Well last Saturday Get Lamp finally came in the mail. I’ve been waiting for this movie to come out for four years now, and I was so happy to get coin number 443. I just happened to check out the site that day, I hadn’t been on there for a while, and all of a sudden there was the ability to preorder with a blog post so I knew it just went up. I ordered one, and I’m so happy that I got a pretty low number. To get anything below 400 you had to be part of the movie somehow, whether it was funding or being interviewed, so I'm happy I came in around 43. Well, I waited to watch it - at least to nightfall - and I’m just in love with this film. It covers so much related to text adventures: the history of them, the modern era, puzzles, and all sort of outtakes that fill in any other questions you might have about the subject. I found it enthralling and watched it another two times since, and I just can’t get enough advice and inspiration from this piece.

Across The Stars is on the DVD ROM too, which I feel great about. It's version three so people are forced to change the color setting to white on black if they want to play it. Version four took care of this problem, but it’s kind of cool too, making someone play the game in the way that it’s really intended to be played.

I really can’t say enough about this movie. It has nine Infocom authors in it alone, not to mention a ton of others from the modern era that have really made an impact on the genre. And the way it’s put together, it’s touching too. The part about blind people who enjoy these games made me so happy. It’s really hard to explain, but to know that I’m designing games that blind people can enjoy too, where they can explore these worlds and really see them for what they are, makes me feel like I’m really helping people out, and even maybe creating something that will really last forever.

At least I can hope - D

Currently Playing: EVE Online

Last Saturday night the Motor City Vagabonds played out for the first time at the first annual Schmatzstock here in the sticks of Oxford. I got lucky on this one; the gig was fifteen minutes from my home on eight acres of land. The homes back there are all on real big lots, I drove past a few farms on the way out, saw a few dear, yeah it's the sticks. But it all worked out great and we all have our guitar player Frank to thank for it. He brought the P.A. that he uses in clubs to run us through, filling a twelve-car garage, and it was balls out. Not too many people were in the front row, it was just too loud, but I heard that right outside the garage the mix sounded great, everything blended.

We had to rent a truck for the gig, so it was; set up on Friday night, perform on Saturday night, and pack it all up the next morning. But it was taking everything down Sunday at the crack of dawn, when everybody was out of it from partying the night before, that was a little ruff to say the least. But those are the war stories of Rock -n- Roll.

In the end it was a great time, and we even walked away with a little video footage for both bands. Electric Iguana opened for us, Darrell’s rock/jazz hybrid band, and I think I got some pretty sweet footage of them that’s now burned to DVD. Technology has come so far. It’s amazing what we can do.

- D

Currently Playing: Star Trek Online