Voice Acting

02 Aug 2005 02:03 pm
Ok, I am not so blagtastic after all. Ah well...I'm at work now and feel like taking a break...so I felt the blog call my name.

Circle's bro. Mikkel got his mission call to Lisbon Portugal. No one guessed THAT one. I think he'll have a good time. The only mental reference I have to Lisbon is that Elder Hillam (the Area Authority President over my mission) used Lisbon as an example to force our mission into taking the lamest approach to missionary work it has ever been my pleasure to partake of. Apparently Lisbon was the "Highest Baptizing European Mission" because they set hourly number goals and had a goal of teaching 21 discussions per week per companionship...I'm so glad the church has de-emphasized numbers and highlighted the importance of sending worthy and competent missionaries who go on missions with noble goals and the correct perspective on how they should work instead. Not that I wasn't obedient to the ridiculous "rules" Elder Hillam implemented, but I secretly disagreed the whole time...good thing it was only the last month of my mission that I had to suffer through that.

Enough soapboxing...



So, Jon built/is building an awesome engine for "point-and-click adventures" using flash. The broadness of scope and some of the unique features like the ability to use it for ALL kinds of games makes it something that no one has ever really done before...there are some point and click adventures out there that use flash, but none that do it anywhere near what Jon has built...oh yeah...the graphics are coming together nicely too (*bows*). Our inspiration for the project is mainly LucasArts' "Day of the Tentacle" the sequel to "Maniac Mansion." It was a point-and-click adventure for the PC that both Jon and I played when we were kids...impeccably done and obviously quite memorable. What's neat to think about is that, because this game engine is so cool, it could really put BoMToons on the map and generate some real attention for the Book of Mormon and the LDS church...that would be a nice side-effect of our little hobby.

Isabella continues to grow and gain more abilities. I swear, sometimes just being gone to work all day, when I get home she seems bigger to me...they grow up so fast (*wipes tear from eye*).

Circle is starting to hate managing the apartments. I'd like to move to a more permanent place sometime soon, but we aren't really in a place financially to do it right now...ah well...may BuilderHelper be as successful as we imagine it will be...then our time of scrimp-age will be worth it...I'd just rather see Circle happy than frustrated and worn out. (And now I'm gonna ask her to help with the upcoming housing guide which I am dreading putting together this year again...ah well...cosi e la vita).

At work, Mark and Rob decided that they should get together and "revamp" builderhelper's user interface and flow because "General Contractors are dumb." I think that's a great idea, but what they came back with (after a month of working on it mind you) was basically exactly the ideas Jon and I suggested to them as they started the project...and their ideas weren't even as developed as what we suggested...amazingly it was a regression of ideas wrapped in 100 different ways of restating the problem we were all already aware of.

For example, it's like there's a broken pipe in your house and your bathroom is flooding...so 2 people are assigned to isolate the problem and decide how to fix it so they can present the plan to the plumbers. Before they start on their plan, the plumbers tell them "there are probably a series of pipe fittings that are loose and need to be replaced, you can buy them at Lowe's in the plumbing section, you should also check for rusted out pipe sections that could be replaced with a non-corrosive material"...when they come back (after a month) they basically say:

The problem is that there's water on the bathroom floor

The water is getting pretty deep

People are very annoyed when they try to use the bathroom

People's feet get wet when they go into the bathroom

Because their feet are wet, they don't want to use our bathroom anymore

The linoleum in the bathroom is also warping from the moisture

If we want to be able to use our bathroom in the future, we need to stop whatever's causing the leak

There's this one guy I know, who went into the bathroom expecting a dry floor, and when he got in there the floor was wet...and he came back out and said "I can't use that bathroom because the water on the floor is up to my ankles!"

I think there may be a problem with the pipes leaking

I'll know it's fixed when the floor in the bathroom is dry

The problem is that there's water on the bathroom floor

Can you see my frustration here? They should have just had us do it if they were gonna spend that much time and come back with essentially nothing...we could have finished it (implementation and all) in 2 weeks max.

Ah well...the bike ride to work is getting easier...and my bum isn't as sore.