tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59011012024-03-23T14:08:40.260-04:00I should have been a pair of ragged clawsUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger120125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-78134222470412283972022-01-24T12:03:00.003-05:002022-01-24T12:03:52.362-05:00Radioactive Garbage Time<p></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"...There is room in the halls of pleasure</span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">For a large and lordly train,</div><div style="text-align: center;">But one by one we must all file on</div><div style="text-align: center;">Through the narrow aisles of pain."</div></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>a portion of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem, Solitude</i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiU_tO3qArZlTGSvz_C9P8PzzNWitlulTlAxNqMnGXWAVZbMP_sizFpOX7XtKq6eB4WFwYxim7f73cJid3StfvzC-nzm_KVMfDG9tvsS8pSFhUnVI_zQeYI-_jEGsLiBaywMus0m6aJjNlnVx-LEXH0fbFkH8Ktjt-PsCTAOY67o8ko6DfHTA=s2400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="2400" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiU_tO3qArZlTGSvz_C9P8PzzNWitlulTlAxNqMnGXWAVZbMP_sizFpOX7XtKq6eB4WFwYxim7f73cJid3StfvzC-nzm_KVMfDG9tvsS8pSFhUnVI_zQeYI-_jEGsLiBaywMus0m6aJjNlnVx-LEXH0fbFkH8Ktjt-PsCTAOY67o8ko6DfHTA=w533-h332" width="533" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I currently have my next Azedra (nuclear medicine) treatment scheduled for February 7th at the University of Pennsylvania hospital.<p></p><p>I can't say I'm looking forward to it. The treatment itself is nothing troubling - my body will feel a bit off for a few days but the psychological impact of the required isolation afterwards is profound. As I've said before, hugs play a big part in me calculating my self-worth and being happy. As an introvert I don't miss crowds of people and it doesn't take much to fulfill my socialization requirements, but when I don't fulfill those requirements I feel terribly lonely. There's also the feeling of being a radioactive leper, with nurses donning little hazmat suits and ducking between lead panels to talk to me for a few moments. This experience has given me a lot of empathy for society's outcasts. The feeling of people not wanting to see you, stumbling away in fear of you is impossible to forget.</p><p>Once I am finally able to sit next to my wife on the couch again, the next treatment may be radiation targeting my arms and shoulders to improve my daily pain. After that there's been early discussion of a chemo treatment that has worked well with those in my condition, but I don't know when that would start. My focus now is on trying to mentally prepare myself for the Azedra isolation and then hopefully some radiation to clear up my pain. I would be eternally grateful for a few relatively pain-free months. After that? Who knows. I've learned not to think too far out these days.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-63022282964374145372022-01-16T08:30:00.002-05:002022-01-17T14:06:16.195-05:00The Highway and the Crater - Failing to Cope With the Absence of Work<p>When cancer lifts its foot off my neck and I have a chance to catch my breath, I wrestle with: "what am I supposed to do now?" Before my diagnosis, my life was defined by the career goals that I set for myself. For 15 years I worked to become a game designer. For 4 years I worked to become the best teacher I could. When cancer hit and I had to quit my job, I saw for the first time a giant invisible highway of people walking and running together toward "work." I feel like cancer ripped me from this infinite caravan and put me on a narrow, perpendicular dusty road by myself. </p><p>I didn't realize how much this shared concept of "we are all working" provided a substantial sense of a community to me. Two people may have separate jobs, totally different goals in life, but they are together on that highway and can share their experiences trying to overcome the obstacles in their way. (How many conversations are started with "what do you do" and built on "how is work going?") Talking with co-workers you like can make a job a blessing, talking with ones you don't like can at least help you feel less alone. </p><p>As someone with cancer, I don't have a job and I struggle to find a good purpose other than "keep living." Conversations with those on the working highway are often infrequent and one-sided; either I am telling of my maladies and their treatments or they are describing that now foreign land of work. To talk about work with them, I have to remember events in my past in order to feel the empathy and connection that before came with thoughtless ease. It feels impossible to be part of that community again as things are.</p><p>The road that cancer put me on isn't completely desolate - it is shared by other people diagnosed by cancer or serious illnesses. On my online communities I do what I can to make others and myself less lonely on this road - I try to listen to others, encourage them, and share with them my experiences to try to help them on their way. Yet this community is inevitably depressing and doesn't help give that shared purpose that being a part of the walking working horde did.</p><p>Most of the time people only realize how interwoven work is to their lives when they retire. When I reflect on things, I gaze into a crater where work was in my life and wonder how it ever got so vast. Work fed my social needs, my need to contribute, my need to grow and improve, and my need to practice self-discipline and so many other things, great and small. How am I ever to fill it again? Without the structure and routine of work, my life has regressed/transcended into having a permanent decadent summer vacation like some 45-year old middle schooler. I imagine to some that sounds like an idyllic situation (it kinda does to me as I write it), but I feel that summer vacations are made sweet because you have to make each day meaningful before you return to school. Without it, it can be a prison.</p><p>A co-worker of Bessie's has been diagnosed with a similar cancer and he continues in his demanding job. I wonder at times if I could have remained a teacher, but even during the good times my condition is volatile and I would likely miss many days of school. Before cancer I struggled to stay on top of all the grading, now it would be a disaster. Yet this man who shares my curse continues on through his pain and suffering - why can't I? It is impossible to compare the burdens that we all carry through life, but I think it is vital when you see someone do something extraordinary to ask yourself: "could I do more?" I don't know, but I can't go back to teaching; when I had cancer but had not quit, I felt tremendous guilt for being away from my students for a long period of time.</p><p>I don't like ending my posts in a negative way; it is too easy for me to wallow in the bad parts of my situation. Yet I keep coming back to the "what do I do now?" question over and over again and I worry that if I don't try to fill that crater with something challenging and real and meaningful, I will continue on my narrow highway, disconnected and irrelevant to all but an ever-shrinking few.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-56236028596181266422022-01-06T09:49:00.001-05:002022-01-16T08:31:24.023-05:00An anniversary of shame<div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwhv4SKRf8J2dF6AtcopQRxu4mgr-bYxjNwVp9sghkZaRwomsXdA5Q2pM9XYIQnFgekqKrQyO34KRheDsqmtgF4bbfFzRwjYhaG1e27S8TFDO7ZWelaWorOexhA6MgDKAaMLtUz5DBQPjlKNvLJ6TUC1fPK37SRFEtGnoZNwuxDCdZo_sk6g=s1600" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhwhv4SKRf8J2dF6AtcopQRxu4mgr-bYxjNwVp9sghkZaRwomsXdA5Q2pM9XYIQnFgekqKrQyO34KRheDsqmtgF4bbfFzRwjYhaG1e27S8TFDO7ZWelaWorOexhA6MgDKAaMLtUz5DBQPjlKNvLJ6TUC1fPK37SRFEtGnoZNwuxDCdZo_sk6g=w565-h318" width="565" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVIc2dkaf4tw1WMVSWkOwQwTnKUIisZv85xEnDqZ_3mljpHVOlIphOORjfsUGFnHDBnuXbZE78RxCTuNw9qZG6MfEJ_fIUc46JBQE4kpjRrQYJqlsf9loRVBnFuEv9YMPOmjJFmcQMkQomja8g6SlFPwILHMqMNj0t6w0kyXOwO-amLxvhSg=s700" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="394" data-original-width="700" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiVIc2dkaf4tw1WMVSWkOwQwTnKUIisZv85xEnDqZ_3mljpHVOlIphOORjfsUGFnHDBnuXbZE78RxCTuNw9qZG6MfEJ_fIUc46JBQE4kpjRrQYJqlsf9loRVBnFuEv9YMPOmjJFmcQMkQomja8g6SlFPwILHMqMNj0t6w0kyXOwO-amLxvhSg=w569-h320" width="569" /></a></div></div><br />When I was a teenager I wondered when America, like Rome, would fall. I did not think the Capitol would be ransacked in my lifetime, and I thought the attackers would be the Russians or Chinese or some foreign army. I can't express how ashamed and enraged I was that so many people were so fooled so completely and took violence to overthrow an election.<div><br /><div><div>Please call your <a href="https://www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm" target="_blank">senator </a>and <a href="https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative" target="_blank">representative </a>and ask them to continue to investigate and prosecute those who attacked the Capitol and those who incited and planned the attack. These were not rioters, they were seditionists and, regardless of how rich an powerful they are, they should all be fully prosecuted under the law.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>If we don't do it now, next time will be far worse.</div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-2588203478183265132021-12-18T10:31:00.002-05:002021-12-20T11:31:19.872-05:00I'm doing. . . pretty good?!About a month ago I completed my first treatment of Azedra - the nuclear medicine treatment. The first few weeks were really challenging for me because I was so radioactive that it was unsafe for others to be near me for even short periods of time and I had to isolate in our bedroom. <div><br /></div><div>I found out during that time that I need hugs to hold myself together mentally. Not like "oh, this is nice" but they reassure me that I'm ok both physically and socially. I chose not to hug my wife because I was so radioactive - the last thing I wanted to do is make her sick. But my choice of not hugging my wife until my radioactivity dropped to a safer level made me feel lonely and isolated. It was only when my radioactivity dropped and I was able to get more hugs from Bessie that I felt like my Azedra treatment was complete.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><div>As I met my hug quota and was appreciating the other rooms in our house, I noticed something -</div><div><br /></div><div>I felt pretty good!</div><div><br /></div><div>To be clear, feeling "pretty good" with my cancer is a relative thing. I take two good sized fistful of pills every day and my right arm fires bolts of pain if I try to move it in a way it doesn't like. I require a toddler's amount of naps. If my meds are delayed for a few hours things start going sideways quick. When we introduced a minor medication change last week to try to lower my heartrate below 110, I vomited the contents of my stomach for two days straight.</div><div><br /></div><div>All that said, I almost feel like I'm taking some illegal "feel good" drugs right now. I have more energy than I've had since before cancer. My appetite is back to the point where I will likely start gaining weight. My breakthrough meds (pain pills you take when your daily allotted pain medication is not enough) have sat largely untouched. I'm feeling well enough I should be taking on more responsibility around the house but I've laid low for a bit just reveling in this "feeling better" thing.</div><div><br /></div><div>It seems obvious to give Azedra credit for this turn of events, though there have been no measurements to determine the efficacy of the treatment. I could just have hit a balance of meds and lifestyle that just magically works, but it's most likely Azedra. I think that the designers of the treatment dreamed of an ideal body for their method to work on, it may likely be mine. My tumors seem to hoard radiation like kids hoard candy on Halloween. It's been about 5 weeks since my Azedra treatment and my radiation level should be normal again, but it's still quite high. In most people the radiation is urinated away, but I assume my tumors have taken it and they're not giving it back. (I will slowly get less radioactive, just not as quickly as other patients.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I am delighted with how I'm feeling, but I have to remind myself that this does not change where all of this is heading. Right now as I'm writing this, I feel great and cancer is just a word not something that is still in me, awaiting it's time when my body can't take any more radiation. I've noticed that when I feel bad, I think about my mortality and what I'm doing and what my life means and all that. When I'm feeling well, I think I'll live forever.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>My feeling like I'll live forever is a testament to either the resilience of humans or my incredible goldfish-like memory. I have felt incredible pain. I have suffered. I have thought about and talked about my passing and what I want for my funeral and burial. As I feel great right now, I should be loving and appreciating life more than ever because the evidence of the seriousness of my situation is pervasive. But I'm not. I feel almost entitled to feeling like this and that it will go on forever.</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope that when things get tough again that I will remember and appreciate these times and that I did not waste them.</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-3080449843082233722021-10-04T13:58:00.001-04:002021-10-04T13:58:12.154-04:00Passing Through the Gate of Extreme Radiation<p>In a week, I will get a shot of highly radioactive material in an attempt to nuke the cancer within me while I survive. The procedure will occur at the University of Penn hospital in Philly. I will be kept in a hospital room until my personal radioactive level is at a level for me to be safe on the street. (I'm actually not sure if that's a law, but it's a really good idea to keep people who are very radioactive from walking around and giving people x-rays without their permission.)</p><p>I will likely spend 4-5 days in the hospital and be released on Friday. I will still be dangerously radioactive, so when I go home I will need to stay away from Bessie and other multi-cellular organisms that I value. We have a Geiger counter to help figure out what my radioactive level is and how close I can be without hurting her. It will certainly be an awkward number of days, but we could have fun with it.</p><p>The most likely immediate side-effect from the radioactive shot will be nausea. While I'm in the hospital they will have me hooked to an IV with Zofran. I have questioned the doctors extensively about the chance of gaining new superhuman abilities such as super strength or the ability to detect danger, but they say I have watched too many cheesy movies and I should focus.</p><p>While I myself will be radioactive, the easiest way that I could "spread" radioactivity is through bodily fluids, most effectively through spit. As such, much of what I bring into my hospital room will be discarded because who among us doesn't spray their environment with a slow, gentle mist of saliva? I will be able to bring in my phone and a backup as well as my Nintendo Switch. They will wrap those up in plastic wrap to prevent the saliva from getting on the device. I will likely wear a mask while I play my Switch to prevent my radioactive slobber from getting in the joints of the game system.</p><p>I am bringing a number of puzzle books along with me to work on. I'm bringing a book of New York Times Tuesday crossword (you can judge, I'm not that great), KenKen, and another puzzle book. A good friend gave me a coloring book and a nice batch of pencils to just chill out when I'm not feeling well. I will be sad to have to toss those.</p><p>How am I feeling about it? Fine, I think. For the last few weeks it has been a sharp dividing line in my life where there are things that will happen before the treatment and the things that will happen after the treatment. </p><p>Since the initial chemo attempt failed, I don't know how to say "I really want this to work" with the correct amount of extreme, desperate emphasis. For the last two months the cancer has grown in my body unimpeded. I want to knock this cancer out for a few rounds and give myself a few more years. I can't win this fight, but I want to buy as much time as I can.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-73194889104739195012021-10-04T13:01:00.004-04:002021-10-04T13:01:54.442-04:00The Mixtape of My Life<p>I like thinking about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_1#Golden_record">golden disk</a> that was sent along with Voyager I. I loved that Carl Sagan and others thought: "How can we express all of humanity to an alien life with a record?"</p><p>Given my situation, I thought it would be good for myself to make the music that I can't imagine my life happening without. I gave myself 72 minutes and it's tough to build a playlist that says everything that you want to say. (72 minutes is the length of a CD. They were how people like me bought music when you could still buy music.)</p><p>So here's what I got:</p><p><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="380" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/17AkML36PqSGr6ymnDMSds?theme=0" width="100%"></iframe> </p><p>The playlist is designed to be played in order. I will be futzing with it so the tracks and their order may change.</p><p>As I shared this with you, I would love to hear other people's playlists. I certainly can't expect "this is my whole life" playlist, but it would mean a lot to me, especially with my upcoming incarceration, to hear what music you're listening to right now or things that you adore or whatever. As long as you're telling me something about yourself, I would love to hear it.</p><p>Thanks and be well.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-52673862780918105292021-08-30T14:01:00.003-04:002021-08-30T14:03:49.076-04:00I AM (getting pretty close to) IRON MAN<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgey-2AKYQTqBTZAojF2qg6Erg1AwG6rvobR3M8UTNC4VGPUJFQ4FV4X2VsQ-S8Z3Fipsta4cK9aYJCkjOi0UljUYM7V8a2KLMqM_mpWazvr75tSCesKBvxfPVvF-OF0gzFuoxP/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgey-2AKYQTqBTZAojF2qg6Erg1AwG6rvobR3M8UTNC4VGPUJFQ4FV4X2VsQ-S8Z3Fipsta4cK9aYJCkjOi0UljUYM7V8a2KLMqM_mpWazvr75tSCesKBvxfPVvF-OF0gzFuoxP/" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><p>I'm at home recovering from my surgery. From all reports and the feelings I have, the surgery went well. My arm is bothering me, but I just had surgery and the pain is nominal and extremely manageable. They used liquid nitrogen to kill the cancer cells, hoovered them out, and then gave me my second bionic limb. I kinda wish I got to see it, but I would probably would have passed out watching it, especially if it was happening to me.</p><p>So I'm resting and relaxing. I'm checking back in two weeks with the doctor to see how things are going. After that, I can resume treatments to try to stop the cancer in my gut.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-10705409553293404032021-08-25T15:51:00.002-04:002021-08-25T15:51:32.809-04:00Next: the Nuclear Option<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7ehTZoxsfisOdcqQ-tcHTQsP5vgOiH2rQyrwF2_3riFug3OwCNbwu4gDJRm9NrtIjn_queX2qX6OGxLJrqRmyEKeqkJL9gVaK85ulv0WrBjULaiJ9ilg2vZAVL03bRWHEQmb/s800/6a01053653b3c7970b02788033ea16200d-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="800" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR7ehTZoxsfisOdcqQ-tcHTQsP5vgOiH2rQyrwF2_3riFug3OwCNbwu4gDJRm9NrtIjn_queX2qX6OGxLJrqRmyEKeqkJL9gVaK85ulv0WrBjULaiJ9ilg2vZAVL03bRWHEQmb/s320/6a01053653b3c7970b02788033ea16200d-800wi.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> In my draft folder for this blogging system is a post that blushingly explains how well chemotherapy is going for me and tries to recognize how fortunate I was to have few painful side-effects for an infamously painful treatment.<p></p><p>Then came along four days where I was so tired I barely got out of bed. I thought - maybe I should rephrase that blog post, maybe I'm not that lucky.</p><p>Then I woke up on Saturday morning, 3am, with my left arm screaming in pain. I swear I've broken it, but who breaks their arm in their sleep? At 8am Bessie drove me to the urgent treatment center for cancer patients at Johns Hopkins and we got my arm scanned and they spent most of the day trying to find for my arm a sling and a radiologist to give it a proper diagnosis. We left in the later afternoon with a sling, a bunch of prescriptions for pain meds, and little more than assurances that my arm was not completely broken.</p><p>We found out on Monday that my cancer-filled upper left arm broke the bone and erupted a bit and that my surgeon said that needs to be addressed immediately. The surgery is planned for Friday and we're doing all the steps we need to do on our end to be ready for it, but we have yet to schedule a specific time yet. I should only be in the hospital a night or two (depending on the pain level) and I would need two weeks before I could resume other cancer treatments.</p><p>That's all the drama that's been going on with my arm! How's my chemo doing? <i>Well. . .</i></p><p>Yesterday I had a CT scan to see how well chemo fighting cancer. Answer: not at all it seems! My doctor said that my cancer showed "medium" growth. For a treatment that we hoped would last a year, it was frightening to see the cancer not respond at all to that. Where a cure is basically impossible, buying time becomes the best tactic and we lost three months and one of our best tools to fight the cancer.</p><p>What's next? The nuclear (medicine) option!</p><p>There's a procedure at the University of Penn hospital in Philly called Azedra that we would enter in that would involve:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Enter a leaded hospital room</li><li>Get injected with extremely radioactive material</li><li>Chill in my leaded hospital room until I drop below the street-legal radioactive level and can be taken home</li><li>Once home, I would need to isolate myself from other multicellular organisms for a number of weeks until I am no longer radioactive</li></ul><div>If it's working, I would do another pass after 3 months and then I'd be good for the rest of the year.</div><p>After that, I presume the cancer will have learned a valuable lesson in how serious we are about this and will not think about growing for at least for the next year, when we can then repeat the Azedra treatment perhaps one more time.</p><p>I like this treatment a lot because I get to say my "radioactive levels were not street legal" and there are few side effects aside from perhaps initial nausea and maybe killing all my remaining bone marrow. Seriously, I hope that Azedra can help me buy me a year or two and a few months of being "normal."</p><p>Thank you so much for the love and support everybody has given us since this all started. I am blessed to have such wonderful family, friends, and co-workers who have all shown so much love.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-49902021960472281182021-06-14T04:19:00.004-04:002021-06-14T04:33:58.605-04:00My advent calendar of poison<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">I start chemo in about 50 minutes. I ate a bowl of cereal over an hour ago, took my zofran to reduce my nausea, then I start on what looks like the most serious advent calendar I've ever seen that has strict instructions on how only the patient should handle the meds because, y'know, it's like legit poison and stuff. Hope you feel better!</span></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Thinking about how much my life has changed since early March is how most of you probably felt last March with the coronavirus pandemic and masks and social distancing and an unknown disease. I will say that I have a great envy for those who can now try to step back into normality, take off their masks, start travelling, and resume their lives after a pretty crappy year for a lot of people around the world. I feel like the eternal footman stepped in front of me as I was taking off my mask and said "I'm sorry, but this is not the way you're going. There is another path for you." </p><p>I don't intend to complain or moan on this blog - my point is to share with people what's going on in my life and to try to share with people where I'm at emotionally. I've never been terribly good at it, especially with emotions that aren't necessarily happy or good, but now that the clock is ticking it's probably time to start trying.</p><p>I think I've told everyone that's sat still next to me for more than 45 seconds that I'm really nervous about chemotherapy. Not that I think it's a bad idea! I think that the temodar chemotherapy treatment looks to be the best approach to fight my cancer with the most livable suite of side-effects. I've listened to my doctors, done my research, and am intellectually convinced that this is the best thing to do right now.</p><p>My emotional side remembers the comforting words that "with radiation you should feel some fatigue, maybe some nausea, but otherwise it's pretty ok" and how incredibly wrong those words turned out to be. I don't blame my doctor for not knowing that my body would throw a open and violent revolt against radiation that would land me in the hospital for days with the worst pain I've yet experienced. (And hope and pray never to feel again.) What strikes the fear in me is how similar these comforting words are with radiation and chemotherapy and that warps my faith in how things will go. I recognize that these are totally different medical procedures and different doctors and bad things don't happen all the time, but I'm still emotionally quite raw from how painful radiation was and my lizard brain is screaming "GET OUT OF HERE!" </p><p>I am more than a lizard. I am a human. I will do something that terrifies me because science and evidence shows that it is the best decision. I will suffer pain in the short term in hopes that I can have a better and happier long term.</p><p>I hope that this poison/medicine is violent to my copious tumors but gentle with me. If all goes well, I should be punching my chemotherapy advent calendar every day for a year and being able to live a life that is some approximation of what I had before.</p><p>"What happens if that all goes well and I'm doing great after a year?" I asked my doc. </p><p>"Let's not get ahead of ourselves."</p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhufvE29mKjIvggHc_HOKyt20W7dd5KvWlxnptjocEUziAv8m3Y-8Nj6Era3ruYEs-03hy1C_AyCBfICw3_0K9EHMiwuU1LLe3qmVSLxkEV5LouSb5ZEeT5nINPrA05cY72RyhR/s2048/IMG_5285.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhufvE29mKjIvggHc_HOKyt20W7dd5KvWlxnptjocEUziAv8m3Y-8Nj6Era3ruYEs-03hy1C_AyCBfICw3_0K9EHMiwuU1LLe3qmVSLxkEV5LouSb5ZEeT5nINPrA05cY72RyhR/w150-h200/IMG_5285.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE10ACZ1UIfVccp6_ggQb0nWKR5U20b3IdaVVON1TQ5q3bm8XzGRfirGy6H62xA1IbNZerLa8k0TE3kO04ckT50gJ265w7xCEyiNDt2FZsHAG2sxD1uc3yRq9n58lCqQwCvu8/s2048/IMG_5286.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEE10ACZ1UIfVccp6_ggQb0nWKR5U20b3IdaVVON1TQ5q3bm8XzGRfirGy6H62xA1IbNZerLa8k0TE3kO04ckT50gJ265w7xCEyiNDt2FZsHAG2sxD1uc3yRq9n58lCqQwCvu8/w150-h200/IMG_5286.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-25847855915347387022021-06-11T09:40:00.000-04:002021-06-11T09:40:08.455-04:00Good news<p> Had an MIBG scan yesterday to see if I would respond to a treatment called Azedra. The scan came back showing that I would likely respond to that treatment. (Need to have convo with docs to determine if we undergo that treatment, but more available treatments are good.)</p><p>Also from the report, it says that the cancer was "largely unchanged since April 30th scan"! So, hey, that's good!</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-7941434746234090192021-06-04T10:14:00.002-04:002021-06-04T10:14:57.165-04:00Hope is the best kind of dumb<p>I think hope, like being a good person, is pretty dumb. Hope often leads to taking a sometimes questionable decision that leads to some greater future and ignoring all the bad things that will could happen along the way. Hope leads us to taking risks in our lives - telling people we love them, trying for a new job, having kids, starting something new. Following our hope invariably puts us in the way for pain, often some of the worst pain - unrequited love, infants preventing you from sleeping can be a hell scape, your dream job turns into a prison. But without hope, what good can happen in our lives? We need it as humans to live and breathe and grow and make and do things we never thought possible. As stupid as it is, having hope and acting on it is probably the best things about humans, even if it is kinda dumb.</p><p>I finished the last zap of radiation of my current treatment today and right now I'm feeling better than I have since I woke up with my sore shoulder in December. I'm certainly not pain free - my cancer neck spike still howls when my pain meds run thin, it hurts to turn my head all the way to the left and right, some lingering irradiated taste buds can ruin a lovely meal, and I still fatigued from the radiation. Yet compared to the last few months I feel fresh and new as newborn. It's impossible for me to describe how much relief I feel right now.</p><p>So I am a bit surprised to find a spring of hope in my life. Perhaps it's because radiation treated me far more brutally than any stories I'd heard - turning my digestion system backwards, sending me to the hospital with the worst pain I could ever conceive, having the faith in my local hospital destroyed by their disorganization and detachment about my treatment. The wonderful thing is that I'm starting to see benefits from the treatment - I can move my arms mostly without pain, take walks without fearing of my leg breaking, I can imagine a point where I can decrease my pain meds. I feel like I had shackles around my joints that have been chipped away. Maybe with this feeling better I can have friends visit longer, that I can cook breakfast for Bessie, actually drive somewhere on my own, that I can help around the house and not feel like like a constant burden to Bessie and my family.</p><p>When I swell with hope, I tend to make the silly plans that get me in trouble. I take big bites out of life that never lead to smooth sailing and often bite me in the butt many times, but those are often the best decisions I make. If this was the last chapter of my cancer story, then I would certainly jump into some new exciting thing. </p><p>My cancer story continues with chemotherapy on Tuesday. That's a whole other nest of gnarly side-effects and fear that I'm happy to leave packed in its box for today. I may not feel this good ever again, but I'm so grateful and glad that I do right now.</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-16396054687526921612021-05-16T11:13:00.001-04:002021-05-16T11:13:52.790-04:00"How I'm doing"<p><span style="font-family: Cardo, serif;">It’s been a tough
few weeks. I think the leg surgery has been a huge success - I’m scooting
around the house easily, sometimes taking the stairs two at a time as I did
before the surgery, and only feel pangs of pain in my femur from time to time. I’m
able to go on walks outside that are about a mile long before my leg starts
feeling weird. My surgical scars are healing and I’m working to recover some flexibility
that will allow me to resume putting on my right sock and sitting cross-legged
on the floor, but those complaints are small potatoes to how tough it was the
night after the surgery when they had me on barely any painkillers.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">What completely knocked
me on my butt recently is that they changed my diagnosis from pancreatic neuroendocrine
tumor (PNET) to metastatic paraganglioma with a MAX gene mutation. Both are mouthfuls
to say, but metastatic paraganglioma is a much rarer cancer than PNET. 2 out of
a million people are diagnosed with paraganglioma and only 1% of those people
have my specific mutation. For most of my doctors, I’m the only patient they’ve
seen with my condition.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">What this means
exactly is that I’m far off the road of normal, “follow-these-steps” treatment.
There are few specialists for paraganglioma cancers. There’s also no treatment
that I would consider an “easy, clear win.” Most of the treatments I know of
have a mid-range success rate (around 50%) and if they are successful only function
for a year or two at most. The rest of life likely will be finding a treatment
that works and riding it for as far as it will take me, then finding a new one.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">The result of this
was that I had the sensation of discovering I had cancer again. When I first
was diagnosed, I was in shock, I cried, I held my wife and we cried together. After
a few days of thinking and talking to doctors, I got some answers I needed to
get the footing I needed to move along in life. I compartmentalized hard
questions like “how long will I live?”, “what will my life be like?”, “will I
be ok?” and “what’s going to happen?” and I gave them the best answers I could
at the time to worry about later so I could do what I needed to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">When my diagnosis
changed, many of the assumptions and compartmentalizations that held my mental cancer
management together exploded and I was back to being in shock and crying and
not having answers to anything. My old answers don’t fit into the new boxes and
I’m still trying to come to terms with all there is. I think I have got things
back together again, but I’m more aware now of how fragile all of this is.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">Physically, my biggest
challenge is my radiation treatment. I’ve had 6 rounds of radiation so far, 1
every weekday, most focused on my neck and a few zaps in my left thigh. I am
happy to report that much of the pain in my arms has gone away and I’ve almost
regained full range of motion with them. With slight pain I can now sleep on my
sides. I still have a lot of points in my neck, back, pelvis, and thighs that
are causing me pain, but I’m delighted that something has gotten better. The
challenge with radiation are the gosh darn side effects. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">I get zapped every weekday
morning at 8am and it completely drains me. Afterwards I go home, crash into
bed, and sleep for 2-3 hours. I typically feel run down the rest of the day. It’s
tough to have a life in that situation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">Exhaustion sucks,
but seriously #$%&# nausea. I love eating. It’s one of our primal joys as animals.
I like cooking, I like appreciating food, I like sharing and receiving it. When
you’re nauseous, the smells and sights of your favorite foods twist your gut,
and eating is a messy gamble of “will this stay or go?” Constipation is a
frequent side-effect of pain-killers used with cancer pain, and it makes a
sinister combination of ailments. Since I’ve gotten back from my surgery, I’ve
lost 15 pounds involuntarily. Bessie has demonstrated the patience of a saint
trying to find foods that I can eat and can stomach and putting up with my
tantrums about being sick of eating and feeling full and mighty queasy. We are
working to get my digestive system functioning as it should, but when food
becomes bitter medicine, it’s not a great place to be.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">I have two more
weeks of radiation (8am every day for the next two weeks), and then I start treatment
on my cancer. It hasn’t been decided, but it will likely be a form of chemotherapy.
Unfortunately, the gentle path of CAPTEM that was the path of the first
diagnosis is no longer available and the chemo will be of the typical form where
the nausea level will be high and the chances of keeping my eyebrows are low.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Cardo",serif;">I wish this whole
thing could be happier or funnier, but life has been a struggle. I want to provide
my dear readers with humorous pillows to cushion them from my sad truths and pain.
I want to provide the reader with a confidence that everything will be alright.
I do believe it’ll be alright, but it’s more blind faith than evidence-based
confidence at this point.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-80446335018825502682018-01-26T08:19:00.001-05:002018-01-26T09:54:00.786-05:00It was so much fun, I have to leaveTo my Hereford high school students who may have wondered why I suddenly disappeared:<br />
<br />
I was offered a long-term substitute job at Institute of Notre Dame, a Catholic girls school in Baltimore teaching engineering and physics. I'm starting on Monday(?!) going through June, so it's unlikely that I'll be subbing for Hereford anytime for the rest of this school year.<br />
<br />
To blame for me leaving Hereford are all the students that were in my classes when I was filling in for Ms. Watkins. (Ok, well, <i>most</i> of my students. . . <i>glowers at TJ</i>) I loved teaching you all and it was the happiest time of my professional career. You are a fantastic lot; hilarious, eager to learn, polite, fun, and basically wonderful. I loved being a part of your lives, seeing you grow day to day, and trying to teach you and get you excited about stuff.<br />
<br />
Yet as much as I love seeing you all, being a substitute for a day is a bit of a drag, even at a great school like Hereford. You know how substitute days go: a worksheet is passed out, students do the worksheet, the substitute wanders around and makes sure nothing gets lit on fire. I've found I love teaching and I want to get better at it - being a day substitute isn't getting me closer to that goal.<br />
<br />
I don't know when or if I'll be back at Hereford. I may be back as a day sub in the fall of 2018, but I'd rather have a full-time job where I get to work with the same students every day. I'd love to have a full-time job teaching at Hereford (and I've said to the administration how much I want to work there), but there needs to be an opening that I am a good fit for, so who knows when that will happen.<br />
<br />
So I guess it's 'goodbye, for now'? It breaks my heart to say it, but that's where things are. I was so lucky to work with you and get to know you and be part of your lives even for a few weeks and I will always remember you and my time there fondly. I hope I get to work with you again. If you see me around town, please come up and say hi. Please email me to let me know how you're doing.<br />
<br />
I'll miss you. Be good.<br />
<br />
(And yes, this is my long dormant blog that I started before some of you were born. Ooof. The blog is. . . fine? I love writing about games, videogames, and all that stuff. I don't want to read too much of my old posts in fear of being embarrassed to the point of mortification, but I'm sure people will find some hilariously poorly written work.)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-51052577826828446662013-06-28T00:01:00.000-04:002013-06-28T03:52:03.234-04:00A Brave New World (in more ways than one)Where to start?<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-Brave-Online/dp/B00CYOHL48/ref=pd_sim_vg_5">Brave New World</a>, the next expansion for <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Sid-Meiers-Civilization-V-Download/dp/B004774IPU/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1372187951&sr=1-1&keywords=civilization+5">Civilization 5</a>, has been wrapped up and is ready to go. I've was able to fulfill a development dream and design a trade system to be added to the game. Something about caravans and trade ships moving around the screen delights me to no end and I hope other people enjoy it as well.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
After much discussion with Bessie, I've decided this would be the best time to leave my position at Firaxis Games and work with Todd and Derek at <a href="http://gopherwoodstudios.com/">Gopherwood Studios</a>. My seven years (!) at Firaxis have been wonderful and I'm proud that I got to work with such great people on such great products. I will miss my team tremendously; they are my second family and, while I'm not moving away from Baltimore, I'll miss talking to them daily and being a part of their lives.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
That said, I'm both nervous and excited about working at Gopherwood Studios. I'll be a contractor, largely responsible for pulling in my own clients, and that will be a big change from the "paycheck every two weeks" life of AAA publisher development. (Gulp!) I said for years that this is what I've wanted and now it's time to live it. I can't thank Todd and Derek enough for giving me this opportunity and Bessie for her patience and understanding.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-14576704529449427922012-03-26T11:19:00.000-04:002012-03-26T11:19:55.283-04:00Kid Icarus: Uprising thoughtsI chatted with Todd about Kid Icarus: Uprising and I thought that the conversation expressed a lot about what I think about the game and game design in general. I'm sorry that this is not in a more easily readable form, but I don't have the time or the inclination to polish it up.<br />
<br />
Todd: So Icarus still as good as you said?<br />
Scott: All of Sakurai's games are good<br />
Or at least well-made<br />
Or complete<br />
I don't think I'd recommend it at this point<br />
Todd: gotcha.<br />
Scott: Flying and shooting is a lot of fun. The bosses are quite good. Walking around is aight. It's not just that the controls are a little wonky, but it's just a bit slower and doesn't feel as nice.<br />
Lots of the good and bad rules of Smash Bros apply<br />
Like tapping to start running<br />
Which is something that annoys me in Smash Bros and sometimes annoys me in KI<br />
There are a tremendous number of weapons, but I don't feel inspired to "breed" them<br />
Effectively there are maybe 64 different types of weapons<br />
but then there are bonuses that can be applied to them<br />
like +2 movement<br />
or -1 firing rate<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: and a weapon can have up to 6 modifiers<br />
So when you combine weapons you try to get the best modifiers on the weapon you want<br />
Honestly, it just feels like too much of a hassle<br />
unless you get big into mp<br />
MP is all ground-based combat. It's good, but I'm playing it to unlock stuff, not because I'm having fun.<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
gotcha.<br />
Scott: So, once again, a brilliant Sakurai game that I don't really like.<br />
Todd: :)<br />
Scott: Or at least I get to a point where all the things that I can possibly do stretch far beyond my interest in the game.<br />
Todd: yeah, you can't fault him for not giving you enough things to do. :)<br />
Scott: (I guess that's true for many good games though. DF for example.)<br />
Yeah, every game he makes is a great value.<br />
If you enjoy the game, you have 100+ hours of content.<br />
Todd: :)<br />
I wonder if it's just because he's given a ton of resources, or is he just somehow more efficient and able to make all that stuff at once.<br />
Scott: The structure is similar to Smash Bros and Meteos, so he's not building from nothing.<br />
Todd: yeay<br />
yeah<br />
Scott: There is very little that's completely new.<br />
(At least in the meta-game portion.)<br />
Todd: Yeah, the game is obviously new.<br />
Scott: I think that makes it easier to get to your goal because you have a well-defined meaning of the structure of the meta-game<br />
But, as with all his games, there's a tremendous amount of polish and love in the actual game<br />
He pays attention to details and you can clearly tell.<br />
It's just that it feels a bit soulless, in a way.<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: Like there's all this machinery to get you to keep playing the game<br />
and you start to question whether you like the game at all<br />
or if you're just doing it because of the machinery<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: I feel like Journey is just the opposite<br />
There is almost no machinery. (There is a single unlockable, afaik. But they do have trophies.)<br />
And when you're done you're completely done<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: but it feels more special because it doesn't have all this rigging to make you want to play the game over and over<br />
I think it's hard for developers to say "we're not going to have this feature because it's too much"<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: But I think in some instances it can be the better thing for the game<br />
Todd: what can?<br />
Scott: Not having rewards for everything<br />
I think it comes from my basic dissatisfaction that every game must have achievements on Xbox live.<br />
Not every game should have achievements.<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: Not every game needs achievements.<br />
In many ways, it can make a game worse.<br />
and Sakurai is the undisputed king of achievements.<br />
Todd: Yeah. I think part of making a game is the illusion.<br />
Scott: Yeah<br />
Todd: and having stuff like that breaks the illusion.<br />
Scott: I think that's also one of the million reasons that I have no interest in Facebook games as Zynga makes them<br />
There's no magic, just artifice.<br />
(Or little magic.)<br />
Todd: yeah<br />
Scott: So that's my Kid Icarus Uprising brain dump!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-86754613898929494182009-06-28T11:14:00.002-04:002009-06-28T11:28:43.079-04:00Intriguing thoughtsI love <a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/36218">Dominion</a>, Donald Vaccarino's fantastic game from last year and have been playing almost constantly since I got it. The expansion (<a href="http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40834">Intrigue</a>) is out in Europe but not in the states; my pre-order hasn't arrived, but I've been able to play 5 cards from the new set for free on <a href="http://www.brettspielwelt.de/?nation=en">BrettspielWelt</a>. (Look for games that are set "random intrigue".)<br /><br />Here are the cards that are included and my pithy insights into each of them:<br /><br />Card: Baron<br />Type: Action<br />Cost: 4<br />Text: +1 Buy. You may discard an estate card. If you do, +4 Coin. Otherwise, gain an estate card.<br /><br />Nice new use of estates and overall a quality card. If you have an estate in your hand, he thins your deck and gives you a sizable purchase bonus. If you don't, he gives you an estate. Perpetual motion money machine!<br /><br />Card: Nobles<br />Type: Action - Victory<br />Cost: 6<br />Text: 2VP; Choose 1: +3 Cards; or +2 Actions<br /><br />There used to be no decision when it came to what to buy with 6 money, and now they're still isn't. You buy this card because there are fewer of them than golds and he chains with other nobles like crazy. Drawing 2+ of these guys is great; combo-ing with a throne room is divinity. (Granted almost everything combo-ed with a throne room is great.)<br /><br />Card: Minion<br />Type: Action - Attack<br />Cost: 5<br />Text: +1 Action; Choose one: +2 Coin; or discard your hand, + 4 cards, and each other player with at least 5 cards discards their hand and draws 4 more cards.<br /><br />Not the best 5 cost card, but a strange attacking library variant. I buy these and chain them together, then reset my hand if I didn't have any money in my final hand. I think this is the card makes action chaining decks more viable. Works well with extra action cards (village, festival, noble), because having more than one action after the discard is key.<br /><br />Card: Swindler<br />Type: Action - Attack<br />Cost: 3<br />Text: +2 Coin. Each other player trashes the top card of his deck and gains a card of the same cost that you choose.<br /><br />If you thought the thief was evil, you haven't played with this guy yet. The key words are "you chose". You know what costs the same as a copper? A curse card. You can turn opponent's estates into lots and lots of chapels, their gold into adventurers, and other truly awful things. Has a pleasant side benefit of making the game end much quicker because lots of cards are trashed and picked up. Less effective later in the game because at the 3, 4, or 5 cost level because it's often an even trade. Swindling an opponent's province when they're in the lead (trashing their province and having them pick up another one) can cause biblical lamentations.<br /><br />Card: Upgrade<br />Type: Action<br />Cost: 5<br />Text: +1 Card, +1 Action. Trash a card form your hand. Gain a card costing exactly 1 Coin more than it.<br /><br />I think this card sucks, except for being a cowardly (and chaining) man's chapel. (Throw away a copper/curse, nothing costs 1, so you don't have to pick anything up.) Otherwise you need a very even spread of cards on the table for you to climb the cost ladder successfully. All other main set 5 cost cards are better buys. (I'm right until someone beats me with this card!) Remodel is superior and cheaper.<br /><br />If these five cards are an indication of the quality of the set as whole, Vaccarino may earn my "boardgame of the year" two years in a row. I can't wait for the set to come out!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-31861311654530291382008-07-08T00:32:00.009-04:002008-07-08T01:08:25.629-04:00Civilization Revolution<img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJvpoTLx8sf8_71oAdsk8vOy1EiSsoaUE5Q_3M36BZ8R6LgpRnM8BaKgCpRVPopJFoXQNoRJmq0-7CnZd884FUHIIGfKrJikLrMt5PJ9tCD3qOZ9DYeJbF3O0J7gbP3sJG5DxU/s400/civrev.JPG" border="0" alt="" width="100%" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220504207286541554" /><br />After wrapping up core development a few months ago, Civilization Revolution (CivRev) is finally being released in the US this week on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo DS. I have been thrilled by the response to the demo on various message boards; CivRev is quite a different game than most console experiences and it was never completely clear to us how the public would respond. Thankfully, most have understood what we've tried to with the series and embrace it as its own thing rather than Civilization 5. I've been particularly proud of the responses of players who have never played a strategy game like this before. The sort of wide-eyed "there can be games like this?!" response makes me feel like we helped expand what people think of games by a little bit.<br /><br />Developing CivRev was quite a challenge for me because it was the first time that I was a lead in charge of other developers, the first time I developed a console title, and the first time we used Scaleform's GFX (a flash interpreter) to process and render the interface. Any and all accolades were won by my great team: Brittany Steiner, our flash genius that carried one of the heaviest loads in the development on her first project, and Russell Vaccaro, who simply would not stop trying to make the interface look as great as possible. Without the herculean efforts of these two individuals, CivRev would have been a much poorer experience.<br /><br />The success of the entire game can be credited to Sid Meier, who, among his many skills, can imbue all of his games with his unique charm and friendliness that makes them somehow more intimate and engaging than other designers. I particularly appreciate his patience with me; I'm sure he wanted to throttle me more than a few times during the project.<br /><br />I hope you have a chance to play the game. (Demos are available online for the Xbox360 and the PS3.) CivRev is one of the best games I've had the opportunity to work on and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-25137734999052676952008-07-07T05:05:00.003-04:002008-07-07T05:08:07.888-04:00Wall-E<span style="font-style:italic;">This post includes complete, fun-negating spoilers. Do not read if you haven't seen Wall-E yet!</span><br /><br />The first two thirds of Wall-E (until the Captain starts talking) is amazingly great. Pixar's greatest work, including the Incredibles. They have effectively a silent movie with a robot on a destroyed, garbage-filled Earth that is compassionate, warm, and endearing. Before Wall-E, Lucas owned robots. Wall-E makes R2 look like a 8-bit hack. His bazillion-points-of-articulation eyes, insanely clever physical design, and his collection, organization, and adoration of unique human garbage makes him brilliant. Pixar excels here because I believe robot humor is all about making you think the robot is a human, then doing something unexpected to remind you it's not. Pixar's creativity shines brightly through constant surprises. The first 2/3rds played out beautifully because they relied on the roots of Chaplin movies; an instantly beloved protagonist and inventive physical comedy.<br /><br />My problem with the last third (it may have been shorter than that but it seemed to go on forever) is that much of the lightness and artistry of the first two thirds is trashed through clumsy Pixar-rhetoric dialog by the captain and the jabs at modern human society going from subtle to street-corner preachy. The giant (30 minute plus?) chase scene was a soul-sucking endeavor that lacked much of the creativity that the rest of the movie exhibited. (Monsters Inc. is the textbook example on how to do a final chase scene.) The crazy robot ward was a highlight, until they went from the loony-bin to the wacky off-beat mascots featured in nearly every animated movie. The final scene of bringing Wall-E back to life might have not been completely cheesy had the last half-hour not sapped all my suspension of disbelief.<br /><br />Few things are more vexing than something that is mostly magnificent but partially crap. Wall-E could have been Pixar's best movie had they never set foot on the human spaceship.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-86177170983960960962007-07-31T15:07:00.000-04:002007-08-07T18:43:57.015-04:00Picross DSPicross DS was just released in the US, and if you like puzzles like Sudoku it's well worth your inspection. I've been playing the UK version (thinking that it would never come out in the States) and there are tons of puzzles and a surprisingly good online competitive mode. Picross (officially known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picross">nonograms</a>) have been around a while; it's frequently part of Games Magazine.<br /><br />Here's a <a href="http://www.thetimmys.com/flash/picross/">free flash version</a> to try out!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-26004023532685666722007-07-30T07:50:00.000-04:002007-08-07T18:35:58.517-04:00Resident Evil 4 RecantIt has taken me three attempts at playing Resident Evil 4 (twice on the Gamecube and now on the Wii) before I finally realized that everyone was right and I was <a href="http://allgetout.blogspot.com/2005/01/resident-evil-4-haiku.html">wrong</a>. Resident Evil 4 is a fantastic game.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggs2iL7dz4Q7bOnTap0KPjOP6WtDXo-ae2AOo_OgxhxNprVVxdDMVC_ZGbs9iFg6xzvBkRdqyRmw_1yv8b8klFYEfDPjddogEZCiztMgQvRGt_br-5d8VoKQyy1XzcfLIhDqyK/s400/938877_20070410_screen004.jpg" width="100%" /><br /><br />I love the aiming the gun with the remote. While Nintendo did a good job of translating Twilight Princess from a GameCube game into a Wii game, Resident Evil 4 gun battles feel like the game was designed from the ground up to be played with the remote. It's easy to switch between targets quickly and "juggle" a group of oncoming cultists/zombie/crazies through quick kneecap shots. Capcom plays the tension of "too many zombies, not enough ammo" like a violin. <br /><br />Other aspects of the game lack the elegance of the aiming; the inventory screen is obtuse and frustrating by using some rather obscure buttons (the + and the 'c' button). It certainly doesn't ruin the game, but it's a missed opportunity to not use the remote to drag and drop in the inventory screen.<br /><br />Anyways, there are pages and pages of people praising Resident Evil 4 and I wanted to add my voice to the chorus.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-83550533270690588592007-03-11T13:37:00.000-04:002007-03-11T14:02:40.812-04:00Feeling more at home on a PlanetSony's Game Developers Conference keynote had two memorable components: the introduction of <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=5zSuUtquc6k">Home</a>, their Second Life-styled real world, and <a href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=nuoOosTdFiY">Little Big Planet</a>, a game about users creating their own game levels and sharing it with others.<br /><br />The contrast between the two could not be greater. Home appears as a 21st century Microsoft Bob-style metaphor of all the functionality of the Playstation 3. Users can design and layout their realistic environment, and, as repeated multiple times during the presentation, players can purchase merchandise from the Sony store online to show to their friends. The question that comes to my mind when thinking about Sony's Home is "what's the point?" Second Life conjures up a similar question, but the level of flexibility and sharing is miles beyond anything Home offers. <br /><br />Little Big Planet approaches the "problem" of what to do with an internet connected console with an entirely different, more interesting and plausible approach. Instead of trying to provide a physical metaphor and community about all of the activities available on the PS3 console, Little Big Planet focuses on a few users working together to create content (in this case, game levels) for themselves, and then the ability to share these creations in a community about the game.<br /><br />Home is community for community's sake. Little Big Planet attempts to provide a community to extend the value and enjoyment of a game.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-45682028662108094622007-01-04T18:32:00.000-05:002007-01-04T18:51:22.757-05:00My Brother and His Game<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVLtfzClTGvJap5rlS7tKw9cjbp7pPZOXr6qflmJ9HBAW1piDxn4UKrCNXAQVRJaf1tVFhDsIR9geF3fAsF1_BiBFAHt3_HOHG32MKf1JuU4ozJxOaBly3pv8WHXVZohbjnKDa/s400/DSC01780.JPG"><br />While wandering around the Atlanta Airport this Christmas, we found an ad for Todd's first game as a lead designer. <a href="http://www.gameloft.com/new_shopping.php?product=153&product_name=Brain%20Challenge™">Brain Challenge</a> has received great <a href="http://wireless.ign.com/articles/734/734149p1.html">reviews</a> even though it had a tumultuous (and extremely brief) development cycle. I've only seen advertisements for the games I've worked on inside gaming stores or magazines; seeing something you developed advertised in an international airport has got to be a treat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-58502971427206307122006-12-18T21:45:00.000-05:002006-12-19T19:13:51.763-05:00Help! I'm Hooked on the Virtual Console!<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw6pKe1DE0gdf2ZG1k1ponXEEOrCqmaCoBpk0Vsoz3R-8G4u5B-Jzpt8lel8-7WJanXla8Ok01D5chkjJHUGZ1mt9IyjwQc8y9lwDIYuIaAOTHa3-Wp4U3EKnbqdvHXBB8yyDt/s400/military_madness+copy+copy.jpg"><br /><br />I should never have entered my credit card number into my Wii. In the last two weeks I've already purchased four games: One sublime classic (Gunstar Heroes), an interesting Sonic Team platformer (Ristar), one of the first console turn-based strategy games (Military Madness), and a nostalgia-fueled waste of $5 (Ice Hockey<sup>[<a name="1" href="#ftn.id1">1</a>]</sup>). The Virtual Console lineup started with some fantastic games (Mario 64, the NES Legend of Zelda), but the most tempting nectar are the Monday releases of Genesis and Turbo Graphics 16 classics that I've never played before.<br /><br />Part of my enthusiasm for the virtual console comes from my bizarre laziness when it comes to changing games. Inertia is overly involved with my gaming choices; if the disk is in the system, then I'm probably going to keep playing that. It's as if taking out game disks is <i>so hard</i>. The Wii lets me play all these games without having to get out of my seat! It's great! My PC theoretically has the same feature, but it requires disk swapping too for all the major games, despite the fact that it's too old to run Half Life 2, much less Relic's awesome Company of Heroes.<br /><br />Anyways, congrats Nintendo for somehow squeezing even more money out of me. Now I need to remember to pick up Bomberman `93 before I go on vacation for some multiplayer action. . .<br /><div class="footnote"><p><br /><sup>[<a name="ftn.id1" href="#1">1</a>]Ok, Ice Hockey isn't <i>awful</i>; it aged poorly and debuted in a transitional era of game design. Nintendo's Tennis game on the VC, on the other hand, is an atrocity. Not only does the Wii already come with one of the best tennis games ever made, the NES Tennis game was never good, regardless of when you played it.</sup><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-43455116457953375072006-12-17T11:37:00.000-05:002006-12-19T11:37:46.659-05:00Christmas DS HaikusA few of co-workers have gotten Nintendo DSs for themselves or their family and some have asked me what I recommend. Well, how about recommendations in haiku form? Everybody loves that!<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGs8kQQxjeYIljnarnDXyhqC90Eo_w086poEZZSBsKhzhHJBfMePVEyTvlxboj6ei0ShTajVQ5Dbok8hQMRzyDSpcB4s0L2sh3-NlGuWhVuz5vd2wnswxUBjlsjHAY-96lwMNw/s400/eba.jpg"><br /><b>Elite Beat Agents</b><br />Male cheerleaders? Huh?!<br />This comic music game grooves<br />even with Believe<sup>[<a name="1" href="#ftn.id1">1</a>]</sup>.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9NCyZg3ZqlqYA8V6DgzFpWPsgicZDTE47XlcZ_YW315XdeGVlEiioxy1o9b-q4f7TCEqqrqk-TzP0YsRaAwfagYnNC1x032KyKrqN3YDL-G2_iNmotKJFwLYI_VyELBCbX6AA/s400/dqrs.jpg"><br /><b>Dragon Quest: Rocket Slime</b><br />Look what's on my head!<br />I'll fire it from my huge tank!<br />Hope you like mad puns.<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjauJOUAv8Migzm7HEtTMrRD65nHdfRFiUPcJaEYitberVE9ZQmnzf7BJy_PddaLeEB5HLihAzR3Jx-BWTJBfhCyLHoB3mLc1WDlrnSAIbXoSp9JpKqBvfCxBC7rfH7shCBAOnD/s400/cdos.jpg"><br /><b>Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow</b><br />Has Metroid-vania<sup>[<a name="2" href="#ftn.id2">2</a>]</sup><br />ever been done better? No.<br />Take notes, Nintendo!<br /><br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_N_hgxHxigQjnD8yeAs0XvaigghbtJXY45xtKtU6bGgrdq_Jrtdbpd-DjSqc98AG8QxbjyL2-iUXIKQyLBwUP7mFlAwElTselmO3V4eqozloAJasOwbRPnfn4mNGcK2XTUyQ/s400/pmd.jpg"><br /><b>Pokemon Mystery Dungeon</b><br />Nethack<sup>[<a name="3" href="#ftn.id3">3</a>]</sup>, lose no sleep;<br />It's a puddle to your lake.<br />Still, fun in the car.<br /><br /><div class="footnote"><p><br /><sup>[<a name="ftn.id1" href="#1">1</a>]Yes, Cher's <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&token=&sql=33:2sxsa9cgb2ga">Believe</a>. While some may question the <a href="http://blog.wired.com/games/2006/10/exclusive_elite.html">track list</a>, Elite Beat Agents remains a fun game no matter how many hundreds of times you've heard the songs.</sup><br /><sup>[<a name="ftn.id2" href="#2">2</a>]<a href="http://www.gamespite.net/toastywiki/index.php/Site/Metroidvania">Metroid-vania</a> is a sub-genre of 2D platformers defined by their maze-like non-linearity and the collection of abilities that open up new areas to explore. The first Metroid-vania was Nintendo's Metroid, and later Konami's Castlevania games began mimicking them.</sup><br /><sup>[<a name="ftn.id3" href="#3">3</a>]<a href="http://www.nethack.org/">Nethack</a> is probably the most bestest game ever made. It's free, amazing, rendered in ascii, and nearly as accessible as <a href="http://www.trentu.ca/faculty/jjoyce/fw-628.htm">Finnegans Wake</a>.</sup><br /></p></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5901101.post-49611599503103687042006-12-14T18:42:00.000-05:002006-12-14T18:51:37.550-05:00Excite Truck! quick impressions<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi04CXzuUdbewNxNvL7lib6MKlMpdLT2xTOdIk_bakrmB56E9m0YouRRfkmkBGU9Zq5TXwIblfMj5ONk6OyqgamhYnCS1NFDNgRDtWdmVCT9bkKR0PgTbbxNFNtuZ1Kltg4z88p/s400/et1.png"><br /><i>These impressions are from ~30 minutes of play time.</i><br /><br />I got it today from a co-worker. The controls feel almost uncomfortably loose; it takes a while to go from the analog stick to tilting of the wiimote in a racing game. It's seems closer to an SSX than a typical racing game in that it's more about crazy jumps than riding a tight line. It rewards "style" driving more than any other racing game I've seen. Progression through the game is based on the number of points you accumulate through the level. You get points for doing stunts, jumps, and smashing up others cars as well as your finish position, so theoretically you can come in last and still "win" and get an S rank. (It's certainly easier to get an S rank with the 1st place bonus points, but it's possible otherwise.) There's also these bizarre power ups that deform the terrain; typically they make steep ramps for some ludicrous jumps, but sometimes they just make a ditch. (Maybe some are bad? I dunno.)<br /><br />For those who like to tracking how many crazy things they did and unlocking stuff for it, ExciteTruck may be one of the greatest games ever made. It counts how many times I've made tree runs (driven a good distance between trees), seriously wrecked other player's cars, and how many times I've made jumps that lasted over 30 seconds, and a bunch of other stuff I don't completely understand yet. Each time you complete a goal, you get a trophy and/or unlock a car. Unlocks are also car-based too. They track how frequently you've raced with a given car and how many S grades you've gotten with it and will unlock new types of that vehicle as you progress. Unlockable rewards come at a brisk pace but not so frequently that it feels like ExciteTruck is begging for your attention.<br /><br />If there's anything to gripe about, the graphics look somewhat dated and plain. Most of the time you're flying through the air, doing huge jumps, and you're too busy driving to nit-pick. Yet when you crash and are mashing the button to get your "pity boost", you have time to stare at the thing you hit and think "yeah, that tree is probably less than 30 polys". The game appears to run at 30 fps, maybe even 60.<br /><br />I got it for $30 and felt like it was a fair deal. If I paid $50 for ExciteTruck, I may have been left wanting.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0