Sorry for the lack of updates; it’s been a very busy week.

I did end up seeing Indiana Jones again on Saturday morning with my wife and daughter. We had a blast. Sunday we went to my in-laws for dinner as they had family in town. Monday (Memorial day) we went for a motorcycle ride in the morning, and then I taught my wife the basics of driving the cycle and had her tooling around the high school parking lot with a big grin on her face. That afternoon we went to a church picnic; also fun!

The house thing is coming along nicely. The bank is willing to settle early, so all I have to do is get the money together. The papers have been approved and mailed off to my retirement program and my dad is going to give me the rest of what I need. He’ll get me the money tomorrow or early next week I expect. I think we can close in early June. (Just in time for 4E!)

I am angling to use our IRS “stimulus funds” to get the full Adobe Creative Suite so I can have Flash to do some fun things with the previews as well as get my hands of the Adobe video tools like After Effects. Some guys here at work and I want to start messing around with video stuff.

Gareth turned me on to this book:

I am also very excited about the prospect of having my own office, as I have mentioned before. I think it will really help my production schedule. And the garage/workshop will allow me to expand on some other business ideas I have. [An interesting bit of trivia; I first came up with the name Skortched Urf’ Studios when a buddy of mine and I decided to start a wargame terrain business!)

James and the other folks at OBS have coded a new set of reports for publishers to use. I am very pleased with the reports, as they are a much better “happy medium” than just killing them. Turns out we are ranked number 61 (top 16%) out of about 400 +/- publishers averaged for the last six months. Maybe if I release some stuff this month we can make the top 15%!

Gareth let the cat out of the bag that he’s had the 4E books for a couple of weeks already. (Jealous!) I have not seen them, and have not pre-ordered them either. I plan to get them at my local game store and then dive in to the new rule set with an eye towards supporting it as a publisher and writing more of the material myself. It will be a while before I play it with my regular group since we are in the middle of Star Wars, and then plan to do the Warhammer 40K RPG after that.

I just got back from lunch.  Some people from work decided to head down to the waterfront in D.C. and get a bushel of crabs and go to a park right near work for a Memorial Day Kick-off crab feast!  If you have never eaten crabs, they are much more of a social experience than they are an actual meal.  Frankly I think it is impossible to get full eating crabs; you just keep cracking them open and digging out the meat until you are ready to stop.  My hands will now smell all fishy for the rest of the day, but it sure was fun!  (I have already washed my hands four times since we finished!)

After work a couple of my friends and I are going to see Indiana Jones.  I’ll probably see it again tomorrow with my wife. She is working at her part-time job tonight so she can’t go with us. No big plans for the long Memorial Day weekend.  We have a picnic on Monday afternoon with a church group but nothing else on the books.  I am OK with just chilling out.  Maybe I’ll get some painting time in on my Warmachine figures.  I’ll try to get a PDF out this weekend as well.

I changed my gamer tag to a D&D themed name.  About half our group got them changed already.  For some reason I just can’t seem to get my account linked to Bungie.net so that I can get all my stats there and have a 5th column icon appear on my XBox live gamertag.  Very frustrating.

I have a bunch of new chapters our GM wrote up about the Star Wars campaign.  I’ll get those posted here soon as well.  He keeps calling me or emailing me and asking what I think about this or that section, and I try to give the best criticisms I can.  The plan is to gather all of the write-ups, character sheets and even to commission one of the play sessions to be done up like a comic book, do some illustrations and lay it out and have a keepsake book for all the people invovled when the campaign is done.  None of the players know this except the GM and I at this point, so it will be a nice surprise once we wrap the campaign up.  Shhhh…don’t tell anyone!

I have been checking out some stuff on the new Warhammer 40K game.  I’m itching to do some Space Marines!

I am also very stoked about 4E.  I plan to immerse myself in the new rule set and write more projects on my own.  Don’t worry, there will still be plenty of work for freelancers, as I have way more ideas than I have time to write them.

My current XBox Live gaming group is thinking of changing our GamerTags.  Currently we all have chosen monikers from the movie Big Trouble in Little China (Jack Burton, David lo Pan, The Wing Kong etc.) but we are thinking of switching to a D&D theme with Gamertags like “26d Orcs” or a “3rd level Bard” so during a game of Halo you’ll get screen messages that say something like “You just killed a 3rd level Bard.” or “You were killed by 2d6 Orcs.”  We’re still deciding on exactly what we want to do, as there is a Star Wars theme on the table as well.

So Ted Kennedy has a brain tumor.  Everyone on the news is talking about him like he is Ghandi or something. My thoughts mirror this post.

Looks like my input on the OBS forums regarding ranking, sales and other reports has had some effect.  James said he is going to code a new set of reports for us publishers.  While I may not get all the info I had before the merger, it will certainly wind up being more than just scrapping the reports entirely.

An interesting development on [SECRET PROJECT] happened this morning. My developer IM’d me! Apologized for the delay and said he’s get right on it. He already fixed one item on the To-Do list and asked for clarification on another aspect of the project. He said he would get to work on it and have something in a day or two. Needless to say this pleases me greatly. I am still learning PHP so in the future I can tackle some of these issues myself, but I hope he is able to see this project through so it will be ready for a public un-veiling.

I sent paperwork off today to get some down payment funds from my retirement program, and spoke to my dad about getting the rest of the needed funds. It looks like things are taking shape. I have to fax over a few things today to the Mortgage guy as well.

There is still a big discussion going on in the OBS publisher forums about various sales and ranking reports. I feel several of the folks are just trying to get the rest of us to be “OK” with having less information than we had before. I am not “OK” with that, and in fact I want more information! Information helps me make business decisions. Don’t try to regulate the faucet of information and give me what *you* think I need; give me MORE than I need and I’ll dig out the information I require. I honestly don’t get why publishers wouldn’t want sales and ranking data.

I’ve been slacking on new releases this month. Things have been crazy busy at work and the house hunting has also taken a toll. The move will not help matters but once we get into the new place and I set up my very own office I think things will smooth out. I’m gonna off-load some layout work as well. I guess I am also in a holding pattern until I can get my hands on the GSL and see what’s what with that. I do plan to support 4th edition, as I also plan to play 4th edition.

I have a boat load of figures for WARMACHINE I want to get painted before GenCon. I’d like to do the Hard Core 750 point tournament if I can get enough models painted. I also want to do another Warhammer 40K army when the new edition hits. I’ve been playing 40K since 1986, and even worked at GW in their HQ on a couple different occasions. All of my current gaming group are former GW employees; one of them was a VP. As much as I despise the business practices of GW I am a fan-boy of the products! (And no, I am NOT talking about their prices alone, but a whole bunch of other shit that they do on a regular basis.)

I watched Idiocracy the other day. Great movie. When I rented it at Blockbuster I was wearing my “Zombie Repellent” T-shirt with a silk screen of a SPAS-12 shotgun under the words. The guy behind the counter said he loved my shirt, and in an attempt to show his appreciation said Idiocracy was one of the worst movies he’d ever seen. I (politely) told him I had seen it and it was one of the BEST movies I had ever seen. Click HERE for eight minutes of highlights via YouTube.

Now for some more “Hawt Chixx” action! How can you wrong with Kate Beckinsale in tight leather wielding a couple pistols?

Looks like we found a house! Turns out the very first house we ever put an offer on came back up for sale after the previous contract fell through.  So I got a call from my real estate agent telling me about a “new” house that just hit the market that day.  We jumped on it and I met him there at lunchtime the same day.  While looking I realized it was the exact same house we had seen several weeks ago.  We made an offer and it was accepted almost immediately!  I am meeting with the broker today to finalize some of the money, and have the paperwork ready to go for a withdrawal from my retirement program for the down payment once I have a copy of the signed sales contract.  With luck we’ll have a new place to live in June!

What does this mean for Skortched Urf’ Studios?  Well, instead of just a laptop in the corner, I will have my very own home-office!  I really like the idea of having my own room where I can shut the door and just plain work.  As it is now, I often am working in the same room where my wife or daughter are watching TV or playing video games etc.  Or I have to fight them for access to the computer.

I took the motorcycle to work today and darn near froze my @$$ off!  It was like fifty degrees out but it is always like ten degrees colder on a bike so I was coming to work in forty degree weather.  in May! Like a dummy I didn’t wear my fleece under my jacket.  It should be perfect riding weather this afternoon, but I was really cold coming in this morning!

The release of 4E is sneaking up on us FAST!  Just a couple short weeks and we get to tear into the new edition as well as get a look at the new license to see what is what and how if affects us as publishers. I am really looking forward to it, both as a player and a publisher.  I certainly do not think 3.5 is going anywhere; especially what with Monte Cook on board with the Pathfinder RPG.

Things have been very busy over here. I worked thirteen hours yesterday, and was at work by six AM today.

We didn’t get the house we wanted, the bank foreclosed on it the day before our offer arrived. Had we been able to get in to see it the first night then maybe it would have been different. Who knows. I guess it’s back to house-hunting.

I’ve decided to learn PHP cuz I am tired of people stealing my money and waiting for flaky coders to get around to doing what I want. I have already made some of the code changes on [SECRET PROJECT], and am getting under the hood to customize the code. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I am starting to figure it out. I ordered this book to go with several others I already own:

I got it in the mail yesterday. I have also been looking at the video tutorials HERE. I took an Oracle database developer class several years ago, so I have a fair background in SQL and RDMS design, as well as MySQL. I know just enough HTML to be dangerous, and have a little background in programming in general. But I have never really ‘worked’ as a programmer or anything, so I still need to learn things like “best practices” and application design. The good news is that [SECRET PROJECT] is built on a commercial off-the-shelf application written in PHP, so all I have to do is customize it rather than build it from scratch.

There is a discussion going on at the OBS publisher board about the old Ranking Reports that you used to be able to run. They would tell you where your company ranked sales-wise with other companies, as well as how you ranked by number of sales etc. This went away with the merger, and now it may not come back because “some publishers” don’t want their data published. Look, I am a goal oriented kind of guy; I want to know if Skortched Urf’ Studios is number 89 out of 350 publishers or if we are slipping to 349 out of 350 publishers. The goal is, of course, to make the top twenty. Without the report I really have no way of knowing where I rank. I want information that will help me make business decisions. Give it to me, not some cop-out about whiney publishers. I am not asking for exact dollar amounts of other publishers; just where we rank. There has to be a better “Happy Medium” than just killing the report all together. We’ll see what they hash out.

And finally, since I don’t think there are enough ‘Hawt Chixx’ on this site, here is a picture of Megan Fox who you probobly saw n the Transformers Movie:

I thought you would enjoy that.

Working on this release now.  Look for it soon.

We saw a bunch of houses last night after work.  We really liked two fo them are are going to write offers today.  We tried to see a third house that we really like also, but could not get in to see it.  This house will go into foreclosure on Friday (tomorrow!) so we wanted to see it and get an offer in.  My wife was already in love with the pictures she saw on the web.  We get there and the key only works on the dead-bolt; not the door knob.  The current occupant (a renter) either locked it or maybe another real estate agent who had been in earlier.  It just seemed really weird that someone who is trying to sell their house just before it gets foreclosed on had to turn away a potential buyer.  I am taking a long lunch to do the paperwork on the other houses and I will go by and look at it today; but my wife is in a class for work and cannot come with me.  We’ll see how all that turns out.

I see the reverend Al Sharpton got arrested in New York yesterday.  While I am normally not a big fan of Al, I have to say I totally agree with what he is doing right now.  If you are not familiar with the Sean Bell case; he was killed by three police officers just hours before his wedding while leaving a batchelor party at a strip club.  The police fired 50 times at the car.  Three cops, fifty shots.  With pistols!  One of the officers fired thirty-one shots; reloading twice!

Do I think this shooting was racially motivated?  No, not really.  Several of the officers involved were also black.  (All the victims were black.)  Do I think that the police used excessive, deadly force?  Yes, absolutely.  I am all for cutting cops some slack due to the dangerous nature of their job, but fifty shots is just plain stupid when no one is shooting back at you.   Imagine you and your friends leave a strip club or bar or midnight mass (whatever floats your boat).  Suddenly you see three men approaching your car with guns out.  Not cops, but men in plain street clothes.  Is your first instinct to roll down the window and ask if you can be of assistance?  Hell no; you want to get out of dodge before you get car-jacked, robbed or killed.  So Mr. Bell did just that, he used his gas peddle to try to extricate himself from the situation.  Or he really wanted to run over some cops before heading over to the church for his wedding.  Cuz nothing caps a bachelor party like running over some cops!  If this kind of thing keeps up, cops will become targets.  That isn’t good for anyone.  If cops do wrong they need to be punished, not protected.

Obama or Clinton?

A bit of language in this clip, but it’s right on target. Made my (early) morning.

I tried to embed it in the post, but for some reason it screwed up the entire layout of the site. So click the link and head over to YouTube for sa look-see.

We didn’t get that house. Going tonight to look at more. Apparently they took another (higher) offer. We can be patient; we’ll find the right house in our price range.

Took the wife to see Iron Man on Monday night. She really enjoyed it. She also told me she had never heard of Iron Man before the movie came out, and didn’t know it was a comic book. My daughter said some of her school friends said the same thing. Sheesh!

I picked up the Ultimates TPB today for my wife to read. I was explaining the Avengers to her after the movie. The Ultimate line is a great way to introduce new people to comics. I also got the Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl TPB for me!

Just found out I need to be at work at 6:00am tomorrow. We need to remove some stuff before the contractors show up at 7:00am. So I’ll either take off early or get a bit of overtime. (I’ll take the overtime, thank you very much.)

Still no forward progress on [SECRET PROJECT]. I don’t know what it is but all the PHP programmers I have ever dealt with are total flakes. One guy I found on Craigslist ran off with my money and did jack shit. Just stole my money. Another flaked out before we even started. So the latest developer I am working with I found on eLance.com. They had good reviews, had done several projects and seemed reliable. So I sent a proposal and they got to work and did the first phase up right. I was happy. So I asked them to do several things for phase 2 of [SECRET PROJECT] and the bid came back as something I could afford. I paid half of the amount and have been waiting since January. I politely emailed for updates; and was ignored until I sent an nasty-gram. Then I got a song-and-dance about a loss in the family and an email account getting hacked. Yadda yadda yadda. A promise to get right on it. Still nothing. Fuck, what is with these flaky PHP coders? Will someone please just take my money and do what I ask them to do? What I want isn’t even terribly hard; I know enough PHP and programming in general to know that. I just don’t have the chops to do what I need done. OK, rant done.

P.S. If you are a good PHP coder and want some work send me an email.