Writer, filmmaker, game designer
Desert Bridge now has a proper installer, a manual, and stuff like that. I have fixed quite a few little bugs and inconsistencies that cropped up, and sent out one more version to the testers.
I am very much hoping to release the game tomorrow, but I can’t promise anything. Maybe I screwed something up when I was fixing something else. Maybe I didn’t see something. Maybe the code is made out of jam. Maybe… you get the picture.
Anyway, the game should be out soon. Very soon.
Sorry for not updating - first I had the flu, then a piece of my filling broke off and dug itself into my gums. Thankfully, while the whole thing was unpleasant, the damage to the filling itself was not severe. The dentist removed the sliver from my gums today, and I have another appointment in a couple of weeks. I was rather worried, I have to say - as long-time readers of this blog know, I had some rather extreme problems with my teeth a while back, and I’d rather not repeat the experience.
What is hopefully the final beta for Desert Bridge has been sent to the testers. If nothing major crops up, the game will be out in about a week or so.
I need to write an article on Fallout 3. I’m a huge fan of the first two games, but this one has had me going back and forth between total fun and cursing the designers for being the greatest idiots on the planet. Having now played through all five minutes of the main plot, I feel quite offended by the way it’s just cobbled together from the first two games and ultimately amounts to very little. In the end, it’s a fun game - if way too short - but they shouldn’t have called it Fallout. It only has 30% of what makes Fallout what it is. (More on this soon. I hope.)
From: Obama administration begins to take shape
Obama’s transition team, which will assist in assembling his cabinet, is headed by John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and one of Washington’s most successful corporate lobbyists. Co-chairing the transition team are Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama advisor, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure within the Chicago Democratic Party machine, and Pete Rouse, a Washington insider and Obama’s senate chief of staff.
Obama’s first appointee is Rahm Emanuel, who will serve as his chief of staff. The Illinois Congressman is a leading member of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council. While running for Congress in 2002, he supported Bush’s bill to authorize military force against Iraq. A former investment banker, he has close ties to financial interests and is one of the biggest recipients of campaign cash from banks and investment firms.
Sources close to Obama have leaked names on the list of candidates for the position of treasury secretary-no doubt as a means of reassuring Wall Street. Included are former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, former Clinton treasury secretary and current Citigroup executive Robert Rubin, another former Clinton treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, and Timothy Geithner, the New York Federal Reserve Bank president.
All of these individuals played leading roles in the deregulation of the banks and investment houses that facilitated the super-profits and massive CEO compensation packages of the 1990s and first half of the current decade, and contributed to the financial collapse that is now plunging the US and the rest of the world into the deepest recession since the 1930s.
Geithner has played a central role in the government bailout of Wall Street banks and other major firms, such as insurance conglomerate AIG and the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
As Federal Reserve chief under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Volcker was responsible for the high interest rate “shock therapy” which decimated American industry in the early 1980s and led to the impoverishment of entire regions.
There is much speculation that Obama will ask current Defense Secretary Robert Gates to stay on in the same capacity, at least on an interim basis. Gates recently gave a speech expanding the doctrine of “pre-emptive war” to include the use of first-strike nuclear attacks.
Other names broached for the positions of defense secretary and secretary of state include former Bush Secretary of State Colin Powell, outgoing Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, and Anthony Lake, who as Clinton’s national security advisor played a key role in organizing the US-NATO war against Yugoslavia.
Obama’s actions since Election Day have been calculated to signal to the ruling elite his readiness to defend their interests and not be swayed by the will of the electorate. To underscore his intention to seek a consensus with the defeated and discredited Republican minority, he will meet on Monday with Bush. The traditional White House meeting between a president-elect and the outgoing president normally takes place much later in the transition period between administrations.
To demonstrate that his first priority is shoring up the major banks, Obama’s first post-Election Day meeting will be held today with his top economic policy advisers. The meeting will include Volcker, Rubin and Summers, along with billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former Clinton labor and commerce secretaries Robert Reich and William Daley, Clinton economic advisor Laura Tyson, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, Time Warner Chairman Richard Parsons, XEROX CEO Anne Mulcahy, Residence by Hyatt CEO Penny Pritzker, former Bush administration Securities and Exchange Commissioner William Donaldson, and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm.
Change, or the same crap all over again?
So yes, Obama won. Not much of a surprise, though I won’t claim that I was entirely sure. And I can’t deny that I’m much happier that he won instead of McCain. And I also can’t deny that this is an important moment in history, and that it will have an effect on the future. But how important is it, really - outside of what the media have been telling us?
Is it important because he’s black? Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice, to name but two individuals, were also black - I’m not sure that did anyone any good. Granted, though, President is a different position: this time the black guy is the boss. Culturally, maybe this will change a few things. Hell, maybe a lot of things. Given the history of the United States, the election of a black man to the Presidency does mean something. The racists have been shown what America stands for. That’s true.
But does anyone really think that in today’s economic and political system race or gender plays a part? (Many people were overjoyed when a woman was elected Chancellor in Germany, and she’s practically the Antichrist.) Do you think the people with the real power - the various corporations that backed Obama more than they did McCain - care about that? What they want is a representative, and apparently they were quite certain that they were getting just that. Many of the major conservative newspapers backed Obama, saying that his policies would be considerably more conservative than people expected. Bush was their representative, now it’s Obama. Yes, a difference in style, but the same people are pulling the strings.
(According to the polls people mostly voted because not because of race - yay - but because of the economy and because of the wars. But Obama has taken back most of what he said about the wars, and he is in total agreement with McCain on the bailout and wiretapping. Doesn’t this alarm anyone?)
Everyone is happy to be rid of Bush, and not to have to endure McCain/Palin. I understand that - hey, I live on this planet too, and I wouldn’t like Sarah Palin to blow it up in an attempt to kill some Evil Russians. In that regard, the American people have shown that they are far more progressive than the media have been telling us. And yay for that! I don’t want to say that this moment means nothing. That would be grossly unfair: it means that Americans have said a loud and resounding NO to the imperialist policies of George Bush and the system that he represents.
And yes, Obama will be better than Bush.
But a lesser of two evils is still an evil. After eight years of Bush, people think fondly of the Clinton years - but Clinton also waged illegal wars, killing thousands of civilians and causing problems that will continue for decades. Hell, he also bombed Iraq every now and then. The Democrats may be slightly less insane than the Republicans, but they are still a party that works for the capitalist elite - and those guys tend to like wars, because wars make them money. Their problem with Bush is only how badly he fought his wars, not that he fought them at all.
So, let’s talk about change. What is Obama going to change? A year from now, where will we be?
Will Iraq still be occupied?
What about Afghanistan?
Will wiretapping cease?
Will Obama outlaw torture?
Will he close down Guantanamo Bay and all the other concentration camps?
Will he remove all those laws that have turned America into a police state?
Will he do anything to truly improve living conditions for ordinary working people?
I suppose we will see. But I fear that if he does not do any - or very few - of these things, people won’t rise up in protest. Either they’ll make excuses for him, or they will ignore the situation because, after all, it’s not Bush. And some, I suppose, will simply be disappointed and give up. But just because, in Lewis Black’s words, the only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats suck and the Republicans blow, that does not mean that change is not possible. But profound change cannot come from within a party dedicated to maintaining the (rather unpleasant to the majority of humans) status quo.
Remember how happy everyone was when Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House? Where’s the impeachment? Where’s a resolution to stop the Iraq war? Where is the end of torture or wiretapping? The Democrats could have kicked George Bush’s ass. They could have saved thousands of lives on both sides. And what did they do? What did they change? Nothing.
Sometimes you need to break with the old. That’s why people voted for Obama. I don’t think they will get what they wanted - but at least now we know where everyone stands. And that’s good to know.
P.S. I fully realize that people are happy. And they have the right to be happy. This is a victory - against Bush and all that he represents. But the charisma of a leader does not guarantee an economic and military policy that is just or progressive, even if that’s the language he uses. I can understand just how much everyone wants to believe that everything will be all right. It’s easy, terribly easy to fall for that, to join with enthusiasm in proclaiming this a new age. The results of this election are important and meaningful. But the political realities will continue.
Helen has written an interesting post on the (excellent) music she composed for The Strange and Somewhat Sinister Tale of the House at Desert Bridge. And if you click here you can read it.
Go on. I’ve got work to do. The final beta is approaching.
Hello all,
As I am switching to a different webhosting package, this website may disappear while I re-upload files or stuff is changed. Just so you know.
Helen has already sent me most of the music for the game, and it’s absolutely awesome. You’ve all had to wait a bit longer, but trust me, it’s worth it.
See you on the flip-side. (They have cake there.)
Jonas
Move in progress.
The website will be back soon.
Nothing much to report right now. The beta testing has gone very well so far, but we’re waiting for the music before we can continue to the final version. Helen’s been doing a wonderful job - many of the testers have commented on how great the music is - but she’s having trouble finding the time to finish it all. Which is something I can understand perfectly well, as I have recently taken on a second job and am pretty much swamped with stuff to do. But the money has to come from somewhere, and at least the people are nice.
Nevertheless, my projects remain my main concern. Once Desert Bridge is done, I will finally be able to continue with my novel and finish editing The Great Machine.
In utterly cool news, Verena has finished writing her novel ahead of me finishing mine, and is now transcribing it to the computer. I’ve only read about a fourth of it so far - she wanted it to be in a more finished state first - but what I have read is excellent, and very funny. (I already know the plot, since we wrote an outline together. The ideas are all hers, though.) Once it’s all typed up, we shall begin editing it, and after that start sending it out to publishers. Yayness.
Paul Newman has died.
It’s sad - very much so. But I’m less depressed about it than I was about the sudden deaths of, say, Richard Biggs or Douglas Adams. While his death is a tragedy, I can think of few lives less wasted: he lived long, loved deeply, created great art and fought for justice and equality. His actions changed, even saved, the lives of others in a multitude of ways. That’s pretty damn good. Death being inevitable, we should all wish for lives as long and meaningful as Paul Newman’s.
I have just realized two things:
a) Jay Is Games wrote about The Infinite Ocean, which explains the sudden influx of people during the summer.
b) My games, with the exception of The Great Machine, don’t run on most Vista systems. Now, I despise Vista, so it’s not the end of the world, but it really does suck for people who have no other choice and would like to play the games. So I am considering possible workarounds, and will post any results here.
And now I have to go let the cat out, because she’s going craaaazy.