StumbleUpon | EgoAnt's blog posts

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/14257548/

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:12:46 -0800

As usual I am being very quiet through the month of November. It is because I can't afford to waste a single word in anything but my novel. Here is my progress bar for what I am working on!

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/12742257/

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 19:58:29 -0700

You are Mister WHO?!?!
Carefully study the following image:

Notice that some letters have tiny stars under them, and some do not... Is there a pattern to it? Lets see, if I put all the letters together that don't have stars I get, ummm, "SPEAIOALX".... Hmm, that doesn't mean anything.

What about the other letters, the ones that DO have stars under them... "U...R...Mr....Gay..." WHAT!!! U R Mr Gay?!?!? Geez, Mario, the PS3 camp already accuse those of us who own a Wii of being childish, now Mario himself is saying I'm gay? Augh!

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/12637598/

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:31:54 -0700

A Barrage of Projects
I have been slaving away at a number of projects recently. I had a night to sit at the cafe and get some work done tonight, and at the same time spent some time promoting the different things I am working on.

People are funny when you try to promote your own projects. You see everyone wants to buy things, but nobody wants to be SOLD stuff.

So when I try to get people to contribute to my next game so that I can release it under a creative commons license, they look at me funny. Or at least I assume they look at their monitors funny, because I never hear back from them when I try to get them to click on this:

In addition, I approached a number of other writers about my new Facebook app, FluxWord. I happen to think it's a pretty great thing, but then again, I bet Dr. Frankenstein looked at his monster a number of times and thought, "Fuck... That dude is hot, he's really going to get the ladies."

Anyway, if you have a Facebook account and want to check out my latest monster, here's a link to the "about" page:

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/11687187/

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:10:14 -0700

Why I Like Bugs
Bugs are easy.
Bugs are beautiful.
Bugs are far less dangerous than humans.

Take this bee I photographed for example:

She's an attractive little bug. And you know what? I followed her as she went about her duties for over ten minutes, from flower to flower. Never once did she get pissed off. She didn't swear at me, she didn't try to call security and have me escorted from the park. It was an entirely more pleasant encounter than that time I tried to follow that cute girl around who works at the coffee shop in my office tower.

I seriously don't understand why people are afraid of insects. Find yourself two highlighters: one yellow (like a bee) and one pink (like a squishy human). Now open up a newspaper and read it front to back. Every time you find a case of a human hurting someone mark it in pink. Every time you find a case of an insect harming someone mark it in yellow.

Once you reach the end of the paper shove a marker into each nostril. The marker that makes you feel a little giddy will be the yellow one. The one that is rough and scratchy is the pink one. Another great thing about insects, by the way, is the fact that they never feel the need to conduct experiments that involve shoving felt markers up their noses. Actually, I take that back, that's more of a mark in favor of humans.

I know that my writing occasionally seems random. But I assure you this is going somewhere; I suddenly feel the need to explain my love of insects. Sometimes life doesn't make sense. Sometimes everything seems out of control. Sometimes it feels as if nobody is willing to help you out. I love insects (ants and bees in particular) because these problems don't exist in their world; I envy that.

With ants your job is clear and there are always others around to help you out. Everybody has the same problems. Like, "Holy shit, is that a shoe? Fucking run for it!" Or, "Well, crap. Something just stuck it's tongue into our hive again and killed a hundred workers. Guess we don't need to expand tunnel 17 any more, though."

Ah... Nothing beats the simple life.

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/10157537/

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 13:43:55 -0700

Life Lesson #27: Do It Now
Every now and then you learn a lesson in life. Sometimes that lesson is painful, sometimes the lesson is surprising, and sometimes it just confirms something you already knew.

This lesson is one that is sort of all three. Quite some time ago, back in August of 2005 to be precise, I started working on a game I had nicknamed "Runes".

I thought it was a great idea. A multiplayer flash game based on the tried and true match-three game play style made so popular by Bejeweled where you and your opponent would build up mana to cast spells at each other.

I worked on it until I had a rough working version and then got bored. It sat on my server gathering dust for quite some time. A year later I opened it up and took another stab at it but just didn't have the drive to make that last push. It fell into obscurity once again.

This week I went out to Future Shop and bought myself a copy of Runes. Of course, it wasn't called Runes, it was called "Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords".

The game plays remarkably like how I had envisioned my final version working. The only difference is that the game I bought is DONE.

What's the moral of the story? If you have a great idea, finish it. Finish it BEFORE you move on to the next great idea. Give your idea a chance to live, because if you don't, someone else will.

p.s. I would like to make certain that it is understood that I am NOT saying they stole my idea. The idea itself was one whose time had come. I am about 99.999% certain that nobody at Vicious Cycle or Infinite Interactive has ever seen MY version of the game. That's what makes them great, they took a game idea that was waiting to happen and made it work.

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/9100669/

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 12:20:55 -0700

Okay, I promise I'll stop wth the achievements after this one!

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/8803946/

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:38:26 -0700

Apparently, I'm Not The Only One....
Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks we should get Achievements for everything in life... Though in this case, it was a type of achievement I hadn't really considered... =)

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/7756783/

Tue, 27 Mar 2007 09:38:20 -0700

My Games List
I'm going to semi-sticky (second post) this for a while, because as much as I love to write, I love making games even more. So if you want to play some of my games, here they are!

Feel free to head over to the Great Games Experiment and boost their rating! =)

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/8711253/

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 14:33:13 -0700

About ADHD...
Personally I am at the point where I think that ADHD and ADD are misnamed. I think we should drop the negative terminology because most of the time being ADHD or ADD is kind of awesome.

I don't think that we can say they are disorders any more than we can say that people who run really fast or swim really well have disorders. =)

I mean, if someone jogged every day, I don't think they'd like it if I said, "Hey, I notice that you are pretty driven to run. Have you ever thought of getting help for that? I know a good doctor who treats HJRDD (Hyper-Jogging Rest Deficit Disorder)"

I think we should call ADHD something better, like "Limited Attention Indefatigable Demeanor (LAID)".

That way, when people say, "Wow, Aaron, you are really hyper today," I can reply, "Yeah, I've got LAID."

Then they won't think it's because I'm insane, they'll think it's because I'm excited to be getting so much action.

Wow, that was a little random. =) Ah well, if your daughter is ADHD, you're probably used to it. Anyway, I'll send her a message! Hope you have a great day!

http://EgoAnt.stumbleupon.com/review/8359409/

Mon, 05 Mar 2007 12:15:24 -0800

False Aaron Sightings
I WEAR A HAT. I say that in all-caps because lately it seems to be the defining characteristic for me. People see me online, and usually, I am WEARING A HAT in my picture.

Lately this had led to several false Aaron sightings online, and in all honesty, I find that pretty funny. Is this the sort of thing that happens to a lot of people? Are there women out there who have very distinctive breasts who have people on their MSN list saying, "Hey, I saw you in a video I watched last night, here, let me send you a link..."?

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not complaining. Mistaken identity is the basis for about 90% of all sitcom humour, so in that way my life is obviously getting more and more like a sitcom every day. Wait a minute... Now that I think about it, I WILL be living with two girls shortly. All I need is a nosy landlord and a sleazy best friend and I'll be living the "Three's Company" dream!

Anyway, on to the mistaken identity! Below you will find two pictures of people who are NOT me. First I present the writer who recently took part in the 3 Day Novel Contest:

After recently hearing that I had been involved in a big writing event, it was unavoidable that this HAT WEARING guy be mistaken for me. Hopefully people haven't begun calling him Aaron on a day-to-day basis, because that would probably be both uncomfortable and demeaning for him.

Second I present another random guy who was spotted at the "As One" gathering for YouTube users:

Now this one I find REALLY funny. Because in my last post I mentioned that I love cock. I MEANT Gamecock, the developers. Still, it's easy to understand how after saying that I would be mistaken for this guy, especially since he has a cuddly little fuzzy guy wearing a tie-dye shirt on his arm. The funny coincedence here is that on my way back from China I was actually in San Francisco the day before this event, AND I was at Pier 39, where it took place! Hopefully, again for this HAT WEARING guy's sake, his partner hasn't mistaken him for me. It would be twice as embarrassing and demeaning for him to have this guy calling him "Aaron" in bed.