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Chris

Last Updated: 7/8/2009

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Gender: Male
Status: Single
Age: 38
Sign: Libra

City: Orange County
State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 11/10/2004

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Hiatus and Cautionary Tales.
Current mood:highaytus
Category: Travel and Places

I'm taking a break from doodling for a while until we get Alpha Protocol (our espionage RPG) out the door.

It gives me some time to travel the globe in my own head.

I'd call it a hiatus, if I knew how to spell that properly.

I will leave this blog break with a word of wisdom: Don't ever sit in a booth at Denny's without first asking if the previous occupants "happened" to puke all over it.

We observed this at Denny's on Saturday (Costa Mesa) – three guys came in after spending several minutes trying to find the front door, hit on our female friends with surprisingly little slurring, ordered food then before it showed up, they puked all over the booth (quietly), left, and then the wait staff showed up, went "ewwww," and did a cursory clean-up of the booth.

5 minutes later, they sat an entire family (with baby) at the same booth. Amazing.

Currently listening:
Zirkus
By MIA.
Release date: 2006-07-21

10:21 AM

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Relationship Problems and Perspective.
Category: Romance and Relationships

So aside from Disaster Therapy™ I have a second method that conveniently distracts me from any relationship problems I might have.

It's called "perspective."

It usually involves doing things that give me cold chills and help remind me what oblivion is.

Things such as…

And I've got one more method, but I'll wait until I'm motivated enough to draw it.

Currently watching:
Barry Lyndon
Release date: 2007-10-23

10:31 AM

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Friday, August 08, 2008

Romance problems? Disaster Therapy can help.

It's been a weird 2 weeks.

All my friends seem to be having relationship problems, which makes me sad.

One of my friends asked me why I never seem to have any relationship problems.

I guess I don't. It's hard to tell.

This is because I practice a time-honored technique called "disaster therapy."

It is a many-stage process that involves piling emergency upon emergency so fast you never have time to feel down about anything because what you're doing is so much worse and more terrifying than anything else going on. Some examples:

Eagerly accept bets from friends, any bets at all.

Ask someone out who is clearly out of my league.

…rarely followed by the terrifying prospect of them actually saying "yes."

…usually followed by the discovery that I called the wrong person with the same name.

Not editing myself, either around strangers…

…or by bringing up subjects loudly in a coffee shop.

Getting into car accidents, skiing accidents, and zoo accidents helps.

As does pretending I have super powers.

Playing around with things that can hurt me also helps.

For explosive drama, nothing beats hitting on my friends' Moms.

Lifting heavy objects until something gives.

Humiliating myself in public is a plus.

And, of course, making the usual round of bad judgment calls.

So in conclusion - don't feel sad or stressed if you can create situations so much worse the first thing doesn't bother you anymore - and then continue the process like falling dominoes. It works - AND it builds character.

I'll outline my two other methods later, but I strongly recommend disaster therapy (patent pending) as a starting point.

Currently watching:
24 - Season Six
Release date: 2007-12-04

2:05 PM

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Back from Comic-Con and Vampires.
Category: Travel and Places

I got back from Comic-Con on Sunday.

Which was good, because the Con was all about vampires.

And there's nothing worse than nerdly vampires.

But the new Alan Ball series, True Blood for HBO, looks like a lot of fun, so there's that.

I would have dumped pictures up on my page, but I lost my camera 2 hours into the Con, so all the wonders I could have captured were not meant to be.

Currently watching:
24 - Season Six
Release date: 2007-12-04

1:31 PM

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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Lifehacking, Time Management, (and Dark Knight).
Current mood:

focused
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

So Darren at work introduced me to these three books on how to manage your time and your email (and using Outlook to help with both):

Getting Things Done - David Allen. Good advice on how to corral all your old crap and tear through it, how to set up daily dump folders so you can move tasks out of sight and then dump them into the day of the week that you really need to get them done, how to organize your filing system, how to deal with incoming email, and the all-empowering effectiveness of a label maker.

Take Back Your Life – Sally McGhee. Lots of Outlook-specific goal management and how to use Tasks, Notes, and other tricks in Outlook to track information related to your goals. Nice flowcharts on how to sort through email quickly and keep your inbox clean.

Upgrade Your Life – Gina Trapani. Lots of really cool, specific details on how to organize your time using Word and other methods (how to set up a whole list of easily remembered website passwords, how to "future-proof" your email, how to organize note-taking sheets, setting up a morning dash the night before, how to customize a text file to track time spent on tasks, how to highlight messages in email that are addressed only to you – and are usually more important because of it, etc.). It's also organized nicely into small chunks you can jump to if you have questions on a specific organization method.

I thought I'd ping people to see if anyone else had any time management, email management, or general life management tricks they use to help organize their day, as these three books helped a lot and I'd rather start freeing up more of my time rather than just checking and organizing tasks.

I know there's a website, Lifehack.org, and I've started reading that more. Other books I've heard recommended are "Win Friends" and "Seven Habits of Highly Effective people," and also David Allen's "Ready for Anything," but any other recommendations would be welcome.

Oh, and I saw the Dark Knight.

My review: "Great, too many villains (why do you need anyone other than the Joker?), could have been a half-hour shorter solely by removing one odd detour early on."

Currently reading:
Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better
By Gina Trapani

5:53 PM

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Thursday, July 17, 2008

T-25 Hours (Manlove, Pt 2)
Current mood:joking
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

Why?

I can't wait. T-25 Hours until Gotham City dies.

Currently watching:
Ocean’s Thirteen (Widescreen Edition)
Release date: 13 November, 2007

5:06 PM

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Sunday, July 13, 2008

New News is Good News: Tradeshow Fun.
Category: Blogging

We have E3 – a game tradeshow – coming up this week.

This will be our opportunity to show Obsidian in the best possible light.

And also to showcase our fine titles, Neverwinter Nights: Storm of Zehir and Alpha Protocol.

I'd like to take a moment and say how much fun it is to do research on Alpha Protocol.

I mean, like a LOT of fun.

Illegal, but fun.

Here's some links to some of our most recent reviews if you want to get the jump on E3:

IGN…

Gamespot….

And my fav, Kotaku.

Currently watching:
Eastern Promises (Widescreen Edition)
Release date: 2007-12-23

8:28 AM

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Thursday, July 10, 2008

Ear-Full.
Current mood:fearfulearful
Category: Blogging

So I still clean my ears with Q-tips, which you're not supposed to do.

And last week, I found out why.

Apparently, they don't manufacture q-tips so that the cotton swabs actually stay on the q-tip anymore.

So I tried to shake it out of my ear.

Finally, I had to resort to less conventional methods.

But man, did that freak me out. I thought having cotton in the ears was just an expression.

Currently playing:
Dementium: The Ward
Release date: 2007-10-31

3:36 AM

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Friday, July 04, 2008

Farewell, Futurama.
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

So my good friend Anthony lent me the entire Futurama run, all four seasons.

Now, I expected it would be funny, but what I didn't expect was how touching some of the episodes were.

Between "Leela's Homeworld," "Jurassic Bark," and "Luck of the Fryrish," I was crying while I was watching it. Which got me mad, because this is supposed to be a comedy series.

Then I got sad again. Then mad.

Stupid Futurama.

Oh, and Dr. Zoidberg. Why not Zoidberg?

Anyway, I am so, so, so sad this series is off the air, but as long as they keep making a bunch of movies for it (I hear there's 4?), then I'll be a little happier.

And I'm never drinking Slurm.

Currently listening:
Made in USA
By Pizzicato Five
Release date: 1994-10-21

5:22 AM

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

Animator vs. Animation.
Category: Art and Photography

(Thanks to Trish.)

Animator vs. Animation

*alanbecker on deviant ART

Currently watching:
24 - Season Five (Slim-Pack)
Release date: 2006-12-05

3:28 AM

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