I don't know what I've gotten into, but I like it

Friends have been asking me how I'm doing and how my job's going. I tell them it's great and then try to explain why. The problem is, there are so many reasons and it's so complicated. Let's see if I can boil it down to the most important things.

Creativity:
I can do just about anything I want to make the company better. It's taken me until the last few weeks to really get the hang of the fact that I don't have to ask someone if I can do something, I can just do it. I'm not a 9-5er, mainly because creativity doesn't run on your personal clock, but at GarageGames I can wake up at 4am with an idea and get at it. Which leads me to the next important point...

Hours:
When I wake up at 3am and work for a couple hours, I don't have to get up and be at work by 8. I can go in at noon if I want, I just need to get stuff done (and I initiated most of that stuff in the first place). I love that I can take two weeks off around Christmas, or take a Friday off for a long weekend trip up to Seattle. I don't feel tied down, which is an extremely important factor for me still feeling close to friends in Seattle. To an extent, I can see them whenever I want, therefore I don't feel like they're out of reach.

Leadership:
It's not hard to get excited about work when you sit right next to the Founder of the company, who's not only a highly respected industry vet that's made games I've actually heard of, but goes on profanity-laced tirades about what's awesome and what sucks about the videogame industry. He really wants to help indie developers, and I don't think I'd be about to work in such a seemingly non-humanitarian industry for long if it wasn't for him being so passionate about games and helping people.

Responsibility/project leading = Not having to do stuff I suck at:
I suck at a lot of things. Of the 40 employees currently at the company, I'm about the 48th best regarding computer know-how, barely edging out my coffee mug. But I am good at a few things. Like coming up with ideas and bossing people around. GarageGames has allowed me to combine these powers, turning me into a juggernaut of task-shifting. I'm currently "directing" about three projects. I came up with an idea, and then I gave people tasks that would take me another four year degree to complete. Awesomeness.

The biggest thing I'm working on is the GreatGamesExperiment.com. Think youtube, myspace, IMDB for games, but with that helping people twist that I love so much. A twelve year old kid can make a game, post it on gge.com, and get recognition solely based on how cool the game is. If it's cool enough, us or someone else will publish it. Nintendo, MS, Sony -- you have no chance of getting those guys to look at your game. And a twelve-year-old kid has no chance of getting enough traffic on a personal site to have his game blow up. Happy Medium to the rescue!

This is getting way to long. Here's a Gamer Badge from the Great Games Experiment that links to the site. Let me know if you want a beta invite. We're going public in March. Crap. I'm totally being all markety. But if you like games, this is a seriously cool site.

A few observations about the Eug

- Everyone wears homemade pants. The same pair. Every day. Their general appearance ranges from a modified burlap sack to a modified burlap sack attacked by raccoons smeared with fecal matter.

- This was unexpected: I turned on the radio and heard the disgruntled whine of none other than Rush Limbaugh. He was talking about how scientists may have found a gene that determines your political affiliation. Rushy boy went on to postulate that, since all scientists are obviously liberal scum, they would eventually find a way to eliminate all conservative-gened babies. Rush apparently didn't see the irony of the fact that, assuming the report is accurate, his gene's made him make such a dumbass remark. And then I understood why even Eugene listens to him: dumbasses are hilarious.

- There are, give or take, 35 people at my company. 17 have beards.

- U of O students dislike it when you replace their mascot with this picture of Donald Duck:
http://www.world-wide-art.com/art/va/printjpgs/r/sreis/oneloneliestnumber.jpg

Ah, Eugene.

Nickname Party

From a night of Boggling and debauchery:

Dylanieate; Dyllified; Chillin like a Dylan; License to Dyl; Dylan for Oil; Crocko-Dyl: RiDylan: Taradacdyl; What's the Dyleo; Dylan with Me: Drug Dylan; Let's make a Dyl; Dylandenburg; Dylanburger Cheese: Dylandberg baby; Dylanquint; Dyland before time; Dylicious

Has Anyone Ever Told You That You Look Like...

Pretty dang hilarious if you ask me.
Click on it to have the site spit out an image of your spitting image.

Shaun's Holy Servant

Even the child-like optimism of Shaun Alexander - coupled with the around the clock prayer-a-thon with his family and friends - wasn't enough to heal the MVP running back's broken foot in less than a week. Maybe he should try sticking his foot in a rainbow, or better yet a bowl of liquid sunshine.

Now I'm not one to discount prayer as a powerful device, I've seen it work with my own eyes, but why is it that every professional athelete thinks that God is their personal prayer monkey - a primary source for healing every physical wound and brushing away every felony charge?

Alexander explained that the swelling was down in his foot, that there was less blood near the bone. It's almost as though God enabled the body to have a natural healing process that, over time, miraculously healed an injury.

Then again, Shaun has a reason to be optimistic; how many veteran running backs can say they've never missed a game due to injury (put your hand down Shaun, you're still not playing on Saturday).

Believing that God will heal your every scrape and shattered pelvis is as batty as believing that the cause of Alexander's injury is the Madden video game curse.

But come to think of it, there's much more evidence supporting the Madden curse.

Oversimplification: You Know You Want To

Today's blue plate abstraction special: Political Affiliation.

Here's a decent web site for finding out where you're firmly entrenched on a political scale based on a handful of questions:

http://www.politicalcompass.org/questionnaire

What's nice is that this site adds another dimension to the equation beyond mere left vs. right, which helps us, as mentioned in the link, differentiate between lefties like Stalin and Ghandi. Admit it, you thought they agreed on everything.

And here's where I landed, somewhat north-northeast of Ghandi, but pretty moderate overall (hence my proclivity for sweeping generalizations):

http://www.politicalcompass.org/printablegraph?ec=-3.13&soc=-4.00

Feel free to post your personal 'score' as a comment so I can berate you for your ignorance. Or berate me for my ignorance. It's really up to you.

Conspiracy Alert: Cell Phone Suicide

Another diabolical consumer fraud attempt has reached my conspiracy trained eyes.

I was showering the pungent musk of countless denuded conspiracies off my own denuded body when my cell phone started vibrating (my phone is always set to vibrate in a vain attempt to simulate human contact).

Like an electronic lemming with a seizure (patent pending), my phone traversed nearly six inches of countertop and leapt off the edge, falling to the briny sea of linoleum below. There was no hesitation; the phone knew what it was doing, and only after a lengthy convalescence was my phone able to have its normal, healthy seizures again.

But why jump? I treat my phone well enough. Sure I push its buttons sometimes, but that’s bound to happen in a human-cell phone relationship. The only possible conclusion is that my cell phone has a built-in, intrinsic yearning to destroy itself, requiring its owner – after a short period of mourning – to buy another one.

But just like a piece of toast always lands peanut butter/regular butter/Nutella side down, cell phones always find their way to an edge, thus continuing the cycle of carnage.

The cell phone companies’ plan works too perfectly to be taken with a grain of salt from my brine-encrusted linoleum bathroom floor, because as soon as I realized what they were up to I was left with no means of calling them to complain.

Such is their brand of evil genius.

Not only that, but cell phones give you cancer. That proves the companies behind them are evil.

Our only hope of solving this problem is to appeal to the cell phone companies’ humanity. Alex Trebek recently informed me on an episode of Jeopardy that Verizon Wireless’ name comes from the Latin Veritas, meaning truth. Well Verizon, here’s your chance. Ball’s in your court; let’s see if you have any.