Wolfy Anytime
Something strange happened to me while I was working on a client’s website this weekend. Since music distracts me from such tasks, I typically play some of my old tapes or other spoken-word stuff in the background. This time I happened to select an old recording of Wolfenstein 3-D gameplay, and I have to admit, this got me seriously thinking about doing some more Wolf3D level design.
Not too long ago I created a new 10-level episode around a slightly modified Wolf3D engine, which my friend Pooch playtested and gave the thumbs-up to. I never went back and did any more levels though. I was planning to release the first episode by itself, then add episodes to the package as I created them, but I’ve once again dropped out of the Wolfenstein scene by virtue of the fact that I always seemed to have something else to do, and couldn’t devote the time to it anymore. That shit is like a full-time job, I tell you.
Which reminds me that even though I feel like I could get back into it and draft a few levels for episode two, I can’t really afford to. I’ve got a lot of side work to do. Even after spending pretty much the entire weekend working on the bikini website, there’s still more work to do—although at least I got two-thirds of the items crossed off my list of changes. Following that, I’m helping some friends at work with a project in the off-hours, and a former employee emailed me last week to ask if I wanted in on a job designing iconographic labels for remote control buttons. I guess I’m going to accept. I need money for my computer upgrade.
Attack of the Miscellany
It’s unwarranted! It’s irrelevant! It’s miscellaneous! That’s this Oddball entry, 1960s movie poster style. Sometimes I have used Classic Oddball as a vehicle for notes to myself, or as a means to set “life waypoints” that I can use later to glean a timeframe around which certain things happened to me. Thus I don’t really care whether you find any of this content interesting or not. Also, I’m quite bored to death right now, so I thought I would post something again.
I don’t know if I mentioned it, but we got our new refrigerator. Our new free refrigerator, thanks to GE who apparently is in “major concession” mode right now because they can’t afford to have any consumer lawsuits filed over the fact that they really don’t know how to build a decent fridge in the first place. Or didn’t, anyway. My hope is that those times have changed, and so far it looks like they may have. The new side-by-side refrigerator they sent us has been really great so far. Apple and I both have commented that we really like the fridge, and that’s something we never said about our old one, even when it was new.
For starters the thing feels a lot more solid. The doors don’t rattle or act like they’re gonna fall off, it doesn’t make as much noise, and the water pump doesn’t go SLAM when it shuts off (like the old one did). Even at a warmer temperature setting, it keeps food much colder than the old one did. Plus it looks like it was actually designed as though a human being would use it; to wit: You no longer have to remove the shelving in the freezer just to turn the icemaker on and off. The temperature regulators are now digital instead of analog, the door contains a nifty integreated can rack (which we found works just as well for jars of things like mayonnaise and spicy chili sauce), and the buttons on the front panel water dispenser—while they no longer beep when you press them—are much easier to press. There’s even faux chrome around the door handles, wooooo.
