Oddball Update

Another week passes with not a peep out of me. The big news this week is that my crew and I have finally wrapped up our foremost client website project. In the end I decided to take the content we’d already developed and wrap it around the WordPress engine. I wasn’t sure it was going to work, but it ended up being very successful. The client reviewed it and responded today, saying it looks great. Next week I’m going to train them on how to use the administrative backend, as well as the payment processing account I set up for them which lets them take credit card donations and payments on the site. I also have a lot of other stuff in the works on the job front which promises to keep us all busy for several months to come.

So, I’ve spent another couple of weeks working from morning till night, though not without taking some time for a little enjoyment here and there. My parents were in town for several days, and we had some good times — went to a car show and met some Pontiac enthusiasts, and had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants downtown. I also went on a little adventure yesterday, which resulted in my acquiring a new game for my Xbox360.

Why did simply buying a video game turn into an adventure? Well, here’s the deal. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion just came out, and for some reason I was really jonesing to pick it up. Although I never could get into either Daggerfall or Morrowind despite owning both, I think I was looking forward to Oblivion because I’ve been in the mood for a sweeping roleplaying game that could keep me busy playing over the course of a long period of time. Plus, Patrick Stewart voices the emperor. How can you beat that?

My problem was that I only had $35, and that was in the form of a check that needed to be cashed. The Xbox360 version of Oblivion costs $60. Even if I went out at rush hour and cashed my check first, where was I gonna get the rest of that money? I decided I’d have to bite the bullet and trade in one or possibly two of my 360 games. I picked Call of Duty 2 and Project Gotham Racing 3 since I rarely play either anymore. Armed with the trade-ins and my check, I got in the GTO and headed to the bank. It was 3:45 in the afternoon.

Some fool turned onto the road ahead of me in an expensive German car, and he was going so slow I wanted to tear my skin off. The road is one lane for five miles all the way to the bank with no passing zones, and I could not fathom sitting behind this slowpoke the whole way. I took a detour instead. Since the only store that still had Oblivion in stock was down at the mall, and there’s another branch of my bank down there, I decided to head that way. Of course, it started to rain, trashing my car in the process.

When I got to the bank around 4:15, I was dismayed to see it was all torn apart and covered with scaffolding. But wait, there was a big banner outside that proclaimed “YES - We Are Open.” Okay, all is not lost. I went in and parked, went up to the door and…it was locked. Guess what? This bank closes at 5:00 every day except Thursday, when they close at 4:00. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I screamed and waved my arms around animatronically, in classic style. Pooch would have been proud. I then got back in the car and thought to myself, fuck this. I came all this way and got my car all screwed up, I am not going to just go home. The mall is literally five minutes away. (Read: 15 minutes in seasonal Naples traffic.) I’ll use a credit card and deposit the check if I have to.

In the end, everything worked out better than I hoped. Gamestop was having a sale where if you trade in two Xbox360 games, you get a new one free. Brilliant! I didn’t even need the stupid check. So I walked out with Oblivion in hand, and spent a couple hours playing it last night. It really is incredible, the depth and range of freewheeling activities you can undertake in the game. That, and how beautiful it looks graphically. I spent literally an hour custom-designing my own character avatar, which gives you a 3D-modeling sort of interface where you can change a huge array of physical features about your player character.

Anyway, despite my working basically all week straight, I still managed to get behind on the project I’m working on at my day job. It ended up being harder than I thought. I’m having to work on Flash ActionScript now, and it’s not easy for me. So I’m going to have to put in additional time over the weekend to get this project done. It’s almost there, but there is an additional function I need to handle which just ain’t working so far. I also would like to write the March newsletter for our company before Monday, since that isn’t too hard and would help me feel better about the state of my task list. Of course, I also intend to play some more Oblivion.

I hope I have a better sleep tonight than I did last night. Not only was I uncomfortable, but then the stupid landscaping boffos showed up at seven o’clock in the morning with DEAFENING power tools blasting right outside our bedroom window…for THREE STRAIGHT HOURS. Needless to say, although I continued to lay there I basically “got up” at seven. Sometimes I really want to throw those guys under the bus; it takes them such an inordinate amount of time to do their jobs I never know whether they are just dragging it out to make more money, or are just understaffed. I try not to complain about it too much; God knows there are worse things in life.

That’s all for today, folks.

Categorized as Games/Console, Games, Life