The Brad Hole

As most men know, there is a certain code to behavior in the mens room. It's quite complex to the uninitiated, but pretty obvious to most males.

While in SF for WWDC, I encountered a stranger who broke that code. One evening, Ken, Phil and I had gone to the bar at the top of the Marriott to have drinks and share war stories with Gav State of Transgaming. Naturally in the course of the evening, nature called me and I responded.

Now as a side note, I don't typically like using urinals in favor of toilets, mainly because I get "performance anxiety" if there are other people nearby. Don't ask me why, it just is. Furthermore, I know I'm not alone with this malady so I don't feel too embarrassed. Anyhoo, nature called and I entered the bathroom. Being empty, I chose a urinal, knowing that once things started flowing, my performance anxiety became a non-factor.

So nature started to take its course and another guy walked in. A very drunk and large black guy. As I was in mid-stream and focusing on ignoring him (as Etiquette demands), he decided to strike up a conversation.

"Hey buddy. Buddy! Can I ask you a question?" (This was clearly an inconvenient time for me, but I wasn't in a position to argue the point.)

"Yeah," I tersely replied.

"What is it with women? Why do they have to play these games?" (Phew! This wasn't going were I was fearing, so my relief was very nearly audible.)

He continued. "II buy a woman drinks, I dress up nice. I take her to a nice place and buy her dinner. But all she wants to do is play games. What is up with that?"

At this point, he expected a reply, and I was still in mid-stream. "I dunno," I replied as tersely as possible. Had this man no idea of bathroom etiquette? It was very clear to anyone within a 20 foot radius that I was not "idling" in front of the urinal, as it were. Why did I have to drink so much? I prayed that I wouldn't let off a noisy fart in the middle of his diatribe - I'd hate for the bro to think I'm not giving him his due props for working his velvet touch on a fine lady.

He continued on rambling about how he expected some sort of sexual favors from this woman because he had put out some money. I clearly wasn't in a position - or the mood - to explain the flaws to his argument, so I quickly finished up business and left, but not without washing my hands.

In closing, I can't emphasize this enough. The mens room is not a Social Club. Leave me alone when I'm peeing.

Posted by bradman at 02:56 PM | Permalink

Now that I'm back from WWDC, I'm faced with a dilemna. You see, I was "lucky" enough to get a free iSight. At first blink, that sounds like an awesome freebie. But now the implications are starting to hit me. If I plug this thing in, I'm potentially opening myself up to a world where people chat with me with more ease than before, and I'm not sure I want that.

I like working at home, and I enjoy the privacy of it all. Do I want people doing audio and voice-chats with me so easily? I'm undecided. I'll probably just hook the thing up and see how it goes.

5 minutes later...

OK, I'm an idiot. The adhesive backing on the monitor mounts is like super glue. I mounted my camera at a slight sideways angle and now it's stuck that way. I suck. I'll tilt my head to the right a bit every time I video chat to make up for it. ;)

Edit: I checked out the video preview and I look like I'm a bat-villain. That camera is at a much more rakish angle than I thought. Good grief.

Edit again: Oh man, this is so cool. The preview lags behind by a split second, so it's like peering back in time. I must've spend a good 30 seconds moving things in front of the camera to watch the lag effect. I hope I remember to turn the camera off when I'm surfing the web for porn.

Edit part 3: Weird. The preview image is mirror-reversed. That is, when I look at myself (as I love doing), the writing on my t-shirt appears backwards in iChat's preview window. It's like peering into Bizarro World.

Posted by bradman at 07:05 PM | Permalink

I've been traveling like a madman these past two weeks. First it was a few sudden days in San Diego with SOE, then back for 2 days, then off to San Francisco for WWDC this past week. I'm glad that there are no more travel plans in my immediate future, other than to pick Beth up from the airport on Sunday.

WWDC was pretty good this year. Phil and Ken made it out, and Apple delivered a whopper of a keynote. We got our hands on the G5 in one of the performance labs, and it Got Game. I'm not sure to what extent our time with them is covered under NDA, so I'll play it safe for once and keep my mouth shut. Let me just say that I wasn't too disappointed. :)

Xcode looks to be very interesting. Compile times are still slower than CodeWarrior (unless you've got some spare Macs sitting around on your network), but it certainly has some compelling features. I hope that the improvements keep on coming so we can finally be free of the yearly $250 CodeWarrior tax. Or conversely, I hope it kicks Metrowerks into gear. Their Mac stuff has been 3/4th-assed for some time now and serious competition would do them a world of good.

My wife has apparently been wrestling with her geek level. She noted the other day that she caught herself in the airport reading sci-fi, carrying a GBA SP in a WWDC 2001 carry-on bag, while simultaneously pining away for a new PowerBook and iPod and wishing she could get back home to watch more Farscape. Luckily she hasn't let her appearance or social skills slide. :)

Mac EQ went GM on Monday. We pulled off a minor miracle on this one, so I think it's in pretty good shape now. We'll be patching this one fairly regularly, just like they do on the PC side. Bad for me, good for EQ players. While I realize that it's got a few things going against it (no PC server play and it's been around a while), if it does well it should cause some other good things to happen.

I also got my hands on a new project for work on Monday. I came up with a code name that I thought was fairly clever, so I hope it gets used. I'm looking forward to working on this one - it looks to be up my alley, plus it's the first "regular" project I've worked on since JK2.

Posted by bradman at 08:00 PM | Permalink

We were at an Italian restaurant in downtown Scottsdale the other night (The Italian Grotto, in case anyone is interested), when Beth demonstrated frighteningly new levels of geekness.

You see, there was this fishbowl behind her, near the door. From my angle, it was illuminated from the back by sunlight. I asked if that was a goldfish, to which Beth replied, "No, it's a beta. It hasn't gone gold yet."

Thank you, and don't forget to tip your waitstaff.

Posted by bradman at 04:13 AM | Permalink

Woo-hoo! I found out today that I won a free trip to San Diego for the next 2 days. So I'll be leaving Tuesday morning and coming back hopefully sometime Thursday evening. The only catch is that it's work-related, so I probably won't see the sun or sky at all, unless it's a mis-textured sky in the Plane of Storms.

Anyway, props to the guys at SOE for coming up with a unique solution to one of the big issues we've been facing. I'll be loading up my car with my PowerMac and all my tools, and preparing to redefine "mobile computing." Sadly, this experience points out a rather blatant deficiency with my iBook - its weak onboard Rage128 won't cut the mustard when I'm on the road. Oh well, here's to hoping that Apple announces a new 15" PowerBook with a manly video card next week.

This is turning out to be quite the busy month here at the ranch. Glenda and Suellen are currently in town, Beth's best friend was in town last weekend, Beth's mom arrives on Wednesday evening, I leave for San Diego today, then come back Thursday, go to Tucson on Friday, then leave again Sunday for WWDC, then come back again just in time to watch Beth leave for a wedding back east. Phew!

In other work-related news, I was on EQ and had what qualifies as the most interesting bug report ever. It seems that a somewhat starkly-dressed female rogue barbarian was told that you could see her "goodies" if she crouched down. Never one to turn away from a beta-tester in need, I zoned to her location to check out the situation for myself. Turns out there was...uh...nothing to be seen, other than a very nicely stitched pair of plaid undergarments that matched her kilt. Rest assured that if this pops up again, I'll get to the bottom of it. An interesting twist - I was able to reproduce a freeze I'd been tracking down in the EQ client shortly after peeping.

Posted by bradman at 04:08 AM | Permalink

As of this exact second, I've never worked on a game that has knowingly shipped with bugs in it. Sure, they've all had bugs, but none that I knew about when the game went final. A minor but important distinction, at least to me. :)

Someday very soon, that's going to change. I'm working on a few titles right now, and of those, one is going to break that streak of mine unless a dozen or so miracles happen in very short order. I'd just like to apologize to everyone right now who plays said game and runs into one of these issues. I'm sorry, really sorry. Some of you will be angry, some will be frustrated, some will be indifferent. As for me, I'll be depressed, frustrated and stressed out, all at the same time. Unfortunately, it is not within my power to change the ship date of said title so I'm praying for those dozen miracles with quiet desperation. :)

I'd also like to apologize to my wife, who will undoubtedly bear the brunt of my frustration by virtue of being near Ground Zero over the next several days as my frustration undoubtedly grows. Honey, when I glare at you or snap at you for no reason, think of it as work-induced male PMS. :)

Posted by bradman at 01:47 AM | Permalink

The other day, I went to KFC, full of lust for a triple-crunch zinger sandwich.

Now here's the weird thing. Many, many fast food places have chicken sandwiches. In fact, nearly every one I can think of except Taco Bell offer a chicken sandwich. Some of them are pretty damn tasty, like the Spicy Chicken Sandwich at Wendy's, or the Chicken Whopper at Burger King. So you'd expect that KFC, being the Gods of Fast Food Chicken, would own this market segment. You'd be wrong.

Not only do they no longer have chicken sandwiches, the absolute best you can do at KFC if faced with The Urge is get a "wrap". That's right - the wrap fad that burst into the food scene and then promptly burst back out is alive and well at KFC. I'm sure in 5 years, they'll start offering Chipotle chicken sandwiches in order to catch the very tail end of that fad as well.

So anyway, now I want a tasty chicken sandwich from KFC, but my fortnightly cravings must go unanswered. Damn you Colonel Sanders. DAMN YOU TO HELL!

Posted by bradman at 03:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's only 8 days until Mac EverQuest goes live. In 8 days and 15 minutes, I'll be in my happy place.

Posted by bradman at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Clearly, my wife is beginning her descent to the dark side. It started harmlessly with a little ogling of iPhoto on our honeymoon, and now she's an unstoppable Mac-loving force.

But her wacky Lucy Ricardo-esque scheme might actually get a few suckers to pitch in. If you've ever seen a woman post to the forums on Inside Mac Games or MacGamer, then you know that a number of the guys on there practically trip over themselves to replym and do so with a politeness that is rarely seen outside of audiences with the pope. She's got wily charms boys. Watch out.

Posted by bradman at 02:28 AM | Permalink

Beth and I went to see Finding Nemo at the Chandler Fashion Square Harkins last night. We'd heard nothing but good things about the movie, and IMHO, it lived up to my expectations. It certainly ranks up there with Pixar's best, and the animation was gorgeous to look at. That was actually my biggest concern going in - I wasn't real sure how well a CG ocean movie would look. They managed to pack in a lot of vibrant visuals, and it's easy to get wrapped up in them to the point where you start to forget that the ocean is animated. I've heard a few people say that they were concerned going in about Ellen DeGeneres, but I had no such problems. I've always liked her as a comedienne and I found her innocent and earnest voiceover work to be just about perfect.

They also showed a trailer for what appears to be the next Pixar file, "The Incredibles", at the start. I gather that this is going to be about an over-the-hill superhero. From the few 2 minutes I saw, it looks to not disappoint, and even comes packed with my all-time favorite James Bond theme from "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." They also had an earlier Pixar animated short, "Knick Knack", which has long been one of my favorites. Interestingly, the mermaid in this version of the short has had some serious breast-reduction surgery from the version I've got on tape.

Posted by bradman at 11:32 PM | Permalink

I got a chance recently to try out the beta of Solace from Freeverse. Man, what a sweet game. I don't want to violate any NDAs, so I'll just say that I'm generally impressed with the quality of this title. I'm not sure if they intend to market it as shareware or a commercial game, but it definitely feels polished enough to be a commercial title. I'm not convinced the narrator is of Scottish origin, but props to Freeverse for trying. They put something in it that makes me crave it fortnightly!

This, along with Wingnuts, are probably my two favorite Freeverse titles, and they set a pretty good standard for other Mac games to follow. I haven't tried Payback yet. I just can't get past the cartoonish "cover art" - sorry guys. Maybe one of these days I'll give the demo a whirl.

Posted by bradman at 08:54 AM | Permalink

Beth and I have recently decided to make some car changes. Right now, we've got the Jag, the Stang and the Accord, which isn't really very practical. The Stang is long-since paid off and still runs fine, but isn't worth much in trade-in value and needs some brake work before we could get rid of it. So it'll probably stay. The Jag is definitely not paid off and carries quite a bit of value, so it'll likely go, but the loan is currently "upside-down" as they say. The Accord is in great shape, and the remainder of the loan is a lot less than the value (trade-in or resale) of the car. It's also a standard, which I can't drive. The ultimate goal is to get us down to 2 vehicles - a car and an SUV. My driving needs are pretty modest, since I work out of the house, so the likely scenario seems to be keeping the Stang, possibly the Accord as well and ditching the Jag. I love the Jag, but there's no realistic way to keep it and buy an SUV and still eat on a regular basis.

We've started the SUV hunt, and we've narrowed it down to 2 likely candidates: the Toyota 4Runner and the Acura MDX. Beth is head-over-heels in love with the 4Runner and why not? It looks great on the outside and carries a lot of bang for the buck. The only downside (as I see it) is the pretty sucky console UI that houses the air conditioning and radio controls. The Acura, on the other hand, has an extraordinary interior design and UI, is highly rated in just about every SUV comparison test, and has a very smooth ride. The downside is that it looks (and to some degree, performs) like a "Soccer Mom" SUV. Still, it's not like we're going to be towing boats into the mountains any time soon.

Posted by bradman at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

As a Mac gamer and Mac developer, the under-performance of Apple's current desktop line is a source of continuing frustration. I'm sure Apple is painfully aware of this as well - they're currently crippled by Motorola's rapidly-aging G4 line. They don't have this same problem with their laptops because the portable CPUs in the PowerBooks and iBooks have such excellent power characteristics that they don't need to throttle down CPU performance to anywhere near the extent of their x86 cousins on the PC side of the fence.

So it was with great amusement that I read this quote on MacCentral today: (in referring to PowerBooks and iBooks making up 42 percent of the systems sold last quarter) "We're very proud of that," Joswiak told MacCentral. "We'd like to get to the day where we're selling as many laptop systems as desktops, and we're well on our way to doing that."

You sure are. Just keep cranking out poorly-performing desktop Macs and you'll virtually guarantee it. Talk about marketing spin!

Posted by bradman at 08:18 AM | Permalink