The Columns, and My Photo Collection

I meant to throw this link out there earlier, but I was too busy hitting deadlines

I have a column series at MMORPG.com called the MMO Underbelly, where I try to show the seamy, dirty, behind the scenes stuff of MMO production. The latest one is here, and you can find links to all the older ones under my cartoon picture. I love that picture, by the way. That’s how I wear my hair as a civilian, yes, and go ahead, make fun.

No, I do not use this series to discuss the incipient alcoholism of my nearest and dearest.

Apropos of booze, and to prevent this post from being total pimpage, I was going to do a piece on the Examiner about my favorite E3 memories in honor of the show this week. I pulled up all of my photos of the event from 2002 to 2006, and discovered that they featured:

- Setting up the booth with drinks in hand;

- Hanging out in the booth, near the booth, and the floor beside the booth with various disreputable friends from the gaming media and the volunteer program;

- Dozens of identical pictures of my space in the booth doing the same thing in 15 minute chunks for three straight days for five straight years;

- People making horrible faces near booths for games we all knew weren’t going to launch that year regardless of the date printed on the banner overhead;

- People staring, slackjawed and drooling, at demos for games that I cannot remember;

- Four hundred pictures of myself standing under a replica Stargate, and six million shots of Richard Dean Anderson who was there that one year pimping a Stargate game that never launched and was standing THREE FEET FROM ME, AIEEEEEEEE;

- Several dozen pictures of booth babe cleavage from a scavenger hunt where bonus prizes were given out for nipple shots;

- A lot of pictures of the coworker I had a crush on and eventually married;

- Sitting at various restaurants with drinks in hand, getting steadily more crocked because when you sit at a table with Scott Jennings and his Food Service Curse, you are 100% certain to not get your meal until everyone else in the restaurant  is onto dessert. And booze on an empty stomach following a twelve hour working day is a recipe for Fun Times;

- The drunker members of the family getting their hotel names and room numbers written on their hands in case the taxi driver six hours later can’t understand Drunken Babbling;

- Various industry notables giving the camera the middle finger or even more obscene gestures;

- Blurry photos taken at some of the seedier after-hours destinations in the City of Angels;

In other words, after five years of doing E3 I have nothing that can be used at the Examiner.

But back to the columns: There is another site that will host ramblings of mine, assuming I ever get myself together and send in the forms, and that one will focus on community issues. And finally, I have a new game-related gig that I’m really excited about, and I’ll be posting soon. Anyway, that’s why I’m not updating much…