>I woke up this morning in a hotel room on Wellington Street in Toronto. There are several nice things about my room. One: I have a view of the CN Tower. Two: Free Wi-fi. Three: Firm mattress. Four: One extra pillow on the bed. While waking, I noticed a painting on the far wall of my room. This painting shows a man and a European-style bicycle. (How can I tell that it is a European bicycle? Because the seat is very small and is located at the very back of the bicycle.) The man, interestingly, is not riding the bicycle….
>I’m away for the next week or so, in Upstate New York visiting my parents and my brother’s family for a few days before heading south to New York City to see some friends there and tend to some business.Yes, there’s a plane involved–two of them, in fact–and a train (Amtrak between Utica and New York Penn Station, and at least one automobile (my parents will pick me up at the airport tonight, in Syracuse, as usual later tonight). Pictured above: the actual plane that will take me from Chicago to Syracuse later on today. I also understand that I’m…
>My friend, John Teti, who is a very passionate and very lovely man (see for yourself here), apparently tapped out an ambitious comment that expounded on the reasons why we remain faithful to the 360 despite its tendency have more breakdowns than Liza Minnelli. Unfortunately, Blogger, in all of its unstable glory, decided to jettison the comment into the void where all ambitious comments seem to go. (Blogger has jettisoned more than a few of my ambitious comments in my lifetime.) (Why it does this, we may never know.)Anyway, John somehow found the time and energy to recreate the comment….
>About three weeks ago my otherwise solid, completely reliable, quietly humming Xbox 360 Slim began acting up. First sign of trouble: the machine occasionally struggled to load games from discs. The word “Opening,” followed by a repeating tail of ellipses, would hang up the screen for minutes at a time. The tiny green light in the center of the Slim’s silver circle winked at me in this cadence:winkwinkwinkwinkwinkwinkAfter that, the Slim began to behave as if it was haunted by the demon from Insidious. Games would begin to load up only to abruptly quit, booting me all the way back…
>Dear Fine People: I apologize for being so damn lax with my posts and updates lately. Suffice to say that there have been many reasons for this, not the least of which is the annual E3 convention, which is looming large on the horizon. (I arrive in L.A. on Sunday.)I currently have several posts in the old writing crock pot, which are almost flavorful enough to deserve spots here. Stay tuned for those.And I’ll no doubt be in a writing mood next week in L.A. So there’s also that to look forward to.What I’m trying to say is this: keep…
>[A couple things before we get started here: 1. If you’ve been with me since the Crispy Gamer days, you’re likely familiar with this story already. 2. Game writers have two core fantasies when they get into this business. One is to go to E3 in L.A. The second, somewhat more far fetched fantasy is to one day travel to Japan for the Tokyo Game Show. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to Tokyo–pre-devastation–three times for the show over the last few years. Each time, without fail, I returned to North America wondering if I really went to Japan or…
>One especially gloomy January morning a few months back, on the ropes after the holiday season and vexed by the milk-gray skies above Vancouver, I decided on a whim to make a list of one hundred things–places, books, stories, games, albums, etc.–that I love in the world. (Because this blog is the equivalent of a New Jersey Turnpike filling station, here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 of the 100-Things posts.)Now that it’s over–you’ll find entries 40 thru one below–I’m pronouncing my experiment an unmitigated success. Proof of said success: I’m smiling 60-percent more often these…
>I was trying to write something this morning, but couldn’t get anything going, so I decided to change my pants, see if that might shake anything loose. Change your pants, change the way you look at the world. At least that’s what I always say.The days seem to pass so quickly and painlessly right now that I often wonder where they’re going. I wake up in the mornings, drink coffee–one cup, black as a Castlevanian sky–spend a not-unpleasant hour or two at my desk either fooling with crossword puzzles or trying to write something coherent, and occasionally changing pants. Then…
>The overall mood here at the The Jones Report offices (current number of employees: three, counting the two cats WHO ARE USELESS BY THE WAY) has improved remarkably since I touched the bottom of the proverbial pool in January. For readers who expressed their concern over my dark mood, 1. thank you, that’s very sweet of you, and 2. dark moods are a part of life–well, my life, anyway–and I don’t necessarily fear them, or loathe them entirely. They are what they are, nothing more.But I do firmly believe that when you are in a dark place, down at the…
>It’s always dark when I get home at night from the studio, and dark in the morning when I wake up. Right now, and for the foreseeable future, my days are literally bookended by darkness. The blinds in my apartment–blinds are more masculine than curtains–have not been touched for months now.This short-days-long-nights dynamic is, of course, commonplace in North America. But it’s even more pronounced here in the Pacific Northwest thanks to the never ending rain. Yes, it’s raining now–right this very second, even as I type this. I can see it falling in great streaks against the dark windows…
