My mom is transcribing her journal from when she became one of the first two women to live in the Arctic on the T3 research station (which was on a floating iceberg).
I have read it, and enjoyed it, and I think you might to. 
Archive for the Uncategorized Category
Worth Reading: Arctic Adventure
Posted in Uncategorized on January 13, 2009 by doomcookieTwitter & Me
Posted in Uncategorized with tags facebook, new media, twitter, video game design on January 13, 2009 by doomcookieSam Houston, also known as Qfor Q, who I first ran into a couple of years ago because of his work with Vanguard radio, recently published a list of a number of twitters belonging to game designers and game design companies in which my name was included. Now, I had only just signed up for twitter a couple of weeks ago in order to link it to my Facebook so I could both do a feed of pictures and status updates during my travel, and now I have a slough of new followers and all of the sudden feel like maybe I should take it more seriously! I update status on Facebook regularly with the same sort of shtuff people Twitter, so I may as well simply update Twitter and FB at the same time.
People ask what the value of twitter is and tend to pass off everything people put on twitter as, “I had coffee this morning”, but a lot of these same people regularly update their Facebook status with things that are funny, meaningful, or interesting, or are intended to be used as a way to begin a conversation with multiple people they know at the same time (such as asking for a recommendation, “Should I cut my hair?” “Should I see movie X or movie Y?”). I’ll admit, I less see the appeal of subscribing to a perfect stranger’s twitter, unless said stranger lives a very interesting life, but those of us in arts and entertainment can also use twitter/status to promote things we are doing, and those who are interested in our work will appreciate it. For a very good example, check out Felicia Day’s twitter. Yes, there is a good mixture of “I am doing this right now”, but she also keeps people updated on what is going on with her projects, and gives unique insight into the creative process that I know I for one appreciate. They can be mini blogs, and by placing the 140 character limit, it forces people to cut down to the meat of what it is they intend to say. I know I only follow blogs, even of people I am very interested in, so closely, because I don’t always want to read through George RR Martin’s football woes in order to look for news about when the next book in The Song of Ice and Fire will be released, or what HBO has done to push the series forward. With a twitter, GRRM would be forced to say “A Dance for Dragons will be released “, or if he wanted to talk about football, at least I would only need to skim 140 characters to know he isn’t saying anything I care about, and that would make me happy. Then, when I had a lot of time to kill I could visit his blog and read his extended thoughts on matters animal, vegetable, and mineral.
I’m not one to get involved in an internet trend unless I see value in it, and for awhile, I admit, I was a Twitter doubter too, but having used it for a little bit now, I think I am converted.
O yeah, and if you are curious, the following is a link to Sam’s article:
Video Game Companies on Twitter
And my twitter is:
http://twitter.com/missdoomcookie
Hmm, so I…
Posted in Uncategorized on November 25, 2008 by doomcookie… decided to go ahead and take advantage of the free play from WoW’s Winback program. I haven’t played since just a few months after launch, so I decided to ditch my old characters figuring I probably needed refreshing on most things (though being in it I am reminded of how basic the gameplay is so there isn’t much of a learning curve) and, also, I like the draenei and blood elf models well enough (for WoW character models, anyway, that has always been one of my least favorite elements of the game, that and the 13-year-old-with-Photoshop UI elements). I don’t know if I will stay, but we’ll see. I have wanted to play a second MMO but the thought of paying for two accounts has been dissuading me. So now that it’s just paying for one, I thought I’d give it a go. I wanted to play Warhammer but almost everyone I know who was playing isn’t anymore, and I know a couple of dozen people in WoW. Of course, they are spread out on about a billion servers but there are a couple of spots of concentration. I’m lukewarm at the moment but only got to level 6 on my blood elf priest and level 2 on my draenei hunter, so I am withholding judgment until I get a bit further.
Characters:
Eilee, Akama, alliance
Elliena, Malfurion, horde
Mumbabi, Feathermoon, hoarde
Launch Day Journal
Posted in Uncategorized on November 18, 2008 by doomcookie3 AM… I managed to fall asleep just a little after 11 and then was immediately woken by my alarm at 2. I know I fell into deep sleep because I remember a small piece of a dream, and blame my peppy-ness on that + the excitement of the launch. I think I may be annoying the people who haven’t slept at all (or for whom a few hours wasn’t enough) because I’m skipping every where I go and humming to myself.
So far all I’ve had is black tea and water, but I’m sure eventually the lack o sleep will catch up and I’ll need something stronger.
I Are Sleepy
Ilucide WTB Sleep
Brunin is Not Amused by My Pep
Tim Hiding!
6 AM… All is running smoothly, and I’m still running on tea, water, and youthful vigor. I’m not actually sure where the past 3 hours have gone. I’ve mostly been on beta answering questions, giving people custom titles, making them little/big, and generally messing around. Cronyn came in so I’m no longer quite so alone in my office.
Froech just gave us beautiful posters of the box art and now we are debating whether or not to get the team to sign. There’s one thing for sure, though, if we do, we’ll need a silver pen b/c black won’t cut it.
I Am Awake, I Swear!
Cronyn is Here!
7:30 AM… Things are still looking good. We took a short break and played some Rock Band in the conference room. Eye of the Tiger felt particularly topical. Breakfast arrived and I nom-ed on broccoli, fruit, and a little bit of hashbrowns (they were a little too similar to the hashbrowns I remember in elementary school). Then Domino showed up with rice crispy squares and that rounded off the meal with a not so healthy element.
I joined the Allakahzam chat and am having fun with people there and in beta.
Domino Made Rice Crispies!
8 AM… SERVERS UP! Beautiful launch! Unfortunately, I did not do the smart thing and pre-patch so I am stuck here waiting with everyone else to update.
12:30 PM… Everything seems to be going well. The overloading on some of the zones (read: Moors) has caused a decent amount of lag and sometimes kicking people to character select, but nothing too, too major. I think there have been some issues with keys and such but not an overwhelming number of them.
As for myself personally, well, my main is only level 76/112 AA… So I have been getting owned by my own zone. The spiders and canopy drifters of Moors have been the bane of my existence. I have no one to blame but myself! (And whoever made the ability that is allowing the spiders to root me for 30 seconds).
5 PM… I am home and almost out of energy. I spent a few hours at a Launch event we had at a local games store, “The Office Games”. It was really well put together. Our full length trailer was playing on multiple flat screens around the room and they had Everquest II running on every computer for people to play as they came in. They had free soda and food for everyone, and we spent most of the time talking with WoW players who were being given the chance to play Everquest II for free and convince them to see the light of our game. Quite a few long time players of our came through simply to enjoy the occasion though and we got to talk to them as well. All in all, a time well spent!
Tis the Season…
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Gaming on November 2, 2008 by doomcookieFor new and exciting games. In my case, I am only playing a few of the new and exciting games and attempting to finish other things so I can feel better about moving on to the new and exciting games. These days I am juggling:
Trying to get my main in Everquest II to 80 before our expansion and getting my secondary character as close to it as possible. She’s only 63, though, so she probably won’t get all too close. My main is 76 though and flying through the levels now that she’s hit Kunzar Jungle and the plethora of quests there, so she may make it. I’m not holding my breath though.
Still finishing Phantom Hourglass on the DS and Final Fantasy 1 & 2 on the PSP.
Little Big Planet, Rock Band 2, and Soul Caliber IV on the PS3. Little Big Planet… as soon as I hit the Dia de Los Muertos level, I was totally and utterly devoted. I actually haven’t done much with the level building. I don’t seem to have enough objects yet to do much that’s interesting, but it is definitely robust. RB2 has such a better song selection that RB1, especially for a chick, and I was pleasantly surprised that when we exported RB1 songs, it gave us all of them, including those we hadn’t unlocked. I wasn’t going to pick up Soul Caliber until I played it at a party last weekend and fell in love with Amy and her rapier, so I got it cheap online.
Steam had a deal on Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines for Halloween that a friend convinced me to take, so I downloaded it. I started up a toreador and ran around and it looks like it could be fun but I think I can hold it off until I get finished with at least a few other things. I still pop into TF2 every now and then and heal people on Lotus servers (usually dustbowl).
As you can tell, I’m not one of those people who tends to stay focused on one thing at a time. At least games are easy to get in and out of. It’s when I do this sort of thing with books that I really get in trouble. I’ve been good about that lately but I’ve been known to be reading half a dozen books at once.
I will probably try to grab Bioshock now that it’s out for the PS3 once I finish a couple of the above. Hopefully by then the price will drop. Once both Tom and I have our characters to 80 in EQ2, I might pick up Warhammer.
Fan Faire 2008
Posted in Uncategorized with tags everquest 2, fan faire 2008 on August 17, 2008 by doomcookie… is done. But what a time it was!
The first day was tough. We couldn’t say much of anything during our panels and our “History and Lore” panel was that day. Fortunately this Ethernaut stuff has been coming out for a bit so we could at least generally talk about them. I did a reading from “Of New Friends… Part II”, so a little sneak peak there for the Fan Faire folks. It was like a weight off as soon as the news hit and the beautiful box art hit the screen at Smed’s address. Truly, they have made up for last year with this year’s box. We gave free digital copies of both the EQ and EQ2 coming expansions to our FF attendees, but I think more than one of them is going to want to buy the box just for how pretty it is. Well, at least, I would, but maybe I’m just a dork. Hey wait a minute… I’m a game designer. *Of course* I’m a dork!
Saturday’s panels were great. I got to talk about my two big projects for the expansion – our massive overland zone, Moors of Ykesha (the former Innothule) and the signature quest series that carries through the lore of The Shadow Odyssey (of which there will be an evil version and a good). After that I pretty much had a beacon over my head for the solo players and got to chat a lot about what they want to see. Oh yeah, did I mention troll pirates? I think I did! I love trolls, I love pirates, and I am having fun with them in that zone.
So I didn’t lose any money gambling. I genuinely wanted to play craps but didn’t manage to end up with someone teaching me until Saturday evening and then it was the banquet, and then to bed for me, as I am here in the airport on an 8:30 flight. Again, a dorky moment, but in an odd way it reminds me of playing Settlers of Catan… I played the slots all of twice, both times only inserting a dollar. I did manage to win 22 bucks off of one of those dollars, so I guess I came out ahead. I managed to spend relatively little money overall, but I didn’t eat nearly as much food as I should have, so that helped. I don’t have a massive appetite but I recognize even I should probably go through a day on more than some leftover omelette and fried zucchini.
I was reminded quite a few times that I need to pour through Vhalen’s many, many lore notes even more than I have. I tried to answer the questions that I could, but people came to me with some really obscure lore questions. I suppose if they weren’t really obscure, they would already know the answer, because they are much more clever than I am.
I really connected with a lot of our players, and that’s what counted. I was giving out hugs by the time I started to say good-bye on Saturday, and made a promise I well intend to keep that I will have at least one fae react to the odd sight that is an arasai citizen of Kelethin.
The parties were, of course, good. I really have to commend SOE for the Friday night bash. It was really fun. I worked the crowd with ‘I Love Rock ‘n Roll’ during the live band karaoke and then danced with friends & players most of the night. I was in line to do the rock wall when I had to come up for my song, so I didn’t end up doing that. But I probably would have embarrassed myself. Upper body strength is not something I work on at the gym as much as I should. It turned out Felicia Day of The Guild, Buffy, and Dr. Horrible’s had been in the Hilton for another convention and been invited to the party, so I ran into her there. That was very neat.
So it’s done, back to work! I think The Shadow Odyssey has the potential to be really fantastic but that’s only going to happen if we keep our noses to the grindstone.
Ready for Fan Faire
Posted in Uncategorized on August 13, 2008 by doomcookieSo last night I went out and bought a new ‘little black dress’ (my trademark) and an ASUS gaming laptop and everything’s packed and ready to go. I just need to log on to Southwest at 1:20 pm sharp this afternoon to get a good seat for tomorrow’s flight.
So yes. A new laptop. My old HP was on its last legs… video/sound didn’t work on it (video because of the sound element), the battery lasted for an hour max, and my dogs got to the cord. I decided to drop by Best Buy and they had an offer whereby you could get 2 years no interest on a new line of credit if you spent at least $999.
Every time I get a new laptop, I swear that its primary use is for writing and otherwise being efficient, and then I always end up wanting to use it for gaming at some point or the other (usually when I am in Washington, snowed in, during the holidays), so this time I went ahead and bought a gaming laptop. It’s an ASUS with an Intel duo, 4G RAM, and 512 dedicated video memory. It’s got all these crazy lights on it that it swears are great for gaming but I’m not sure I’m a fan of them. I’d prefer the simply, classy look of an HP or a Mac, but I can deal with it. Still, it was the best looking machine for the price (especially because it was on sale on the website, which they matched in store). Also, the only other gaming laptops were two Gateways and a gigantic Toshiba. This ASUS is already bigger than I went in wanting (15 inch screen), so the Toshiba was out. And I have been skeptical about Gateways for a long time.
Dr. Horrible’s is anything but horrible
Posted in Uncategorized with tags Felicia Day, Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, NPH on July 17, 2008 by doomcookieIn case you’re living under a geek rock, let me sell this to you. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog. Neil Patrick Harris is a second rate super villain, Nathan Fillion is an egomaniac super hero named Captain Hammer (his fists are NOT his hammer, baby), and Felicia Day is the cute laundromat girl out to save the homelss that Neil Patrick Harris’s Dr. Horrible is in love with.
It is hilarious.
If you need to be sold on it further, here’s the trailer:
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1004572358576&ref=share
LFG – Found!
Posted in Uncategorized on June 19, 2008 by doomcookieGot my Fan Faire room situation settled! Yay!
