The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I’ve been such a good girl today, doing all my grading, that I totally forgot to post this. So I’m posting it now!

My article on Atom Zombie Smasher is now up on Onthestick.com. It’s not a video game like the last time or anything, but, you know, apparently it’s pretty decent? So please do go check it out.

And again, if you haven’t been keeping up with all the articles, give them a read too, okay? I’ve got a lot of mine coming up in the next day or two, but there’s so much good stuff going up!

Okay, back to work. See you later, blog!

Hi, everyone!

Getting to work was only a complete nightmare, but my first article for On The Stick’s 31 More Days of Horror Games is up. It’s about Anchorhead, and you can find it here. It’s a silly little interactive fiction game! Hopefully you find it fun.

Whew. Now I’m going to bed. That took several hours more fucking around than I expected it to.

Hi, blog. What’s up? That’s cool, that’s cool. Let’s do a complicated handshake, as one does with their blog, and then get down to business.

October is an exciting month on Onthestick.com because it involves a lot of me. (Apparently I am self-centered now.) Okay, that’s not true. They’re always doing great stuff. It’s always a great month! I love their podcast and the rest of the stuff they do is just as solid, totally. But this month, they’re going above and beyond for another October.

Anyway, you may remember that last year, I contributed to their 31 Days of Horror Games thing with an article about Silent Hill 2. That was a lot of fun, and there were tons of great articles besides mine. I hope you checked them out. Well, they’re doing it again! With all new games! It’s going to be just as awesome, if not more so.

I had so much fun writing that last time, and I have so much less free time now that I’m teaching full time in which to write articles for fun, that I decided that I’d write four articles for this year. I am a time management genius. Look for those in the coming weeks. I’m sure I’ll call them all out on here specifically, though. I also recorded a podcast with all the On The Stick guys that went pretty well, I think. They said they’d have me back, anyway. So look forward to that this month as well.

But while you’re waiting, I do hope you’ll check out all the other articles. There’s one every day, and they’ve got all kinds of guest writers, not just me, in to do all sorts of weird games. So give that a read if you’re bored, okay? Onthestick.com is still the website. Just as a reminder. Onthestick.com.

Alright. That’s enough blogging for now. Have a spoooooky October! ooooOOOOOOOOoooooh. (Okay, that was a bit much.)

Let me just tell you about my proud teacher moment, okay?

So this semester, of course, I have been teaching. My class has been obscenely small. Like, to the point where I dunno why I was being paid to teach this small of a class, but I certainly wasn’t going to complain. It’s numbers have dwindled from 7 to about 4 or 5, depending on the day. We’re now at the end of the semester, and we’re just kind of coasting along.

Anyway, we sit down for basically our last class. I talk about their drafts, field questions, and then I basically say “Well, that’s basically all I’ve got, so you’re free to go if you want. Just have your final drafts done for next class.”
Melissa, who I’ve often clashed with a bit in class trying to explain things, leans back and says, “Thank goodness. Almost over.” There is a mumble of approval. She then says “I am so glad I stuck it out until the end.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yeah, there was a lot of times where I just wanted to drop this class. Too much work. But I’m glad I didn’t. I learned a lot.”
“I totally agree,” says Mary. “I thought there was no way I was going to be able to do all these essays, but I suppose it paid off.”
“I’m really glad you all think so,” I said, and I really meant it.

I dunno. I’ve gotten good reviews and such in classes. Always been rated well. I know I’m a fine teacher. But it’s just such a different thing when you’ve been working with these few students, basically one on one, for months, and they really feel like it’s been a useful experience. Their essays have gotten a lot better. Not perfect, but way better. They have really improved. They see that. They appreciate it. What’s more, they decided to tell me.

It’s just good to know I’m being a positive influence. Makes me smile. Makes me happy I’m going to keep doing this stuff, for awhile anyway. I mean, it would be nice if I was doing it full time, had benefits and shit, but still… it’s fulfilling work. Moments like that is exactly why it is.

No post today! Why? Because I wrote a post on another site yesterday. But they update later in the day. So. You know how it goes.

Anyway, as I think I mentioned at the beginning of the month, my friends at On The Stick are doing a month of horror game articles, and I wrote one about Silent Hill 2, which you can read here.

So do that, if you want, and enjoy! I’ll write something new here tomorrow.

If you already saw the link on twitter or whatever, I apologize. But I deserve a day off! If you’re a new person who read the article and then came to the blog, well, this is a personal blog. I post every day, a lot of the time about the games I am playing, but also just about whatever is happening in my life or is on my mind. If you want more long-form sorts of game writing… hm… let’s see… maybe my huge breakdown of why I loved Deadly Premonition would be more your thing? Also, while pictures are great, this website is pictureless by choice. Sorry. I only really do words.

Anyway, see you all tomorrow!

You know what I need to do? I need to enjoy my successes.

I got an acceptance email from a lit mag today, saying that my short story, “Downsizing,” has been accepted for publication there.

That’s top of cool, isn’t it?

At the same time, I didn’t really jump up and down. I told everyone because that’s what I’m supposed to do, you know? In the same way, I succeeded at this because that’s what’s supposed to happen. I’m supposed to write things, and submit them, and get them published.

Basically, this is, like, the stupidest way to think about things ever, and I do it all the time.

I don’t know why my instant reaction to being successful is to undercut my success and attempt to make it meaningless. When amazing, awesome victory is merely “adequate,” it’s hard to take joy in anything. But this is really cool. This is like, the first time a serious publication has picked up my work. This is a thing that I should be proud of, and I’m letting my stupid brain stop me from being proud.

So fuck that, I am proud. I did it. Me. I win at writing, and will continue to win.
I’m cool.

If you didn’t see, and didn’t know, well… Let’s Play Pandemic, shall we?

Updates should be bi-weekly to weekly, depending on how stressful things get with things.

I’m excited. I am going to make this board game awesome.

Maybe.

It occurs to me that I committed to starting this Let’s Play in May, and it’s starting to be almost May.

Seriously, I’m kind of insane for choosing to start this again. Like I’m not busy enough, right? So. Much. Shit. To. Do. At the same time, just thinking about it gets my brain rolling. I’m so excited about my plans, you can’t even imagine. It is going to be so much fun to write, and I hope everyone on Talking Time takes to it and plays along. I’m going to update with big updates every Saturday, and hopefully knock the whole game out in a month or three. It’s not a very long game, so hopefully my writing won’t spiral TOO out of control. Though that’s fun if it does, too.

It’s these kind of awesome plans that get one in trouble, though. Biting off more than they can chew, and so on. But eh, I’m throwing caution out there into a place known as “the wind.” I am going to embrace this shit, and write the ever-loving crap out of it. I hope the few of you who read this blog who don’t check it out over there will take a bit of a read on it as well and enjoying.

Seriously, so excited. I’ve been thinking of tag lines and horrible quotes all morning.

This summer, the action jumps above 98.6 degrees…

Take two of these, and if morning comes, call me.

In the balmy streets of Atlanta, four friends are about to discover their skills may be the only chance humanity has left.

Four Doctors.
Four Viruses.
One Solution.
Pandemic. Coming Summer, 2010.

Going to be so, so much fun. And it starts in May. I’m preparing. You should too.

As of today, in Twilight Heroes, I am ranked 9th overall in PvP.

What the fuck.

You might recall there was a time where I was really into the PvP in Twilight Heroes. I still think it’s pretty awesome. But I haven’t really been worrying about it for a long while. I’ve just been doing a fight every now and then to keep me as a viable target. Somehow, this rocketed me up the ranks. Perhaps I was one of the few higher-ranked people who kept themselves targetable, and thus those who were trying to grind rank specifically for the board kept attacking me, and losing, and up my rank went? That’s just a theory, though. This came out of nowhere, and I might not have even noticed if Cris hadn’t pointed it out to me. Why did it happen? Must have been Hitsuzen, I suppose…

But seriously, wow. Just wow.

I’m not going to worry about staying on the board. I’m just going to keep doing what I do. If I stick around on there, awesome. But fun is my first priority. Constantly worrying about a leaderboard seems to be the exactly opposite of that. But man, there’s my name. And it’s not even about snowflakes or anything!

Wow.

Hey. This is now the blog of an Ad Set Supervisor. Awesome, huh?

Well, mostly awesome, anyway. I’ve got a lot more responsibilities. I’ve got a lot more things I have to do every night. I have a lot more potential headaches. But it’ll look great on a resume to have management experience and, well, the sizable raise certainly helps as well.

As this is posting, I’m having my first night of being the boss. I assume nothing horrible will go wrong, but if it does, I suppose I’ll update to let you know how much of a failure I am. Heh.
But I’m not a failure.
I am a DAMN hard worker, the only one who was qualified for this position, and I fucking DESERVE it. I get embarrassed when people congratulate me. I enjoy cutting myself down. But I can be honest with you, blog. I deserve every bit of this promotion, and dammit, I’m going to enjoy it.

I feel like, to celebrate, I should buy something expensive or something. I wish netbooks were the actual price netbooks should be, cause then I would buy one. As it is, every time I look at one, I’m like “I could probably do a serious computer upgrade for that kind of money…” So I dunno. Is the internet in bed really worth that much money? WHO KNOWS?
I also feel like I want to spend money just because that’s what you do when you celebrate something like this, not because I really want to. Hell, I’m still deep into Fallout 3 and have plenty of awesome things to distract me from Christmas left. I got plenty to do.
Still, we’ll see if I give in.

In any case, in this new year, I am the boss. Well… I’m middle management. Which is kind of like a boss. Sort of.
I’m in control. To an extent.
Kind of.
Yeah.