So if I seem out of sorts or in a daze or not as nice as usual, that is why.

I do know exponentially more about Windows Server 2008 R2 than I did before. Hopefully I can kill some of the weird bugs we're seeing as a result of extremely old code and ad-hoc design practices.

To bad it was just a dream.

I'm quite competant at computer programming. I've been doing it for a long time and have several languages, development environments, and projects under my belt as a result of it. So it seems that I should run in that direction, and at times I have. My latest little foray into the programming world off-the-clock has been a little RPG engine that currently makes use of Flex. If I go much further with it, I will be using the PushButton Engine, which is a great Flash-based engine that has some very strong developers behind it. It is well-organized and can efficiently push what I am doing in the right direction (ie. I will not have to build an engine from scratch).

But I find the RPG to be a diversion; it is a way for me to avoid doing other things because I'm having difficulty with them. Not real-life stuff. I clean the ferret cage, do laundry (sometimes), and putter around the house or yard. But those things that I do not have to be doing but enjoy...but and stuck on.

Like Manifest Destiny. I had a dream about a little girl who could manifest herself psychicly. Then I began to flesh it out. Suddenly, I had a slew of ideas , none of them well-formed but all of them intriguing. Maybe ideas would be too vague a term. Instead it was a series of imagery or lines or situations that I found intriguing. Unfortunately, since they are ephemeral in nature, they are having trouble manifesting themselves, which is a problem with the premise. If I cannot dilineate a single arc with these phantoms, then having a lot of partial arcs that never go anywhere would be extremely annoying and irritating to write, develop, film, and watch. So I am thinking of back-burnering it for a bit. I feel bad though, because Chris is an amazing help and helped me hone ideas down a bit...but they are still so scattered that I think it would take much, much longer than we have to even make something baseline presentable.

Which makes me look at other projects.

I have thought a lot about the pioneer slasher because it is mostly a single location with a smallish group of actors (and a similarly sized crew). Unfortunately, I would have to travel and take these people with me to a location, which I cannot afford. Strike there.

I have also thought a lot about a zombie musical. This is my favorite idea that I want to work on, though it is also one of the wackiest since I do not want a comedy show-piece, but a full-on in-your-face ultraviolent hyperactive zombie bloodfeast...with music and lyrics. I will see how this idea shapes up this next week.

I have also been doing a bit of 3D modeling in Modo. I'm relearning the interface since it has been a while since I got into it. It is easy enough that it truly is like riding a bike. I have been modeling a high-school, because I'm a fan of modern games that take place in hellish environments.

Which brings me back around to doing what I know. I do a lot of different things, but I do not know how well I do them. From work, I know that programming is something that I can do well, but it is also my job day-in-and-day-out.

Time to go and act for the final weekend of Relatively Speaking. We should have a good house tonight. I know tomorrow night is sold out.

I enjoy getting to work with Chuck and Ron on our lab issues. I really enjoy getting to sit down, test logic, and program. My boss, Tony, makes chatting about extremely important issues seem light and much less stressful than they could be. In all, it feels like a pretty big win situation.

Working at ISU and GG is an Epic Win!

On the GarageGames front, I really enjoy Deborah, Mich, Brett, Jacob, and Michael who I seem to be in constant communication with about any given number of things that are going on in my work-day. Sometimes I feel a bit out of the loop, as can be expected from a remote employee, but Matt and the rest of the Torque 3D crew and contractors keep me well-versed in everything that is going on in the development shell. Jacob is excellent at keeping me updated on what is happening with web pushes that he and his team are working on. Mich is a powerhouse when it comes to documentation and community presence. His GDC interviews and documentation are absolutely awesome.

I love the tech we are working on. Torque 3D will blow the minds off people. The amazing stuff that Sickhead Studios has done should blow everyone's minds! The terrain enhancements, road/river builder, and their forest kit are excellent. To see their stuff (and other Torque 3D stuff in action), check out Brett's blogs.

Here is a collection of the Sickhead videos on the GG Vimeo channel:

GDC 2009 - Torque 3D "South Pacific" Part I from GarageGames on Vimeo.

GDC 2009 - Torque 3D "South Pacific" Part II from GarageGames on Vimeo.

GDC 2009 - Torque 3D "South Pacific" Part III from GarageGames on Vimeo.

GDC 2009 - Torque 3D "South Pacific" Part IV from GarageGames on Vimeo.

That is a bit of the stunning brilliance that companies dedicated to Indie developers, current and next gen technology, and strong artistic vision can produce.

Also, because I enjoyed this. Mega64's IGF possible NSFW video:

Maybe it is just me. I don't understand road rage. I cannot comprehend how someone can get so worked up over being cut off or someone driving slowly that they get out of the car and bash the person's head in or ram them constantly. It makes no sense to me at all.

I deal with the public all the time, and I very, very often have people around me flying off the handle for no apparent reason.

WHY?

"Loud" was a revisiting of what made Sammy sound good back in the early 1980's with his album VOA and the now-classic hit "I Can't Drive 55". I have never been a big Hagar fan (in that I don't go out of my way to buy his music or go to his concerts), but I have always had a rather healthy enjoyment of his music. "Loud" is definitely the exception. Whereas I enjoyed a number of his solo albums and work with Van Halen, "Loud" felt like it was trying entirely too hard to be "I Can't Drive 55", but without the fun, edge, and excitement.

The formula is there. The song sounds like Sammy. It is structured the same as his other songs. But the vibrance is not there. There is no excitement. It is a formula without the life behind it. It feels about the same as being a lit major studying algebra. It just doesn't connect. Whereas his previous work had a certain life that caught fire like a PhD in engineering hitting the cherry equation to make the project click. AC/DC's albums have that life; their similarity is their comfort. "Loud" sounds like his other stuff but without the impact.

"I'm a truck driver. I drive big rigs all day long and I know trucks. When I get home, I love to drive my Dodge."

That's the base message of the ad. And it makes sense to me. I've known a lot of truck drivers in my time, and they definitely know a lot about the trucks that they drive. It makes sense that they would choose to drive good-q2uality, heavy-duty trucks in their regular "off-duty" time as well as when they're on the clock. The authenticity of the messages is almost self-fulfilling.

But then at the end of the ad, there is a disclaimer. Aside from the various APR commentary and such that is included in such commercials, there is a notice that the commercial is not based on actual customer experience. Which throws a huge red flag in my face. Could the marketing department or ad agency not find a real truck driver who is a Dodge fanatic? I know several, and while some would definitely not be the poster-children of articulate radio ads, there are a lot who are very articulate and very, very supportive of their trucks.

Living in Idaho, I know people who have gotten in fights over their favorite truck being dissed by someone with a different favorite. While those people are not the fans that marketing hype want to focus on (they are already caught), there are a ton of enthusiastic and well-spoken fans ready to scream down the competition. Why not make use of them? Especially in ads that will otherwise deflate themselves when it comes out that the whole thing was a marketing sham?

If you happen to have a fanbase, make some good use of them. People like to state their opinions, and if they love you...let them.

Interruption marketing is nothing new on the web. If you go to CNet's websites like GameSpot, are not logged in, and try to click on content, there is a chance that you will see an ad on the way to the content you really want to see. I do not have a really big problem with this, even though it interrupts the usability of their site. I know that they need the revenue from the ads and interruption marketing is well-entrenched.

Fast Company, on the other hand, interrupted me before their main page...and the ad did not load correctly. It was akin to walking up to a shop that looked somewhat interesting and being told by the doorman that there was a really cool thing to see down the block. He was not exactly sure what it was, but that it was better than what I had been looking for at the shop. Undeterred by the doorman, I entered the shop and found he was right.

The site definitely has some interesting articles, but most of them are somewhat underwhelming to be gracious. I should have taken the doorman's advice and gone somewhere else. However, just like I did not click the ad that refused to load, I would not tip the doorman in this case; providing no click-through revenue for Fast Company or whatever company's ad had failed.

Now, I don't like people stopping me on the street to sell me encyclopedias and I don't like sites interrupting me when I'm trying to find something relevant to my interests. But I'm willing to say no to the pushy encyclopedia salesman and I'm willing to click the "skip this add" link if I have to. I'm trained to jump through bad marketing hoops, and I'm good at saying no and forgetting whatever was pushed at me--the likelyhood of me actually being interested in your interruption is low and my irritation rate is high at having to be interrupted.

However, I do often click ads and such that I find interesting on social media sites like Facebook (which often have a voting mechanism to let the marketing group know if their ad was effective or not). But I have to find it interesting and find it on my own. If I'm in the middle of something, I'll bear with your ad and clicking to ignore it. But if I see an ad before I even see your front page and who you are and what you do...there's a problem with the way you do business.

If I can't connect with what you do, why would I want to go to your site at all? Maybe, if interruption advertising on this front were effective, I would never go to your site at all because I would keep clicking on your partner's. Sadly for those partners, I think that in my many, many years of being online and dealing with online marketing, I have never clicked on an ad presented in this fashion.

It just tells me that you do not care about your customers or your own brand (or else you would show your frontpage before anyone else could stop someone from getting there). Or else that your only focus is on advertising; any conent that you have that might draw customers to the site is secondary (if not further down the list).

If I'm going to your site; if I might be interested in spending money there (if you have such services) then let me get there. If one of your premium services is that I do not see ads (as many sites are wont to provide to paying customers)...how will I even know that the service exists if I'm blocked from actually going to the frontpage of your site?

Just some thoughts.

Joss Whedon's 10 Tips for Writers

The biggest one, in my opinion, is the first one: finish it. This is an area where most people I know who write have an issue. Finishing is hard, and often times nigh impossible because we try to incorporate all of our revisioning into the first draft. And yes, I know that I need to follow this as well. Manifest Destiny is actually coming along nicely for dreaming about it two nights ago and writing it the next night while getting snockered on Jameson.

Lefsetz Letter on FedEx

Love him or hate him, Bob Lefsetz has a lot to say about the music industry, and I think that we should listen to him. He's been throwing punches around the music industry for a long time. Unlike many people who comment about the industry without being an insider, Lefsetz is an insider who does not pull punches and isn't afraid to go for the throat. His advice in this piece, while a bit rambly in comparison to his other pieces, is on good word of mouth. People who have their own businesses, who work support for other businesses, who deal with customers, who are members of non-profits, or who are interested in sharing the things they like should take notice.

You're Boring by Seth Godin

Seth's one of those great marketing minds who fits into two very distinct categories: 1) he is successful enough at what he does that people listen to him and really want to listen to what he says even if they can't quite fathom it in their practices or organization, and 2) he makes a lot of marketing people or people embedded within the status quo quite nervous, often because he makes up analogies that they just do not understand (the Big Moo, the Purple Cow, etc). He is also worth listening to since he has a great perspective on how to stand out. I've been a fan for years; now if only I would take some of his advice.

Unhappy Thespians - A Manifesto on Training

I love Jill Dolan. She's an extremely gifted mind in theatre and has one hell of a head for theory. Her Utopia in Performance, while lighter on the theory than say Geographies of Learning, is a testament to the utopian power of theatre to transform the indivuals involved in it and the spectators engaged with it. In this essay, presented at the ATHE 2008 conference "elephant in the room" session, Dolan asks fundamental questions about why departments break down the spirited enthusiasm of their students during the course of training.

Original Manifesto

Response by Fran Dorn

Rebuttal by Jill Dolan

(as a side-note, Dr. Sandra G Shannon's "American Theatre History: A Segregated and Untruthful Affair" is also an interesting read)