Floozy Speak!

Now playing: Yulara - Om Namah Shivaya

Well I never got around to figuring out the comments, I'll dabble with that later.  Meanwhile however it was a great weekend.  I got alot done my ever increasing todo list, in fact, nearly everything was complete, just need to get some new shoes and i'll be set. 

Anything exciting? 

Hmmmmm if ya call washing polishing waxing cleaning the interior and exterior of the mini, paying bills, renewing plates, listening to new music, reading books, visiting with family, taking pictures, cooking, driving, going to church, buying clothes, buying groceries, doing laundry, shopping for recliners, running into bob & lynn, chattin with the gatordave, wrestling with nephews, organizing my room... exciting.. then yes it was.

Mainly I'm just pleased that I finally got around to buying a new matress for outdoor chair and getting some reading done.  The weather was truly gorgeous out there this weekend.

YES, I finally finished a book.  It's been awhile since i've completed a book.  I'm bad about reading multiple books at the same time.  I'm about 100 pages in on: Da Vinci Code, Bang, Low-Carb for Dummies (actually thats almost done really), and Masters of Doom.

Well Doom is done!  A good read on the rise and fall of the two johns.  Not that they've fallen really but the story of id Software and the lives it gibbed along the way is pretty compelling in some aspects.

My first PC was made exclusivily for Doom.  I remember telling the folks at Computer Success, I had one requirement, this PC must play Doom really well.

Doom was the spark of the Graves really, the Graves of Dubin that is.  In fact, even more so let's get this right, it was Doom 2 that created the Graves. 

For those of you that don't know.  The Graves of Dublin was a phrase, I dunno who coined really, either me or Steve, or maybe Clint or Troy, or Mike.. I dunno but we all played Doom 2 at Clint and Troy's apartment often.. like in the book, we deathmatched.. ALOT.  They of course lived in Dublin and the room we played in was the basement, the graves, I didn't come over just to hang, I came over to die in the graves down stairs playing Doom 2 endlessly into the night.

We all played and still do, while not as much these days, a good deathmatch breaks back memories.  Like the holiday deathmatch we had.  It was 24 then 48hrs of nonstop deathmatches.  I remember Steve taggin me out one day "get some sleep man I'll take over." Hah.  Those were the days of the  Evil Green One and his murderous rampages.

In Doom 2 everyone had a handle, like your hacker handle or your bbs handle, yer graves handle said something really, least I think so.

Troy was EGO, or Evil Green One, and he always played the green marine.  For the longest time EGO layed waste to the would be graves victims that stepped in the door.  EGO was a silent killer however, I kinda picture him much like a John Carmack really, I could hear him now saying "mmmmm" after a kill.  This non joyous moment of slaughting all to be see on the maze grid drove his opposite but equally as talented, Clint mad.  Clint was Darkmaker, a name I still don't fully understand where it is derived from.  Dark.. maker... he makes things dark!  Unlike EGO when you were killed by Darkmaker he let you knew about.  A hofty laugh broke thru the air, you were dead again.  Darkmaker yelled, he'd cried, he loved the game and crankin it up a notch was always the thing to do for him. 

I was called Hatchet, my highschool nickname.  I got that name from Steve Eblin, back when we wrote songs in POD class in highschool and nearly failed now that I think about it.  Steve and I wrote songs, screenplays ( My God They're Gesse ), and created a band called Megasnot.  We even created a themepark concept called the Amusement Park from Hell and went into great length detailing the suicide rides, the games, the toys, the food, you name it, we created it.  Steve and I we're kinda like the two john's or like EGO and Darkmaker really, we we're opposites when it came to our craft.  Steve was dirty one, sex, lude behavior.. that was Steve.  I was the destructo-matic.  He used to kid how everything I said ending in "battle-axe" or "chainsaw" or "hatchet".  Thus Hatchet was sprung. 

Steve was called YBAF, Young Black and Free, but he wasn't black.  I never really understood that name and maybe Darkmaker was just feeding me a line on that one, he was afterall the shifty one.  Darkmaker would lure you over to show some cool new effect in the game you previously had somehow missed only to greet you with a rocket at your obviously duped state. 

Mike had several names, for the longest time he was Algae.  Another name connection I didn't get.  It didn't matter really he was to be fragged, gibbed and mauled like the rest of them.  Still the dictionary tells me:

al·ga  ( P )  Pronunciation Key  (lg)
n. pl. al·gae (-j)

Any of various chiefly aquatic, eukaryotic, photosynthetic organisms, ranging in size from single-celled forms to the giant kelp. Algae were once considered to be plants but are now classified separately because they lack true roots, stems, leaves, and embryos.

Was that my friend Mike?  Mike was determined I think at this stage in his life to be "unclassifyable", my be pinned down as anything. 

That rounded out the terrible 5 really, Hatchet, YBAF, Alage, Darkmaker and EGO.  Soon new souls would spawn in the graves only to die over and over and over and over just as the two John's had intended. 

Jerry was one of them.  He and I would continually crank out the screaming and yelling as loud as we could.  It was great fun to deathmatch Jerry.  Sam was another soul who I enjoyed fragging often.  My skills increased considerbily despite the growing notion that EGO, had a secret.  To this day he balks at the notion that we knew his real talent was tied to his fastest network card.  Deathmatches are about two things really, ability and lag.  If you have ability and no lag, you are golden, if you ability and a bit of lag.. well yer lackin.  EGO's fast network connection enabled lagless like performance, allowing him to "dance on our graves" often. 

The Graves of Dublin spawned all kinds of creations that live on even today.  All because of a game and some energetic friends with an appetite for destruction and mayhem. 

Reading Masters of Doom brings back some of those glory days.  Part of me thinks about how the world has changed since the days of id Software, Doom 2, Quake, Ion Storm and its horrible illfated plan of success and where they are today, right now. 

Passion for the craft is a curse and gift.  Singlular mindsets vs them... heh really.  I just see so much potential lost in the translation of egos and rocknroll like lifestyles.  What if they didn't break up, what would the world of graphics and games be like today? 

I think about Romero and his many wives.  He's probably on his 4th marriage now, not that its any of my biz really.  Does passion for the craft do that?  Strain the realm and relationship properties of the want, the desire, the need, to.. succeed?

One thing that disturbs me about the story of id Software was how in the process of deciding what to do next and going with Doom 3.  Basically Carmark called the shots being the whiz kid and all and in return, Adrain and Kevin fired Paul Steed.  This act of terminating an employee not because of his poor work ethic or wrong doing but because of sheer "anger" at another co-owner, really puzzles me.  Partly cause I knew Paul Steed a little.  I met him via his plan file, long ago back when I was shopping the various game companies to do an anime title based off a game at ADV.  Going to Todd Hollenstead, the CEO was kinda tough, Todd was shall we say unapprochable really.  Even though I heard Carmack was a big anime fan, not much I could really do to try to get him to bite off on a Doom or Quake anime.  They were just too big for it.  We still haven't seen that famed Doom movie yet.  Still I knew Paul was an anime freak so I went that direction and we talked in email, I sent him a ton of product, and met him at Quakecon once.  He seemed really talented in 3D and to see him get the shaft in such a pitiful way is really a bad view into the inner workings at id.  He had fire sure, but id needed that I think. 

Maybe id Software did die the day Romero left.  Since then it's essentially been playing a semi, while advanced no doubt, technical game at cranking out great engines.  But as for killer games.  I dunno.  I hope doom 3 does well, but where's the torch now, what new firm has it all?  Where's the new frontier being created?  What if id Software is simply Softdisk now.. where the bright minds gellin right now?  What's to come? 

Can't wait.  :)