Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Friday, October 07, 2011
... my suspicions confirmed
Listen to the start of this music:
Now, listen to this one:
Sounds like Ari Pulkkinen is an Ergo Proxy fan!
Monday, October 03, 2011
... feeling a little rage
Bethesda & id Software release RAGE this week.
Let's see how far they've come since the original FPS.
Let's see how far they've come since the original FPS.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
... what's the deal with video games anyway?
Hawken is a multiplayer mech combat game, made by a self-funded team of 11 over the course of a little over a year. It's made using the UDK (same as my old cathedral) and an art philosophy known as "kitbash" ... which gets its name from the way model makers would buy a bunch of random model kits, and cut them up to form original creations.
Trackmania 2: Canyon is an insane arcade-style racing game that thinks that racing shouldn't be about realism or running from the cops or inventing a silly Fast & Furious style fictional universe. It thinks that a video game about racing cars should be alot more like how we played with little toy cars when we were four years old. Only with 200 cars at once.
From Dust was supposed to be in the style of the old God Games like Populous or Black and White, but I am told it turned out to be more of a puzzle game. In the old games you pretty much did what you want, and by the way there may be some goals and objectives or two. It sounds like From Dust pretty much limits you to directly solving problems, without too much free play. I could be wrong. I want to try it anyway.
Quantum Conundrum is a new game lead by one of the designers of the original Portal. As you might expect, it shares quite a bit in common with Portal, though I suspect it will lack Valve's signature production value and slick writing. Highly likely to be quite fun regardless.
Darksiders was heaven & hell pulp nonsense, but it set up an excuse to have an epic ultra-violent adventure through ridiculously unrealistic environments, and was a ton of fun. Darksiders two looks to be more of the same, but promises to be twice the size (they like to promise stuff like that, no?) and a full blown RPG rather than just a straightforward hack & slash.
The Witcher 2 has been out for a while now, but I haven't played it yet because I'm waiting for the great big patch that CD Project Red inevitably releases. As suspected, the patch is coming in just another month.
And then there's Angry Birds.
Trackmania 2: Canyon is an insane arcade-style racing game that thinks that racing shouldn't be about realism or running from the cops or inventing a silly Fast & Furious style fictional universe. It thinks that a video game about racing cars should be alot more like how we played with little toy cars when we were four years old. Only with 200 cars at once.
From Dust was supposed to be in the style of the old God Games like Populous or Black and White, but I am told it turned out to be more of a puzzle game. In the old games you pretty much did what you want, and by the way there may be some goals and objectives or two. It sounds like From Dust pretty much limits you to directly solving problems, without too much free play. I could be wrong. I want to try it anyway.
Quantum Conundrum is a new game lead by one of the designers of the original Portal. As you might expect, it shares quite a bit in common with Portal, though I suspect it will lack Valve's signature production value and slick writing. Highly likely to be quite fun regardless.
Darksiders was heaven & hell pulp nonsense, but it set up an excuse to have an epic ultra-violent adventure through ridiculously unrealistic environments, and was a ton of fun. Darksiders two looks to be more of the same, but promises to be twice the size (they like to promise stuff like that, no?) and a full blown RPG rather than just a straightforward hack & slash.
The Witcher 2 has been out for a while now, but I haven't played it yet because I'm waiting for the great big patch that CD Project Red inevitably releases. As suspected, the patch is coming in just another month.
And then there's Angry Birds.
... a merry thirty first eight thirty
:D
Made by R Soul, one of many co-designers on Mission X, my seven-years-in-the-making fan-mission for Thief 2. (Which is what is featured in the video, naturally.)
My friends loaded into my new apartment from around 7:30 to 8, and proceeded to pack my fridge and counter tops full of snacks and drinks. Melodie set to work in the kitchen creating a batch of cupcakes, while everyone else dug right in while listening to four hours worth of Carbon Based Lifeforms and the Fahrenheit Project albums.
Aha, photos! You'll find plenty more on flickr if you click on any of them.
Friday, August 19, 2011
... I have the power
For an additional feel of $50 (I am converting this from EUR to USD for the convenience of my primary readers) on top of the $57 they were already going to charge me, my power has been connected. I think it's perfectly fair to call the additional fee either a bribe or a ransom. In either case, it's legal theft.
Sadly I didn't get to watch a technician conduct backbreaking work for several hours in order to supply my unit with power. He merely had to screw in one cable in the switchbox right outside my front door, flip the breaker on in the basement, and then flip the breaker on in my unit. I hope that level of exertion was allowed by his union.
On the downside, I discovered that half of my lighting fixtures and at least one wall receptacle are nonfunctional. Later I will attempt to troubleshoot by swapping bulbs, but to do that I will need a stepladder. The elegant high ceilings have a downside. The lights in the bathroom and toilet room all work fine, so at least that's good.
As consolation, I enjoyed removing the packing tape and foam from my three brand new appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher) and gave the later two trial runs (though empty and without soap) to make sure that the water was hooked up properly. Speaking of water, I wasn't able to take my first proper hot shower, but I did take my first proper lukewarm shower.
Sadly I didn't get to watch a technician conduct backbreaking work for several hours in order to supply my unit with power. He merely had to screw in one cable in the switchbox right outside my front door, flip the breaker on in the basement, and then flip the breaker on in my unit. I hope that level of exertion was allowed by his union.
On the downside, I discovered that half of my lighting fixtures and at least one wall receptacle are nonfunctional. Later I will attempt to troubleshoot by swapping bulbs, but to do that I will need a stepladder. The elegant high ceilings have a downside. The lights in the bathroom and toilet room all work fine, so at least that's good.
As consolation, I enjoyed removing the packing tape and foam from my three brand new appliances (refrigerator, washing machine, dishwasher) and gave the later two trial runs (though empty and without soap) to make sure that the water was hooked up properly. Speaking of water, I wasn't able to take my first proper hot shower, but I did take my first proper lukewarm shower.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
... living, part 4 of 3
I left the battery powered lantern on by mistake after I went to sleep. Hello taking a cold shower in the dark. Thankfully my toothpaste tube and shampoo bottles are different shapes. I'm going to buy an extra set of batteries, and some candles just in case.
I'm very pleased with the soundproofing in the apartment. I am always surprised how noisy it is outside when I open the windows or the front door. Of course back when the building was made, it wasn't soundproofing. It was just called typical construction of quality living spaced.
According to the walking directions feature of google maps, due to the lack of a proper hypotenuse in the streets between my apartment and work (it's an L shaped path), it doesn't matter how many back roads I cut through: I won't shave off any considerable travel time during the commute. I could still time the voyages to see if the software's math is in any way correct, but logically it's reasonable. Unless I can incorporate a true diagonal of a decent length into the route, there's no reason why it would be shorter.
My floorboards creak, considerably. No sneaking shall take place in my abode!
As the kitchen was designed before the existence of home appliances, the refrigerator doesn't really fit. The kitchen door won't open completely, and the fridge door can't be opened at all unless the kitchen door is mostly closed. Were this a modern apartment I'd be sufficiently annoyed, but as it stands it's just a reminder of the history of human advancement.
Even though the fireplace is nonfunctional, it bugs me that the coffee table has to sit so close to it. Maybe eventually I'll get a different coffee table. There's no configuration that works better. I've tried.
The best part of having the balcony isn't going to be relaxing on the balcony, as it's far too small for that. It's going to be telling my smoking guests, yes, you may smoke on the balcony.
I'm very pleased with the soundproofing in the apartment. I am always surprised how noisy it is outside when I open the windows or the front door. Of course back when the building was made, it wasn't soundproofing. It was just called typical construction of quality living spaced.
According to the walking directions feature of google maps, due to the lack of a proper hypotenuse in the streets between my apartment and work (it's an L shaped path), it doesn't matter how many back roads I cut through: I won't shave off any considerable travel time during the commute. I could still time the voyages to see if the software's math is in any way correct, but logically it's reasonable. Unless I can incorporate a true diagonal of a decent length into the route, there's no reason why it would be shorter.
My floorboards creak, considerably. No sneaking shall take place in my abode!
As the kitchen was designed before the existence of home appliances, the refrigerator doesn't really fit. The kitchen door won't open completely, and the fridge door can't be opened at all unless the kitchen door is mostly closed. Were this a modern apartment I'd be sufficiently annoyed, but as it stands it's just a reminder of the history of human advancement.
Even though the fireplace is nonfunctional, it bugs me that the coffee table has to sit so close to it. Maybe eventually I'll get a different coffee table. There's no configuration that works better. I've tried.
The best part of having the balcony isn't going to be relaxing on the balcony, as it's far too small for that. It's going to be telling my smoking guests, yes, you may smoke on the balcony.
Monday, August 15, 2011
... living, part 3 of 3
Welcome to my new place. Come on in.
Er, sorry. It's going to be a bit of a climb. It's on the 5th floor, and when I say 5th I mean 6th. They count their floors differently in Europe, you know. No, there's no elevator. How do you think I got such a great place in such a great location so cheap? :)
Just don't look down. Okay, you can look down all you want. I know I do!
Well we made it. And now it's time for the epic key of awesome. It's a little clumsy to use, but it makes up for it in old timey style.
And here we are...
Even without electricity, I'm feeling quite at home!
You can see the rest of the photos here. That includes shots of my old place (you can compare!) views from the windows and balcony, and boring stuff like the bathroom.
Click on the image below to Googlemap my location. Feel free to streetview it and have a look around. Right at the corner of my building is a post office, and around from that is a small grocery store. A bakery (a place to get breakfast) is half a block in the direction of the river. Amusingly, just to the south of my place is a School for Psychologists Practitioners, and across the street is a hookah lounge (it's new, and not on the street view images), ensuring that I keep the west-facing windows closed during the night on the weekend. (Because of the noise, not the smoke... I'm six stories up!)
The walk along the river is especially nice, especially when the open market is set up there. I'm about 1.2 miles from work, which is about thirty minutes by foot (campus walk style) or around the same amount of time for public transportation (because you need to wait for metros and subways) but with far less perspiration.
I have easy access to the big Part Dieu Commercial Complex (basically a mall) via a trolley that runs along Cours Lafayette. If I was feeling extra lazy I could then hop from the trolley station to the subway station and head to work that way, but it's such a roundabout route that it would probably just end up taking too much time. Instead I head south along Cours de la Liberte and grab the metro that's just past the big ancient hotel building that's directly south of me.
The nightlife in Lyon revolves around the peninsula created by the Rhône and the Saône, so when I go out at night I'll never be more than ten minutes away from home, which I've already discovered is ridiculously nice.
Well I think that about sums it up. I suppose next I could ramble about my adventures in buying stuff for the apartment, but that sounds boring. :)
Er, sorry. It's going to be a bit of a climb. It's on the 5th floor, and when I say 5th I mean 6th. They count their floors differently in Europe, you know. No, there's no elevator. How do you think I got such a great place in such a great location so cheap? :)
Just don't look down. Okay, you can look down all you want. I know I do!
Well we made it. And now it's time for the epic key of awesome. It's a little clumsy to use, but it makes up for it in old timey style.
And here we are...
Even without electricity, I'm feeling quite at home!
You can see the rest of the photos here. That includes shots of my old place (you can compare!) views from the windows and balcony, and boring stuff like the bathroom.
Click on the image below to Googlemap my location. Feel free to streetview it and have a look around. Right at the corner of my building is a post office, and around from that is a small grocery store. A bakery (a place to get breakfast) is half a block in the direction of the river. Amusingly, just to the south of my place is a School for Psychologists Practitioners, and across the street is a hookah lounge (it's new, and not on the street view images), ensuring that I keep the west-facing windows closed during the night on the weekend. (Because of the noise, not the smoke... I'm six stories up!)
The walk along the river is especially nice, especially when the open market is set up there. I'm about 1.2 miles from work, which is about thirty minutes by foot (campus walk style) or around the same amount of time for public transportation (because you need to wait for metros and subways) but with far less perspiration.
I have easy access to the big Part Dieu Commercial Complex (basically a mall) via a trolley that runs along Cours Lafayette. If I was feeling extra lazy I could then hop from the trolley station to the subway station and head to work that way, but it's such a roundabout route that it would probably just end up taking too much time. Instead I head south along Cours de la Liberte and grab the metro that's just past the big ancient hotel building that's directly south of me.
The nightlife in Lyon revolves around the peninsula created by the Rhône and the Saône, so when I go out at night I'll never be more than ten minutes away from home, which I've already discovered is ridiculously nice.
Well I think that about sums it up. I suppose next I could ramble about my adventures in buying stuff for the apartment, but that sounds boring. :)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
... living, part 2 of 3
First, I needed to accept that I couldn't do this on my own. Digging through realtor ads with the translation feature in the google browser was only going to get me so far.
The boar pick up where I left off, following up on some interesting ads I had spotted, but quickly found that they had all sold already. Quickly thereafter he found another unit via an associate of his at a realtor called Gruel. The next day I was shown the unit in question, but that venture ended awkwardly as the agent had brought the wrong key and showed me an apartment that was currently very occupied. He promised to show me the correct unit the next day.
But as the next day came, an alternative was suggested. The agent discovered that I needed to move posthaste, and the place he had meant to show me first still needed renovation work before it could be occupied again. I am not sure why he didn't just suggest the second option first, as it turned out to be better in every way.
But I'll save rambling about the new apartment for part 3 of this post.
As you might have guessed, I went for it. We were given a list of things I needed to present to the agency. The boar was about to go on vacation, so he handed off the task of assisting me to the skunk, who happily took charge. That's where things got fun.
The biggest item of worry on the list was the warranty, which is basically a cosigner. The cosigner had to be someone who could claim me as a dependent, which meant my father. They needed all sorts of great information from him, like tax documents and ID cards and so forth, along with (potentially) a letter of endorsement promising to pay anything I default on, written in French. I am told that this was all perfectly normal, and I could expect to find similar requirements from any place I wanted to rent. I will be the first to admit that this is rather unreasonable.
In the end, none of that was needed, because my father's candidacy as the warranty was rejected offhand, because he's retired. Instead, I'd have to pay a premium on my rent. How this makes sense (In order to ensure that I pay my rent, they ask me to pay more? Doesn't that make it more likely that I'll not be able to pay?) is beyond me, but it was my only option, so I took it.
Following that, I was pretended with a serious problem. I had known that I would need to pay my rent through my French bank account, and so I had scheduled a meeting to finally resolve the issue of being unable to transfer my pay directly from my employer to my account here. (I needed to set up an account with the US branch of the UK bank that I was a customer of in FR.) What I didn't know was the size of the security deposit the owner wanted up front; in the ballpark of two thousand dollars. Again, I was told (by concerned coworkers, not the real estate agents or the owners) that this was normal, expected, a pain, but that's that. As a wire transfer from my US bank to my French account was out of the question (I'd need to show up at the US bank in person to approve the transfer) I was feeling a little stressed out. In the end I had to get a cash advance from my credit card company in order to obtain the cash in time.
Why the rush, you may be wondering? As it turned out, things were even more urgent than I had realized. I thought that my lease at the current apartment (Part Dieu Park) was going to expire on the 15th. I wanted to make sure that I got the new unit by Friday (the 12th) so I could move in over the weekend. But, I was mistaken. My lease actually ended on the 9th. I discovered this fact on the 9th. Given that the business was also a hotel, they were happy to let me stay until I got the new apartment settled, for fifty euros a day. Of course.
We (the skunk and I) politely asked the real estate agent to expedite matters. They agreed, and managed to get things settled by the 11th which, I am told, was shockingly fast for this type of business. Of course when I saw their fees for their assistance, I was less interested in thanking them for simply doing the job I was paying them to do.
So I had the keys to the new apartment, but before I could move in an inspection had to be done. Rather than the inspection be between myself and the owner(as I was used to from my renting experience in Tampa) a third company was involved, hopefully to ensure neutrality in the record of issues in the condition of the unit, so when I try to get my security deposit back, it won't be my word versus the word of the owner, but the documented evidence of the inspector versus the word of the owner.
They also found lead paint in one of the walls. Just one; a wall not even a foot wide. I promise not to eat off this wall or do anything to make the paint chip. Seriously.
By the time the inspection was done and I could move in, it was too late to check out from the hotel (by a wide margin, it was almost 6 pm). I did not have a great deal of items to transfer, but the inclusion of a small oven meant that having a car to do the move would be most helpful. thankfully the moth was able to provide, and gladly offered to assist me in the move.
But when I dropped by to meet with the moth to get his car loaded with my stuff, the skunk had some bad news for me. We already knew there was no electricity in the apartment. It didn't seem important; surely there was a breaker somewhere that just needed to be flipped. But apparently it was more grave than that. The unit had been unoccupied for several months, and so the utilities company had completely cut the power. As much of their staff were currently on mandatory vacation (government enforced vacation in a government run utilities monopoly) they wouldn't be able to reconnect the power until the 22nd.
So the unit would have no electricity for 11 days.
There was nothing else to be done. I had to pay for one more day at the hotel, so I decided to spend one last night there. Most of my stuff was at the powerless new apartment, so in the morning I just loaded what was left into my backpack, and checked out. (Or tried to... they said it was too early, and to come back closer to noon. Bleh.)
So that basically leave me where I am now. The apartment has running water and furniture, so I can still live there, provided I carry around a battery powered lantern at night. I can take cold showers, and use the kitchen at work. It's going to be an interesting 11 days. (9 more days as of this writing!)
The boar pick up where I left off, following up on some interesting ads I had spotted, but quickly found that they had all sold already. Quickly thereafter he found another unit via an associate of his at a realtor called Gruel. The next day I was shown the unit in question, but that venture ended awkwardly as the agent had brought the wrong key and showed me an apartment that was currently very occupied. He promised to show me the correct unit the next day.
But as the next day came, an alternative was suggested. The agent discovered that I needed to move posthaste, and the place he had meant to show me first still needed renovation work before it could be occupied again. I am not sure why he didn't just suggest the second option first, as it turned out to be better in every way.
But I'll save rambling about the new apartment for part 3 of this post.
As you might have guessed, I went for it. We were given a list of things I needed to present to the agency. The boar was about to go on vacation, so he handed off the task of assisting me to the skunk, who happily took charge. That's where things got fun.
The biggest item of worry on the list was the warranty, which is basically a cosigner. The cosigner had to be someone who could claim me as a dependent, which meant my father. They needed all sorts of great information from him, like tax documents and ID cards and so forth, along with (potentially) a letter of endorsement promising to pay anything I default on, written in French. I am told that this was all perfectly normal, and I could expect to find similar requirements from any place I wanted to rent. I will be the first to admit that this is rather unreasonable.
In the end, none of that was needed, because my father's candidacy as the warranty was rejected offhand, because he's retired. Instead, I'd have to pay a premium on my rent. How this makes sense (In order to ensure that I pay my rent, they ask me to pay more? Doesn't that make it more likely that I'll not be able to pay?) is beyond me, but it was my only option, so I took it.
Following that, I was pretended with a serious problem. I had known that I would need to pay my rent through my French bank account, and so I had scheduled a meeting to finally resolve the issue of being unable to transfer my pay directly from my employer to my account here. (I needed to set up an account with the US branch of the UK bank that I was a customer of in FR.) What I didn't know was the size of the security deposit the owner wanted up front; in the ballpark of two thousand dollars. Again, I was told (by concerned coworkers, not the real estate agents or the owners) that this was normal, expected, a pain, but that's that. As a wire transfer from my US bank to my French account was out of the question (I'd need to show up at the US bank in person to approve the transfer) I was feeling a little stressed out. In the end I had to get a cash advance from my credit card company in order to obtain the cash in time.
Why the rush, you may be wondering? As it turned out, things were even more urgent than I had realized. I thought that my lease at the current apartment (Part Dieu Park) was going to expire on the 15th. I wanted to make sure that I got the new unit by Friday (the 12th) so I could move in over the weekend. But, I was mistaken. My lease actually ended on the 9th. I discovered this fact on the 9th. Given that the business was also a hotel, they were happy to let me stay until I got the new apartment settled, for fifty euros a day. Of course.
We (the skunk and I) politely asked the real estate agent to expedite matters. They agreed, and managed to get things settled by the 11th which, I am told, was shockingly fast for this type of business. Of course when I saw their fees for their assistance, I was less interested in thanking them for simply doing the job I was paying them to do.
So I had the keys to the new apartment, but before I could move in an inspection had to be done. Rather than the inspection be between myself and the owner(as I was used to from my renting experience in Tampa) a third company was involved, hopefully to ensure neutrality in the record of issues in the condition of the unit, so when I try to get my security deposit back, it won't be my word versus the word of the owner, but the documented evidence of the inspector versus the word of the owner.
They also found lead paint in one of the walls. Just one; a wall not even a foot wide. I promise not to eat off this wall or do anything to make the paint chip. Seriously.
By the time the inspection was done and I could move in, it was too late to check out from the hotel (by a wide margin, it was almost 6 pm). I did not have a great deal of items to transfer, but the inclusion of a small oven meant that having a car to do the move would be most helpful. thankfully the moth was able to provide, and gladly offered to assist me in the move.
But when I dropped by to meet with the moth to get his car loaded with my stuff, the skunk had some bad news for me. We already knew there was no electricity in the apartment. It didn't seem important; surely there was a breaker somewhere that just needed to be flipped. But apparently it was more grave than that. The unit had been unoccupied for several months, and so the utilities company had completely cut the power. As much of their staff were currently on mandatory vacation (government enforced vacation in a government run utilities monopoly) they wouldn't be able to reconnect the power until the 22nd.
So the unit would have no electricity for 11 days.
There was nothing else to be done. I had to pay for one more day at the hotel, so I decided to spend one last night there. Most of my stuff was at the powerless new apartment, so in the morning I just loaded what was left into my backpack, and checked out. (Or tried to... they said it was too early, and to come back closer to noon. Bleh.)
So that basically leave me where I am now. The apartment has running water and furniture, so I can still live there, provided I carry around a battery powered lantern at night. I can take cold showers, and use the kitchen at work. It's going to be an interesting 11 days. (9 more days as of this writing!)
Friday, August 12, 2011
... living, part 1 of 3
I never moved around growing up. But in my 20s (and this past year) I lived in an awful lot of places.
It started around 2002 or 2003 (I am not sure!) when I first moved to USF in Tampa. I had signed a lease with an apartment building that was still under construction, and the dopes who were running the whole show (badly) had no idea that the building wasn't going to be done for another year. So I lived in a hotel room... the Amerisuites Hotel I believe it was called. It had no kitchen in the room, and the internet connection was dialup. I lived there for three months, give or take.
Next it was Avalon Heights, a thoroughly miserable student housing complex directly to the north of campus. The first room they put me in didn't have a working toilet. I spent several weeks there begging them to fix the toilet (and them promising it was fixed, but it was never fixed) before I asked them to move me to a different room. They did, and for a time, it was okay. Then what was soon to be known as roommate russian roulette happened, and an awful roommate moved on. He liked to stay up all night drinking with his pals and talking about how much they hated black people. That's not a joke.
I only spent three months there, too. Thankfully it was a short lease, otherwise I would have asked to change rooms a second time. Next I moved to Campus Lodge, where I would live for the next two years or so. It was generally okay, aside from the usual roommate russian roulette, with larping stoners, a kleptomaniac discharged marine under house arrest for smuggling pornography while on base, and a pervert who liked to hang out with old men and young boys while wearing fishnets. I was forced out of campus lodge after a fellow architecture student who offered me a spot in the house he was going to rent had to cancel his offer (after a series of unfortunate events), and of course Campus Lodge had already given my room to someone else.
Next it was Fountainwood Manor, which I shared with about ten thousand tiny roommates. They weren't the nice kind of infestation, either. Endless roaches. The place was also mind bogglingly hot. Even during the winter when it was fifty degrees outside I could have the front door and all of the windows wide open and it would still be roasty toasty within. Of course, during the summer the little air conditioner running 24 hours a day couldn't hold back the heat. If I ever left the place for more than a few weeks, I'd come back to mold growing all over everything. Even without the mold, the place always stank of old particle board and mildew. But it was quiet, and I was free from freaks and sociopaths, so I was content from (guessing) 2006 - 2008.
I also ought to mention the month and a half I spent in the Palace Side Hotel in Kyoto, Japan. It was tiny!
Then I moved back in with my family for almost two years.
When I made it to Austin late in 2010, it was hotel time once again. All things considered, the room at the Extended Stay Hotel was one of the nicer placed I had lived. The kitchen was bigger and better equipped than the one in Roachwood Manor, and it was a generally even experience. The main problem in Austin had nothing to do with the accommodation, it was my lack of access to transportation. The neighborhood around the hotel eventually started to feel like a prison, with nowhere really interesting to walk within a several-mile radius.
Arriving in Lyon delivered me to Part Dieu Park (pronounce it like Par-Doo-Park) which was another sort of extended stay hotel, only it was more like an apartment place for traveling business people. It was quite a nice little place, so slick and modern, with a cool balcony with a nice view of the glass and steel jungle of a brand new office park. But I couldn't stay. It was kind of like an apartment, but it was more like a hotel room. I was paying around a thousand a month for a place smaller than Roachwood Manor that would never truly feel like home. I lived there for a bit over five months, which means I had been living in hotels for about ten months.
So now I have my own place, finally, at last... but the next post is going to be about the hectic chain of events surrounding the acquisition of said locale.
It started around 2002 or 2003 (I am not sure!) when I first moved to USF in Tampa. I had signed a lease with an apartment building that was still under construction, and the dopes who were running the whole show (badly) had no idea that the building wasn't going to be done for another year. So I lived in a hotel room... the Amerisuites Hotel I believe it was called. It had no kitchen in the room, and the internet connection was dialup. I lived there for three months, give or take.
Next it was Avalon Heights, a thoroughly miserable student housing complex directly to the north of campus. The first room they put me in didn't have a working toilet. I spent several weeks there begging them to fix the toilet (and them promising it was fixed, but it was never fixed) before I asked them to move me to a different room. They did, and for a time, it was okay. Then what was soon to be known as roommate russian roulette happened, and an awful roommate moved on. He liked to stay up all night drinking with his pals and talking about how much they hated black people. That's not a joke.
I only spent three months there, too. Thankfully it was a short lease, otherwise I would have asked to change rooms a second time. Next I moved to Campus Lodge, where I would live for the next two years or so. It was generally okay, aside from the usual roommate russian roulette, with larping stoners, a kleptomaniac discharged marine under house arrest for smuggling pornography while on base, and a pervert who liked to hang out with old men and young boys while wearing fishnets. I was forced out of campus lodge after a fellow architecture student who offered me a spot in the house he was going to rent had to cancel his offer (after a series of unfortunate events), and of course Campus Lodge had already given my room to someone else.
Next it was Fountainwood Manor, which I shared with about ten thousand tiny roommates. They weren't the nice kind of infestation, either. Endless roaches. The place was also mind bogglingly hot. Even during the winter when it was fifty degrees outside I could have the front door and all of the windows wide open and it would still be roasty toasty within. Of course, during the summer the little air conditioner running 24 hours a day couldn't hold back the heat. If I ever left the place for more than a few weeks, I'd come back to mold growing all over everything. Even without the mold, the place always stank of old particle board and mildew. But it was quiet, and I was free from freaks and sociopaths, so I was content from (guessing) 2006 - 2008.
I also ought to mention the month and a half I spent in the Palace Side Hotel in Kyoto, Japan. It was tiny!
Then I moved back in with my family for almost two years.
When I made it to Austin late in 2010, it was hotel time once again. All things considered, the room at the Extended Stay Hotel was one of the nicer placed I had lived. The kitchen was bigger and better equipped than the one in Roachwood Manor, and it was a generally even experience. The main problem in Austin had nothing to do with the accommodation, it was my lack of access to transportation. The neighborhood around the hotel eventually started to feel like a prison, with nowhere really interesting to walk within a several-mile radius.
Arriving in Lyon delivered me to Part Dieu Park (pronounce it like Par-Doo-Park) which was another sort of extended stay hotel, only it was more like an apartment place for traveling business people. It was quite a nice little place, so slick and modern, with a cool balcony with a nice view of the glass and steel jungle of a brand new office park. But I couldn't stay. It was kind of like an apartment, but it was more like a hotel room. I was paying around a thousand a month for a place smaller than Roachwood Manor that would never truly feel like home. I lived there for a bit over five months, which means I had been living in hotels for about ten months.
So now I have my own place, finally, at last... but the next post is going to be about the hectic chain of events surrounding the acquisition of said locale.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
... omg we're in fraaaance!
Everyone at the studio got a kick out of this video "preview" of Dishonored:
Saturday, July 30, 2011
... morality, choices, and chaos
Raf and Harvey, the two directors of Dishonored, have a very candid talk with Game Informer about morality, choices, and chaos in Dishonored.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
... the industrial designer
The latest GameInformer feature, The Look And Feel Of Dishonored, interviews Viktor Antonov, former industrial designer, art director of Half Life 2, and our visual design director.
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