I was playing pool last night for a few hours in a pretty large pool hall over in Santa Clara.  There was a Juke Box there, one of those modern numbers that’s all-digital instead of shuffling discs around (as a side-note $0.50 a song on the Jukebox makes iTunes look a lot more reasonable…).  There were two payment options on the thing–either insert 1/5/10/20 dollar bills, or log in to your “whatever the name of this jukebox is” Account (I’m assuming it was hooked up to the internet).  This seems like such a wasted opportunity to me.  While I’m sure the jukebox makers would just LOVE to have some demographic data and email addresses to try to sell things to, who in their right mind is going to sit there and sign up for a profile on a jukebox interface?  More importantly, who even wants a jukebox account?

The idea is solid–the fact that not all people carry cash with them, and being able to pick a few songs even if you don’t have any ones handy is nice.  But the hassle of registering for anything is just too great to make it a worthwhile proposition.  Enter the cell phone.

I guarantee you that 99.9% of the people at that pool hall had cell phones on them.  When I was at Georgia Tech, the mobile guys had this one interactive display setup that featured fish floating around in an aquarium.  Each fish had its own phone number, and you could dial in on a cell phone to take control of it–moving around with touch-tone presses as a joystick.  THAT would actually take some programming chops to set up.  You also see things on TV all the time saying “text in your vote for $0.99 to ######.”  If the jukebox operators really want to make some money, they need to get in bed with the cell phone carriers and figure out a way to text in how many song credits you want to buy.

Let’s see… scrounge around for a few one-dollar bills or text “5″ to the phone number written on top of the jukebox?  I know which one I’d rather do.  The sad thing is that people are spending millions and millions of dollars trying to figure out how to make cell phones do more, and no one seems to be focusing on what they already do well–call things.

We got the Mochi Party as it was winding down, but it was in a pretty nice Martini Bar. Drink tickets were provided, the place was decked out with Mario mushrooms, and they had a DJ spinning. The crowd was a pretty even mix of indie developers and suits, and the impression I got from the party was two-fold. First, they want to hire more engineers. Second, they were looking to impress possible advertisers. Though they’re all gamers at heart, I’m sure, the fact of the matter is that Mochi is an advertising company now–and you need a certain amount of slickness to survive in that environ.

We next headed to what I thought was a Shockwave party (invited by my producer contact), but turned out to be a full-fledged MTV party (duh, right?). It was in a much snazzier club, with a full complement of sushi, mini-hamburgers, an open bar, and a room full of suits. Older suits. My friends and I definitely felt like the youngest people there–everyone we ran into was a Manager of this or Director of that–and not super interested in the fact that I make Flash games. A grad school friend in town for the GDC pointed out that Viacom gives MTV buckets of money to impress people at these things. We were definitely impressed by the food and free booze, but whole thing was a little too corporate for our tastes.

Finally, we hit up the Kongregate party. There’s another club right next door, so we assumed that was the place. We only made it about three feet inside–enough to see that it was another party full of suits–before a bouncer intercepted us and escorted us back out. “What party are you guys looking for?” Once we said Kongregate, he pointed us to a hand-written sign on the next door down. “This is the UbiSoft party–you want that one.” My grad-school friend actually had an invite to this one, but we were already a little techno & business-suited out by that point, so we didn’t belabor the point. After being buzzed up (they held it in their office), we rode up what someone described to me as “the oldest working elevator in San Francisco” to their offices.

The Kongregate party is what a party would look like if it were held in my apartment–a keg of beer, some chips & salsa, and Rock Band. I don’t mean that to sound negative, either. More important than catering, the Kongregate party actually had some developers present (I’d gotten a business card or two at the other places, but nothing I was really interested in). I put faces to a couple of Kongregate names, met the guys who just won the IGF for Iron Dukes (they said they were shocked, but after playing it I was pretty amazed at how great it is), talked shop with Emily Greer for awhile, and met a few other aspiring flash developers.

After a few hours there, my non-game-inclined friends were pretty much burnt out on listening to me talk about games, so we called it quits and headed back down the peninsula. It was an entertaining night, though.

In short, I lead a pretty charmed life. I was trying to think up resolutions yesterday and all I could think of was to keep on doing what I’m doing. After sleeping on it, I figured I could enumerate that a little better. So here are some concrete goals for 2008:

• Finish paying down my college credit card (high interest), which is still sitting at around $1800.
• Put as much into my Roth IRA as possible before April
• Max out the full amount for next year.
• Put $100 a month into Prosper
• Bike to work at least two days a week on average (but aim for three)
• Catch a fish in California
• Release six flash games (including the one I’m hoping to publish later in January)
• Work on a design document for my first downloadable game (more on that later)

I could do a whole other set of goals for Piqqem, but I’ll leave that for the bosses and just focus on making my stuff work great (though we’ll be having a planning meeting sometime after everyone on the team gets back to California).

Rather than return home for Thanksgiving (going Christmas), I decided to do Thanksgiving here. My best friend from high school lives in L.A. now, so I invited him and several other local-family-less friends over for the works–my first turkey (~11.5 pounds), gravy, green bean casserole, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie. So what if the gravy was out of a jar, the mashed potatoes were instant, the stuffing was stove-top, and the pie was store-bought. We felt pretty darned authentic.
I got up at 4:45 a.m. on Black Friday to hit Circuit City and Best Buy. After standing in line for about an hour, my friend and I made it into the store. There was a similar wait to check-out (they only had 4 registers open for some reason). I definitely spent more than I should, but I’ll be well-stocked for things to watch for the next 6 months or so. Between the two stores, I got the entire James Bond ultimate edition for ~$20/pop (vs. the $70-$80 list price for each), three seasons of House, two seasons of Rescue Me, and four seasons of Nip/Tuck (all for $15/season instead of $50). I haven’t tallied the total number of hours, but it’s a lot. Just in time, too–the post-football-pre-baseball doldrums are just around the corner.

Other than that, the last week has essentially consisted of a lot of chilling out, playing Asassin’s Creed, watching movies (No Country for Old Men is excellent, Hitman not so much–but entertaining nonetheless), and sleeping in. I haven’t touched my current game for a week or so (waiting to hear from sponsors) and Bike vs Car is stagnating a bit, but I’m starting to feel that tinkering urge again. The first manifestation of that is the new ad-enabled skin. I don’t plan on taking this whole blog thing tooooo seriously, but I figured if I’m sticking MochiAds in my flash games that get < 1000 views, I might as well do the same for the blog.

I’ll make sure to bring my sunglasses next time, though.

The ocean current made me drift a bit more than I was expecting, making it a little tough to just drop the weight down into the holes in the giant kelp forest.  It was also a lot shallower than I thought it was going to be–I’d guess around 30 to 40 feet (I was thinking twice that).  For the first few tries, I was literally letting the bait sink to the bottom, then pulling it up immediately so it wouldn’t get dragged over the kelp my boat was crossing.  After a few rounds of that, I got wise and tied my kayak off to some kelp.  It’s pretty slimy stuff, and sometimes it breaks while you’re trying to tie it, but it does a pretty decent job of holding you in one place for a bit.

Armed with this new technique, I fished… and fished… and got nothing.  Not even a bite for the longest time.  I saw a few crabs clinging to the upper leaves of the kelp and a few tiny little fish, but nothing big stirring beneath the waters.  After a couple of hours, something big (I’d guess at least 2-feet long) swam past me about a foot under water, but I don’t know the species out here well enough (read: at all) to know what it was.  My line was about 30 feet deep at the time, so I had no chance to pull it in and try to lure it over (assuming the thing liked shrimp).  It was reassuring to see something big moving around, though.  I’d seen a couple of guys in wetsuits and fins waddling down the beach earlier with spear guns–I wonder if it’s legal to spear out of kayak out here…
I did get hung up several times, but the 17-lb test turned out to be a wise choice–it seems stronger than the breaking point of kelp, which meant I didn’t have to re-rig nearly as often as I was expecting.  I eventually did get one bite, but that was it.  I was probably only out there from about 2:30 to 5:00 or so (high tide was at 3:00, but I’m not sure what effect that has on anything yet), so one bite seemed like a pretty good first effort.

A couple of my friends were also out, just paddling around, so we decided to paddle out to the big orange buoy off the Capitola pier (someone in the shop said it was a mile out, but I have my doubts).  While paddling back in from the buoy, I guess I got going a little too vigorously… my paddle knocked my fishing pole (which was sitting in one of the rod holders just behind my seat).  It popped out of the hole and into the sea with a quick and final plunk.  I was moving to fast to stop and grab it–all I could do was twist in my seat and watch as it disappeared into a hundred feet of water.
On the bright side… at least I’d only bought a one day fishing license.

With nothing else I could do, I paddled back into shore.  While my friends were returning their boats to the rental shop at the end of the pier, another couple of kayaks beached.  One of them was outfitted with the exact same “surf leader” I’d been using, only with a completely different configuration.  There was a medallion-shaped weight  at the BOTTOM of the rig, with a couple of jigs tied to each of the loops between the swivel and the  weight.  In hindsight, that seemed much more practical for dropping bait into kelp beds.  The jigs were rigged in such a way that they looked fairly weedless, so next time I may dispense with the shrimp and just go plastic.  After I buy a new pole, that is.  It would be easy to say that the ocean kicked my ass on Saturday… but hey, a pointless day spent out on the water doing anything is better than sitting at home and watching  TV.  And at least I learned a few things:

• kelp = anchor
• bring more beer next time
• stow pole while paddling long distances
• so that’s how you rig it

Last night, Diana took the train home. I met her in Mountain View and we wandered around looking for a place to eat. We ended up going to a place called Cafe Baklava. I love Mediterranean food, so I was pretty excited. The service was pretty slow and apathetic. We ordered two appetizers. The Cevizli Peynir was a kind of mush of feta, walnuts, and spices. It was kind of tangy, but not really that spectacular. The Sigara Boregi was a plate full of fried mussels–with a kind of horseradish dipping sauce. These were pretty awesome. For main courses, we ordered Manti–which was a sort of ravioli covered in yogurt. The sauce, again, was a little tangy. The little raviolis were tasty…but it didn’t feel like a dinner. I think they would work better as an appetizer or a snack than as a main dish. We had planned on just getting two appetizers and one main dish, but at the last minute I decided to also order the special–which turned out to be a wise choice.

The special that night was char-grilled Trout (one of my favorite fish). They cooked the whole fish in-skin, then peeled back the skin on one side when they served it (along with grilled veggies & rice). The skin was all charred black, but the meat was perfect–making the outer skin look like sort of a black bowl. We ate the meat on one side of the spine, and then easily plucked the whole spine out and finished off the other side. I was really impressed with how fresh and tasty the trout was–this actually seems like something my YiaYia might prepare. So, overall, the dishes we ordered were about 50/50…that is to say, two good, two bad. The two “bad” ones, though, weren’t really bad so much as just not very exciting. The two “good” ones, though, were excellent, and I would go back for them–too bad the best one was a daily special.

As for crabbing… I was entertained. We were at the pier right under the Golden Gate Bridge, so you couldn’t really ask for a more picturesque spot. It was cold and gloomy and windy, and I don’t think the two girls were quite as amused as the guys (even though we were the ones getting wet by hauling the nets up). We used chicken wings in our bait cages–but I think the crabs (or maybe something else?) were able to kind of suck those through the grate. Next time we’ll use some bigger hunks of meat. Something made off with one of our bait cages altogether–along with ripping a hole in one of the two nets. We had an extra cage, though, so we patched the net with cord-ties and tossed it back in.

All in all, our catch was pretty meager–three crabs total. The first one was a tiny little crab–too small to keep. The second one, we learned from the guys next to us, was “short.” Which meant it was short a claw. We tossed him back, too. Our final crab of the day was the most impressive–a rock crab with some pretty humongous claws and a nasty temperament. He had a fishing hook stuck in him and some line wrapped around him, so we pulled that out and disentangled the poor fellow. Not worth it to lug back just one little crab, we were going to toss him back. We ended up giving him to the cute old couple next to us, though, so his hook-and-line freedom will be short-lived. Diana and Autumn, being Asian and female, both took a ton of pictures. I’ll post them somewhere when I get them.