Vicky

I called and talked to Vicky today and made her say some stuff to me in Russian. I remember back when we worked in the same office together; from time to time I’d hear her talking to her mom or someone on the phone and she’d dive right into the Russian (with some English words thrown in once in a while for good measure). At first I didn’t pay that much attention to it, but when you work with someone closely for years, you begin to either hate these kinds of things, or love them. It quickly grew on me to the point where I really loved listening to it. I don’t know if I ever really told her at the time, but listening to her I realized that Russian is a sexy, rhythmic language with a beautiful cadence to it and I’ve found it soothing to drink in the sound. I didn’t understand what was being said, but it really doesn’t matter. It’s like complex symphony.

We talked for a while and shared some stories about what’s been going on in our lives; how everyone is doing. She sent me some pictures of the kids, who are of course growing up fast. We talked about the past too. We were both happy to be talking on the phone again. We IM each other from time to time, but hearing a good friend’s voice is a totally different thing. You hear the compassion, joy, and sometimes anger in their words which are powerful eloquents lost to the digital age. She needed to go help her daughter with her homework, so we ended our call and I promised to call a lot more often. And I will.

On another note, my friend Will has been doing some cool work for G4TV lately, shooting short comedy sketches. He’s done a faux commercial, was a new user in X-Box Live orientation, and just appeared last night as Dr. Will, analyzing the symptoms of those who purchase Grand Theft Auto. It’s really great to see him on the little screen, as I feel badly I didn’t get a chance to get to a screening of The Air I Breathe, which was showing in Orlando recently.

So, that’s pretty much it. I’m really wiped out tonight. I’ve been brain-dead all day as I’ve been up to the wee hours of the morning the last few nights doing work for the office. I think I’ll be able to get back on track tonight tho. I really need to get my life straightened out again and get feeling well.

Sick Thought of the Day: Pinch, wipe, slip. Brown finger.

Projects, FourthChair

I’ve been busy all day today getting Suncoast Studios projects in order. Millard and I have been talking about resurrecting the documentary we started back in 2005, so I decided to move the entire Production Portal from chewbode.com to its permanent home at Suncoast Studios. I had to recreate all of the blog entries and upload all of the data, properly building the Portal as I went. While doing this, I realized there were several other things up here that needed to move including the Transformers models I build for the TFMod Team’s Battlefield 1942 mod, the Pleaseeasaur video edit I did for MutantMall.com, and the final submitted edit of My First Job. So, all that’s done now and it’s properly organized up under the SCS site and the old references up here have been removed.

I also spent some time here fixing the look and feel of the blog, which was disrupted when I upgraded it a few weeks ago. It’s almost where I want it; I spent too much time on it this evening and am going to let it go until it bothers me again.

FantasticFour
I recently dug up this old picture for Naser and Jeff and e-mailed it to them. It was taken outside the Pastry Art café on Main Street in downtown Sarasota (our office was located on Ringling and Orange up until March 2004) and depicts (from left to right) Naser, me, Jeff, and Grant. The four of us were good friends and frequented the café often. We began to form FourthChair Software while working together and almost had it launched until Grant had to move his family back to New Zealand, where they’re from. Jeff and I carried the torch for a short while, all the while starting (and stopping) several projects while they were still in their infancy. The last project we did was myLongBox 2004, a comic book database engine that was nearly completed. We lost interest in it and eventually abandoned it. I still have all the sourcecode and graphics (and even compiled, working EXEs) that I may post up here some day for a hoot.

I started working on a project for work today that Suncoast Studios is producing. I anticipate I’ll spend a lot of time on it tomorrow. Now, I’m going to eat some food and watch some old Battlestar Galactica.

Sick Thought of the Day: Stripes of chromium dioxide under the sack; nut tunes.

Edit (2008.04.27 11:26a): I sent the link to this entry to another good friend of mine, Vicky, who we all worked with for many years. I had a sneaking suspicion that either she or Grant’s wife took the picture, as I recall it was a woman there with us. Last night Vicky IMed me and told me it was, indeed, her that took it.

The funny thing about this little piece of information is that I have been waxing nostalgic lately, looking over old photos, reading old e-mails, and so on, and it’s so incredibly gratifying to know that this one photo above is a recorded moment in time where all five of us were in the same place, doing the same thing, enjoying each other as friends. My only regret is that Vik couldn’t be in the picture as well.

High Definition Reappearance

I recently made the jump to an HDTV. My old TV, which was a Philips-Magnavox 60” rear projection, was really starting to show its age, and with devices like my AppleTV and the HDTV cable box, I was starting to feel that I was getting behind the times. So, I picked up a Mitsubishi WD-65734 65” DLP monster. I’ve had it for about a week now, and I’m thoroughly impressed. Very vivid colors, tons of inputs, and great 1080p performance.

Of course, I had to go into the settings of my first generation X-Box and set it for 1080 and continued the trend with the AppleTV, cable box, and Wii (well, the Wii I was able to just set to widescreen because it only supports 720). I then decided to get a PlayStation 3 from my local Rent-A-Center to see what it was like and Oh. My. God. I’ll have it for two weeks on a trial and if I like it, I may just go ahead and purchase one. I’ve downloaded several demos of games, which look amazing, and played Sonic The Hedgehog, which looks great too, but honestly, I’ve never liked that series of games.

I picked up I Am Legend on DVD yesterday and Shauna and I watched it last night. Over all, I thought it was pretty good. I’ve never read the book by Richard Matheson, nor have I seen The Last Man on Earth orThe Omega Man, which are also based off of this book. Because I’ve not enjoyed these other renditions, or the original itself, may be the reason why I don’t loathe the new movie like so many out there do. It was fun, and a nice way to spend a Saturday night.

I also picked up a couple of new Wii games, Game Party (because it was only $20) and Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga (because… well, duh… it’s Star Wars). I played some Lego Star Wars yesterday and was thoroughly satisfied for a bit. I got Game Party because I thought it would be a good thing Shauna and I could play, especially the ski-ball game (she loves ski-ball). We’ll most likely play it later today.

Things at my day job are finally slowed down to where I can focus on Suncoast Studios work. I plan on putting together a schedule tomorrow night to give equal and appropriate time to each of the projects I’m working on. I will then be able to touch base with my collaborators and get their expectations in line with what I can provide them. I need to get several of these things done, because I have a very exciting new project that I want to start which will really stretch my abilities. This is a very top-secret project I won’t be talking about until there’s something to show, but involves HD and possibly film work. I’ve only mentioned a one-sentence description to Shauna, but haven’t gone into any details on what I’m doing.

Well, I’ve been cleaning the apartment all day so I need to go take a shower now and head out to get some hotdogs for the grill tonight.

Sick Thought of the Day: Red hole, jagged fingernail.