Rest and Recuperation

I've been working a lot lately and I think it's made me cranky. Worked a bunch of unofficial late nights and across so many weekends, I can't remember when I had two complete days off in a row.

So this weekend, I will! :)

It feels sort of rebellious. There are things that I could work on...but I need to rest. Although I could have taken Thursday off (and apparently, I looked so terrible, everyone wished I had), but I felt that I should go to work. Beta! It looms! And I have things to do!

But you know...upon further reflection, it seems to me that the amount of stress I put upon myself is not directly proportionate with the actual need for me to do things. Other people seem to have gotten this idea earlier on in the process. Some folks may not yet get it.

I can't single-handedly make or break this thing, but I can single-handedly push myself too hard. At least, I had been. The pushing stopped today. I left at a reasonable (though still late) hour. And I'm not going in on Saturday or Sunday.

Perhaps now I will be able to make some headway into cleaning up my room, which is still a repository of boxes and crap. I'll find a storage place and get these things out of here so I can rest completely.

That's my goal and I'm sticking to it.

Moscow

I wish I had more to say about the Tokyo Game Show, but unfortunately we spent our days sequestered in a hotel suite showing our games to the Japanese press. We ran around the show floor for about a half hour on Saturday and wouldn't you know, my camera had spent the previous night filming my purse's insides and wouldn't turn on, so I'm relying on our PR manager's camera photos of the cos-play folks who were a really cool sight.

We arrived at our hotel in Moscow this morning around 1AM and found to our delight that it's exactly across the street from Red Square. I had breakfast in the hotel restaurant and stared out the window at the scenery listening to their Muzak version of Elton John's Little Nikita. How appropriate and ironic!

The guys from our Russian distributor (I believe that's the technical term for them) gave us a tour of their offices and then said we were going to head out for some sight-seeing, shopping and lunch. The drive was horribly exciting as apparently lines are painted onto the roads for decorative purposes only. Drivers, including ours, headed onto the road's shoulders and a couple of times, the sidewalks, as they jockeyed for position in the lanes.

It's 11:30PM in Moscow. We came back not too long ago from our tour of Suzdal, which was once the capital of Russia. Little did we know when we headed out that we were going two and a half hours outside of Moscow to do the sight-seeing and shopping. We walked all over this extremely picturesque town and around sunset, arrived at an orthodox convent that doubles as a hotel.

John, one of the guys from Akella and I were ahead of the rest of the group and entered the chapel just in time for the end of a service. The nuns' singing was so beautiful and the experience was surreal. As they finished their service, they turned out all the overhead lights so that the chapel was lit only by small electric candles that they then walked around and extinguished one by one. Beautiful.

Change in the Weather

While it's still hot out during the day, the temperature drops once the sun sets and then it gets much cooler.

I can always tell when the weather changes because Mittens will sleep at the foot of the bed all summer, only moving up to curl beside me when it gets cooler. Right now, he's curled up against my thigh, paws out before him like a little tuxedoed Sphinx. He's so cute!

My trip begins Wednesday, so I'll probably be too busy panicking tomorrow to post anything :) Our beta starts this week and I find myself anxious to know how it will be received. I've long since lost my objectivity when it comes to the stuff I'm doing for this one and not being here when our players first get to see it is going to drive me nuts! I'm sure SteveD is anxious for me to get out of the office for a while, for in the past week he's had to put up with my suddenly muttering profanities as I try to put this or that together.

Ah, well. I'm sure things will sort themselves out without me fretting over it. I need to nudge Mittens aside and slip beneath the covers to get some rest, for tomorrow will be a busy day.

Have a nice week, everyone! If I can get online while I'm away, I know where to look for you guys :)

Laptops of Luxury

Alas, the new laptop SteveD and I picked out would arrive much too late for my trip so I ended up buying one off the shelf. It hasn't got the oomph that I wanted, but it is $200 cheaper and is what I am using to type this now.

Yesterday, someone wrote a song for me. All my hopelessly romantic life, I've wanted someone to write a poem or something for me and so when SteveD penned (well, typed) the song, my little girl dream came true! Although I must admit that as a girl, I had rather hoped "my song" would be romantic and flowery. Instead, despite the catchy beat, I cannot use either romantic or flowery as adjectives. No, I think the most appropriate description is goofy.

Y'all can hear it when our next podcast is released. Stay tuned for details.

A somewhat hectic weekend, planning for the trip and yet planning also for all the work that must be somehow done while I'm away. I went into the office, followed shortly thereafter by Kramer, SteveD and later on, Liz. Work, work, work!

We Have Met Our Neighbor Named Linksys

And it is us. =/

For apparently, mystically, our wireless forgot its name and reverted to the original. So when I thought I was stealing wireless from the neighbor this past week, I was stealing from myself!

Which is somewhat typical of my life, I guess.

Booked my November tickets to Seattle! I'll be going up after Thanksgiving rather than beforehand. I figured I should give myself some time to help settle in after the launch of the expansion and a couple of weeks should be okay. Plus I can always drag out my laptop and save the world thataway!

For in anticipation of the soon-to-happen trip to Tokyo, I ordered a new laptop. This time, SteveD served as my surrogate male, helping pimp out the thing and locating a 20% off coupon for me. Hopefully, the new rig will arrive in time for me to install all the necessary evils before I actually get on the plane. On the other hand, I do have a travel plug that I can use and if need be, install junk on the flight over.

Catching up on TiVo, I see that Samantha Brown headed to Helsinki this season. That's so cool as I based the conventions of naming my winged dudes on Finnish. I was hoping she'd talk with someone and make them say something in Finnish so I can hear it, but alas, no, the Finns apparently all speak English. Oh, well!

Brushes with Celebrity

Back from Burbank! Had my first experience with walking down a street and hearing someone say to a storekeeper, "We were scouting this area yesterday and would like to use your shop in a film." =)

At lunch today, I learned that I'm working with the same dudes who wrangled all the voice acting cats for Cowboy Bebop. After I finished blinking and saying, "Oh my god! Oh my god!" I got the run down on whose voices I'd get to meet. Alas that I must return to the real work place tomorrow, for I will miss hearing Faye Valentine's voice recording some of my very own lines!

On the bright side, I got to meet Julia as well as two of the three old geezers (who aren't old in real life) that play cards. Our director suggested tonight that I nip down the street to Blockbuster and see if they had any copies of any Bebop stuff around so I could get autographs (because I'm such a Fan Girl, and they were tickled at my happiness). Turns out that I could indeed buy the very last copy of the movie AND the store manager gave me the plastic bin divider for it that has the cover from the DVD printed onto it. Score!

I can't believe how lucky I am :)