perfectly good airplane

An insane birthday weekend awaits. It's not food, but I feel bound to share.

My buddy Ed is also having his birthday this weekend, and he asked me to go skydiving with him. I understand why I, with someone with nothing to lose, might jump out of an operational aircraft. Tougher to understand why a guy with a 4 month old daughter might do it. Hmm... maybe that's why!

With the Army game, I got to observe many hours of airborne training, and thought I understood the process pretty well. Clip on to the line, shuffle forward, hop out, parachute opens, float down. Not this time -- seventy to ninety seconds of freefall before the chute deploys. I suspect that will be the longest seventy to ninety seconds of my life.

I wonder if it's like what a crush feels like ... that sinking feeling in your stomach when you're absolutely attracted to someone and about to do something absolutely stupid and risk everything. (Never done that, oh no!)

On Tuesday I'm running the world's biggest run, the Peachtree Road Race. My pop and I have been doing it off and on since I was a teenager. I took a few years off, for a woman and for being chubby, but having shed both of those issues I'm back to give it another shot. So if the fall doesn't kill me, that just might. :-)

Sorry, no food reviews tonight. Going to the Fox and Hound again, for the atmosphere much more than the food, and I refuse to give them the airtime. ;-)

unconscionable defenestration

Had a lovely lunch at Porter's Tavern. Their consistency is really what keeps me coming back -- especially when I'm trying to make a good impression with lunch (client, date, etc.) I can count on a moderately full house with no wait, good food, and good service. And the sweet tea is refreshing rather than syrupy, which makes a suprising difference in how much one enjoys a meal.

The crab cake sandwich apparently was a pleaser. I had a grilled steak salad with roasted corn and tomatoes, which could have simply been a menu placeholder, but came across surprisingly well. For dessert we split the creme brulee, which I am convinced is the best in town -- and that's saying something for such a common/overplayed dessert.

If you go, I quite recommend the calamari. Having spent a few years in Monterey, where calamari is caught locally and never frozen before serving, it's a wierd thing to say -- but Porter's has excellent calamari. I've been with one couple who insists on having their own calamari appetizer to start, because they know they'll be too rude to share with their friends. :) For lunch, the trick is to order the caesar salad with calamari, and then ask for a side of the dipping sauce they serve with the appetizer. It's only a dollar or two more, and you get essentially an entire appetizer's worth of calamari and a nice salad to boot.

Just when we thought the rain was over, we got a late shower on Wednesday -- my poor grass had been growing happily for three weeks before I finally caught up with it yesterday. New neighbors moved in across the street, and I'm sure they wondered if I had abandoned the house...

And finally, let me just point out that "maybe" is a bad, bad word. I believe I'm going to have "maybe" replace both "phlegmatic" and the Dutch phrase "Krijg de pest" (go and get the plague) as tops on my list of things to stop saying. You can find some much more beautiful words to say here.

full of sound and fury

Epic had its spring picnic on Saturday. More than half the attendees were under three feet tall, which is quite a change for a company that was once 90% bachelors...

It's garden-giving season here in North Carolina. A good friend invited me over for a dinner of pasta and fresh vegetables, because all of her clients have been giving her squash and cucumbers when they pay her. If that doesn't scream "south" I don't know what does! (Turns out she's an awesome cook, how did I miss that all these years?)

When I was in Madrid about a year ago, I was very lucky to attend the Real Madrid v Dinamo Kiev game. The stadium seats 100,000, and puts to shame any place I've been in the states. Seeing Zidane was a treat; even at the end of his career he controlled the midfield. Michael Owen had limited minutes but had two more gears than the Kiev defense, brilliant to watch. The one real disappointment (besides Beckham, who was injured) was mega superstar Ronaldo. His footwork was still enchanting, but he had no gas in the tank. He was clearly overweight, jogging slowly, very slow to return on defense, etc.

Thus I was surprised to hear that Ronaldo just broke the record for most World Cup goals, with 15. (Although many say that he's actually tied for the record, because he is improperly credited with a goal from 2002.) I guess if you want him to run, it has to be for the yellow and green of Brasil. The 27M that Real Madrid paid to buy him away from Inter Milan wasn't enough to get him moving...

To keep up with my restaurant reviews, I tried Red Robin in Cary on Monday for lunch. The restaurant just opened recently here in Cary, but it's part of a larger chain that many Epic folks know from elsewhere. Huge burger selection, nice wait staff. Our waitress had only a few days' experience and made an honest mistake with the order. No less than four different staffers and managers came by to apologize, and they comped the dish as well. Can't complain about that! Then, distracted by the last-minute Italy win on penalty kicks, I managed to leave my corporate credit card behind. I kid you not, the rather lovely manager drove to my office after she left work to return it. Now that, dear reader, is Service.

blackened is the end

Finally Friday. Employee review season finished today, for another six months at least, and now we can get back to the job of shipping games. Our company meeting had four new people to introduce -- would have been five if anyone had told the newest guy about the meeting. That just boggles the mind when you're working at a small company. We just hit 80, and were 25 when I started, which will be four years ago next week.

It's funny that Epic still feels like a startup sometimes, even though it's been running strong for 14 years now.

Had dinner at my favorite eating-at-bar in town, Harrison's in Cary. Huge burgers to order, with a great range of options. Philly style, or blackened with jalapenos, you name it. But nature intended burgers to be made Carolina style -- chili, slaw, cheddar, onions, mustard. Massive onion rings, cute waitresses, lots of sports options, good selection of microbrews and international beers to wash down the food. I'd call that the whole package...

The wierd thing about Harrison's is that it's in the basement of a multipurpose building, where the top floor is shared by a gas station and a low-quality strip joint. My sister is visiting and I took her there, and it was a little awkward navigating around the drunken businessman traffic. Probably not a good date spot, but hell of a burger joint.

lucky 17

I have some cool Gears stuff to share.

First, we're going to have our trailer in movie theaters in July, which is going to be too cool. Now I have an extra reason to see A Scanner Darkly and Clerks 2.

Full list at:
http://gearsforums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=503.

Also for those of you who haven't seen it, catch me and a very small portion of the Gears team in the Gears of War: The Road to E3 documentary. It ran on MTV and MTV2 for a few months, and now it's archived on MTV's overdrive site (http://www.mtv.com/overdrive). Just go to the games channel and pan down and you'll see it, and a few other shorts about us. Turns out I can play foosball.

17 is apparently Zoe's lucky number, and that's good enough for me to switch my allegiances.

A name to be proud of

Just had to say congrats to the aptly named Carolina Hurricanes who made an incredible run to win the Stanley Cup. I've never been a hockey fan -- I'm more of a baseball guy -- but I must say a live hockey match beats baseball hands down. Having seats right on the glass at a hockey game is such an experience.

We're really spoiled here because games never sell out, so you could pick up a $110 center ice ticket for $40 or so from a scalper if you're willing to wait midway through the first period. Even the second playoff round didn't sell out, much to the shock of visiting fans. Of course, everyone and their brother jumped on the bandwagon for the cup, making it impossible for actual fans to get in, but Epic feted the boys in red and black in a very crowded bar down the street. Very cruel of them to take it out to seven, but much credit to the Oilers who lost primary goalie in the first game and still kept it close.

No reports from dining out today, but thanks to Lisa I did learn about North Dakotan Knoephla, so it appears I'll be doing some cooking this weekend...

Once, then, share with me your song

Making a game is difficult. Making a game for a worldwide audience is really difficult. Making a violent, bloody horror-infused game for a worldwide audience is maddening. German folks don't allow dismemberment. No skinned bodies for Japanese folks - and all characters need five fingers. Apparently one group was fine with people being killed by a chainsaw, but the pool of blood afterwards was too much for them. Yargh! And of course it's all completely subjective. There are no actual rules, just suggestions -- so we could pass a rating check one day, and fail the next. It's the same as MPAA ratings, I suppose; one person's R movie is another person's PG-13.

We're fussing now with different ways to ship different versions of the game for different markets. Makes for some extra work, but we'll make sure everyone gets a chance to play.

Went to the new Salem Tavern in Cary. This was recently a Sam Snead's Tavern, and they've removed all the golf clubs and replaced them with swords. The golf balls in collectors cases have been replaced with little dragon statues and platemail helmets. It was rather hilarious. "Mmm, I'll have the mild Dragon Wings with Medieval Blue Cheese sauce." The poor waitress was in period dress, serving eggs benedict, a Southern Burger, and Dragon Wings. Boy did I feel like I was in the middle ages... the worst part is that of course there is a fantastic restaurant in Old Salem, NC called the Old Salem Tavern. I highly recommend that fine establishment, and somehow I believe its reputation to be sullied by this partial namesake, even from a hundred miles away.

is this a restaurant review column?

On the Gears of War front, we reviewed the PR calendar with Microsoft, and there's some very exciting events. Unfortuntately, it seems like everyone wants fifteen exclusive screenshots for each article -- people don't realize how picky we are. We've literally had an artist spend all day gathering over a hundred screen shots, and then rejected them all for one minor problem or another. It usually takes about thirty good shots before we find one that we consider ready for publication. So, we have to turn down more PR opportunities than we'd like, but I still think we'll have excellent coverage.

We're going to be running the Gears trailer in movie theaters now, that should start soon. I swear I think we're going to have to take a company trip in order to see that. There's something about seeing your game character 40 feet tall that makes a man happy :-)

But forget about work, I finally got to try Frazier's Bistro last night. Hurray for lawyers and expense accounts!

My appetizer, the Truffled Egg Toast and Asparagus Salad, was delicious but a bit of a mistake as it was a full meal in itself. The "egg toast" was a thick slice of texas or perhaps brioche toast with an egg fried in the middle, plus country ham and lettue and a vinaigrette. Excellent, but that plus the amuse bouche and some wine made for a heavy start to the evening. For dinner, three of us had the Pan-Friend Carolina Flounder, with a bacon and sweet corn succotash. It was essentially a crispy fillet served over corn chowder, with potatoes and mushrooms, quite tasty. I always fret when everyone at the table orders the same entree, but we were not dissapointed. We finished with a shared dessert of churros with a dulce du leche dipping sauce, and an excellent glass of beerenauslese whose name escapes me, though the honey and apricot flavors lingered for some time.

mmm food

Russell Stover jelly beans were sent from heaven to make people happy. I think they're infused with the happy souls of bunny rabbits or something? Which sounds painful for the bunnies.

Strongly suggest the Bloomsbury Bistro in Raleigh. Simple two-tier menu, with small plates and large plates. Had a vichyssoise with lump crab meat that was out of this world, was enough to stop a tense dinner conversation in its tracks.

Their wine by the glass list was extremely limited, with only one choice for most varietals, but the Matanzas chardonnay was a strong enough pick.

For those people who've tried the Cosmopolitan, and enjoyed the food but weren't thrilled with the service or ambience, this is the place for you. Essentially the same menus with a cozy setting.

rainy Wednesday haikus

Was in the mood for haiku today. No idea why. Insane amounts of rain here, with roads and greenways flooding, got me thinking.

grasses dance with rain;
brown thrasher retires to his
glistening thicket.

Here's another.

ruby lantern sways
bound feet wear mahogany smooth
paper door slides shut

I was lucky enough to visit Kyoto last December, and the geisha houses were fascinating -- red lanterns hanging outside, but they all looked like respectable restaurants, many with small gardens and ponds just beyond the entrance. Very peaceful, yet secret.

Posting a picture

Because this is the way you have to do it...

Must start somewhere

I've decided to try a few different blogging tools. Will I choose this one? You'll have to wait and see.