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NDA part 2

Is it wrong of me to enjoy telling close friends, "I'm sorry but due to NDA restrictions (& related federal trade secret laws) I cannot comment on those specific details"?
I know that it's the right thing to do. After all, secrets are secrets are secrets and should stay that way - it's just a part of my moral fiber. But to enjoy doing it? I feel dirty. It's like becoming the schoolyard bully that plays "keep away" with another's prized possesion.

I think in the future, I'll just do what politicians do - deflect to another topic & draw attention away from the original question.
"It's not that imporant - hey - I hear you bought a new HDTV/Computer/Car/iPod/Toy/something or other....."
You never know, it might work?

NDA's

NDA - Non Disclosure Agreement
Best thing about them is that you can't say with whom you have them with.

Looking for new coding opportunities

I joined Critical Mass Communications a.k.a. GameSpy way back in October of 1999. And this year will be my 5 year anniversary (will I get a watch? a clock? or maybe a refrigerator magnet?).
Back then it was a tightly packed startup held together by Mark Surfas' almost mystical ability to make payroll. There was a special energy that now feels lost. Maybe that's because of the recent merger with IGN, maybe it's the loss of key personnel, maybe it's the change in management, or maybe its just because we are no longer the underdog fighting to prove ourselves?
We've won - they've lost - what do you do now? It's like all good fairy tales (anything Disney, Shrek, Moonlighting) the end of the story is when they win. No one cares about the ever after - that's because they've won, the struggle is over, and that's boring. Not to say that all ever afters are boring, August will mark 10 wonderful years of marrage to my bride ;-)
But then again - maybe we, as a company, haven't won? What if it's all a delusion? I don't know.
What I do know is that I miss that sense of working on a new frontier, on products that users actually want - I miss the small crazy/insane startup mindset.

I am motivated by
1) interesting projects
2) a sense of urgency
3) projects that end users need and want
4) a sink or swim startup mentality

so what do you do when you don't get any of that? you look around for something that can motivate you to work those occasional 20hr days again.

If you know of any opertunities, send them a link to my resume. If it's interseting & fun enough - I'll leave GameSpy. But not before then, I've got a mortgage & a family to think of ;-)

Walla

Name: Walla
Job: Creator and lead programmer on GameSpy Arcade, as well as under appreciated visionary, and according to the ever changing org chart - this week he's my boss(?)
Best Quote: "Test pilots fly free"
C0d3r Skilz: Yes
Location: Catching up on accrued vacation from 5 1/2 years at GameSpy/IGN. But I hear he'll be fixing bugs anyways...
http://www.channelzero.com

Dusting off some old code I found in the back of the closet (cursor.h)

Here's a piece of code I wrote a few years back when I needed to ensure I could load a link cursor (the pointy finger) on old Win95 systems. It's called cursor.h (syntax colored) & it does the relatively simple task of wrapping a HCURSOR (as if you couldn't guess by the inspirational file name). It's style & naming convention is patterned after the WTL (Windows Template Library) headers - mainly because there isn't one in the WTL. It would be neat if this made it into the WTL ;-) Oh. no - I'm sounding like a code fan boy. :ugh:

Enjoy.

Cult of the Red Stapler

Wow, Staples has everything. $15USD paid for my OfficeSpace fix. I find it hillarious that... 1) Swingline did not give authorization to the makers of OfficeSpace to use their staplers. 2) After the public demanded their own Red Swinglines - they finally made one. 3) Only the "Rio Red" color has packaging that reads "Collectors Edition" and "The star of any office space" (get it?) It seems like a weird "yes we're cross promoting but we're not openly marketing it as such because there is no formal agreement to do so" type relationship. I must say, that it is definitely a beautiful addition to any paperless office ;-)

Swingline 747 - Rio Red

Remember Office Space? Somehow, I don't know why, but I need a Rio Red Swingline 747 stapler. It's not like anyone is asking for TPS reports or anything like that. It's more a long the lines of wanting a tommy burger or chili dog, it's not something you want every day - but every few years you realy need one (even if you need pepto even more an hour later).

Still not in Salt Lake

And neither is my dad for his schedualed pre-transplant evaluations. I'm just confused as to what is going on at the VA travel office.
On the plus side - I'm mostly packed for a week long trip at a moments notice. I guess that's a plus?

The VA

(Hopefully) on Sunday my dad will leave Orange County and fly to the Salt Lake city VA (Veteran's Administration), find out if he is elegible to get a new heart. And maybe - just maybe - the VA travel office will be able to get him and myself there. I'm supposed to be going with him - but it seems that there is mass confusion as to what the hell is even going on.

Error message of the day

I'm sorry, but it appears that your negative experience is a statistical anomaly and most likely unreproducible under closed laboratory testing. Please move along - there is nothing to see here.
If this error is in error, please click [here] to report it so that it will frustrate our software testing staff to no end.
If this is not the first time you have received this error, then one can only assume that YOU are the statistical anomaly.
Have a nice Day.

Maybe I shouldn't read The Hitchhikers Guide books when writing error messages?

Mungo says...

SQUARE PEG! ROUND HOLE!

I can't go into details, but when one week they declare it's a life and death emergency*, and then they take 2 weeks before grudgingly agree to deploying (my) fully QA tested and approved fixes. You have to wonder what truly defines an emergency. Oh well, maybe it was less of of an emergency than previously described.

*a.k.a. losing customers

Freaky targeting

I'm going to speak in c0de t0 maybe throw 0ff g0og13. The b4nn3r ad fr0m go0g1e AdW0rdz is l34rn1ng t0 much.

Eye w0rk 4 Eye-Gee-eNn / G4m3spie on a pr0duct called Ark-aid, a game server browser product.

Ouch that hurt to write in l33t. But g00g13's targeting is spooky

Fiona doesn't like fireworks

Let's just say that maybe locking up our dog Fiona in the garage yesterday (when everyone down the street were setting off their illegal fireworks) wasn't the most perfect of plans. She was freaked to the point that drywall & the door that was supposed to be a fire door were no match for her fear of being left alone. When we first let her out of the garage - her face was white with power. We joked that she had a 5lb a day gypsum habit. But she was just, understandably, thirsty & happy to see us. Poor Puppy.

Happy 4th

Air: ~80°F
Water: ~82°F
Sunny, light breeze, UV 10 (Burn Baby Burn!)
And the dog is only mildly freaked out by the fireworks.
Now as long as I don't get burned by the grill or the sun, life will be good.

Now google thinks this site is European?

The xbox & PS2 arcade sticks I completely understand. I'm a programmer on GameSpy Arcade & I use the word Arcade a lot. But the Euro travel? Is it because I have a funky last name that they want to send me to europe??? It's only been about an hour since I added it. Maybe it will get better in time?
For the record - I was born, raised, and continue to live in the greater los angeles area of southern california - right here in the USA.

Google AdSense

Joost told me that he makes up to $10USD a month on one of his minor sites from Google AdSense, wow - I guess(?)
So as an experiment, I added AdSense ad code to the site. I didn't fill out the tax information so I won't see a dime (I don't need extra unearned income on my tax forms - I hate the marriage penalty - ugh). But I am curious to see how their statistics work. As well as how they figure out what "targeted" ads to display.
Should be educational.

Looking better

testing 1 2 3. But now something is screwy with the permalink / comment pop-ups. All the text is white (same color as the background) - until you select it & then it turns black????? That is definitely an issue for another day.

Yuck!

the layout of the blog & the CSS are, just, horific. I have got to move a few things around. But that is for another day, when I'm not working on the download manger

OK, so it needs some work

...but I finally moved my test blog into the main page. Now, I've got to work on my CSS skills.