Bring Me The MacGuffin
Posted in Gaming Culture, New York City
Tagged captaincursor, New York City, problems only I have
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How My Mind Works
Caitlin and I decided to do NaNoWriMo, the novel-writing insanity. I’ve been doing really well on the daily wordcount goal, but I’m not so great with the discipline. Since I set out to write a novel, I’ve now completed two short stories, a book review, and several non-fiction columns.
Tom Shepherd and Miranda Stratford
A few days ago, I answered a couple questions about developing at Next Island over at Entropia Planets, and talked about the missions I’m adding to Next Island. I’ve talked with Entropia Times before, but it was still pretty strange to be on the other side of developer interview.
In other news, maybe I can learn to branch out from my standard “What games most influenced you?” and “What do you play in your free time?” questions the next time I’m back in my journo role.
Househunting
A couple weeks ago, I went to look at a potential apartment. The apartments I’ve been viewing were all basically the same, but the neighborhood seems to change pretty dramatically over a few blocks of walking. It was late evening as Harold and I were waiting on the steps of a lovely Brooklyn brownstone (Oh, Harold is not going to live in the apartment, he just came with me.) waiting to meet the landlord, who is meant to be letting us in.
A fellow pedaled by on his bicycle, not really bothering anyone, but clearly the bottle in his hand was not his first that evening. A police officer stopped this drunken cyclist, and while I was on the phone, trying to find the late landlord, a handful of backup officers arrived. They were cuffing the drunk biker, and searching the ground for what he might have dropped, with all kinds of implications there, and radioing for further back up, and shouting over to each other.
By the time the third cop car turned up, blocking the street and beginning a shouting match with a driver unable to pass, Harold looks over at me. “Meg? Let’s… just… go.”
I think that it’s a good idea, and we do, but actually, that’s not why I didn’t take the apartment. It was just too hard to reach the building’s landlord.
Secret Spotify
In this month’s piece for Dialect, I admit to naming playlists after crushes and ex-boyfriends, having embarrassing musical taste, not reading the fine print… and still end up feeling smarter and superior.
When someone’s online activities come back to embarrass them offline, I always just roll my eyes. It seems silly that anyone could be surprised that tweets, blog posts, or photo sharing comes back to bite them. You put it on the internet, man, of course it’s public.
When I got my Spotify invite, I was so excited to share mixtapes with long-distance friends that, well, I didn’t think through how I store my own music. The concept of Spotify, with the ability to make and share playlists, seems like a stunning cyberpunk future.
Here’s my confession, internet: A lot of my musical taste is boyfriend-influenced, and, even more embarrassingly, most of my music is sorted by guys’ names and place names.
Future
“Oh, you know,” I tell Eric, after a long discussion about our lives and our future plans, “I just want to work in games and not be worried about money.”
“Yeah, well, I want to be an immortal sorcerer,” he said, “I’m glad one of us has a realistic goal.”
Why I Majored In Classics
Arachne's Dilemma
I snapped this screenshot while testing my new missions the other day. This mission tells the story of Arachne, a young Greek woman who needs the player’s help to make a special garment for Athene, set in the Ancient Greece realm, in the MMO Next Island. This story is one of the areas where I had a bit more creative control, and I’m really pleased with how the dialogue reads, how the mission flows, how the quest reward works, and most importantly, how I got to use hubris and xenos at my day job.
(Crossposted to my dev blog)
Missing Lightsaber. $100 Reward.
Just in case you can’t read all the text, it seems the New York Jedi lost his custom lightsaber to a nefarious criminal described here as “Mr. Jerk”, but he will forgo the expected Jedi vendetta if the thief brings the lightsaber back to the local bar.
via my post on I Heart Chaos.
This? Is why I’m moving to Brooklyn.
Why I Wear Headphones At Work
Caitlin: Hey Meg? I had a question for you about your *system proposal*.
Meg: Sorry, what? I was evacuating the dance floor over here.
Posted in New York City
Tagged headphones in the office, Lady Gaga, my awful musical taste, New York City
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Bohnhoff
Stick lived in Germany for a couple years before we met, but he was on an American base, so the only German he knows is Where is the train station? and potato. (Ed. note: Stick would like you all to know that he can ALSO say Mein auto es kaput) This is plot exposition more than second-language mocking, I mean, I lived in China for two years and my Mandarin taps out at reading a menu and ordering dinner. (But, Stick, Mandarin is MUCH HARDER! Compared to Mandarin, German is practically English!)
I love my walk to work, through Koreatown, commuting though tourists taking pictures of the Empire State Building. (Plot exposition. Really. Stay with me here.)
The other day, I was walking in, when a German man stopped me to ask if I was from here, and if I could give them directions.
“Could you tell us the way to….” The husband stopped here and turned to his wife, they had a rapid discussion in German. I recognised the facial expressions and body language from my years teaching ESL, they were stuck on the next word. Actually, now that I think about it, German isn’t practically English. I couldn’t make out anything they were saying…except….
Bohnhoff.
Which means train station, and is therefore, one of the four German words I could possibly know.
So I told them where to go, and then called Stick to ask if he just pulled a really elaborate prank.
