Inside Nextel Cup

Victoria and I have made a habbit of watching “Inside Nextel Cup” on the Speed channel every week. A little bit to recap the race. But mostly to watch the panel, and more specifically to see Michael Waltrip be his usual crazy self (and to see everybody else’s reactions).

Each week the panel answers a bunch of viewer-submitted questions, most of them kind of dull. So, being my usual self, I wanted to see what it takes to get a question on the program. I submitted one, not tied to a specific race, a few weeks ago – imagine our surprise when it actually came on tonight. Victoria got a kick out of it, and I’m getting a kick out of it. I’m not exactly defining myself by having my questions featured on a TV show (having people play my games and read/watch my stuff is a bit more rewarding), but it was fun to see nonetheless

The question was “Do crew chiefs ever get in the car themselves?” To be honest, I kinda knew the answer, but that wasn’t really important. I just thought that this one would be a good conversation starter. And it was. I uploaded the clip to Youtube, see below!

Page Status

The server that this page is hosted on crashed and some of the data got corrupted. Still hunting down everything that needs repairing, but the content should already be back up and running.

IndyCar 2007 Video

The finished Indy Car video is now on Youtube.

I played it much looser with this video, just throwing shots against the wall and seeing which ones got soaked up by the music and which ones didn’t seem to fit. The ending happens a bit quickly, but that’s okay I’m happy with the final routcome. I’ll post some frames from the HD version later.

The Wheel of Time stops turning

R.I.P. Robert Jordan.

I hadn’t read any of Robert Jordan’s books when Glen Dahlgren contacted me in 1997 about working on The Wheel of Time computer game. But I was intent on doing my research, so I immediately went to Baedeker to buy the first volume of the series. In English, of course, because the game was going to be in English.

E3 1997 happened right around that time. I’d made contacts with several other game companies in America and I had potential job prospects (Legend could only offer me a remote position from Germany), so several regulars on the #level_design IRC channel were encouraging me to fly to Atlanta to mingle with the crowd and maybe make something happen. My parents were on vacation, so I borrowed some money from my late grandmother and bought an improptu plane ticket to America.

It was during the four-hour train ride to the Frankfurt airport that I started reading The Eye of the World. My English was still rather bad and I didn’t understand every word in the book, but the writing was so good that I was captivated anyway. Sure, when it really came down to it, Jordan was treading familiar territory: black riders, a wide-eyed farmboy goes out into the big world to fulfill his destiny, mysterious mentors accompany him… But Jordan did everything in a wildly imaginative and evocative way. The characters and world felt very alive, and everything was relatable.

Of course I ended up working for Legend and on Wheel of Time anyway. By that time, I’d already read all available novels even though I hadn’t been working on the game (as had Charlie Wiederhold, another potential WoT level designer who ended up working elsewhere). And I can guarantee you that every designer involved with the game cared about and was a huge fan of the books.

I’ll be the first to admit that the series eventually died on me and I only ever made it to book 7. That wasn’t necessarily because the story had become less interesting. It just seemed like there was no end in sight!
I think I’ll read all those remaining books now. It sounds like the final volume will be finished in one form or another, and I want to be ready for that. Thank you, Robert Jordan, for all that you’ve given us!

P.S.: The trip to E3 1997 didn’t actually happen after all because of a snafu at the airport. I spent four additional hours riding back home (and reading).

The Birds

Oh, also: Victoria does an ASB retreat for work each year, where she takes all her board members to a house in Bodega Bay. Alfred Hitchcock shot a lot of The Birds in Bodega Bay. I decided to visit Victoria for a bit on Saturday and then drive around the coast to see the different shooting locations used in that movie.

The thing you quickly notice is what a sham the “town” of Bodega Bay is as it was protrayed in the movie. Hitchcock created his own, fictional town layout because Bodega Bay, as it actually exists, is much more disjointed. The town center was built on a back lot in Hollywood, and that set was augmented with footage from several disparate locations around the Sonoma Coast. Aerial views of the town were created as matte paintings.

And what can I say, the movie had me fooled. I had looked at a few scenes on the DVD before driving to Bodega Bay, and even the 1963 aerial matte painting did not reveal itself as such until I read up on the movie’s making. The set of the town center was so convincing that I actually searched for it, and the other locations are masterfully blended to create the illusion of geographically correct city.

None of this is to say that you don’t feel The Birds when you visit the Bodega Bay area. The area oozes the atmosphere that generations of audiences have come to experience from the movie. There’s quite a few locations to see. And once you drive around to those different locations and realize how everything has been put together you appreciate the movie all the more.
Below are two pictures I took at the Potter School house. You’ll recognize this building as the “Bodega Bay School” in the movie. Annie Hayworth’s house (the school teacher, played by Suzanne Pleshette) doesn’t exist. It was a facade erected up the road.

Burgaltendorf

I got the idea to search Youtube for “Burgaltendorf”, the part of Essen I grew up in. And lo and behold, there’s a 5 minute TV that shows Burgaltendorf in all of its glory. You might even say that it makes it look a little bit too glorious, only focusing on the idylic and green spots of the town. Still nice to see, even if you don’t speak German. The fortress is just a few minutes from my family’s house, we used to hang out ther a lot and walk the dog through the old moat. The hotel is on the same street as our house, as well – I grew up watching those horses through the window of my old room.

Ridley Scott

As I was finishing the Paul M. Sammon’s book Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner today I was shocked to realize that Ridley Scott is 70 years old! That is pretty amazing to me. It should have registered earlier, I guess – the writing is on the wall. But to me Scott had always been this ageless entity that had been making movies (some of which stood the test of time better than others – but all of which had the potential to do so) as long as I could remember – and who, in my mind, was going to do this until long after I might have stopped caring. The fact that he will only do this for another 15 years or so (thinking positively) is weirdly surprising (and shocking?) to me.

Ridley Scott made Blade Runner when he was 45 years old. That’s older than pretty much every major player in the video game industry. I can take comfort in this realization as I look at the future of my own medium. And at the body of work I have amassed in my 9 professional years. Maybe growing old and “peaking early” isn’t as important as I initially thought. Maybe that’s what being in your thirties is all about: coming to that exact realization.

Lair In Stores

Lair is being sold in stores all over the America now. Try it out, let me know what you think!
By the way, if you have a PSP and a PS3, you can do this: (Video Removed)