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June 2000 |
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01
June 2000 |
Shit, how does someone try to make a finger update
after John's incredible news this morning? I'll try, ...Tom, Darrin, and I just did a
little impromtu acting gig for the Dallas Police. Way cool, especially when that tall
blonde policewoman had Tom spread-eagled on the floor and started searching him! She asked
if he had any pointed objects in his pocket and it took him more than a minute to
respond... ...I guess an introduction is needed, sorry. Our office is on the second floor
with three bars just below us. The West End Police Station is just across the street.
We've become good friends with Officer Ray and his partner Paul as they like to stop by
and check Heavy Metal and basically taunt us. The Dallas Police are filming a training
tape in the bar directly below us and Ray asked if we'd like to play the parts of a few
drunks. We weren't sure if we could find the motive for such a foreign role, but we winged
it ;) Tom and I finished a while ago, but for some reason they still have Darrin down
there. I only worry because Darrin was in Desert Storm and saw some real shit there. He
gets flash backs and, well, I better go down and make sure we have our Animation Master...
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02 June 2000 |
...it turns out Darrin had a special interface with
the tall, blonde police officer, ...and it was better than Tom's! Darrin did a scene with
her pretending to be upset neighbors of the bar complaining to the two uniformed cops.
While they were waiting between shots, she would tell Darrin about how hot it was during
bicycle patrols and how the Kevlar Vests make her sweat profusely. Now, you really need to
have Darrin in front of you doing the animations of her leaning forward (offering that
special sweat-bespangled chest shot) as she threw her shoulders back and forth, thus
forcing air in and out of her blouse. THAT'S where Darrin was all that time ;)
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03 June 2000 |
So, the world knows that we've lost the Evil
Dr. Dose'. I am truly happy for Jimbo, and outrageously envious. I would sell my soul to
work on DOOM, ...of course, I'm an atheist, so, you know. Rock on, Jim! ...but be warned,
although I would jump out in front of a truck for you, the first day you come to visit us
in a car that costs more than my house, well, I don't think you'll make it back to
Mesquite alive! ... ;)
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| 04 June 2000 |
Shit, I hate to do this without componsating with a Dick Story or
something, but it's important. Does anyone out there in the
vast-in-size-yet-mostly-void-in-substance internet have the episode of Seinfeld in which
Kramer is going to remodel his apartment "in levels"? All I need is the audio,
actually, and just the part where Cozmo say "Jerry! It's levels!" for my
webpage. I've been trying to catch it on my VCR and, go figure, the day it comes on (last
Thursday's rerun) I forget to set the recorder. I caught the second half, but missed that
particular part. ...I'll try to think
of something Dickish tonight to make-up for it ;)
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06 June 2000 (thanks Frightener for finding me an intact version of this one)
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...from Blue's News (http://www.bluesnews.com/):"Congrats to Epic's Cliff Bleszinski, who drops the bomb in
his .plan file that he's planning on tying the knot, making losers of lots of us with side
bets about Cliffy."
...not neccesarily! We don't know who he's marrying! ...
;) Seriously, though, congradualtions, Master Cliffy B! You are one of the few decent
people in this industry and we wish you the best!
As per Mark's finger, you must download Serious Sam! It
is a great game from our friends in Croatia! I was given a copy of the CD at E3 by Silvano
Bucic, the editor of PC Play in Zagreb, Croatia. With our workload, I didn't get around to
playing it until I was spurred by Erik's News Update (http://www.oldmanmurray.com/realnews.wcs)
yesterday. Thanks, you crippled, demented fuck! ... ;) Go to http://www.croteam.com/www/index.html,
download the game, and play it! It's nothing but the Fun Factor riding on a very cool
engine.
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06 June 2000 |
...the only one to reply to my Seinfeld request was, ...drum roll, please, ...Dan Kramer
at Ravensoft ;)
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07 June 2000 |
My finger is getting sore, but it sure feels good to extend
it again. Man, last year sucked! I'm still looking for that Seinfeld WAV, BTW. I only
mentioned that Dan Kramer replied, he doesn't have the sound bytes. Professional news, I need two level designers that are experts in
Quake 3. The Ritual Tribe is expanding again and the sun is shining our our little island.
Interested parties should email their levels to me at levelord@ritual.com. PLEASE do not
send me unfinished, unprofessional crapola. I must see Quake 3 maps, ...no Quake 2, Quake
1, or any other game.
Okay, I promised a Dick Story, but I'm afraid Dick is
still a bit limp. So how about a semi-interesting Sea Story from my Navy days. I was
reminded of this last Friday when the Notorious Paul and Mighty Redwood stomped by to do
an interview. Paul was also in this man's Navy and when we see each other, we often trade
sea stories.
I had brought in a SOSUS graph from my anti-submarine
days. If you've seen Red October, this is the paper (the old days) version of that green
screen Seaman Jones (USS Dallas) was watching. It is unclassified as long as it isn't
annotated with target information. Anyways, this reminded me of the time on Adak when I
got to see over 20 Soviet "fishing" trollers in one day. I call them
"fishing" trollers because although they were supposed to be merchant fishermen,
their boats had dozens of radio antennae and satellite dishes. They would "fish"
all around the Bering Sea for... ...fish?
Like I said, these graph printouts are SECRET once they
are annotated. We would throw them out after a few weeks by running them this huge
industrial-strength shredder. I had the duty this day, which meant that I had to feed the
documents into the shredder and then inspect the entire room-sized machine to ensure all
had been properly minced and thrown into the dunpster for subsequent burning.
There was a large metal-reinforced material tube that ran
from the shredder to the dumpster. I had been stuffing paper into the shredder for over an
hour when all of a sudden I heard this loud "CRUNCH, CLANG, BAMMMM" sound. The
shredder kept running, though, so I figured the noise was just a stapler or something
working its way through. I kept feeding the beast for another few hours.
Well, it wasn't a harmless piece of metal like a
mis-tossed stapler, the shredder had actually thrown one of its large cutting blades. The
thrown blade then snapped into smaller pieces which then proceeded down the machine,
slicing and dicing large holes in the dumpster's feeding tube.
By the time I got out into the yard, the blower had
spewed tons, I mean tons, of hand-sized pieces of classified documents through the holes
in the tube. Adak Island is in the middle of the Aleutian chain, between the Pacific Ocean
and the Bering Sea. It is very windy and even worse, there aren't even any trees. The
documents were now making the Bering Sea look as though it had snowed all night. Within
minutes, more than 20 of these "fishing" trollers could be seen scooping up the
mess. Then, minutes after that, came three P3 Orions to chase them off.
Not much of a story, I know, but what the hell! What's
really weird, especially for people like me and Paul who served while that silly Iron
Curtain was up, is that I am writing an article right now for Gameland magazine in Moscow.
I am also seriously entertaining taking a vacation to Russia when FAKK is over. Serge
Amirdjanov, my good friend at Gameland that brings me Russian vodka at E3, promises that
there are many beautiful Russian women in Moscow who want to meet the Levelord ;)
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08 June 2000 |
Okay, the search is over, ...we're going to hire CliffyB from Epic and Allen Blum XIII
from 3D Realms. I'm sorry, ...seriously, I have gotten a shitload (Texan for
"alot") of repsonses about the level designing positions. With the heavy Heavy
Metal deadlines, I won't get to sort through thl until the weekend. I'll will at least
reply to your emails, but I apologize for not sending back critiques sooner. If you
haven't already, please send in your emails still. It may take weeks to come to a final
decision.
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08 June 2000 |
Space Crates!
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09 June 2000 |
My deepest thanks to Jon Mars, aka g.man, who sent me the Seinfeld WAV! ...awesome, dude,
thanks! Space Crates, damn it!
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09 June 2000 |
It's like Finger City over here (I really should be working, so don't tell Patrick
"Phook all of you!" Hook I'm here;)... ...I just came back from a smoke break
(damned things!) and was reminded that I really need to mention our good friends
downstairs in the bar. Juan, Santiago, and Manny do all the custodial work and are some of
the coolest people I've met, especially mi hermono Juan. Janitor Bob may be retired, but
we have Juan and his Escuela de Espanola. I try to new Spanish, or rather Mexican (there's
a big difference;) words every week. As I was
coming back in the building, Juan yelled "Ricardo, El Corazón del León!" ...I
think he's making fun of my hair, but it sounds cool. I yell back "Hermano Juan! Como
`stas!". He rturns with the typical Friday response "Esta Viernes! Tiene el
cheque? ...las cerveas? ...la penoche mojado?" As usual, I can only answer "No,
no tengo uno cheque, pero mucho cervesas. No penoche mojada, pero el amigo mano!" I
hope none of that gets lost in the translation.
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15 June 2000 |
Professional - I'm still tredging through levels. I figure
I'll need maybe another week. It's a tough job playtesting through levels all day, but
I'll do it now matter how long it takes! I will email everyone with results and feedback
as to why and why not. Thanks for your patience! Semi-professional
- We Ritualites like to share any internet goodies we find with the rest of the Tribe.
These goodies include the humorous, the sex-drugs-rock&roll related, and the
disgusting, ...sometimes it's combos of these, but I digress ;) I often get the inside
scoop (shhhh, please don't tell anyone!) from the Portal of Evil (http://www.portalofevil.com/). Yesterday, I found
this one and sent it around...
http://www.justmeat.com/entry.htm
I got some very strange reactions from my comrades. Be
warned, this page is probably the most disturbing I 've seen. It has pictures of the
results of pitbull-vs-10-year-old girl, a guy that committed suicide with an industrial
band saw, and shit like that. Go there only if you really want to be affected, and
remember you can not "un" see anything!
Anyways, the reaction I got was sort of strange. Some
were a little offset, and others actually wondered why I would even send around such a
link to horrific blood, gibbed guts, and disturbing deaths. I mean, think what we do most
of the time... ...horrific blood, gibbed guts, and disturbing deaths. I'm certainly not
equating the real thing to our game version, but it just seemed strange.
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16 June 2000 |
...not sure if this is due to internet grapevine gossip, a
true misunderstanding, or just a reporter trying to "make" news, ...but we are
NOT "already designing the sequel" to FAKK! Stop sending emails! I think we'll
see if the first FAKK is worthy of a sequel first, yes? ... ;)
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22 June 2000 |
First, you're a funny fucker JeffK! B) We have a few friends
at the West End Police Station that come by to check out the Heavy Metal Happenings once
and a while. They also bring us free beer, but won't say where they "get" it. I
gave them a Duke Nukem action figure, signed of course, and tried to explain the humor
behind the Pig Cop action figures. I'm not sure if they get it, but they loved Duke, so
all is well. Anyways, I was just out catching a
smoke on the front steps. It's rush hour time and the street had a good dozen people
scurrying about when two of our comrads pulled up to the bar across the street, got out of
the patrol car, and yelled "Hey, Levelord!" in that thunderous, authoritative
cop voice. You probably had to be there to really appreciate the humor, ...I was, and I
almost busted (pardon the pun) my gut laughing.
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27 June 2000 |
...damn it, I hate technology! Especially fricken cell
phones. Last week I have a message on my voice mail that goes something like this...
"Hey Levelord! This is Fred Derf (name withheld to protect the technophilic) and I
need to get an interview from you for Big Time Magazine (name again withheld). Please call
me ASAP at 212 5ggh454635-fhddtsr5668. I need an ans45589dydbsyc
qudjdhcicklyytt77rh!". Why do these over-rated walkie-talkies always seem to break
off communication right at the important parts. ...this
morning there's a message like this... "Hey Rich, this is Steven. I am coming over
there to seriously kick your ass! I'm going to beat the shit out of you! Remember that
shjfjfhdyerew768sc sib aaaswhen you wereehdhfie6asucn? I do, you sorrryrfhfgdt piecxc
ddfgsht off djsh shifyftsdufc tt!". Can't tell if Steven is serious, like Sam, or
just crippled like Chet, but I sure wish I had the whole message. Fucking technology!
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