Video killed the Radio Star

When you think about the revolutions and evolutions in pretty much every aspect of every day life that have occured in our lifetimes, it's pretty amazing.  I was born in 1971.   I carry a smart phone IN MY POCKET that has more computing power than the computers used to launch the Gemini and Apollo series of manned space flight in the late sixties and seventies.  Landline phones are dead.  There is an internet.  Music videos came and went.  Vinyl, 8-tracks, cassette tapes, and CD's have all been rendered near-obsolete by digital file downloads.  The list goes on and on.

One of the saddest things fo rme is the death of the daily diary.  140 characters, one or two lines of a social network update have taken the place of a journal entry, or even a livejournal blog post.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was "Harriet the Spy" (I actually just re-read it a few weeks ago).  I wanted to be like Harriet - I wanted to see everything, and write it all down.

I poured my heart and soul into my diary, my disappointments, my successes, my fears, my anger, and the details of my elementary school crush, Matt Hoffman.

I even had the perfect hiding place.  There was a loose corner of carpet in my bedroom, and I could stash my diary (a black velvet covered journal, with a silver unicorn embossed on the front) under the loose carpet, then I would set the speaker for my garage-sale turn-table stereo on top of the small lump that the diary made.  A few knick-knacks on top of the speaker, and I believed it was camaflouged beyond any possibility of being found.

My mother was a master-sleuth.  She found that my brother had been pulling the covers off his sports illustrated magazines and using them to cover individual copies of Playboy magazine.  What I thought was a multi-year, multi-issue dedication to all things sports was really a porn stash that would make the local convenience store blush.  When mom uncovered his porn stash, she waited until he got home, made him carry all the magazines into the back yard, and then she threw them all into a garbage can, doused it with lighter fluid, and set it ablaze - masturbation fodder, gone in a puff of black smoke into the clear blue desert afternoon sky.

Despite my clever hiding place, my mom found my diary, read my diary, and then WROTE ME A NOTE inside my diary, telling me that she was ashamed of me and the things I had written down.  That a good Christian girl would not have impure thoughts and be so mean spirited, and that she hoped I would spend some time praying to the Good Lord to make my heart and mind clean so I could be the kind of daughter she would be proud of.

Imagine being 10 years old, opening your diary to write the days information, and finding a note like that from your mom.  I was mortified.  But more than mortified, I was ANGRY.  So, I wrote her a note back.   I don't remember it word for word, but paraphrased, I wrote that I didn't think GOD would be proud of her snooping and reading my private diary.  That it said PRIVATE all over the inside cover, and that is was rude to read something personal, and if snooping around meant being a christian, then maybe I didn't WANT to be a Christian.

Then I ripped out all the pages of my diary that she had read, leaving just her note and my response, and I tucked it back into the hiding place.  I ripped up my private thoughts, tore them into little pieces, and ate them, one at a time.

A couple weeks later, my brother showed up to pick me up at school. 

"I don't know what you did to mom, but you should avoid her for a while," he warned.  "She's really pissed."  I felt the dread come over me - from my head down, hot and cold at the same time.  Like my hair was trying to get away from my scalp and my scalp was trying to get away from my skull simultaneously.  Mom was slamming things around the kitchen and muttering to herself, while I practiced my art of making myself invisible for the next few days.



Just a small sampling of some uncracked journals

Long story short, it blew over.  But I still have a hard time writing in a journal.  I trick myself into thinking 'THIS TIME I will stick to it, THIS TIME, I will write' by buying journals with beautiful covers, or thematic topics.  I have pens that glide over the paper, like the enchanted quick quill Rita Skeeter possessed in the Harry Potter books, and still I can't bring myself to sit down and put pen to paper.



I've been laid up, post-operatively, these past two weeks.  I've spent a lot of time in a vicodin induced haze, watching old television shows on my iPad while laying in bed.  One of my guilty pleasures is a wild fantasy life that involves me and Neil Patrick Harris, happily raising children together in a picture-perfect life, somewhere in New Mexico.  To indulge this fantasy, I re-watched a fair amount of Doogie Howser, MD on Hulu.  The original blogger, young Dr. Howser - how I envy his easy practice of sitting down to write at the close of each day.  Just Doogie and his Macintosh, friendly glowing green cursor, waiting to capture his wisdom and the lessons he's learned.

I've had an off-again, on-again relationship with blogging, starting with the password encrypted journal files on early PC systems, moving into LiveJournal, Multiply, Facebook, and most recently in this incarnation on blogger.

During the LiveJournal years, I achieved a mild notoriety (Which is to say, a small readership, and a troll or two) - one of the community managers for the massively multiplayer online game I was working on leaked the addresses of developers personal blogs on the fan forum.  A fan-boy picked up a post I had written, at the conclusion of a punishing bike ride and shortly after my mother passed away, and reposted it in the forum, making fun of my "incessant whining about missing my mommy" and said the team should "spend more time working on the game and less time out riding bicycles."  I went on the warpath.  The community-adored community manager got fired, and I had my own little "hate-club" of people, complaining that I shouldn't write if I couldn't take commentary when I was read.  I stopped writing (again).

It's so easy to tap out the latest bed-time update on my smart phone - using words that express my frustration (sigh, ugh), indifference (meh, whatever), or joy (wheeee!, HA!).  The ubiquitous "like" button is right there, allowing me to give friends posts a virtual thumbs up with next-to-no effort on my part, but without any real engagement, either.  I long to have a conversation, I want to feel like I have a voice, and yet I struggle to write it down.  Sometimes I make the excuse that no one is reading, other times I use the excuse of writers block, or physical exhaustion, but it all boils down to just excuses.

Have Facebook and Twitter killed the personal journal?  Do "Like" and "Retweet" replace the possibility of conversation that can come out of a (read) blog?  Or is that just another excuse for not writing?  Can I make the time to put thoughts to paper (virtual or physical) and stop making excuses?

It's a new year, time for a new year's resoultion.  More writing, less excuses.  The form may have evolved from a black velvet covered unicorn journal to a shiny MacBook Pro keyboard, but it's time to rediscover that satisfied feeling, so well-portrayed by NPH, of hitting save, committing to memory and completing a days writing.

Free to a Good Home....

It's been one of the strangest times in my career, since I started in the games industry in 1999.  I've always been a hot commodity, the one that gets high profile projects, because I can be trusted to get it done, keep the right people in the loop, and to say "NO" when it's needed.  I typically have a backlog of things to do, just waiting for me to have enough time to do them.

 

Part of the weirdness has been around a reorganization from one big happy studio family with a pool of people and managers that are responsible for specific disciplines (Programmers, Artists, Producers, Designers, QA) to silo'd franchise groups, where the management is responsible for building cross-functional teams that encompass all disciplines.  Those managers still report in to the same higher structure, but from a peon's perspective, it sure doesn't seem like they are talking to each other that much.

 

I love being busy.  I love having multiple projects on the burners at once.  I love feeling like I am an integral part of a healthy, functioning team.  Right now, I'm helping out on special projects, and I have one game that is drawing to a close as my work.  The conversations around "What's next" have been going on since March, and it's starting to get to me, mentally.

 

I wrote a sales pitch to send around to the management team and decided it tells enough of a story of what I do, that I'd share it here.  (sanitized company name and project name)  It's mind-blowing to me that I have to sell myself this hard at a company I already work at.... but at the same time, sometimes it's nice to revisit what I believe makes me tick.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi All:

 

Have you recently had a situation where you’ve thought to yourself “it would be so great if we could only do xyz on this project, but WHO WILL MANAGE IT?”  Do you have a short or long term need for a project manager with a ‘take-no-prisoners’ attitude, and a commitment to details?  Are you working on integration of a parent company (or partner) brand, and you just wish there was someone on your team with a long history of navigating the murky waters of approvals, integration, and last-minute changes?  Is the majority of your time spent on the big-picture with no time left for the day-to-day work of monitoring the pulse of your project? Are you at that point where it’s time to ship it and you need a leader who knows how to motivate, lead from the center of the action, and takes pride in getting it done?

HAVE I GOT AN ANSWER FOR YOU!  That’s right, it’s ME!

As projects draw to a close, and changes are happening in the individual franchises, I wanted to reach out and see if there are areas where I can help YOU with the needs of the individual projects for our company.   No job is too small, no job is too tall.  



I am:

• 

  (Not an actual Zombie)

  A people-focused project manager with a love for making games.   
• Passionate about working with a team to create AWESOME products, while sustaining a pace and quality of life that supports the company's core values.
• Not afraid to get my hands dirty in the trenches.   
• A voracious consumer of casual games content.
• In possession of the following super powers: directness, common sense, and an uncanny ability to get sh*t done.

My satisfaction comes from helping a team see projects through to completion, and helping their creative dreams make it out to the big world.  I have extensive experience in making branded products, with a significant portion of my career invested in shipping Hasbro branded projects, as well as creating adver-games for companies like Unilever, Chrysler, and Visa.   I’ve also worked with Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, Nickelodeon, HIT Entertainment, Johnny Wright Productions (*N’SYNC), Horn Abbott, and Mattel to deliver interactive products that are true to their respective brands.  Between time in QA and time as a producer, I’ve been directly responsible for 40 projects, with credits in over 100 games

Here at our company,  I’m currently working on finalizing some dangling details on the current iOS project.  Earlier this year my team shipped this iOS game, and I also managed the updates to our two most recognizable brands world-wide to have functioning product on the launch date of Lion OS last fall.  In the last 8 years as a producer,  I’ve managed internal teams, external teams, licensor approvals, multiple outsource resources, voice-over direction, done guerilla QA testing, written design documents, made a little (bad) art, and done a little programming.  Outside of work,  I’m a proud mom, wanna-be writer, musician, uuber-nerd, smack-dab in the middle of our target audience, and a controlled force of nature. 

Feel free to poke around my linkedin profile, read my recommendations and do not hesitate to let me know if you have needs for your franchises.   I’m not afraid to work hard, I own it when I make mistakes, and I never ask a team to do what I’m not willing to do myself.  I look forward to making YOUR life easier, while working together to make great products that we can all be proud of.

Best Regards –

Trivial Pursuits

As mentioned in a previous post, once upon a time, I produced a Trivial Pursuit game for PC, Xbox and PS2.  My brain holds onto a lot of bits of information from that project, I proof read, verified sources, and edited thousands of questions by the time the project was done.  One of the best parts of the project is that I sourced and directed a set of celebrities to read the questions for each category.

One of the celebrities we hired was John Cleese, and he opted to read the History category.  I sent the script off to his agent, and went into the recording session in Santa Barbara feeling prepared for the experience.  I should add, this is the FIRST voice recording session I ever directed.

As we were going through the session, John was getting more and more annoyed with the topics of the questions.  Apparently, John Cleese used to teach history at a prep school in England, and he felt that we were mis-representing current events as History.  He was right, it was America focused, and not deep history, our goal was to create a game where the average 30-40 year old American SHOULD know the answers to the questions.

Less than an hour into the session, he was visibly agitated, and I don't even remember the question that put him over the top.  All I know is this was my first ever voice recording session, and the talent looked at me through the glass, called me an 'illiterate con-artist' and stormed out of the studio.

I looked at my co-worker, and said "Oh shit.  What do I do now?"

"Get him back!  GO! GET HIM BACK!"

So, I went.  John was getting into his car and I started explaining what the goal of the game was, and how we arrived at the content that we did.  He said he understood that, but that I shouldn't call it 'history'.  I explained that we didn't actually CONTROL that nomenclature, Trivial Pursuit is a branded product, and the brand owners defined it, and that they had approved the content.  Finally, I closed it, like any good used car salesman would, I asked him the action question.

"What would it take to get you back behind the microphone, Mr. Cleese?" I asked, with my best, most charming smile.

"Five Thousand Dollars", he replied.

I quickly ran some budget numbers in my head, and thought of what my boss would say if I came back to tell him I'd lost John Cleese while standing outside the studio in downtown Santa Barbara.

"DONE.  Let's get back to work"

I went back into the studio, and sat behind the control board.  My hands were shaking and I was actually seeing little black spots.  I pretended to be pulling something out of my bag while I took a few deep breaths with my head down near my knees.  I realized I was actually going to throw up, so I spun my chair around and grabbed a garbage can.  I discreetly dry heaved into a garbage can while my co-worker and the studio rep looked on.  Then I wiped my mouth, grabbed my water, took a deep drink and spun back around.

"Alright, John.  Are you ready to get started?" I asked through the communication system.

We finished out the day, I got what I needed, and I put a call into my legal group to amend the contract to include an additional $5,000 talent fee.  The next day I was driving down to San Diego for a lunch date with a friend.  My cell phone rang, and I answered it.  It was John Cleese.

"Hello, I wanted to talk to you for a moment.  I believe I owe you an apology.  My wife and I were drinking some wine last night, and she reminded me that it's called 'trivial pursuit', not 'important pursuit'.  I shouldn't have called you names and stormed out, that was unprofessional of me."

I reassured him that I understood his frustration, and very much appreciated the follow up call.  Then he got to what, I believe, was the REAL reason for the call.

"I was wondering, can you treat the additional money as 'expert consultation' or something like that?  I'd rather not pay my agent fees on the additional money." He was very matter-of-fact about the request, and I am such a people-pleaser-person that I really wanted to be able to honor his request.

"I'm so sorry, John.  I can't do that.  I've already had my legal amend the contract and it went out to your agent this morning."  I really was sorry, I wanted him to continue acting like he liked me!

"Well then," he replied, curtly.  "Very well.  Goodbye."


One of my first bosses in the industry once told me this bit of wisdom.  "We make games.  No one dies.  You can't eat your liver over it."

As I've been struggling with getting my next project lined up, and dealing with self-esteem issues around feeling unwanted because I haven't figured out where I can best be effective at my job, (not to mention my insecurities about motherhood) I am reminding myself that creating entertainment is truly a trivial pursuit.  The important stuff is outside of these walls, just there waiting for me.

Winter

The holiday season was busy for us, with lots of time with friends.  On New Years day, we went to a friends house for a traditional southern lucky new years day potluck.  There was a piano in the living room, and after a couple glasses of wine, I decided to flip through the music stash.  I haven't sat at a keyboard in over a year, and haven't played in front of others in about 8 times that.  The call of a Tori Amos anthology was too much to resist, I opened to the song "Winter", and sat down at the bench.

I only played through the first verse, and did not have the nerve to burst into song in a room full of people, so just the piano part. I've always loved playing the piano accompaniment to that song, 6 flats not-withstanding, but I can't sing it for others, it makes me cry.

I've been thinking a lot about my Dad lately, and after some soul searching this weekend, I think I've discovered some things. I have very clear memories of being a little kid and wanting to be like my dad. There was never any secret in our house, he wanted a boy, and he got me instead. I would study how he walked and try to swagger just like him, I'd watch how he was never really still - tapping fingers, jingling keys - and I'd imitate it. I remember the day that the post man commented on me in the yard - he looked at me, looked at my dad and said "well, you can't deny that one" and it made me proud. I remember having a snowball fight with him the Christmas that I turned 16, I remember a warm hand on my shoulder and a comment that I "did good" when I started self-teaching myself programming, but I don't remember really TALKING to him, and I don't remember him really LISTENING to me.





 

The first verse of "Winter" tells the story of a young girl, spending time with her dad, and knowing he is there, looking out for her:

Snow can wait
I forgot my mittens
Wipe my nose
Get my new boots on
I get a little warm in my heart
When I think of winter
I put my hand in my father's glove

I run off
Where the drifts get deeper
Sleeping beauty trips me with a frown
I hear a voice
"You must learn to stand up for yourself
Cause I can't always be around"

He says
When you gonna make up your mind
When you gonna love you as much as I do
When you gonna make up your mind
Cause things are gonna change so fast
All the white horses are still in bed
I tell you that I'll always want you near
You say that things change my dear

I wish I could say that was the relationship we had. I know that if I can think rationally about our way of interacting, he is expressing care in the only way he can. But it's hurtful and dismissive and it always has been.

Hair is grey
And the fires are burning
So many dreams
On the shelf
You say I wanted you to be proud of me
I always wanted that myself

It truly is all I've wanted - for him to be proud of me and love me for who I am, instead of reminding me of who I'm not. But the hard realization is I don't accept him for who he is, either. He was who he is before I even existed. Who am I to demand that he change and to be disappointed in him that he can't? Perhaps if I can accept him, I can find some peace in his understanding of me.

Last night, I called to talk to see how he's been. He spent the first 15 minutes asking me to troubleshoot his computer issues, while I tried to walk him through accessing gmail via web browser. He finally got around to asking about how the baby is, and I gave him an update, and added that we'd gone for a walk in the "snow" to the local mexican restaurant, where the baby ate half a kids quesadilla and some guacamole.

He said "You better watch what he's eating and not feed him junk so he gets fat. You don't want him to be like you."

There are many, many things I can think of that would be a worse fate than for my son to grow up and be like me. Several sarcastic responses flew through my mind in the heartbeats it took me to answer. I simply said "He's not eating junk." My husband heard the dead tone of my voice and turned to stage-whisper "what's going on?"

I listened to my dad talk for about 10 more minutes with tears rolling down my cheeks, he never bothered to ask how I am or how my husband is, he spent the time talking about my sister, her kids, and their grandkids and how neat they all are. Finally I interupted and said it was getting near bed time and I needed to go take care of the baby.

I closed with, "I love you, Dad, I'll talk to you soon."

"Ok, you too, bye."

When I hung up, I just put my head in my hands for a moment and hubby came over to ask what that was all about. I told him about the comment my Dad made, and hubby asked "Why didn't you tell him to go fuck himself?"

"Because, it's not that simple. He's my Dad and I can't do that." I tried to explain, knowing it makes no sense to anyone, myself included.

"Well, if my dad talked to me like that, I'd tell him to go fuck himself." he responded.

"Then you owe your parents a big thank you for teaching you to have more self esteem than I do, and for being secure in their love." I started crying harder. "He doesn't give a shit about me, he just wants me to fix his stupid computer."

Hubby put his arms around me and BabyBoy put his arms around my neck, too. We all leaned together while I cried, and hubby kissed my forehead. "I'm sorry, baby."

Later, after BabyBoy was asleep, I started crying again. How can I possibly raise him to be confident and secure when I am so fundamentally broken? I don't want to hurt him like this, and I'm so afraid that my shit is just going to fuck him up. I want him to always know how much I love him, support him, and believe in him. Hubby held me and let me talk through it and reminded me that I am a good mother, that I take amazing care of BabyBoy, and that we'll help each other when things get hard. That we'll make mistakes, but we'll have our own family, and our own way of communicating that doesn't have to repeat the past.

I have to believe in that, I have to believe in us. And I have to believe in me. It's time for me to love myself as much as I love my son. For someone posting on a blog titled "still an adult", I've spent an awful lot of time feeling like a scared, confused child over the past 24 hours.

Thanks for your opinion, asshole.

Techinically, this should be a mommy blog post, but since I included "Asshole" in the title, and fully expect to exceed my unofficial "fuck's per page" (FPP) limit for that blog, I decided this is better suited for 'Still an Adult'.

Last week a friend shared that a mutual friend had maligned decisions I've made as a parent in regards to Babyboy's sleep schedule and sleep patterns.  I'll admit, 'malign' is probably a harsh word to assign to it, but it surely felt like it was said with that intent.  I'm sensitive about myself as a parent - I feel like I'm in this with no instruction manual, no feedback other than people sharing their personal opinions, and every decision I make is met with my own internal dialogue questioning the decision, as well as "are you sure?"'s from my husband, friends, well-meaning people on facebook, etc. I'm already prone to second guessing myself - I don't need commentary from the peanut gallery reinforcing that.

When I heard this criticism, I sort of lost my shit.  Here's the thing I've learned.  Every baby is different, and no one, no matter how well meaning, knows that baby as well as his or her own parents.  Decisions are made based on that personal knowledge of your child, and personal knowledge of your own family dynamic and those two things are weighed against the options, and you decide how to move forward that works best for those people actually involved.

It's true.  We have not done sleep training with BabyBoy.  We choose to take him out to dinner on a regular basis, and sometimes we even (GASP) MISS BEDTIME because of that.  It's our decision to make, and we're pretty lucky that our little guy rolls with it.  We're also lucky that our friends have been accomodating of earlier meeting times to try and keep bedtime in mind.  As a parent, you may have different priorities that work for your family dynamic, and that's fine.  But don't fucking hold up my decision as the wrong decision and use that to justify what works for you.  Grow a set of balls and say "thanks for the invite, but that doesn't work for us.", not "We don't agree with how Hubby & Rae do it."

I'm a good parent.  My little boy is happy, healthy, and well adjusted.  You're a good parent too.  Your child is happy, healthy and well adjusted. Congratulations to both of us!

Now keep your fucking opinions to yourself.