Joe's Day Out

Every now then, I get out of my damn house and live a little. Today was one such day. I met up with B-Rod after he got out of work early (5:30PM) as opposed to normal time (never) and we went on a little city adventure.

I know the Flatiron/Financial district of Manhattan like the back of my hand, but I'm a little sketchy on some of the SoHo areas. Astor Place and the village I'm fine with, but the other streets throw me off now and then. Either way, we explored some of Bryan's favorite clothing stops, leaving each one under the pretense that we'd return to buy clothes later. We never did.

Afterwards, we hit up a sweet little bookstore, where Bryan bought some crazy children's death tome and I almost bought Barack Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope. I decided to just get it later.

When we hit Saint Marks place, we found two hat shops situated right next to each other. I assumed that these stores were one and the same, just split into two sides, but it turns out they were, in fact, warring factions. I don't understand the difference ; both were run by a (presumably) father-son indian tag-team, and both were selling the same exact stock of hats for the same exact prices. I bought a black pinstripe fedora from one only to go to the other side and get yelled at in arabic or whatever-the-hell for not buying the hat from them. We appeased them when Bryan bought a green hat to go with a new hoodie he bought, and then we got the hell out of there.

Bryan also introduced me to the wonders of Toy Tokyo and their mystery boxes. I bought a Nintendo-series Figure and Sound collectable box and got an amazing Legend of Zelda standee depicting a scene from the game, complete with removable 3D sprite figures and a button that, when pressed, makes the mystery sound that is so prevalent in the series' dungeons.

I can see why he worries about going there. It is easily the easiest place in New York City to spend every single dime you have, ever. I was very conservative, only spending a meager eleven dollars on everything, but I'm sure that will all change once I start working at Arkadium two weeks from tomorrow.

After meeting one of the most interesting people I've ever seen, we stopped for Lemonade slushies and vanilla Black and Milds. It was an extremely tasty combination that I will have to remember for days to come. We sat around and talked about all sorts of crazy shit, and afterwards it was time for our adventure to come to a close. With my wallet much lighter and my soul cleansed of the constant barrage of warlocks and hunters and raids and PVP and whatever, we parted ways at the very F train station our journey began in - our bags full of loot, and our hearts full of (gay) smiles.


I definitely enjoyed today, it was really relaxed and much needed. I'm sure we'll do it again soon.

So I spent the last week designing B-Rod's online portfolio. It started out as using the ANTI template I designed when I made my own site, but it quickly started to spin out of control. Before I knew it, I was adding pop-up windows, dynamic flash galleries and all sorts of crazy shit. It was only a matter of time before I was sucked into the very same delirium that Bryan himself has spiraled down into thanks to working at Rockstar. Oh, don't get me wrong, he loves his job. He's just starting to lose his mind thanks to the lack of sleepytime.

Anyway, it wasn't until I read his real first blog post over at his shiny new blog that I realized I don't talk about my personal life at all in this thing. This is not good. Every time I post, it's like 'hey, you know, games, I'm great' and then I am gone. This changes here and now.

Since I got laid off, I've been pretty much taking full advantage of the fact that I have nothing to do with my life. Sleeping whenever I want, working on whatever I want, you get the idea. I've been off for five weeks and will be off for another two and a half before I get my ass back to work. I'm probably gonna take one of these weekends off and get away - go to some island somewhere and sit in the sun for a couple of days.

I'm a World of Warcraft addict, just so you know. No matter how many times I quit that game, it pulls me back in. There's just something about it that keeps you playing. There's always something to do. For me, I default to it when I'm bored. My guild recently tore Gruul a new one and fun was had by all. When I start working again, I know I won't be playing that game at all anymore. I pretty much only play it when I'm not holding a job, since that's really the only time I can afford to do so. But damn, does my Hunter look sweet.

Man, I can not wait to get back to work. I feel like I've been out of the industry for too long, even if it's only been a few weeks and I have done some stuff with Project R. In fact, I believe Adam sent me a finished sketch of one of the characters yesterday... AH YES, HE DID

Ain't he pretty? I'm as excited as you are to see the rest of the character designs. Awesome character designs are just step one of many. And with that, I'm going to go take a walk or something. Until next time!

New Job Ahoy

So right on the heels of my 21st birthday comes my next job : Game Producer at Arkadium.

Arkadium was founded in 2001 and creates game software for consumer brands, ad agencies, casino operators and online gamers. The company's growing library of over 125 game engines are developed using Adobe Flash, do not require a download, operate on 99% of all computers and can be customized to meet any client's specific needs. Arkadium's games reach millions of people across all demographics through some of the most popular online destinations and corporate branded Web sites.

I'd love to make a big happy post about this, but I'm quite hung over from a large party last night, so I'm going to be taking my leave now for some water. Perhaps I did celebrate a little too hard last night....then again, nah.

I look very forward to starting at Arkadium next month. The people I met were very cool and it looks like it's going to be a blast working with them. I can't wait!

He is more than a Vampire, he is a Rock God

We now join a sketch in progress. This is one of the character designs from Project R. Once this one's finished and others have been done, I'll probably wind up unveiling just what the hell this game is all about. Until then, savor this tasty little Frizzell morsel.