Gettin’ had
Gettin’ took
I tell you folks
It’s harder than it looks
It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n’ roll– AC/DC, It’s a long way to the top (if you wanna rock and roll)
(See at the end of this post for why the choice of this particular song 🙂
The Moving Adventure
The quest for a new place continued.  I’ve been doing a lot of looking, scouring Craig’s List and a ton of other housing sites.  Honestly, there’s just not a lot out there on the cheap end of the scale that I like.
Now, when I first set off on this adventure, I lucked out:  a friend had a room, and the rent was awesome: $300 / mo, plus I provide Internet (so, $359 / mo, not including taxes on Cox service.). Not bad at all!  But, this wouldn’t be an adventure if something didn’t go wrong!
We met, I looked at the place, and we struck a deal.  I gave her my decision that night that, yep, this looked good.  The next day, I got a text: her landlord had decided to sell the house, and she had to move asap.  And, if you want insult to injury, she ended up in even worse shape when she ended up in the ER with gallbladder problems (now removed.). So, she’s got to move after two surgeries!  Ouch!  She’s got a standing offer for help if she needs is.  She apologized more than once about the sudden move, but that’s not her fault – sometimes, life just happens!
So, I continued the search, and posted on Facebook.  A friend had a friend who’s mom had a room for rent.  $400 / mo, all bills paid, and access to their pool.
So I went over and met the mom and her husband today, and checked out the place.  Honestly, it’s pretty damned nice.  Big room, nice bathroom, access to the pool, access to the kitchen, access to the pool, the people there are nice, access to the pool, access to the downstairs entertainment room, and of course, access to the pool.  I met the mom and her husband – both of them seem like really nice folks.  and, I liked their opinion: if I’m going to live there, feel comfortable and part of the group.  That’s about the healthiest view on roommate situations I’ve seen.
BUT:  I haven’t accepted it, yet.  I wanted to think about it a bit, plus I was considering (and did) something for the first person I tried to room with.  I know things for her are pretty suck, and after chatting with her, she’s having to get rid of a lot of stuff to be able to move into a place she can afford.  So, I brought up her $300 mo. + Internet offer – if it could help her get into a bigger place (and not have to get rid of a lot of stuff), I see that as a win for both of us.  Though, I did put an end of the week deadline on it – I need to get back to the other people I talked to and tell them one way or the other if I’m going to take the room.
Yep, this is an adventure 🙂
Back Into The Crucible
I haven’t talked about Crucible in a while.  The project has been on hold for a bit while I try and get other things arranged, and get the 8-Bit Minion Intern team into the groove on game development.
October 31st, I have to ship a feature complete beta version of Crucible for the Razer Forge TV system, and a final December 15th.  So, tomorrow before my startup meeting on League Sports Page, I’ve got a meeting on Crucible to start getting rolling on it again.  High Rise Spies is a cool project, but there’s not a whole lot attached to it – Crucible, on the other hand, has $10k in Free The Games Fund money attached to it.  SO, that really needs to happen on time!
I’m also a whole lot more excited about Crucible than HRS – there’s been A LOT of design time involved in making a modern Gauntlet style game that keeps the retro graphics and gameplay styles somewhat intact, but expands the player options considerable (and hides a plotline in there, too.)
As for the song choice… Part of the lyrics to It’s a Long Way to the Top used to be a signoff from my developer’s diary entries at Garage Games when I was active in the community over there.  It’s actually not completely in reference to game development, but more in reference to being a contractor while I was a game developer.  Contractors are almost always abused one way or another, and I’m still feeling the sting of some of the no pays, fallen through projects, etc. (Though, I still have one project that I’m behind on that the fault lies with me.)  Moving to game development and writing is part of that heading for the top part of things, and getting away from being screwed.  Plus, there’s not a whole lot of rock songs that work well with bagpipes (even if the bagpipes basically play one note over and over for most of it.)
Preview image by Rebecca Siegel off of Flickr.