LED’s are awesome little things. They don’t require a lot of power and they last forever. And these days, they seemed to be put into everything from flashlights to evil teddy bears that stalk after you at night. But, there is one thing I hate about LED’s.
Indicator lights.
I’ve been using the term “Moonfire Games” since I legally changed my name in 2000. I even have a domain (http://mfgames.com/) that uses that name and it shows up on pretty much every search term for “Moonfire Games”. So, imagine my surprise when I do a random search for Moonfire Games and I find that someone created a group called MoonFire Games at http://moonfiregames.com/. According to the `whois` record, they registered the site in 2008. Eight years after I started using Moonfire Games. I assume it is either an honest mistake or oversight. But, I also worry that it is something more. Not to get against me, but simply because moonfire is a cool name.
Its annoying, since it means that I either have to trust in my fellow man not to abuse using the same name, risk the chance of not being able to use it anymore, or to defend it. Part of me says defend it, mainly because some of the things I’ve been waiting on have finally happened (I moved to Iowa) for creating my own S-corp and getting a proper trademark.
Its frustrating that someone would have done this. Part of it is my own fault for not really pushing it myself, but I’m kind of mixed on what to do.
EDIT: Actually, I got a very nice response back from the other Moonfire Games. It looks like we can figure something out, so it isn’t such a terrible thing. It really helps when you don’t respond negatively in emails. Though, I probably should incorporate Moonfire Games anyways, just because I’ve been using the name for nearly a decade now. And using it on my GenCon badge. And my emails. And my forum… :D
One of the things I’ve (infrequently) written about in the last few weeks is our eldest dog, Smokey. He’s been in Fluffy’s life for fourteen years and in mine for almost as long. But, he was hitting the twilight of his live and his nights were turning into a hell despite the good times he had during the day.
Last night, I ordered pizza.
That little statement is actually contrary to a lot of things in my life right now, but it is what I did. Since I moved to Iowa on April 21st of this year, I have not had a single meal delivered to my apartment before last night. Not Chinese, sushi, pizza, or Mexican. And I can’t tell you how much I miss the sushi.
I changed some settings around so my blog uses OpenID instead of managing the user accounts myself. I really believe in OpenID, mainly because it lets you use things like your LiveJournal, AOL, Yahoo, or Microsoft Live on all the sites and you don’t have to remember 784 passwords for 800 sites.
Naturally, this doesn’t apply to anyone viewing my blog on LiveJournal.
An interesting question, I think, but yesterday, I kind of did both. I wasn’t really feeling on top of the world, so I called in sick. Somehow, I still feel guilty about it, like I was just faking it to avoid work, but when I woke up against five hours later, I suspected that I might have been actually sick. Today… not much better, but I’m back at work.
Besides sleeping way too much, my day consisted of working a bit on Baby Squid God and homework. BSG is slowly moving forward, but the code I’m writing is Not Pretty™, actually, its a horrid mess but it is working, so I’m just moving forward and hoping to get to the fun things again. Most of these last bits are getting a new editor up and running so I can actually see my character being posed.
Homework is a struggle. I’m bouncing between 85% and 100% for the most part. This class is hard, a challenge, but I don’t feel like the teacher has abandoned me. I’m honestly not getting it to the degree he is looking for, which is fine but depressing. I’ll get a B for sure though I’m still aiming for an A.
I also got to the last part of the commission I’ve been struggling with for two months: the getting paid part. Yep, I got some monies. And, to my surprise, they liked it so much they added an extra one-third on top of my minimum asking price for the story (I always set the minimum and tell them to pay more if they think its worth it). I thought that was damn cool and more so that they liked it so much, they asked for a second commission which will be about the same price. I know I was considering not working on the commissions for the rest of the year, but I’ll do this one anyways. Makes me feel like a writer or something.
Well, I do enjoy being married. So, it was a nice weekend where I get to pretend to be married again. A bachelor again for another 2.5 weeks, but still…
Spent a good hunk of Saturday and Sunday either going shopping for things we actually needed (clothes, coat), a few things we didn’t need (book, a computer game called Darkstar One), and one thing I really didn’t need (Chinese food from the HyVee counter). Kill the bank account, but not as badly as I thought, and generally had a grand time.
Fluffy ran off to do family things on Saturday, so I spent a few hours killing time working on Baby Squid God and got a bit further in progress. At this point, I’m not really focusing on it as much as I could, but I’m still moving forward. This time, I got it to handle resolution changes mid-game so you can switch between full screen and windows, and rotate through the resolutions to find the perfect one for you. Pretty slick, I thought.
Interestingly, I’m getting stuck in the same place I got stuck with Ponies Among Us: poses. I can picture them in my head, but I’m having trouble getting all the math build up for me to write it out by hand. I avoided the IK chain this time, but it is still hard to tweak it. And, writing an editor program is not my favorite thing to do, but something I probably have to do with this project. I’m just avoiding it.
I also got a bit sore over the weekend; I’m limping all over the place, but that should clear up in a few days. The other good news is that the kitties are back home in Illinois, so less stress on everyone’s part. Well, once they settle that is.
Overall, good weekend.
I was messing around with fixing some referrer and redirect links from the old http://moonfire.us/ site to the new http://d.moonfire.us/ site, mainly in preparation for turning the moonfire.us site into a portal site. While doing so, I stumbled on the goals page I made at the beginning of the year.
You know what? I haven’t made progress on any of them in eight months. On the other hand, getting a new job, apartment, and being happier with my life wasn’t on the list either. Nor was going through a flood and living with the in-laws. Writing basically two novels in two months was also not on the list, but I feel pretty damn good about that one. Unlike last year’s NaNoWriMo, I actually liked the results of this one.
But, I feel pretty good about what I have done this year. Even if I couldn’t tick something off the list. Next year, I’ll do another list, but probably put it on Google Notebook or something like that. I’m also hoping to get more stories submitted, I only had 6 this year… and only wrote 15 stories. A bit short of the 24 goal, but the year isn’t over.
Overall, despite the writer’s block I’m still suffering with (spent an entire night NOT coding my game or writing, despite good efforts), I’m actually in pretty good mood. I highly suspect it has to do with Fluffy coming here in a few short hours. I get to be married again for the weekend. I miss her, a lot. And, the kitties are going home with her, so I can relax a little with that because I know that someone will watch them every day instead of every three.
Spent a good hunk of last night not watching TV, but listening to a rant that the only people who should vote are educated property owners. It was not… I guess to say, the best night in the world, but I managed to keep my mouth shut for the most part and just put up a token effort to debate it. The only thing I did talk about was that everyone commits voter fraud, which is something Jeff Duntermann referenced in his own post (which is very well written).
I am sad to see that it looks like Prop 8 and other gay rights stuff seems to have failed. I will admit I’m in a heterosexual marriage, but gay and lesbian marriage rights has pretty much been a hot button of mine for a very long time. I won’t go into the details, but I want it to be called marriage, not a civil union. Giving it a different label means it has different rights. And, as I’ve said before, I never want to see another man sobbing in a waiting room because he wasn’t “family” enough to be with his dying lover.
In completely other news, the presidential candidate I voted for didn’t even get 1% of the votes. Obviously, that party needs a bit more charismatic help in four years.
Had a pretty fun weekend, though a bit too much work and self-inflicted stress. Worked on Baby Squid God for most of it, after cuddling with the kitties (7 more days and they go home). Managed to get a bouncy baby squid on the screen, but not much more. Last night, I managed to get the beginning of a stage displayed, but again, not much more. Its going slow, but its moving forward. Kind of like NaNoWriMo, I just have to “keep on swimming”. Instead of 1,400 words per day, I’m trying to average about 200 LOC a day.
In writing news, I got some feedback from Drops of Crimson. And the news is… wait until December. They got swamped and never got to the bottom of the slushpile I’m assuming. December should also tell me if White Wolf liked my story submission I gave back in September. I also worked on expanding my commission and got that out, hopefully they’ll be happy with the response and I’ll get some precious monies. So, it was definitely a writerly weekend despite the game writing.
Revamped my wishlist yesterday, mainly updating and removing the duplicates. Not that anyone buys me much, but occasionally someone uses it and I felt the need to clean up. And Fluffy hates getting me anything on the list, I have to give her special requests that no one else knows about. Not entirely sure why, but its part of what we are. And I love her enough not to bitch about it; just not sure what to ask her.