Month: December 2008

The Famous Polka

The Famous Polka is an unfinished play I wrote back in 1996 and takes its title from the They Might Be Giants’ song of the same name. While I like the characters and the breezy dialogue, there’s a slim chance I’ll ever finish the play so I figured I may as well put it on the site for perusal. I’ll be adding more unfinished (and finished) works soon. You can find The Famous Polka in the 1990s fiction section.

Here’s a sample from the play:

CHRISTINE: So who do you think in the theater department would be a good match for Eric?

KEVIN: There’s Mark.

CHRISTINE: Mark? Hmm…

ERIC: Is he the one with the blond hair, the bowl cut?

CHRISTINE: Yes.

ERIC: Fag!

CHRISTINE: You’re a fag.

ERIC: No, forget it. He’s too gay.

CHRISTINE: Too gay?

KEVIN: The gradations are fascinating.

Electronic Arts: Cutting costs, increasing bafflegab

Today EA revealed that its previously-announced job reductions are cutting deeper than originally forecast, from about 6% of their workforce to 10%. The local Vancouver studio Black Box is being absorbed into the larger Burnaby facility (which had its expansion canceled). But the best part is this statement as seen on Blue’s News:

EA is implementing a plan to narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games with higher margin opportunities. The company remains committed to taking creative risks, investing in new games, leading the industry in the growing mobile and online businesses, and delivering high-quality games to consumers.

On the one hand they are going to “narrow its product portfolio to focus on hit games” (ie wall-to-wall Madden and Sims) and yet they remain commited to taking “creative risks”. What does that mean? Turning Madden into an MMO? Putting The Sims onto calculators?

A post every day for the rest of the year

Fortunately there’s less than two weeks left in the year, so the forced inanity will end soon.

I don’t have anything to write about today so instead I offer a picture of my hobbit minstrel Beridoc being stalked by a chicken in Lord of the Rings Online:

Of Lovecraft, graffiti and churches in the fog

I’ve added a trio of short stories that were written as exercises for WRITE! And yes, it is correct to shout the title of the site, preferably around others to see if it inspires and/or frightens them.

The stories can be found on the new 2000s fiction page. They are:

I’ve also re-organized the way stories are grouped, removing the individual pages and instead dividing them up by decades, resulting in less bloat but the same delicious and nutritious content. Enjoy!

A fresh coat of paint

Whoever said change was as good as a vacation probably took a lot of vacations. But in the spirit of renewal, I have updated the site’s theme to techmania. In looking for a new theme, I wanted something clean and simple, nothing more than that. As I traversed the web in my search I discovered a few things about WordPress themes:

  • there are about a hundred million billion of them out there now
  • most themes are cluttered, garish and often use color choices that make text difficult to read

Fortunately, a few designers still show enough restraint to provide a few reasonable options, which is why I am bothering to highlight techmania in the first place.

In the meantime we are getting our first real dump of snow as winter officially approaches. My bike is stored in the workshop, feeling cold and unloved.