The Adventures of Orpheus

Days 254-262: LA Week

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 05:59:42 GMT

Friday
Land at LAX. Arrive in Westwood on Flyaway. Get picked up by Kim. Talk until 3am at Westgate. Sleep.

Saturday
Print card prototypes at Kinkos. Eat lunch with Bino at Western Bagel. Attend Protospiel West with Bill and Jeff. Playtest Stones and Lords of Scotland. Playtest 7 Wanders and Suitcases. Catch a ride back with Matt. Revise games. Sleep.

Sunday
Breakfast with Michael at Western Bagel. Ride with Michael to Protospiel West. Playtest Darrin's game Corespace. Meet David and Marissa. Playtest revised Stones and Lords of Scotland. Playtest David's Villages and Virgins. Eat full rack of ribs at Cecil's. Get a ride back with Michael. Sleep.

Monday
Brainstorm revisions to Village and Virgins. Head to UCLA. Eat lunch. Return books to the library. Check out office. Walk to Westwood village. Cross paths with Adam and Io. Pick up journals at Flax. Study at ISO. Talk with Jeff. Get a ride back with Jeff. Talk with Shelby until 3am. Sleep.

Tuesday
Bus to campus. Meet Enid for lunch. Cross paths with Adam again. Talk with Scott. Meet with Andy. Write down notes. Get takeout from Gushi. Meet up with Joe and Christina. Head back to Westgate. Talk. Meet Michael at Literati. Play Stones. Retheme it to Pirates. Head back to Westgate. Talk with Shelby. Sleep.

Wednesday
Walk to the federal building. Run to Westwood. Catch the 761. Meet Trista in Van Nuys. Lunch at Ramen Nippon. Ride back to Westgate. Bus to campus. Work at office. Dinner with Fred at Ambala Dhaba. Head back to Kerckhoff. Work in office until 2am. Get a ride back with Fred. Sleep.

Thursday
Bus to UCLA. Stop by office. Talk to Brian. Lunch at Ackerman. Run into Jeff. Study at management library with Jeff. Video chat with Hye-Jee. Research call numbers. Check out books at YRL. Head back to Westgate. Dine with Kim and Shelby. Talk for a while. Sleep.

Friday
Head to UCLA. Grab coffee. Attend Andy's talk on leadership. Meet with Tamlyn. Research call numbers. Check out books at YRL and Powell. Ride with Trista to Monsoon. Eat dinner with Trista, Larry and permaculture folks. Bus back to Westgate. Goth up. Go out to Spaceland with Kim and David. Listen to Shiloe. Skip Ruin. Eat at Swinger in Beverly Hills. Return to Westgate. Take off makeup. Sleep.

Saturday
Pack. Clean up. Get Santouka with Bill. Cafe at Literati. Playtest Lords of Scotland. Chat with Joe and Lisa. Pick up baggage. Get dropped off at LAX. Catch my flight. Talk with Toni. Help Kate contact her ride. Picked up by dad. Drive home. Sleep.

Day 196: Two Weeks More Reading

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 18:13:16 GMT

The most recent readings, complements of Barnes & Noble:

Yesterday:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008) *Couldn't pass up the new ($4m advance) book by the guru to today's intelligentsia.

November 20th-25th:
Do Gentleman Really Prefer Blonds? by Jena Pincott (2008) *Abridged psychological explanations for common-sense sexual competition wisdom

November 19th - :
Histories, Book I, by Herodotus (425 BC) *The first book in the long bibliography for my dissertation - the great plunge into re-reading everything begins.

November 18th:
Designing Democracy: What Constitutions Do by Cass Sunstein (2001) *A guide to deliberative democracy in light of academic studies of social/political behavior

November 17th:
366 readings from Taoism And Confucianism by The Global Spirit Library (2000) *Just the right translation of the Tao Te Ching to speak to my ruminations on destiny

November 16th:
Aesop's Fables by Aesop (560 BC) *I wish I could write (and think in) fables.

Day 194: Quick Synopsis

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:09:12 GMT

Of the major things in my life, here's what's going on:

Evertide Games - Straw is available in stores, Court of the Medici is going to the printers, Stacket and Stones are ready to be pitched to publishers and a new coin game is in the works.
My Dissertation - The central argument is finally sound, I figured out how to organize the paper to write it and I set up a wiki to compose my first draft. A link to the wiki will emerge in a week or two.
Philosophy - Two months ago, I started to think about the concept of destiny. What started off as a thought experiment then turned into a belief. Now, everything (particularly ethics) is completely turned upside down by my conviction that everything happens exactly as it has to happen and cannot happen any other way. Still working on it.
Part-Time Employment - Hours are good, pay is good, work environment is good, lunch is included and passion is missing.
Romance - Now single for the longest time since Freshman year of college and not looking like it will change anytime soon. On the upside, I'm very sure about what I want. On the downside, I'm very sure about what I want.
Life with Parents - Surprisingly rewarding. I have much to be thankful for.

Day 183: Recent Reading List

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:13:10 GMT

Some of the books I've read over the past two weeks:

Today:
The Oracle: Ancient Delphi and the Science behind its Lost Secrets by William Broad (2007) *Fluff read

Yesterday (continued from last month):
The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt (2006) *Bought for my mom, recommended to Trista

November 11th & 12th:
The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine (2007) *Insightful on neurobiology but a bit too American pop culture

November 8th & 9th:
Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin (1790) *Franklin was the man, one of the ten best IMHO

November 5th&6th:
The Great Wave by David Fischer (1999) *Implications expand far beyond the scope of the text

November 2nd&3rd:
Greeks & Romans Bearing Gifts by Carl Richard (2008) *Only good for my dissertation

October 30th, 31st and November 1st:
The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow (2008) *Probably a fun read for Prime

Day 182: A Typical Day During Lunch

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:06:27 GMT

[... continued]
In order to make sure that at least one of us remains in the library, Ben and I split lunch time. Lunch time in the school begins soon after I arrive for work and goes until about 1pm. The students are broken up into three separate times to eat; 5th and 6th grade, 7th and 8th and then the entire high school over the course of the 100 or so minutes.

Usually Ben makes it to the cafeteria just at the beginning of lunch and is back before noon, while I try to make it before the high school rush. Once though, Ben said I should eat first (for some reason, I have since forgot). It was amazing to discover just how quiet the cafeteria gets during middle school lunch. Since the students rarely spend more than 15 minutes eating before they head outside or to the gym to play, most of cafeteria is empty except for the few middle school teachers.

High school lunch period is much more rancorous. The cafeteria is usually alive with noise when I arrive and most of the tables are full. When I don't make it early, I end up waiting in line outside the serving room along side the various different cliques that form there. Both the boys and the girls will not hesitate to jump forward in line to join their circle of friends while we all wait to be allowed into the food area by the teacher on duty (who regulates the flow of kids through the room).

The lunch crew puts together an entree each day, which seem to rotate through on about a monthly basis. Today it was gyros; yesterday it was chicken nuggets; before that meatball subs or spagetti and meatballs. There's been pizza, and chicken curry, meatloaf and turkey with mash potatoes. It's always a bit of a surprise to find out what's for lunch, but they typically offer the triffecta of a meat, a vegetable and a starch each day. There is also sandwich making meats, cookies, bagels, muffins, a fruit salad, yogurt, soup and a salad bar available every day. And, ice cream if you want to pay cash.

The school allows me to have lunch each day for free like the other faculty, so I consider myself lucky. It is nice to not have to worry about what to eat for my first meal, even if sometimes the food isn't quite on the top of the tasty chart. But, I make due with fruit, vegetables and meat each day. I have decided to add some other starches back into my diet recently not because I particularly like how they taste, but because I'm afraid that I might wither away otherwise.

After getting food, I sit down with the other faculty members around one of the four or so closest tables to the food. I've wondered what it would be like if I ventured into the back of the cafeteria further to sit down at one of the kids tables. But, I have yet to find a sufficient reason to experiment with such behavior. Seeing how I know certain students from all the time they spend in the library, I feel like I would fall into a bit of a dilemma when having to choose where to sit. Perhaps a random pattern of pre-determined tables would be the best way to solve that problem... but I still have yet to figure out what exactly I would hope to discover by doing so, so I have stuck with finding a place among the faculty.

By now, I've gotten a chance to meet a good deal of the faculty through lunch time, and I've developed my favorites. Some people are simply easier to talk to than others, and some are the kind you want to avoid getting into a conversation with altogether. But, I also like to listen if others are discussing something interesting. Unfortunately, school activities seem to take up a majority of conversation; it's much less common that I find myself stuck in between a conversation about politics and I don't think that anyone besides me actually consciously attempts to talk about philosophical things.

When I finish eating, I bus my tray and refill my drink before I head back to the library. There's usually two ways to get back from the cafeteria, depending upon whether I want to go up stairs first or last. These days, the lower floors seem to be a lot better heated than the top/entry level floor (the back of the school is built on the edge of a hill) so I have been walking through the science and language wings and past the locker room doors on my way back to the library recently.

As is the case with most of the other buildings around here as well, it's always hard to find a temperature suitably warm for my tastes. For a couple of days after they first turned the heat on in October, the library was sweltering. It was so warm, we had to open up the back (fire exit) doors and windows in order to keep the room cool enough so that Frank and Jerry (who teach in the ESS learning center on the second floor of the library) wouldn't pass out. I'm not sure the cause exactly, but they needed to spend a couple of days with a mobile lift car in the middle of the library adjusting the heat valves in the rafters to get the temperature under control. Now, it is a little too cold for my liking, along with the rest of the top floor of the building alas.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, Ben is ready to leave almost as soon as I get back from lunch. [to be continued... ]

Day 181: A Typical Day

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 07:16:31 GMT

After starting my part-time work at St. Luke's School as their "Associate Library" on September 3, 2008, I have developed a fairly consistent routine:

I wake up around 10am, get dressed in slacks, a collared shirt and tie and head off to work around 10:45am. It takes me roughly 13 minutes +/- 1 minute to drive to work from where my parents live. I park in one of the few remaining open spots in the parking lot and walk up the remaining part of the drop-off/pick-up area past the Athletic Center to the school's front entrance.

After making my way down the main hallway past a dozen or so classrooms and offices, I round the corner and enter through the library's (impossible to lock) double doors. I check in with Ben (the head librarian) in our 'office' in the library, where one of the seniors invariably is also doing work. We have a small area that is separated from the rest of the library where we have our computers and other circulation related materials. It is not walled off from the rest of the library, nor is there a door, so almost every morning I arrive at work to find a student at my terminal.

I put down my messenger bag, take off my coat and find something to keep me busy. We have a number of projects going on in the library which I have adopted for myself. Today I work on changing call numbers on some of the books that I pulled from the stacks over the past two weeks while I was trying to decide what books we should keep. We don't have as much shelf space as we have books, so we have had to start to 'prune' our collection. These books made the cut, but each one of them seemed out of place. So I put them aside to be relabeled and updated in the catalog. Of the 200 or so books that I pulled for re-cataloging, I will only get through a couple dozen or so in the day. But, I have long since abandoned any illusion of accomplishment in the library.

The library has become my own personal Buddhist temple, where the futility of end-oriented thinking - what I like to call 'instrumentality - is abundantly clear. No matter how much I finish each day (or how fast I finish it), there will always be more to do. There is a backlog of tasks to make the library more organized; why I was brought in after all. But, even after these tasks are completed, the library will require other types of upkeep.

It is living. Every day I put the new magazines on the rack and remove the previous ones; every day students come in, move the chairs around, and 'borrow' pens, paper, and markers and we restock and reorganize everything. Even the collection is living in a sense. We order books, we catalog them, we put them on the shelves and sometime in the future, someone will toss them away. Some books will be thrown out sooner than others, but all of them will be replaced or removed eventually, as I just finished 'pruning' the efforts of librarian's past recently myself. The library truly is my own personal Tower of Hanoi.

No sooner than I arrive, Ben says "I'm going to get lunch." [to be continued...]

Days 101-111: Brief Summary of My Brief Return

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 05:28:13 GMT

Saturday 08.23.2008:
Arrive. Drop suitcase on patio. Go to campus. See Mike, Randy & Jun. Eat Panda Express. Play Magic. Hop in car with Kim. Meet Jesse. Go to Silverlake. Pay $20 to get into Sunset Junction Street Fair. Listen to music [band?]. Dance. Leave. Dine at Swingers. Sleep on couch.

Sunday 08.24.2008:
Eat lobster with Graydon, Jen and Riz. Dump coins at CoinMaster. Pick-up groceries. Carpool with Riz & Kim to Mitsuwa. Search in vain for CocoBall candies. Ask for special pork ramen at Santouka. Discover they ran out. Settle for normal salt broth ramen. Return to Westgate. Discuss irreliability of CoinMaster with Shelby. Taste wine, cheese and chocolate with David, Shelby, Kim and Riz. Sleep on couch.

Monday 08.25.2008:
Sort through 3 months of mail. Go to campus. Stop by office. Discuss my dissertation with Andy. Meet Tamlyn at condo. Pickup blank journal. Get Jamba Juice. Walk to California Pizza Kitchen. Dine with Tamlyn. Head back to condo. Talk with Tamlyn. Get Red Mango frozen yogurt shake. Dump shake. Say good-bye to Tamlyn. Walk back to Westgate. Sleep on couch.

Tuesday 08.26.2008:
Walk to campus. Replace Bruincard. Eat grilled chicken california salad. Return books. Research dissertation. Walk to Westwood. Meet Fred for dinner. Eat at Ambalah Dabah. Discuss dissertation at Coffee Bean. Return to Westgate. Watch episode 8 of Tudors. Sleep on couch.

Wednesday 08.27.2008:
Deposit checks at bank. Bus to campus. Eat Taco Bell. Order green tea at Kerckhoff. Work on dissertation outline. Meet with Omar. Walk back to Club Cal with Omar. See Julie. Meet Michael & Martin at Literati Cafe. Playtest Solaria Light. Return to Westgate. Sleep on couch.

Thursday 08.28.2008:
Wake up at 5:45am. Catch 10 bus to downtown. Report for jury duty. Talk with Trista. Break for lunch. Enjoy ramen with Trista at Daikoku-Ya. Return to jury pool room. Read Gordon Wood's history of America. Nap. Be dismissed. Walk to Edison bar with Trista. Sip 35cent martinis, eat appetizers, play stacket and explain stacket to others. Meet Jeff. Drop off Trista at parking lot. Find Honda-Ya in J-town. Enjoy yakatori with Jeff and Fred. Meet Kim at Cafe Movement at the Bordella. Listen to Sleepmask. Lose hearing. Return to Westgate. Sleep on couch.

Friday 08.29.2008:
Walk to Kerckhoff. Drink green tea. Work on dissertation bibliography. Check out books from YRL, Law and Powell. Eat dinner. Hop in car with Kim. Attend Getty's friday night music. Walk through Bernini exhibit. Discern Baroque style. Listen to music [band]. People watch. Return to Westgate. Taste wine & cheese with Shelby and Kim. Sleep on couch.

Saturday 08.30.2008:
Welcome Bill to LA. Drive to 3rd street. Walk the promenade. Eat at Corner Crepery. Walk the pier. Ride with Bill to campus. Say goodbye. Meet friends for Magic. Walk to In&Out with Warren. Enjoy a Double-Double with crispy fries. Return to Westgate. Talk with Kim. Sleep on couch.

Sunday 08.31.2008:
Pick-up groceries. Carpool to Irvine with Jun & Omar. Scope out Joe's new pad. Check on my cactus. Order pizzas. Eat snacks. Play Conquest of the Empire. Call the game early. Lose to Joe. Ride back to Westwood. Nap. Grab a whole chicken at Zankou Chicken. Eat dinner with Kim. Sleep on couch.

Monday 09.01.2008:
Walk to Westwood. Meet Tamlyn for coffee. Rendez-vous with Caroline. See Tropic Thunder. Eat nachos. Meet with Omar. Discuss Straw Online plans. Return to Westgate. Walk to Nook. Rendez-vous with Trista. Eat at En-Sushi. Return to Westgate. Talk to Kim. Pack. Sleep on couch.

Tuesday 09.02.2008:
Hug Kim goodbye. Go back to sleep. Pack. Bus to Flyaway. Go to LAX. Eat at Home Turf. Catch my flight. Arrive at JFK. Wait for parents. Ride home. Sleep in bed.

Day 62: A Dark Knight

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:59:01 GMT

Dark Knight was good. Very good, actually. I never expect much out of comic book adaptations but the movie was full of action and plot advancement. It almost seemed like there were two movies in the one. I also think they did an excellent job with the Joker, both the writers and Ledger's acting. There was a philosophical edge to his words that I haven't seen in action movies since the Matrix. You were never really sure throughout the movie whether the Joker was insane or more sane than everyone else.

After getting out of the Dark Knight at the AMC Empire 25 near Times Square, we headed down to Union Square Park to eat. Based off a review that my parent's gave me of their experience on Tuesday at one of Daniel Boulud's other restaurants, I decided to cancel the reservations at Bar Boulud and wing it with one of Daniel Meyer's restaurants instead. My friend (Flor) and I ended up going to Union Square Cafe.

We sat in the back area next to the large mural they have. The atmosphere was good, except for the fact that they're air conditioner was on the fritz. Considering Friday night's weather, it was nice that they warned us of that when we walked in. So, it was a little warm, but manageable. We had small plates of Oysters, Tuna Tartar, Beef Carpaccio, Ricotta Gnocchi, Creamy Polenta and a 3 Piece Cheese Plate. I found the Oysters and Gnocchi particularly good. The carpaccio is usually a fav for me, but they added some small potato chip flakes to it that gave it a greasy/potato taste that wasn't working for me. But, I don't like that type of garnish on any tapas (even though a lot of chefs apparently do).

I did some eavesdropping on the conversation at the table behind me, especially when the two couples decided to start talking about politics. It's always interesting to hear how people talk and what they talk about when you're not part of the conversation. But, Flor did not share my enthusiasm for listening to other people like that.

After dinner, we went to Contempt @ M1-5 down on Walker. Last month, I had a really good time there. This time, I wasn't quite feeling it. Funny thing is, I did more dancing this time than last time (which wasn't too hard considering that I ended up talking to people until the event closed last month) but somehow my desire to be there was not as high this time. I think it had something to do with the lethargy of eating/drinking but I think that I'm just not as eager to connect with club people as a month ago.

When I first got here, I wanted to go out and do things. Without any of the connections and activities that I left behind in LA, I was eager to find new things to do and meet new people. Although I'm still looking for new connections here and to reconnect with friends ;), I think I've become a lot less propelled to do so over the past month. I've been focusing on a number of things that I need/want to do for myself that keep me occupied from morning until late night and so I'm a little less unsettled.

However, I think it really has to do with the people who are around me. In Los Angeles, clubbing was never frequent for me and always an activity to do with other people. I never went to clubs to meet people. I went there with people I already knew to dance or listen to music. But, I also went to museums, plays, concerts, restaurants, talks, galleries, etc... with people for the same reason.

I haven't found the kind of people that I want to hang out a lot with yet. The people who are interesting to me and eager to schedule things with me have eluded me so far. And, as I already knew from LA, the Goth crowd is not going to be where I would find those people. Nor the clubbing crowd as a whole either. Actually, I don't think I'm looking for any crowd. But, its always slow going meeting people without crowds when you're someplace new if work is not able to otherwise do it.

In any case, I just didn't feel like it was where I wanted to be. I was pretty much ready to call it quits after dinner and the DJ's (lack of) mixing skills certainly didn't help. The prospect of not being able to leave the city until 5:30am was also not particularly vitalizing once it was too late to catch the last night train. That's one thing that was nice about driving in LA compared to commuting from New Canaan. Come and go as you please.

Day 55: Remote Eviction

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:54:58 GMT

So, after a total of two months and just when Rizwan and Kim are scheduling a time to come into the PBM's office with Shelby to sign the lease amendment to allow Shelby to replace me on the lease, I get a text message from Riz, followed a minute later with a phone call, to inform me that Rajan has not yet received $1620 from us. Since I did not pay rent for either June or July, I figured that this might happen. I apologized to Riz for the alarm and especially for his decision to bother Kim with this earlier today when he didn't know that it was my checks that were missing. I had expected PBM to call me about the missing rent, and I had expected it to happen a little sooner. But, as it turns out, Riz got the call and, apparently, no sooner than it takes in late payments to start processing eviction.

I must again apologize to Riz, Kim (and Shelby) for this situation. I called up Rajan to explain why I have not paid the rent, and why I do not believe that I should have to pay the rent. Unfortunately (and completely predictably) he was intractable. He said he was going to start processing the eviction procedures today. After I explained to him that I am willing to compromise, he proceeded to tell me that he would 'see me in court' unless I send him a check for every penny of the $1620 that is missing. He was unwilling to compromise. In fact, "there is no compromise" according to PBM.

In the grand scheme of things, the amount in dispute is not very significant. So, after a little afternoon drama, phone calls with Riz, Kim, Rajan and my mom, I'm going to get them the money. As far as PR goes, my friendships are worth way more than that. But, it is unfortunate nonetheless. Everyone backed me into a position where I couldn't mitigate my damages. I had to break a commitment and I felt bad about that. But, I didn't feel like I should have to pay for all the months that I would be missing (especially when I found more than one person to replace me), and I'm still pretty sure legally I wouldn't have to. Contract law requires that the damaged party mitigates their damages if they can. You cannot sue for all the damages you will suffer from a broken contract if you have the power to reduce them through reasonable efforts.

Unfortunately, with PBM, there is no such thing as reasonable. It took them exactly as long to 'process the application' as it would have taken if I had done nothing. Contractually, I could have just said, I don't plan to renew my lease at the end, and I would have ended up paying no more than I will right now. Only, in that situation, I would have had no obligation to do anything. Instead, I went through the effort of finding someone to replace me long before the end of the lease, all for naught.

I'm sure my roommates appreciate that effort, and there really is no discounting that fact. But, what really irritates me is that everything occurred exactly as I foresaw it would. I knew that PBM would drag their feet, that Riz would get really busy at uWink and not be able to follow up, that Shelby's schedule would prolong things and that there was nothing that I could do about it. I cannot force people to do anything. As long as I am the only one that pays the consequences, then no one besides me had an incentive to do things any differently.

The reason that I didn't pay rent in the meantime is because it was the one thing that I could control. I hoped that PBM would move faster. I mean, if they don't think they were going to get rent, then perhaps they would have an incentive to approve Shelby in a timely fashion. But, in the end, it didn't matter. It was silly for me to think that I could have any control, much less that control. PBM doesn't care.

Deep down, I knew that I was going to have to pay in the end, and my hopes that something else would happen (someone else would act differently than expected) when I really needed it to happen were unfounded. Hopes always disappear when the veil of reality is dropped. What kills me the most is that I knew this would happen exactly as it did when I struggled to tell Riz and Kim about my departure 3 and a half months ago. Sometimes in life you must pay.

Frack it.

Anyway, the situation is far from fully resolved. But, at least the lingering monster of the past two months is now front-and-center. I've certainly got plenty of other things to worry about to replace this one.

Day 40: (B)Rainstorms At Panera

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 19:12:28 GMT

Unlike yesterday's gorgeous weather, today was gloomy. I woke up to light in my room, but no direct sunlight. I thought that I had gotten up too early again, like other days that I have woken up ungodly early. But, that wasn't the case. It was 9:30am, only the sky was overcast. Instead of the rays of sunlight that warm you like halogen light, the sky has a florescent glow to it. A perfect day for outdoor pictures! A perfect day for a June wedding. As long as you don't happen to be outside for the few moments that it sprinkles throughout the day.

While inside Panera, I was brainstorming about Suitcases and shivering. I hate restaurants that do not adjust their air-conditioning levels to the outside temperature. I wish it were winter. At least then, they would dogmatically stick to heat. Since I can deal with heat better than most people and I am more sensitive to cold than most people, I am beginning to really despise mass-culture. Stupid corporate establishments that keep the temperature low enough to preserve the fat aged meat of the population really interfere with my comfort level. It is summer and I had a long-sleeve collared shirt pulled over my tee. Even in long pants, I felt cold creeping up my leg, in my toes, my hands, my fingers and sliding down my collar. It's June 26th! WTF?!

I devoted some time to looking for another place to cafe. It is tough though. The choices around here are limited by the lack of population density. Even though everyone in this 'country' is familiar with urban culture, this culture is not urban, or urbane for that matter, but almost entirely suburban. The people here are different from the mid-west and the towns are much older, but the mindset is similar. Raise your family away from the hustle and bustle of people. Keep them safe and pampered. Create an environment where diversity only crops up in service positions. Go to sleep early, get up early. Go to the mall or the super-store to shop. Buy food for a month and store it in your extra freezer in the basement. Dress up in collared shirts and kahki's, men and women. Consume only what is easily accessible to you through mass distribution. Work Monday through Friday. On and on.

It is not other people's conformity, or even the pressure to conform placed upon me that bothers me so much, but the lack of choices. People are free to do what they want and I have never felt like I have to be any particular way. Thank god! But, sometimes it seems like there is a limit to my ability to tailor my existence to myself in this environment. The urban environment, on the other hand, is more suited to being unique. It doesn't make you unique though, but it certainly helps you pursue your own uniqueness. Whether that is in food, clothes, sleeping habits, working habits, conversation, music, art, warmth(!) or whatever, there is a wider range of choices in a smaller environment. Urban life is highly customizable. The only thing you don't have a choice over is the environment itself. I guess that's why the modern day American Foreclosure Crisis... erg... I mean American Dream, is to own your own house in the country, furnish it and bask in the comfort of a piece of property molded to your own image.

While I tried to find my own Shangri-La in this Utopia, I satisficed with a number of breaks to sit outside. At least the weather was warm.

Day 39: Late Night Conversations

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:23:33 GMT

After a nice dinner of steak, asparagus, potato salad and avocado salad with my parents, I called back my manager / sale representative for Evertide Games. Michael had called in the middle of the meal, so I had to ask him if it was ok to call him back even though it was already fifteen minutes after the scheduled time for our bi-weekly phone meetings. Even in New Canaan, I act like I'm in Los Angeles. How (un)professional!

Actually, I wasn't sure if he was going to call, since I hadn't gotten an email to confirm and I also wasn't expecting to be eating at 10:15pm. Although, given my habits over the past month, I shouldn't have been surprised. With both my dad and I returning home after 9:00pm on the average weeknight, I should be happy that I'm actually eating before midnight. At least Panera closes relatively early. When I was studying at ISO, I frequently wouldn't leave until midnight.

So, Michael and I discussed our on-going projects. The article that was published in boardgamenews about Court has Michael a little concerned. Because we don't officially have a contract with Zev, nor have we discussed timing with him, it is a bit awkward to see a report that Z-Man has teamed up with Evertide Games to release Court. It is doubly awkward since I had given the author of the article details about the game. But, Zev had referred him to me, so I figured that it was only a positive sign. I won't turn down publicity. Especially since Court is now ready to print, only marketing and promotion stand in the way of it hitting the shelf.

We also discussed the future of Suitcases. Playroom Entertainment is holding onto their copy of the prototype right now, but hasn't yet made a decision. In fact, they haven't even replied at all. Michael has a number of questions outstanding from his weekend meeting with them a couple months ago which Playroom has not yet answered. So, we're waiting patiently. Some of us, more so than others. But, while Playroom has been holding on to Suitcases, I have been thinking about its future.

As some of you know, Suitcases is a Pat game. He invented it a year ago and we've been working together on it since then. I've helped solve the design problems with the game and we both worked on the photographs and layout for the prototype. Suitcases now officially belongs to Evertide Games by assignment in exchange for a 50-50 split of the profits. Unfortunately, those haven't yet come around yet because we haven't licensed it. The theme is awesome, fun and novel. It will be a great game on the family game market, and I think it has the potential to be as successful as Straw. That's why I picked it up from Pat. But, it still has a design problem.

The mechanic works. It is balanced and simple. The game is even strategic. But, it is 'clunky' and not as fast-paced fun as the theme indicates. In solving its design flaws and making the game strategic (as opposed to luck), I caused it to lose its zest. I figured out how to balance the value of all the cards by giving each person their own hand, how to allow people to reverse their fortune by adding magic suitcases, and how to prevent a gang-up-on-the-leader dynamic by changing the rules for when suitcases are packed. But in so doing, I created a stale environment. Cards need to be kept in order (because order matters), people frequently have to lift up cards in order to put stuff 'in between' and players have their own little domain with their pile. It is not as exciting, interactive and alive as a game about stuffing junk/treasures in suitcases should be.

The game needs to feel like those movies/shorts where each criminal is trying to steal the loot for himself, but everyone is being outwitted by his accomplices. So, the bag of cash literally changes hands a dozen times. Unlike Straw whether the object is to pass the potato to someone else, this game is about greed and knavery (with a wholesome family theme) and the instability of securing your possessions. Everyone is trying to ship their treasure, but before they can, it is no longer in their possession among this den of thieves. Whether it has been stolen, swapped for something else or diluted of its value, you rarely possess the treasure you think you do. The security of your loot is always in jeopardy.

So, fundamentally, the game needs a mechanic by which someone's loss is another person's gain. It can't just be dumping stuff on others, because that isn't stable in a multiplayer environment. I did find a way to prevent the associated gang up problem with the current design, but at the cost of fun. Which is an even bigger problem! So I need to take a couple steps back and figure out how to create a loss only through gain dynamic. It has to be a contest to be the last person holding the bag... erg... suitcase. Just make sure that it's the right one.

How do I do this? That is why I get paid the (non-existent yet) big bucks and you do not! I am a designer... so my skill is seeing this problem and knowing how to solve it. Most people can feel that there is a problem with the game (it's just not fun!), a few other people can even see/identify the problem with the game, but so far no one (including myself) has been able to figure out how to solve that problem. Suitcases has even fallen into the lap of a number of fellow designers that I respect. Seth, Travis and Michael have all seen it. And, so far, none of us have been able to see past it.

That is the problem with a prototype. Like it or not, you establish the mechanic of the game and you determine the range of possibilities. In politics, it would be called setting the agenda. But, we've already gone as far as we can in the current perspective. The game needs to be seen differently, turned upside down and assumptions that have driven its design so far tossed out. It requires some 'out of the box' thinking.

Whenever I feel upset with what I produce, be it games or writing, I find that it helps me to step back and ask myself what is the purpose of it. We humans are incredible rationalizers, so if you give us an end, we will figure out a means. That is the meta-game of life, and the people who realize that means are simply filled in out of thin air to obtain their ends are the one's who succeed. They are the Nietzschean virtuosi. Once we have a purpose, our brain will figure out almost sub-consciously how to fit everything together to obtain it and what needs to be created as well.

The skill of game design is this semi-conscious ability to make connections or invent them when necessary to create that fun feel / dynamic that is desired in a game. Two of my 3 great games were invented in unconscious/semi-conscious states, when my mind could cut through the distractions of details and see a brilliant core mechanic for a certain dynamic that is fun. Afterwards, there were a lot of refinement, but only what was necessary to clarify and preserve the essential dynamic that was pulled out of thin air.

Nevertheless, as a producer, I am prudent. When I have yet to be able to solve the problem, I turn to others. And, when that doesn't work, I have to make an executive decision: shelf it or try to get it on the shelves anyway. I discussed this with Michael last night. With his experience co-owning Third World Games, I was looking for some guidance. But, really I just wanted to talk it out for myself and articulate all my thoughts. I already know that I don't want to license Suitcases (at least as it is).

It is not my favorite game. My three other games, Straw, Court and Stacket, each is my favorite! Each is excellent and I would have no problem recommending each of them to you. You may or may not like them, but that will have to do with your taste in games, not the game itself. Not everyone has the same tastes (thank god). But, in the case of Straw, Court and Stacket, none can justly ever been said to be a bad game, only a game that "isn't for me."

Right now Suiticases can be called a bad game. It can be criticized and I would know why. I would agree. I cannot support it because I do not believe in it. I have always been psychologically incapable of supporting something I do not believe in. I have been misguided and mistaken in my beliefs, but I have never been able to support, promote, endorse or accept anything that I do not believe in. This is my fate. And, I know it will kill me. But, I do not believe that!

Even if I never produce another game and I run myself completely and utterly into the ground, I don't think I'll ever believe in this kind of compromise. We should only accept that which fills us with awe.

So, as a result, I don't really feel eager about moving forward with Suitcases. Until I solve the problem, I don't want to utilize either my network or Pat's network to print a limited run of it. I have a feeling that together we might be able to sell a good 100 copies to people we know personally. Something like that wouldn't hurt in dealing with another publisher. But, selling a mediocre game to everyone I know would hurt badly.

I have to go with my gut. I'm pulling Suitcases off my online store, taking it back from Playroom and putting it into the Prototype category until I solve its problems. I have a few ideas right now for how, but I will leave that for another post.

Day 38: Up Late Reading

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:39:25 GMT

Life is usual now. I go to Panera, work and come back home for a fairly late dinner. Today was no exception. I had a reasonably productive day at Panera, updating my company's website, reading and writing. I ended up leaving the restaurant 20 minutes after they closed and went home for a late dinner.

When dad came back from work (after I got back!), he brought with him a book that I can only presume he got from the executive chef at the club. The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski is a book about Bernard Loiseau, the famous French chef and owner of La Cote d'Or during the 1980s and 1990s. But, what Loiseau is most famous for is suicide. He killed himself in 2003 when be believed he would lose his third Michelin star. The Perfectionist is a biography of his life written by one of his many friends in the community of haute cuisine, but it was also a history of French culinary politics throughout the past 70 years.

As you can probably already tell, I read it. Actually, I read the first 50 pages and the last 40 pages or so. The book is actually pretty thick, so I skipped ahead to the juicy part once I got fed up with the overly flowery language of the first couple chapters. It is clear that the author of the book is a food critic himself, because he spends an inordinate amount of time describing every dish that each chef is known for, as well as every single piece of decor that you could notice at the restaurants (and/or hotels). Whereas, on the other hand, Chelminski hasn't learned the art of narration. The book makes frequent tangential forays into the world of haute cuisine past, oftentimes just after introducing some interesting new idea in the present that calls to be elaborated. Instead of doing so, the authors stops the story just to tell you about something that he seemingly forgot to tell you before but is nevertheless important for understanding the present only to never actually return to where he left off after he is finished. It is like having a conversation with a teenage girl from the Valley, only its about the history of French cuisine.

Chelminski plays with time like Rainman with a pocket watch. Let me wind it up, put it in one pocket, take it out again, adjust the time, correct for day light savings, put it in a different pocket, take it out again, change the battery and polish the glass, when all we really wanted was the time. That being said, it is rich in knowledge about some of the major figures in haute cuisine. From Fernand Point, to Paul Bocuse to Loiseau, the subject of the story, with many segments that you can only chuckle at if you too have been obsessed with the world of excellent food.

As it turns out Loiseau was a victim of both his own bipolar condition and the change in tastes that I have lauded over the past year with everyone (whether you wanted to hear it or not). Loiseau was a master of la nouvelle cuisine francaise and had reached the peak of traditional French culinary excellence when all the world finally looked to France for culinary direction. However, due to his success as well as the success of French cuisine as a whole, the world of haute cuisine started to move elsewhere. Excellence bred boredom. Too much good food spoiled people. Decadence craved novelty for the sake of novelty.

Loiseau felt himself being left behind by the move towards fusion and globalization that has occurred in haute cuisine over the past decade even though he was one of the few people well positioned to take advantage of it. When combined with manic depression, and highly-leveraged building projects throughout the 90s, it was a recipe for suicide. He was afraid that he had lost his excellence. He didn't lose his 3 stars, but there was sensationalist rumors that his 3 stars were in jeopardy. So, he feared he would. He was afraid that he had lost the approval of everyone around him and was incapable of gaining it back. At the very moment when he was at the height of his fame and most able to do what he wanted, he doubted his own ability.

I can sympathize with such feelings of self-doubt, only in my case from the inverse position.

Day 37: Court of the Medici is Finished

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:43:57 GMT

Court is ready to go to the printers, or at least to be sent to the printers after the publisher signs the contract to purchase it.

I just finished collecting together all the design materials that a printer needs to make the cards, rules and box, as per the agreement with Zev at Z-Man Games. When he optioned the design from me last August, the game was only a prototype, and a flawed one at that! Over the past 10 months, Court has gone through too many theme changes to count and about 6 months of rules tweeking in order to fix the multiplayer problem. Unfortunately, the only solution to the problem was to limit it to 2 players.

Court is like Chess. It is a game of maneuvering with cards, where each player is trying to back the other player into a corner where he has no possible play that will save him. However, because the game ending conditions require the winning player to narrow the margin of victory in order to actually bring the game to an end, it is often quite possible to go from losing to winning in one turn. The play time for games range between 5 minutes (when someone makes a big mistake) and 30 minutes (for the intense back-and-forth matches). So, in that respect a game of Court varies like Chess, but with a much lower upper-limit. Court is also different from chess because players don't have perfect information. As a card game, it involves chance and hidden information. As a result, luck does play a role in Court, contrary to Chess. Thank god though!

The problem with Chess is that the difference in people's skill level always determines the winner and someone always loses because they make a mistake. So, it can be frustrating and discouraging to play to Chess. Court does have just as many different choices as Chess to make skill significant in determining who wins. But, because you can't see what the other person has, people can also attribute their loss to bad-luck, or being fooled, not any particular mistake that they make.

Unfortunately, because (known but especially unknown) mistakes ultimately do determine who wins, it doesn't work well for a multiplayer game. Imagine playing Chess with four people, each with the same set of pieces and the game ended whenever one player captured another player's king. In that environment, it would be possible for you to lose due to no fault of your own... because someone else lost their king. That would be no fun at all!

Now, you can fix this problem by making it such that only the person who loses his king is eliminated. But, the result is that you encourage gang-up on the leader behavior, or just plain gang-up on one person activity. However, since there is always the victor's inheritance problem of any strategic alliance to eliminate a player, and any resources that you devote to attacking another player leaves you vulnerable to being attacked yourself, smart players will moderate their unfriendly behavior. But, once someone makes a sub-optimal play, they ruin the game for everyone else by giving an advantage to the person who benefits by that sub-optimal play. Of course, players can react to this by turning on the person who benefits, so there are no doubt some interesting meta-level dynamics here that are worth pondering for the real game enthusiasts. But, for most people, this level of strategy is just plain not fun.

I noticed while playtesting this game that people loved to conspire and eliminate other people's nobles. People got real satisfaction out of wiping out other people. But, in their exuberance, most people could rarely foresee the full consequence of their actions, so the game would end by surprise, or at least surprise to the person who didn't see the consequence. This left everyone else (and even the winner sometimes) disappointed, and, in the long term, encourages people to kibitz so as to not lose by someone else's play.

As a result, the game had a lot of competing gameplay concerns that complicated the game design. Fundamentally, I wanted people to have fun, so I needed to eliminate all the things that would interfere with that such as losing by someone else's mistake, but also the paralysis that seemed to occur once everyone was at least 2 moves away from ending the game. Unfortunately, I was never able to figure out a way to fix these two problems in multiplayer games without making it more unfun.

The only possible outlet that I can see for solving the problem is to make it a last man standing game. If someone else's mistake is their own loss, but you are still in the game, then it doesn't matter how well they play. In fact, them playing poorly actually mixes up the strategic environment since everyone else has to compensate. But, in light of games like Bang! and Illuminati, where you can be (actually or just effectively) knocked out of the game very early because of the ability for everyone to gang-up on one person, I wanted Court to end for everyone all at once. I didn't want to have people sitting out, while everyone else finishes. Especially, since in most of these games, it is possible (and in fact, more likely) for the game to go on significantly longer after just one person is eliminated, I didn't want Court to end like that.

But, as a two player game, all these problems become positives. What is mediocre with three or more players becomes excellent for two. Court is an excellent two player game. It is my favorite game that I have made so far because it is excellent as such. It is simple, fast and yet rich with strategic complexity. It is really a game to rival Chess. I actually think it's better. After all, you only need a pack of cards to play.

Day 36: Reading and More Stressing

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 17:23:30 GMT

I made my way through more of Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France today, stopping periodically to think about the structure of my overall dissertation. The book is testing my reading skills, or rather my reading discipline.

Burke flurries a lot of flowery language throughout the text in his all-out assault on the atheist dogmatists whom he sees responsible not only for outbreak of the French Revolution itself, but also for the turn that it is about to take. Although interesting, the level of rhetoric in his writing sometimes reaches a point where I'm not convinced that there is much more substance left. As such, I find myself frequently torn by the internal question: Is reading more a waste of my time? Especially since this is only tertiarily connected to my project, it isn't always clear to me that I should continue. But, just when I reach that point, Burke writes something apropos.

I find myself in this dilemma a lot. I find myself wondering whether I should stop because my time is better spent elsewhere. However, at the same time, I also struggle with all the stress that occurs when I treat books like this. It is extremely stressful for me to read a book because I think I can "use" it for something else. Since I need to know EVERYTHING, there is a dueling tension between spending the shortest time on each piece as is necessary to understand its essence (and how I can use it) but also reading everything to make sure that I don't miss anything. My natural passion and curiosity often gets shunted to the side when I work on my dissertation.

Writing my dissertation stresses me out because, for one reason or the other illusory or real, I feel like I need to be perfect. If I miss something that has been said by someone else then I may risk being completely redundant or just flat out wrong. I'm not sure why I feel this way. I think it is probably better to just see this exercise as necessary to gain the training commensurate with the office, and that mistakes are just as good toward that end as successes. But, somehow I can't bring myself to put things into perspective. I feel like I have to know all my shit, cover all my bases and understand everything (on my topic) despite the fact that this is not healthy. It might be because of my own nature or due to the 'know-it-all' hostility of academia, but it doesn't matter. It causes me a lot of stress.

I want to read Burke just for the hell of it - just because it's interesting and he uses great rhetorical language. But, I can't. I fall into bad habits. On the other hand, reading for the sake of reading is itself a habit that can be bad. Because I've wasted so much time already, I don't have all the time in the world to let it come together. I have always written papers on a deadline while managing a lot of stress. In the past, it has been easier because I could limit the scope of my topic to specific readings... or wax generalities because it was only an exploratory paper for class. But, at this level, I'm not being told what to read. I have to find that out for myself, and then sort through what's important.

They say med school and law school is difficult. It has its own stresses no doubt. But, try learning something to the point of expertise without anyone telling you where to look. Our society is full of experts. It rewards experts handsomely and thus it encourages the drive to expertise. Unfortunately, more often than not this results in a drive to pretention by those who have not the age to attain that expertise or a huge amount of stress.

Ultimately, the process is what is important, not the product. But, that perspective is too often lost in the process for me. It all comes from the fact that once I get to writing, I always feel like I don't know what I'm talking about. That I need to defend my observations with citations from other people who DO know what they are talking about. Sometimes, I wish writing a dissertation was more like making games, where there is no right answer. There is only countless attempts to make other people feel good. Happy, have fun, enjoy yourself.

Day 35: Uneventful Solstice

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:34:40 GMT

Unless you count last night as today, nothing much happened today worth noting. I woke up not too long after noon and decided to accept my punishment for being out so late last night by getting up out of bed immediately. Surprisingly, I didn't actually feel too bad. I had gotten enough sleep for the REM cycle, and besides, it always takes 2 days for sleep deprivation to catch up to you. Looking forward to tomorrow.

I put in some time at Panera, mostly reading Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, writing notes on it and jotting down a philosophical thought once in a while. I came home and waited for my dad to come home to eat. We had leftover lasagna from when Ross and Beth were here, along with some green beans and asparagus. It was good. And so was the conversation with mom and dad. However, I was already getting tired so I headed upstairs well before midnight. I took my shower and worked on the computer until I fell asleep.

Summer solstice is always a bit of a depressing day for me. Even though it is the longest day of sunlight in the year, it is also the longest day of sunlight in the year. For the next six months, I will be losing that daylight that I cherish. Man, those Icelanders have it good during the summer. If only it could be light out between 4am and 2am here. At least, being able to see both the dawn and dusk of this solstice was a good consolation.

Day 34: Melodramatic Me

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:39:36 GMT

For one reason or the other, I was quite stressed out yesterday afternoon. As the day wore on, the upsetting feeling subsided and I began to see some good reasons to not be so melodramatic. Nevertheless, blogging up until now has been stressing me out. Rather than serving its original purpose to let Rizwan know that I am alive, I had started to instill this posting thing with some greater purpose. How typical!

In any case, I do plan to not be as serious and anxious as I have been. I don't know exactly how I'm going to do that, but I have a feeling it will come from posting less information each day, being less concerned about how it is presented & organized and not worrying about keeping it updated every day. Of course, once a project gets started it tends to take on its own momentum and it is prone to get out of control.

As for what happened to me yesterday, I had an interesting conversation with three 13/14 year old boys in Panera who sat down next to me with Subway sandwiches and soda in Panera's water cups. I realized in talking to them that it is actually very easy to get along with young teenagers as long as you don't judge them and you don't treat them like they are younger/lesser than you. If you avoid this, they are actually quite willing to 'hang' with an adult, you might say dangerously so.

I went into the city despite my melancholy because the one Goth event that I have been eagerly awaiting took place last night. Contempt only takes place once a month, but it is organized by a bunch of graduate students in NYC as well as some independent Goth/Industrial folks. They actually all volunteer since the event has been not-for-profit since its inception 10 years ago. The crowd is older than most of the other clubs (I think that I was about the average age!) and they play a lot of the 80s Goth. They were cross-promoting with the Cure concert in MSG that night, as well as London After Midnight, also playing that night.

I got to talking to one of the volunteers and he introduced me to lots of people throughout the night, including the backbone organizers of the event. Matt is a political philosophy PhD, so needless to say we talked among ourselves a lot. I also had a long conversation until closing (4:00am) with a raver of late and super-sharp girl named Christina. It was a fun. I had to wait until the morning train though. As you can guess, I'm a little tired right now.

Oh, yeah, I hit Cafe Espanol for dinner before the club. The prices are good, and they have a good range of dishes, but I felt that the food had a little too much butter and garlic. Which is saying something from me.

Day 33: See Day 31

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:25:03 GMT

Oh, and, yeah, it was mom's birthday today. I think she had a good time. My dad put out some flowers after midnight that I saw when I got up at 4:30am! After work, dad took mom and I out to Sole in town to celebrate. We had drinks and dinner, in that order. My parents split a pizza which they tried to get me to eat. But, I told them that it didn't seem too enticing to me on account of the fact that I had just gotten back from eating dinner with my (old high-school) friends, Rob and Chris at the Ginger Man in SoNo.

But I also talked with them about the fact that I don't really crave things high in carbohydrates much any more. I have been making my own post-Atkin's foodie diet as of late by following my cravings for meat, vegetables and fruits as well as my desire for excellent, well-prepared and matched, food. As a result, I usually end up eating only a little bit of the rice, potato or bread that goes along with most entrees. Rob and Christ actually noticed this earlier and asked why I left a pile of sweat-potato french fries on my plate. I told them I was good with just the bbq pork sandwich (which for some reason while I was ordering I had forgotten was a sandwich).

For entrees at Sole, Mom order her favorite dish there, the halibut, dad got the lamb and I got the beef carpaccio. Even though the entrees were a little expensive, and I would have preferred to split up that price among a number of small dishes (instead of how restaurants force you to eat more food to keep their average check up), everything was cooked well. Nothing was experimental, but it all tasted good. And, considering how there were a number of other enticing classic, non-pasta, Italian appetizers on the menu, I would definitely consider going back. My parents are actually part of the regulars there. They really enjoy talking to both the owner and the sommelier/bar tender each time they go. So, this time, my mom got surprised with a Tiramisu from them. It was also good.

As a little gift for my mom, I got her some chocolates from the candy/chocolate store in New Canaan (which, as is now the convention, I do not link because it is not worth helping people find something that is not worth going to). I picked up a half a pound of the bon-bons that they sell earlier in the day. But, I will not go back there again. The person at the counter was a little pushy and the place is not comfortable, and the bon-bons suck. I haven't yet had the heart to tell my mom that I feel bad about getting those for her. I figure that the worst thing you can do is give a gift and then apologize for it. But, I had a taste and they are nothing like Leonidas or La Maison du Chocolat. Too bad that chocolate pralines won't keep, otherwise, I would have gotten her some the last time I was in the city.

Day 32: One Month Later

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:53:21 GMT

I left Los Angeles a month ago, but I'm not sure how much I actually left behind. So far, it seems that most of Los Angeles has come with me, minus the whole physically be present thing. My apartment is still vacant due to the management company dragging their feet. I informed them a week before I left that I would no longer be in Los Angeles at the end of May, but that my roommates and I had another friend that we would like to turn the lease over to. Unfortunately, and completely predictably, PBM has yet to "approve" Shelby.

Based upon the ordeal that we had to deal with in order to get the place last year, I'm not surprised. The owner requires that every single occupant makes 3 times the annual rent for the entire place, or everyone needs a co-signer. I'm not sure exactly who they expect to rent the place when they require an income level at which most people start to consider buying, but both Riz and Shelby have decent, well-paying jobs all-things-considered. It's silly, especially considering how Shelby was willing to sublet from me on an ongoing basis. But, we decided to play it legit and talk to PBM. And, in the meantime, I have to pay.

On a lighter note, I have managed to maintain most of my correspondence with everyone in Los Angeles. Since I spent most of my days and nights in ISO or Kerckhoff while I was in Los Angeles and Riz, Kim and I kept so radically different schedules, I actually didn't spend that much time with most of my friends. Most of the time, it was just phone calls, IMs and emails. Seeing how I have yet to fully acclimate to EST, the timing of talking, chatting and writing has not changed very much. At times, I wonder if some people know that I'm not in LA.

I haven't changed the time on my computer or my watch and I continue to keep my look probably LA starving-philosopher chic: skinny jeans and tight-fitting tees. Although I own a number of polos and collared shirts for going out, now that I live smack dab in the middle of where EVERYONE wears them (women and men alike), I can't bring myself to put one on. I used to represent the east coast by donning polos in LA, but I can't bear them here. I think it may be slowly driving my mom nuts, but I keep to the t-shirts. She has noticed that everything that I wear matches and a lot of it "looks good", but still "we need to keep up appearances."

The schedule that i keep has remained about the same, as you all have noticed by now. I get up, eat breakfast/lunch, go to the cafe and come home in time for a late dinner when I'm not up to something else for the day and go to bed late. But, it is still not enough time to do everything that I want to do. With so many things that I need to do in order to keep my sanity, I think that I am driving myself crazy. Unfortunately, I can't 'prioritize' most of them out of my life right now for one reason or the other, despite the fact that it really needs to happen.

The issue of discipline, scheduling and prioritizing was the topic of conversation over dinner tonight with mom, and eventually dad. I got home from Panera just before 10pm and prepared myself dinner from some leftover food in the refrigerator. I reheated the barbeque beef that my dad brought back from Ash Creek Saloon on Monday and quickly microwaved some broccoli. Not quite as good as steaming it, but I didn't feel up to doing more dishes. So, I sat down at the table and ate while mom talked with me about why I looked so overwhelmed. When dad arrived 30 minutes or so later, he joined in the conversation.

Fortunately, our discussion soon diverted to discussing the (detrimental) effects that Tiger Woods has had on the golf industry. Since Westchester Country Club used to host the Buick Classic before the tournament organizers decided to move it this year to another course in New Jersey because "Tiger doesn't like Westchester", it is particularly ironic that Tiger is now out for the season with a knee injury. WCC will still get its settlement from the tournament though, since the organizers had to break their long-term contract with the club in order to host their Tiger-less event. Neither my dad nor I are sure that any real lesson has been learned in the process though, since professional golf has come to be completely organized around its phenom.

Once it seemed like the conversation had run its course, I went upstairs to take a shower. Regardless of whether or not I have been overwhelmed, I was definitely tired. After I got out of the shower, I put on the Gryffindor shirt that I've been using as a pajama top along with my dark pajama pants, I turned off my computer and I went to bed. No IMs or emails for me tonight.

Day 29: Father's Day for the James Family

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:34:10 GMT

I woke up to the alarm on my cell phone and turned it off. I woke up again around 11am and finally decided to get out of bed. After responding to some email, I called up my brother to find out when he and Beth planned to show up. Ross said soon. I was expecting them around 5 or so based upon what mom had told me earlier in the week. But, Ross and Beth had already passed the Sikorsky bridge on the Merritt Parkway up by Milford and were going to be at the house in less than 20 minutes.

Considering that I had had the run of the house since Tuesday, I needed every minute of that time to get the house back in order. I quickly put on some clothes and went downstairs to clean up the dishes. I also needed to put away the candles that I had left around the house from the blackout. Finally, I closed the doors upstairs as well as the doors to the living and dining room area. Ross and Beth have a dog named Rosie, who is inclined to eat toilet paper if you let her. When Rosie comes with them to visit, mom tries to isolate her in the family room by closing all the doors. Since I'm allergic to dogs, I also wanted to make sure to enforce that procedure.

After shutting the door to my room, my parents room and the bathroom, I came down stairs to greet my brother and his wife as they pulled up to the house. They got out of their Honda Element and we greeted each other with hugs. Rosie came up to me as well, but quickly make nothing of it. Rosie had calmed down a lot since when I last saw her.   I helped Ross carry one of their bags inside while I congratulated Beth on her pregnancy. She just finished her first trimester. Go new James kid!

We talked for a little bit before Beth directed us to find some food. Although she was particularly hungry right then, over the past three months she had actually lost weight due to the pregnancy. For a while, she was repulsed by the smell of most food and so she dropped more than 5lbs. By this point, it was over though and she has been feeling hungry as normal. So we decided to head out to Cherry Street East for lunch.

There, Ross and Beth ran into a member of the wait staff whom they knew from their time teaching at St. Luke's in New Canaan.   He told them about his current situation before we were seated at a booth to eat. Ross ordered a chicken sandwich, Beth had a bbq chicken wrap and I got the Vermonster Burger: a beef patty cooked medium rare with extra crispy bacon and cheddar on an english muffin. I chose the wellness of the meat. The quality of my burger was significantly better than the salad I got the last time I went to Cherry Street with my parents.

Since Ross had made plans to play some disc golf in Waveny with Erik, we had them wrap up the leftovers, paid the check and headed back to our place.   We ended up having plenty of time to spare before Erik showed up. So, Ross, Beth and I hung out on the patio outside the house and everyone looked for something to read. I broke out my computer and tried to recruit Ross to edit my game materials for Court. When Ross was in college he majored in English. Since working at St. Luke's, he has taught English to middle school grades as well. So I figured I could appeal to his professional expertise in helping me to polish up my rules. Eventually, he agreed and I told him I'd email him the material.

When Erik showed up, they told him the news about her pregnancy and more congratulations were expressed. Then they discussed all the other news in their lives since last getting together. After they hit upon most of the details, Erik and Ross invited me out to play with them, but I declined so that I could do more work on my computer. I also did not look forward to the idea of trouncing around the woods the day after a thunderstorm. So, they went off without me.

While they were gone, I worked on the computer while Beth read her new book by Jodi Picoult called Mercy. When Erik and Ross got back, I invited Erik to stay for dinner. I had already begun defrosting four of the tenderloin steaks which mom had picked up a while ago from Wegman's while they were teaching at Cornell. I told him that we planned to grill some filet on the barbeque and prepare some asparagus and crescent rolls for dinner and he accepted. Only, the barbeque still wasn't working.

Even though we installed the replacement part that the grill manufacturer had sent us for the cracked seal on the tube that connects the propane to stove, it still didn't light properly. After giving it a couple of tries, we got the first two burners to light, but they had minimum intensity. The flames on the burners looked exactly as they did a couple of weeks ago before mom cleaned the whole grill - small and not even capable of registering a temperature on the grill's thermometer. So, we went with the back-up plan and put the electric grill insert on the stove top.

The stove actually worked out fairly well once Ross recommended that I lay aluminum foil down inside the stove cavity. I put Ross in charge of the meat while I cooked everything else. So, he seasoned the steak with a rub and hit the grill. Everything turned out nicely. All four of us ate the steak dinner and had a good conversation. Then Erik and I made our exits simultaneously. I had to leave to pick up my parents from the airport.

I got in mom's car and headed down to LaGuardia again. I managed to run the entire Merritt without a snag, but as soon as I entered the Hutch, the traffic slowed down considerably. Although not as slow as the last time I picked up my parents at the airport, it was backed up much farther from entrance to 95 this time. I spent an additional 30 minutes or so in traffic, but eventually I got to LaGuardia. As it turns out, my parents spent an additional 45 minutes circling the airport, so I had to wait for them. The police were not nearly as vigilant as cops at LAX in forcing cars to move so fortunately, I was able to wait in one place.

Once my parents got to the car and we got back home, the family sat down for some drinks. Before Father's Day was officially over, Mom was able to present Beth with a Mother-to-Be gift of 4 or 5 tasteful maternity outfits, my parents gave us all some souvenirs from Key West in the form of photos and rum cakes and my dad got a chance to open up his gifts. I think he liked the tie I picked up from the Barney's Warehouse Sale at the Santa Monica Airport in February, but it's pink. So, you never know.

Day 28: Rained Out

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:35:17 GMT

I went into the City to see Faith again this afternoon. Our plan was to discuss business related matters for a couple hours when I got over to her place around 4:30pm, then head out to a Spanish tapas restaurant called Cafe Espanol located in SoHo and finally hit the Goth Club Salvation just a couple blocks away from the restaurant after a leisurely dinner. That plan completely fizzled with the rain that started to come down the second that I stepped off the subway platform on 30th Avenue.

Still unaccustomed to checking the weather, I planned for a night on the town similar to last weekend. In my messenger bag, I carried with me a black t-shirt for the club, my journal, my sunglasses and a bag of carrots. I was wearing a white tight-fitting tee, some dark dress slacks and my pair of white Roma shoes made by Addidas. I had cash on me, my ID, a flyer for the club and directions to the restaurant. I was all set for another night out in the city. Only, the conditions had changed.

While I was on the train, the sun disappeared behind clouds and the weather cooled off. Once I hit the street, a little bit of rain hit me. Initially, I thought "how quaint". Since I was only a few blocks away from Faith's place, I would get to her place before the flashes of lightning looming on the horizon arrived and we could talk until the storm passed. Four hours later, hungry and having discussed almost everything besides business, the rain was still coming down. Actually, the rain was coming down harder.

Since we were both hungry by this point, we decided to skip the trip all the way out to Soho and try out the cafe across the street. We crossed the river of water running down 29th street and headed inside without getting too soaked. Unfortunately, once inside we discovered that the restaurant was already packed and the only seating available was at the bar. After looking at the menu for a second, Faith asked me if I wanted to go someplace else where we could sit at a table and I agreed. She mentioned a couple of places a couple of blocks down the street that served Greek food, so we braved the rain again.

After jumping between awnings for about a block, Faith decided to buy an umbrella, the rain was so bad. The umbrella helped us walk along the sidewalk all the way to the train platform, at which point we encountered an impassable deluge of water on the intersection underneath the elevated trains. I saw some people cross, but I was not willing to have to wear a wet pair of socks for the rest of the night, so we climbed up the train platform to cross over the street. After waiting under the roof of the subway right in front of the turnstiles with 50 or so like-minded New Yorkers, we decided to brave the remainder of the trip to Athens Cafe once it seemed like there was a downturn in the intensity.

We managed to make it to the cafe without getting drenched and sat ourselves down at a table in the middle of the restaurant. As we waited for service to bring us menus, then waiting to place our order, then waiting to order entrees, then to get dessert and then the check, we ended up talking a whole lot more. All-in-all, we were at the restaurant for close to two hours as the service seemed in no rush to actually serve us. We split an appetizer with a combination of spreads to dip pita in and I had the Sheftalia Platter of Greek style meatballs as an entree.

Both the food and the atmosphere were disappointing and overpriced. Both Faith and I got mixed vegetables with our entrees that looked like they were from a microwaveable bag and french fries... authentic. The meatballs were not good and there was a hypnotic fast-paced electronic beat constantly playing in the background. On more than one occasion, I wondered where they kept the dance floor. And, the bill ended up being more than a trip to Comme Ca, Fraiche or Orris. Got to love NYC, awful but pricey.

With the rain still going at the end of our meal, clubbing seemed to be washed out for the night. So, we headed back to her place and talked a little more. Around 12:30am or so, I grabbed my bag and headed back to the platform to hopefully catch a ride on the subway to Grand Central before the last train to Darien left.

Fortunately, the rain had finally subsided when I left her building, so I got onto the N train just fine. While riding, the subway, as consolation for my failed attempt to go clubbing, I had the pleasure to watch an older lady with a small pink hello kitty backpack, giant 5 dollar sunglasses and stripped tights play a recorder-harmonica for our car. I missed the audio performance though, choosing to keep my iPod on in my ears instead while I focused on the book I'm reading right now for philosophical research called The Surrendered Wife.

I managed to make it to Grand Central in time enough to take a photo of my fellow late night travelers before getting onto the train to New Haven. I sat down in an empty row of seats where I could put my feet up which was across from an Asian girl with flip-flops, an umbrella and a disposable wrist-band on each arm. I turned up my music, took my book out and read as the train departed the station.

As it turned out, the girl was getting off at the same stop as me, so when I got off the train I could hear her walking behind me. It was a bit strange, considering how far I had parked from the platform, but she continued to follow behind me. Since I had wanted to actually ask her about the clubs she had gone to tonight since we were on the train, I felt a little like Orpheus walking to my car. Did I trust fate or not? Well, I got to my car, put my bag in the trunk, and opened my door. But, before I got in, I took the opportunity to ask her where she had been as she was walking to her car about fifteen feet or so from me.

She mentioned that she had just come from a place called Webster Hall in the East Village, a large club with multiple rooms of music. Apparently, she is a student at NYU home for the summer and she had gone into the city to meet her friends at the club early in the night. She recommended that I try it out some time since they have lots of rooms. But, unfortunately, she also revealed that she personally didn't really like the club because she thought the guys there are kind of creepy. So, I laughed and wished her a good night.

I drove home and managed to get to sleep by 3:30am this time.

Day 27: 31 Going on 13

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:48:47 GMT

I saw my best friend from grade school today.

Jeff and I originally met at the Christian Nursery School behind the Presbyterian Church on Scarborough Road when we were both 4 years old. That year we worked together on a number of complex projects, such as making decorations for Thanksgiving with construction paper, learning to ride a tricycle in the playground and finding the one rock in the Rock Pea soup (actually newsworthy in the local newspaper!). Despite the lasting bond of friendship formed under such adversity, we never went to school together again after that.

Since Jeff lived in Ossining, NY while I lived in Briarcliff Manor, we were not in the same school district. Jeff's family did belong to the Sleepy Hollow Country Club though, the same club that my dad managed. So, we continued to see each other quite often while I lived in Briarcliff. Jeff and I played golf together, played tennis, ping-pong and squash together at the club. During the summer, we hung out at the pool, swam for the swim team and dove for the diving team. We also hung out at Holiday events at the club and spent countless days over at each others' houses throughout the years. We played games like Mike Tyson's Punch Out on the Nintendo, watched Thriller for the first time on MTV and played Beyond Zork and King's Quest on the computer when we weren't outside wondering through the woods, fishing or getting into trouble. We went trick-or-treating together, were part of the same Boy Scout troop and played in the same Little League.

After my family moved to New Canaan and I started High School though, we slowly lost contact. There was a point after college where I don't think that we corresponded for over 5 years. However, one day while at 2050 Bentley, I woke up at night and knew that I had to get in contact with him again. So, I write Jeff a letter Our friendship was rekindled when I came back for a week that Christmas and for the last four years I've tried to stop by and see him each time I've been on the east coast.

Over the last year, we haven't been in contact too much though since he was traveling around the world a lot to places like India and Honduras. But on Thursday, I thought that I'd shoot him an email to see if he wanted to get together now that we're both living in the area. He called me back that afternoon and asked if I wanted to head over to Ossining for lunch Friday. I said sure.

While I've been living in Los Angeles, Jeff has been living in NYC. However, we are both now living at home. Coincidentally, Jeff moved in with his parents back in the middle of May, just as I was moving out of Westgate. While I was over at his house, I discovered some other strange similarities. Apparently, both of us decided to use this opportunity of being home again to take out all our possessions that our parents have stored for us since we were kids and sort through them. And, of course, both of us only got half-way through it by the time we realized we need to get to work again and left everything open and spread out across the basement floor.

Both of use like to cook, go out to eat at small plate/tapas restaurants and have been educating ourselves on food over the past couple of years. We both hold similar views on the need for political economic mechanisms of accountability, believe that people only learn by seeing the consequences of their actions and tend to be a bit cruel to our friends as a result. We are both currently struggling to create a place for ourselves in the work-force that conforms to our beliefs in integrity, knowing full well that people are prone to pursue only their own self-interest at the expense of others. It was good to catch up.

I pulled into his place around 12:30pm and parked on the side of the street. His dad and older brother were in the process of sealing the drive way. I said hello and met Jeff at the door. After giving his mom a hug, we went to a local deli to pick up sandwiches for everyone. When we came back, Jeff and I sat on the patio and talked over wedges. That conversation continued as Jeff was called to do a variety of things around the house. The cleaning ladies needed help opening the windows in his parent's bedroom, the sliding mirror closet door was off its track and needed to be fixed and the artificial pond in the back needed to be filled up. We were also charged with picking up 3 more drums of sealer, so we drove to Home Depot in his Hyndai SUV.

By the time we finished helping out around the house, it was almost time to leave for the game. Jeff and his parents invited me to see the Mets play the Rangers in box seats that night. So, Jeff and I killed a half an hour or so before we had to leave by playing Call of Duty 4, his recent addiction. I was thoroughly trounced. Then all four of us got into his parent's Cadillac and headed out to the game.

It was like I was 13 again. When we were younger, Jeff and I had been taken to a number of Mets games by his parents. We would grab our baseball mitts, hop in the back seat of the Cadillac and his parents would drive us to Shea stadium for the day. This time, we didn't have any mitts with us, but we definitely had better seats. We were sitting at field level, front row, right behind where the Mets players warm up. We could literally reach out and touch the players as they swung their bats. Not only did we have an excellent view here, we also got menu service. To start, Jeff and his mom got Budweiser Selects and his dad and I got Heinekens. Later on, we also ordered hot dogs.

The game was fun. Aside from losing my mental clarity on account of the beer, it was very nostalgic. I did have to remind myself though that most of the players on the field are younger than me now though. The Mets were winning 7 to 1 when we left at the beginning of the eighth inning. On the drive home, we listened to the Mets close out the game on the radio. After we got back, I talked with both Jeff and his parents about their pets throughout the year and Jeff showed me his dad's night-vision goggles.

His dad used to be in the Marines, so they've always had an assortment of military equipment around the house. Apparently, they've had these goggles for a while and Jeff had just been fooling around with them a couple days ago. We went onto the patio and turned out all the lights. It is quite amazing how many more stars you can see with these lenses, and what kind of effect they have on the yard in the moonlight. It was as if it were daylight, except without the color.

After his parents went off to bed, Jeff and I stayed up to talk for another half an hour and then I had to head out. It was only a 35 minute drive back to my place. Nothing compared to my time in LA.

Day 26: Bird Shit on Mom's Car

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 07:39:06 GMT

I wish I could speak plainly in an interesting way. It seems to me that good novelists are able to do just that. But, this ability can be useful for almost anything, whether it's journalism, writing emails or in my case, writing rules for games.

Today, I spent a good three or four hours editing the rules to Court for clarity. The content did not change, just the form. After noticing a grammar mistake on the very first word of the blurb on the back of the box cover that I had created two days ago, I realized that the blurb altogether stinks. It was boring or confusing or both. Not only could I do a better job on the whole sales pitch, I needed to do a better job because no one is going to correct me. On this particular project, I am in the driver's seat with only myself as a navigator. Unfortunately, sometimes I wonder if I actually can do a better job.

Writing (and reading) has never really been my strong point. Either in papers, or emails or game rules, I often write more than I have to and yet not enough. I tend to create language that is methodical and thus comprehensive, but also lackluster in presentation precisely because it is methodical. I overwhelm and underwhelm at the same time because I approach most communication analytically. But, it seems to me that people rarely think that way, let alone learn something that way.

It has never been difficult for me to show someone how to play one of my games. Usually, they pick it up before I finish explaining it to them. Partly, this is because I design games that are conceptually simple, but mostly this is because I have the game right in front of them to demonstrate how it is played while I explain. People are very fast learners when something is demonstrated to them. But, that requires both someone and something to demonstrate.

I learned a long time ago to not even bother describing a game to most people without a prototype in hand. A select few fellow game designers are actually able to conceptualize and comment on nothing but a description or a rules set, but most people do not think that way. More than anything, most people need to see it played. Unfortunately, once my game goes to a distributor, this becomes impossibly difficult to me to continue to do. Although I've seen attempts by designers and publishers to put demos of games online, most of the players will end up learning the game from the rules sheet, or from a friend who learned the game from a rules sheet. As a result, rules writing is always a challenge.

A set of rules for a game is similar to an instruction manual for a piece of Ikea furniture. When you open up the box, all the components fall out in no particular order and oftentimes before they even look at the instructions, the customer has already started to assemble it themselves. Even though the best product designs will have components that seem to almost fit together naturally, there are always points in the setup process that are counter-intuitive. At these points, people will finally look to the instructions. However, with the product already half-constructed, they are often loathe to start over at the beginning. Game rules have to be organized under the assumption that players will skim for the section that they need. Even Michael, an ex-publisher, game developer and my agent does this to the games he helps me sell!

Although you can never really count on the user to start from the beginning, you nevertheless have to assume the player knows nothing and walk them through the entire game one step at a time. My rules go through numerous revisions, not only for brevity, but primarily for logical structure. Each step needs to seem to follow naturally from the previous one, until all rules have been covered. Only, just like instructions for furniture, the order of the steps can be arranged in multiple different ways and still end up being assembled. Figuring out the most efficient and intuitive combination is one of the principle challenges of writing rules, I find.

But, the biggest challenge is making it interesting. People do not have attention spans for lengthy description. Their eyes wonder or they skip ahead if they see a lot of text. So, everything needs to be divided and you can never go wrong with including pictures. However, it is also incredibly important to keep the wording plain. All too often, I catch myself slipping into the third person over the course of writing and I have to correct it because most people really just want personalized directives. Straightforward and simple I have to remind myself whenever I feel tempted to include more clarifying language.

With so many things to watch out for, I ended up reworking the both the intro and the rules themselves a number of times this afternoon. I continued at it even after it got dark and the restaurant closed. This time, I didn't accidentally get overlooked. I had moved out onto the patio to manually edit the rules with my pens when I discovered that I was getting too cold inside. The late afternoon sun was a welcome change from the freezer box which is main-stream American corporate restaurants. So, I simply stayed outside until I was ready to get into my car and leave.

As I was driving out of the parking lot in mom's car though, I noticed a lot of white shit splatter on the front and back windshields. When I got back home, I looked over the car and saw that the moon roof of the car was also hit quite badly by the birds. Since I had the car parked all day next to the exit at the back of the movie theatre, I suspect that a number of birds targeted my car as they took off from the roof. However, what I can't really understand in the whole process is why they hit just the windows. Neither the ground near where I parked nor the silver body of the car had any significant splatter. Clearly there must be some method to the shitting patterns and preferences of birds. I wonder what it is.

Day 25: A Beautiful Day Inside

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:54:41 GMT

Sunlight and silence were the first two things that I noticed when I woke up this morning. The lack of stimulation the previous night made me want to lie down on my bed, close my eyes and soon enough I was asleep without intending to do so. My subconscious managed to stir me awake again just long enough to blow out the candles and pull the bed spread over me before I totally went unconscious for the night. But, I was asleep a lot earlier than usual and I woke myself up before the alarm on my cellphone got the chance as a result.

Throughout last night, the two objects I could fall back on to keep me connected to my electrical addiction were my iPod and my cell-phone. Both fully charged, I knew that I could count on them for at least a couple of days. My laptop was much less reliable. After the two years that I have had it, the battery is now down to less than 20 minutes of battery life on a full charge. So, I never bothered to turn it on. Without electricity to the router, it would be rather pointless anyway.

When I blew out the candles last night, it was totally dark. Now, it was very bright. But, it was still silent. I had turned my bedside fan on last night so that I would know when the power returned. But, it was silent. The power was still out.

I got on my cellphone to let mom know that we were still out of power. Of all the numbers that she left on a sheet on the refrigerator for me to call in case of an emergency, it was just my luck that the power company was not one of them. The sheet has the phone number for all our neighbors, the police, the fire company, poison control and even the gas company. In case for some reason while they are gone I decide to throw a window-shaking block party for a bunch of novice drinkers who like to down bottles of SoCo, crank up the furnace during the summer-time and somehow manage to knock over a candle while everyone flees from the 5-0, my mom has it covered. When you consider the near certainty of that Rube Goldberg scenario, a thunderstorm would be simply inconceivable. So, I had to call her up to ask how to contact the electric company.

After mom told me where to find the number for ConEd, I called to report the address of our outage and discovered a recording that we'd have power back by 11am. But, seeing how I still couldn't cook or do anything in the meantime, I headed out for breakfast.

The weather was simply gorgeous. The storm front dropped the temperature and the humidity and cleared the sky. With a slight breeze and cooler temperatures, it was a perfect day to go to the beach and tan. Or, in my case, stay inside all day. Since I was now past my deadline for delivering the design materials to Z-Man, I needed to work on the computer far from the direct light. I headed to Panera.

Ordinarily, I don't get to Panera until afternoon. But, this time, I had the opportunity to get a breakfast sandwich from them. That was a mistake. When the guy told me that he might be able to whip up a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich for me even though it was after 10:30am, I should have looked closer at the menu before I said "Oh, that's exactly what I want anyway". They put swiss in the sandwich. I hate swiss cheese.

Although I can't say that my taste for American cheese is any better, I don't understand how people can stand swiss cheese. I think it must be because they don't want American. But, it is a crappy cheese that you find in sandwiches and cheese platters from the super-market. I haven't noticed it in a cheese store nor have I seen anyone forgo a nice brie, cheddar, aged gouda or blue cheese for a cube of swiss. I think that I may like American cheese on my sandwich precisely because I don't like swiss so much. Ugh.

While I consumed my ill-thought out breakfast over the next two hours, I noticed a lot of kids around me. Apparently, the students in the private schools are out of school for the summer and the public schoolers in Darien have finals right now. I found this out from a group of tweenage girls who were piled up on a sofa chair across from where I usually sit. Before asking them why they were here, I heard, among other things, them discuss the proper tone of voice to use when saying "mmhmm" on the phone while themselves talking on the phone with a friend. Fascinating!

Despite the distractions, I managed to finish a few more files for Court before I went home for dinner. With the electricity back, I was able to reheat food from the frig and watch some TV before the scheduled business call with Michael that finished off the night.

Day 24: Blackout

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:10:22 GMT

I got up early, really early for me, this morning to drive my parents to the airport again. We were out the door at 7am for their 9:45 flight to Miami. Until Sunday, they will be in Key Largo visiting a club called Ocean Reef while they attend a National Club Association meeting. They also plan to fit in a trip down to Key West to see what it has to offer other than six-fingered cats. Needless to say, my mom has been focused on Florida recently - maps, travel guides, the weather and anything else she could find. I don't think it was a coincidence that they watched CSI: Miami last night even though they had already seen the episode before.

After returning from LaGuardia, I went back to sleep. Chauffeuring is tough on the body. Either that or driving on 4 hours of sleep is, I'll let you decide. I napped for another couple of hours and then headed down to Panera again. The deadline for delivering the design materials for Court of the Medici was today and I needed every minute to get my part done.

I am basically handing over the finished, printer-ready, product to Z-Man, the publisher. Although I had gone through the entire production cycle when I self-published Straw, with Court there will be no one else to redo the art, rewrite the rules and repackage the box. This time, what I make on my computer will be on the shelves. So, I've been even more careful with Court than with Straw. It is my first attempt to be the true "design studio" as I have envisioned Evertide Games for a while now. My brand is on the line.

Other than having to relocate because Mr. Smelly sat down next to me, the day went pretty much as expected. I handled a few emails, focused on the design work and still ended up having a lot of stuff unfinished by 8pm. The box was completed though, except for the UPC code that Zev needs to give to me, and I collected all the accompanying legal/font material into adjoining folders. The rules, cards and contract were still outstanding, but I was hungry. So, I left Panera!

Ordinarily, I drive my own car, but mom said I should use hers while they are gone. So, when I got back to the house, I pulled up to the garage door and pushed the clicker. Nothing. I pushed it again. Nothing. Again. Again. I got out of the car and pushed it. I walked right up to the door thinking that maybe it was a weak battery. Still nothing. And then I looked around. Something wasn't right. I grabbed my keys and opened the side door in the dark. I flipped the switch. No light. There was no light anywhere except the beams from the headlights of my mom's car still running. Blackout!

How quaint. I can't remember the last time that I experienced a blackout, but it would be cool. I knew where the candles are, I had books to read and I still had my iPod. I would just get some food quickly and then go out again to get some work done until Starbuck's closes. Then, I came face to face with what no electricity means. Not only would I be out of the internet, lights and air-conditioning, I got that covered, I also couldn't cook. No electricity, no microwave, no stove. No fridge, unless I want the food to spoil faster. Basically, no electricity, no food.

I put the candles and matches in a place where I could easily find them again, turned the porch light switch on and went to town to eat. While driving up 106, I crossed the light line - the point where houses had power again. It wasn't actually very far from the house, but there was more lightning looming on the horizon.

While I ate at Taste of Asia, the rain came. The downpour and wind meant that the thunderstorm was going to pass directly over New Canaan. I was in for a treat. So, I finished up my Orange Beef and headed out. When I first came in, the restaurant was empty except for me. When I left there were at least three other parties dining. Considering how it was already after 10pm, this was very strange. But, I overhead one couple talk to the owners about how they too were out of power and he was planning on taking his wife and baby to a hotel tonight. Considering how the lights dimmed a couple of times while I was eating, I figured it wouldn't be too long before more people joined him.

Along the trip home, I found the streets littered with fallen branches and leaves. The street lights were now completely out south of town, as were all the lights on the houses. Ordinarily, the streets are pretty dark and you have to rely upon your headlights. Now, they were really dark. I got home, parked the car in the driveway and raced through the rain to the door. I got inside and got ready to watch the storm.

Unfortunately, it's hard to really watch a thunderstorm unless you want to get wet. So, I resigned to listening to the thunder accompany the brief flashes of light in the windows. Or, as it actually turned out, feel the thunder. There was one lightning strike that was so powerful, it shook the house. The glasses, cabinets and walls rumbled for a good 10 seconds during the period of rolling thunder that ensued. This thunder literally produced an earthquake.

Without any power, I felt like I was living the old school New England life, John Adams style. In the colonial house, I set up candles between the kitchen, the bathroom and my room and I broke out the Lyotard article. While reading, I discovered a couple of things completely unrelated to post-modernity. First, candle wax behaves a lot like pyroclastic flow. Second, once a thunderstorm is gone, it is creepy silent. Third, electricity is my friend.

Day 22: Waiting for Sleep

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:31:34 GMT

When I got up at 1pm still tired, I walked downstairs just in time to meet my parents returning for lunch. They often go out to eat at one of the diners around New Canaan after church. When they came back, they both chuckled to themselves that I was finally awake. I think they were expecting something else since my mom later told me that she had heard me come in last night/morning.

As mom handed me what was left over of her sandwich from their post-church lunch, I thought to myself, "Oh, yeah, it's Sunday. Church. How novel?!" I took the chicken wrap and headed over to the TV to see a replay of last year's Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal. Apparently, earlier this morning Nadal smashed Federer in 3 sets to win the French Open. Before I got my first bite of my lunch, I got a call from Erik. He was across the street in the Waveny Disc Golf Course and asked if I wanted to join him.

Earlier in the week, I sent him an email about getting together. As a result, I told him I'd be there in 5 minutes. I quickly put on my junkie (too big for me) jeans since there is poison ivy and ticks around here. I grabbed my lunch again, found my one remaining disc for disc golf and headed into the woods across the street. I caught up with a topless Erik at the tee for the first hole. Today was typical for summer in New Canaan, hot and a little humid.

We played the 10 holes of the course and talked about life in Fairfield County. I described some of my dissertation and we discussed his current job and living situation in Stamford. After our hour-long 'golf outing', Erik gave me a ride back to my place. We talked about future plans and he headed off to his family's barbeque. I immediately went inside and washed my hands and arms thoroughly so as to remove any possible poison ivy oils. I am very allergic. I also checked myself for ticks while I changed into a less sweaty set of clothes.

Then, I headed to Panera to get some more work done. Panera's clientele changes over the weekend. There was a disproportionate number of high school looking kids eating and hanging out on the patio outside. I kept to myself and my correspondence. At 7pm, mom called to tell me that she and dad were already on their way to Sono Seaport Seafood in Norwalk. I told them I'd join them in 20 minutes.

I had already been to the restaurant a couple times before. It is quite unsophisticated. With wooden picnic table benches in their bar area, food that they bring out "as soon as any of it is ready" and a wait staff that you have to flag down for anything, it is a far cry from the last time I dined with my parents. But, their deck overlooks the water and they have a lot of seafood at good prices. It would be a good place to go with a bunch of friends for food after getting out of the clubs. But, somehow, I don't think they stay open that late. So, I guess it would work just as well an after-work watering hole too for So-No folks.

In separate cars, we drove home. Once back, my parents got something to drink and dad and I sat down in the living room with the TV off. We talked for an hour about the National Club Association, commercial rental markets, the economics of Rochester, the furniture industry and manufacturing in America before mom returned us to their upcoming trip. I told her that I planned to run a bed-and-breakfast for foreign tourists in New Canaan for the six days that they are gone when she asked. Then, I went upstairs to bed.

During my late night shower, it occurred to me that I could use the blog structure to organize my dissertation. Since I often have smaller thoughts about aspects of the dissertation from time to time, I figured that I might be able to use the power of computer word searching and tagging to bring coherence to what is currently temporally disparate. I'm not sure what blog service I should use, now that I have already set up my standard account name with LJ and blogger for other topics. But, I'll have to put some thought into it while I sleep.