinions about us being dutifully bound to be best friends with the American government. It was... educational. The coolest thing to come out of a very long day was my one hour chat with a fellow-fins-fan at pre-game who turnmed out to be the father of one of our players, Vernon Carey. A great guy and real nice to get an insiders view on the season so far, coaching staff etc.
Up the Irons!
Again I'm slow on the updates so I'm gonna make the next few items brief! Last Friday I had the great pleasure of seeing the mighty Iron Maiden doing England proud in my first Maiden show in the States. They played in support of the new album and it was a first in another way as they also played every track from the new CD, forming the majority of the set. An interesting approach for sure, but one that left a bunch of people who don't know the new material a little disappointed. Anyway for me it was a great show, despite the seated venue, nazi security personnel and ridiculous American "No ID? No beer. No exceptions!" crap that I've come to loathe over here. I'm thirty bloody seven for flips sake!!!!!!!!!
Lets play ball! (Or not - Miami, I'm looking at you!)
Yeah... Saturday has been and gone and what did I do? Another ball game of course. And another Boston College win, this time over Maine. In fact, that was my first shut out game (meaning Maine didnt score). Nice :)
Sunday wasnt so groovy... the Dolphins are stinking up the league and I'm starting to feel embarassed to be a fan. Yes, we lost to the previous worst team. Worse still, they come to Boston this Sunday to play the first place Patriots and I have a ticket. And expensive ticket. Should I wear my colours? It could be extremely messy - we're officially the worst team in the league and the Patriots fans are real dicks at times, especially when it comes to jibes at Dolphins fans. I really need to learn to take the BS and shut my mouth on Sunday, perhaps I'll avoid the beers!
Wish me luck... I'm afraid, very afraid :)
X06 and a nice day at the lake
So we finished work last week on a demo of our latest game project here in Boston and sent some members of the team to Barcelona to the Microsoft X06 event. Basically its a showcase for high profile games developments for the Xbox platform, in particular the new Xbox 360, and our game had a major presence there. Thankfully it was extremely well recieved and the trip was a great success in promoting the project and getting more interest in the game we're making. And our reward? A day off! Yippee! :-)
So we decided to take a little look around Middlesex Fells here in Boston. Its a huge area of forest / fell-land and lakes and ponds, extremely beautiful with a huge amount of wildlife. We lucked out on the weather - it was a gorgeous autum (should that be 'fall'?) day so we took a picnic and a football and headed on over there for a few hours.
First we spent a little time beside Bellevue Pond, which as you can see is pretty over-grown with lilly pads after the hot summer, but it was really beautiful and relaxing walking around the pond.
Then we took in a picnic at one of the larger spots and took a walk through the forest, ending up playing football with Karina for what seemed like an eternity (why does that child never run out of energy?!!). Great fun all-in-all and an excellent day out.
Update time - its been a bad couple of weeks
Hey everyone. Apologies for the lack of updates. We had a couple of hectic (and stressful - whats new for us?!) weeks here. Main thing was that my Dad took extremely ill and to cut a long gory story short, he spent a week pretty much in intensive care and to be honest it was touch and go for quite some time. Lets just say - I was on my way to the airport on at least 3 occasions. With a new baby on the way and a busy time at the office, its been hard for us. Anyway I'll not go into detail but things have started to improve slowly now - he is home but is still extremely unwell so hopefully you'll all join us in wishing him a rapid recovery and a retrun to good health very very soon. And if you're readint his Dad - START TAKING CARE OF YOURSELF, OK? :)
Of course, Halloween is nearly here and this past weekend there was the yearly "Life Is Good" pumpkin festival on Boston Common (they also hold the watermelon festival in summer - missed that one too!)... and due to our hectic shopping schedule (I won't go into that -
it was quite an unpleasant day including mucho travel sickness on the part of my travel partners) we were too tired to go along :( Still, a friend of mine did and here are a couple of pictures that in no way communicate the size of this event! I heard that they were going to break the world record for number of lit, carved pumpkins (that is, a cool 30,000!) - wether they did or not I don't know but its one hell of a spectacle! And will all proceeds (food, stalls, crafts, kids entertainment etc) going to a childrens charity it was a great event to be part of I'm sure.
