So a couple of months ago I told you all about the antics of a certain Dr Tim Langdell. A liar, a cheat and a charlatan who has over the years managed to carve a fairly impressive niche for himself as one of the "top 5 industry specialists".
In truth hes a blow hard and a bully who has managed to wheedle and wangle his way into various industry in dins and work his way up a greasy pole to be "recognized"
Thats not to say that once upon a time he did indeed manage to achieve something, he set up a company in the late 70's called Softek which was one of the founding companies of our industry. And as was normal at that time, was a small dingy office based venture that provided an outlet for the creative young nerds of the day who wanted to sell their games.
A great many current game giants started this way and grew, or started this way then were swallowed up by others who got a bit bigger, and they in turn got swallowed and they in turn...you get the picture.
Tim's little company though never really quite reached the heights he'd hoped it would and never really grew big enough to swallow others or be of interest to the bigger fish in the pool. So in the 80's, when branding became the big thing, he attempted to develop his own brand and renamed his company The Edge.
Nice ring to it don't you think?. Tim also knew the value of self promotion and managed to get himself a seat on pretty much every board going for any industry related committee that was formed. It wasn't long though before he started to belive his own press and stories of his empire raised more than a few eyebrows.
It did help to raise his profile a bit, but The Edge still never really became the power house that Ocean, Infogrammes, Gremlin and the like became in the 80's and 90's
Financially then Edge slowly died off, leaving scores of pissed of developers and contractors who never got their money and Tim it seems (according to accounts from former employees) actually became quite proud of his ability to screw people out of money. But eventuality the game was up.
The Edge simply could not compete with the now very established and professional companies making games and it was time for Tim to move on. To the US in fact, leaving his debts and bad feelings behind him for now.
His career in the US is less traceable, He "transferred" his assets form The Edge to a new Edge Games corporation in the US, and continued to try to release games, but it all came to an awkward end around 1994. The unthinkable happened...Tim was no longer in the games industry...he had to get a proper job...teaching. (not a bad profession at all if I say so myself).
But Tim had one little ace up his sleeve. Back in his branding days, he'd trademarked the phrase "The Edge" and could therefore claim license fees from any unsuspecting use of that fairly common word.
He had been doing this while The Edge was still trading but with no actual business to run now, Tim was free to focus on his new source of income and continue his self branding madness as well as his now out of control self promotion which pretty much defied any logical scrutity..but so long as the plebs continued to think he was important, he was impotent..sorry important.
Until of course he ran into Mobigame's little Iphone game called The Edge.
It would take me hours to type up what happened next, and I briefly went over it in my last post, but lets say for the 1st time in a long time, Tim finally met someone who didn't want to pay up to save hassle....but best to read this for a full run down of those events and some of the histry.
Now me and several others called for Tim's removal from the board of the IGDA, and despite really appalling inaction by the board, we did eventually manage to get the 2000odd signatures needed to call a special meeting to vote on his removal.
Sadly however before the meeting Tim resigned claiming it was for the good of the IGDA..though in truth the board were about to vote him off anyway for his idiotic mistake of threatening me personally with a lawsuit by writing to my employers using his board of the IGDA title :)
He is gone from the IGDA at last, some of my colleges made this little skit up
Very amusing and so accurate.
Tim is still around though, his antics since his booting for the IGDA are comical and also a little sad. you can find some info here Tim still clearly desperately wants to be something he's not, a games publisher. But really he's just trying to convince a court that he's a games publisher because unless he can prove he's actively trading (which he clearly is not) he will lose his beloved trademark and only claim to "fame".
Tim Langdell, is apparently currently in hiding, several court officers carrying envelopes and briefcases have been knocking on his door wishing to talk to him.
So far they have not quite managed it.
But they will....oh yes...they will.
Ahthankyew
Monday, 28 September 2009
Friday, 25 September 2009
And on the subject of stupid people?
Well perhaps stupid is too strong, but I do feel when peoples grasp of reality is so shaky, that some stupidity is involved.
Recently as I've blogged, Jodie has been a little troubled of late. While we've seen some wonderful improvement in her behaviour and attitude she is still very fixated on her old Friends in Bradford. I've pondered on whether to put something which is personal to so many involved in my blog...but as it is something I feel affects me...and I want to document things that affect me...I'm going to put it here..I will however obfuscate names and locations....but you know who you are if you are reading this.
While it may seem harsh, to her, we've tried to cut back on Jodie's contact with the UK, and encourage her to find new friends and interests here in Holland...When all is said and done she's 14 and we have to do all we can to help her to acclimatize to Holland.
She can moan as much as she likes about it being boring, and school being too hard, and and and...Of course being in Holland has little to do with that, ALL 14yo's hate school and find everything boring. Its important for their development that they learn to embrace the school work and find their own interests and make friends where they are.
But of course she moans....and moans....and moans.
Bina and I for the most part...ignore the moaning and treat it for what it is, a means to get what she wants and try to get her to take more interest in Breda life and work to get good grades and continue her development....
Her Dad....listens....and when there's an ear to bend, Jodie, of course turns up the moan volume. She paints a pretty bad picture if what we hear back is true. Oh my god, what a dark bleak world she's being forced to live in.
And Jodies Dad...believes it!!!
So much so, that when she went AWOL (in his care) last month and she was faced with the retribution for her actions. What does any 14yo do? She turned on the waterworks about how unhappy she is in Holland....and Dad...believed it. (I'm sure you can see the problem with that....what happened to the retribution for a 14yo going awol and spending the day in Bradford with her boyfriend. But lets not bother...we know the answer)
So Dad and his partner...without discussing it with us 1st, decides to offer Jodie the chance to live in the UK. WITHOUT discussing it with us!! (And despite the fact we wanted this option to be available to Jodie before we went to Holland and they refused point blank to consider it)
Without...that’s important. Suddenly Jodie now has everything her heart desires offered to her, a home in the UK, an easier school in the UK, and a chance to finally away from these cruel harsh parents who make her work hard at school and encourage her to find interests in a small Dutch town and give her a huge monthly allowance and factor her into every decision they make ..yes indeed lets escape from that! No need now to care about Holland, Daddy will let her live with him, and that’s a bit closer to Bradford.
Well 14yos are more interested in their short term wants rather than their long term needs of course. But even cruel wicked parents like us want to do what’s best...and frankly at this point Bina was at her wits end after Jodies AWOL adventure. so we listened to what was being proposed.
And could not believe what we were hearing.
It turned out...it wasn't Dad's decision...no it was his partners. At no time was he prepared to make a stand and say he wanted her and would do what was needed to provide her with a home, security, education etc..it was her decision....Ohhhkaaayy!!
Well that’s not right for 1 thing, but in light of Jodies Dad's past inability to accept parental responsibility for his child I guess we had to expect that (lets say the list is a bit too long to print here)
The partner, opened "negotiations"...and I've quoted that for a reason, because basically that’s what the following discussions resulted in, negotiations. By insisting, that she (slightly paraphrasing as I don't have the quote to hand), "reserves the right to send Jodie back to her mother if she make her or her families life intolerable on the grounds that Bina is her mother"
WTF!!!!!
I mean really, what the fuck... reserves the right? RESERVES THE RIGHT!!!!
I mean her Dad is her Dad, but I don't recall ever having the right to send her to him because he his her Dad!! Or indeed more importantly I don't ever recall believing I have such a right.
The rest of the opening negotiations focused, almost exclusively on how much we were prepared to pay them to look after Jodie. I quote
"To help us with the decision it would also be helpful if you and
Brian gave some thought as to how much you can contribute towards
Jodie's monthly upkeep. We currently have no income and so we are
still living off my ever diminishing savings. It would need to be a
reasonably substantial amount as you know first hand how much things
cost."
Note...to help us with the decision.
Now, it may seem trite at this point to note that Jodies Dad, has not paid maintenance for Jodie for some time..due to his losing his job a few months back and for....various other reasons...mostly revolving around him not having thought about it at most points in Jodies life, indeed on odd occasions where Bina has had to push the point the CSA threats tended to produce some token amounts.
But trite or not, its true. Dad has been delinquent on his maintenance payments all Jodies life, has failed repeatedly to honour promises to have her stay with him or take her on holidays ever)...but now they want us to pay them!
oohhhkay....well we're not Dad so we're willing to discuss some finances, after all, as has been pointed out by the partner, neither of them are working....and can't afford to pay for a 14yo***(I'll come back to this point later)
Already alarm bells are ringing for us...as I am sure they are for you...Jodie is not a commodity to haggle over, and also its not really the "partners" place to be discussing this...yet Dad refuses to get involved, as he’s on a business trip to Amsterdam....presumably with no access to phones or emails...or indeed the chance to take a few hours out to get on a train to Breda to see Jodie!!!!
Finances really should not be the reasons behind such a decision yet here we are taking about money alone!
We offered what we thought was a fair amount, considerably more than Dad has ever paid per month...and also were willing to continue to pay Jodies monthly allowance of 200euros while she could buy her own clothes and girlie stuff..
This was not enough, indeed they/she wanted more and suggested we reduce Jodies allowance and they would let her get a Saturday job..
It seems this amount was based on the information Jodie provided them about how much we were willing to spend on paying for Jodies education here. This time I do have the quote
"From what Jodie has told me you and Brian have been spending money
on School fees and also Jodie's weekly travel and were prepared to
commit to another year of fees and travel. Therefore if Jodie comes to
live here you and Brian will effectively be saving money"
This indeed is true, but what was not considered was that I was taking on extra freelance work in order to pay for Jodies education, due to the fact she did not want to go to a Dutch school..I'm not too keen on the idea of continuing to take on freelance work so I can give it to them.
Now at this point I had had enough, going back to my *** point earlier. While Jodie has been busy discussing details of how much we are spending to keep her educated in The Netherlands, she's also been telling us a little about Dad and partners spending habits...which seem rather excessive given the fact neither of them currently has an income and are living of the partners "ever diminishing savings".
We can't help but wonder if the need for a "substantial" amount, is to pay for their recent new laptop purchases, or perhaps their high end cars? Perhaps its to pay for some outstanding ironing service bills? Or maybe its to pay for their cleaner, who keeps the house nice and tidy and therefore fit for Jodie to live in "well" (another comment made by the partner), there are a host of other little titbits we've been told...frankly we're getting back to this idea of lack of grasp of reality or stupidity. But perhaps also something more unpleasant.....
In my usual, what the fuck are you on about way, I asked Bina to stop these negotiations and confronted Dad, we asked him why he had not taken responsibly for his child personally at such an important decision point. he still refused to accept it was his decision. indeed going so far as to say when he met his partner he was a single man with no kids and he found it remarkable she was willing to consider taking Jodie on now....
Well...Dad..I don't find it remarkable at all, because you may well have been single, but you are a fool to suggest you had no kids. You have had a child for 14 years.
Now in times gone past I have called Dad a sanctimonious prick, due to his unpleasant and often sanctimonious comments to Bina. Though he seems to disagree. Of course its very easy to be a parent from the grandstands shouting down advice. Its quite another to be the one on the receiving end of a terrible teen.
As such our relationship is not the best, and invariably we end up arguing, usually with me insulting him and he in turn focusing on the insults rather than the relevant points. In this case his daughters well being. He is a sanctimonious prick, and also a coward and a hypocrite, I have no respect at all for the man, were it not for the fact we share a Childs interests I would happily avoid this waste of space.
While still refusing to accept his responsibilities and recent failings (letting her go AWOL) our argument reached enormous proportions and he retired to a bizarre “You are a bully” defence when I pointed out all the failings in their dealings with Jodie.
By now we had realised that Jodie’s interests simply would not be best met by her living with her Dad, Yes we’d have a lot of hassle to deal with, but at least Jodie would not be sent out on a try before you buy basis to someone who seems more interested in how much they can make out of having her and another who refuses to accept that he has responsibilities as a parent.
Jodies is staying with us…while the decision was not popular with her, hopefully we have finally drawn a line and she no longer uses her Dad as an excuse to keep the links with a troubled past open.
Surprisingly once the decision was made and finalised (Partner has decided not to continue with her "kind and generous” offer to have her due to my rude and insulting mails…ha!) Jodie seemed to settle down again and accept things.
She’s attending to her school work, looking forward to a school trip to Spain…and…has noticed a few boys at school… Also we found a Rubgy club in Breda that she can join as she really enjoys girls rugby.
Lets hope the sanctimonious prick and his partner try and support Jodies moves forward this time!!
Perhaps we should start talking to them about their maintenence payments which should be paid unitl Jodie is 16...we can use their estimate of how much is needed!!!
Ahthankyew
Recently as I've blogged, Jodie has been a little troubled of late. While we've seen some wonderful improvement in her behaviour and attitude she is still very fixated on her old Friends in Bradford. I've pondered on whether to put something which is personal to so many involved in my blog...but as it is something I feel affects me...and I want to document things that affect me...I'm going to put it here..I will however obfuscate names and locations....but you know who you are if you are reading this.
While it may seem harsh, to her, we've tried to cut back on Jodie's contact with the UK, and encourage her to find new friends and interests here in Holland...When all is said and done she's 14 and we have to do all we can to help her to acclimatize to Holland.
She can moan as much as she likes about it being boring, and school being too hard, and and and...Of course being in Holland has little to do with that, ALL 14yo's hate school and find everything boring. Its important for their development that they learn to embrace the school work and find their own interests and make friends where they are.
But of course she moans....and moans....and moans.
Bina and I for the most part...ignore the moaning and treat it for what it is, a means to get what she wants and try to get her to take more interest in Breda life and work to get good grades and continue her development....
Her Dad....listens....and when there's an ear to bend, Jodie, of course turns up the moan volume. She paints a pretty bad picture if what we hear back is true. Oh my god, what a dark bleak world she's being forced to live in.
And Jodies Dad...believes it!!!
So much so, that when she went AWOL (in his care) last month and she was faced with the retribution for her actions. What does any 14yo do? She turned on the waterworks about how unhappy she is in Holland....and Dad...believed it. (I'm sure you can see the problem with that....what happened to the retribution for a 14yo going awol and spending the day in Bradford with her boyfriend. But lets not bother...we know the answer)
So Dad and his partner...without discussing it with us 1st, decides to offer Jodie the chance to live in the UK. WITHOUT discussing it with us!! (And despite the fact we wanted this option to be available to Jodie before we went to Holland and they refused point blank to consider it)
Without...that’s important. Suddenly Jodie now has everything her heart desires offered to her, a home in the UK, an easier school in the UK, and a chance to finally away from these cruel harsh parents who make her work hard at school and encourage her to find interests in a small Dutch town and give her a huge monthly allowance and factor her into every decision they make ..yes indeed lets escape from that! No need now to care about Holland, Daddy will let her live with him, and that’s a bit closer to Bradford.
Well 14yos are more interested in their short term wants rather than their long term needs of course. But even cruel wicked parents like us want to do what’s best...and frankly at this point Bina was at her wits end after Jodies AWOL adventure. so we listened to what was being proposed.
And could not believe what we were hearing.
It turned out...it wasn't Dad's decision...no it was his partners. At no time was he prepared to make a stand and say he wanted her and would do what was needed to provide her with a home, security, education etc..it was her decision....Ohhhkaaayy!!
Well that’s not right for 1 thing, but in light of Jodies Dad's past inability to accept parental responsibility for his child I guess we had to expect that (lets say the list is a bit too long to print here)
The partner, opened "negotiations"...and I've quoted that for a reason, because basically that’s what the following discussions resulted in, negotiations. By insisting, that she (slightly paraphrasing as I don't have the quote to hand), "reserves the right to send Jodie back to her mother if she make her or her families life intolerable on the grounds that Bina is her mother"
WTF!!!!!
I mean really, what the fuck... reserves the right? RESERVES THE RIGHT!!!!
I mean her Dad is her Dad, but I don't recall ever having the right to send her to him because he his her Dad!! Or indeed more importantly I don't ever recall believing I have such a right.
The rest of the opening negotiations focused, almost exclusively on how much we were prepared to pay them to look after Jodie. I quote
"To help us with the decision it would also be helpful if you and
Brian gave some thought as to how much you can contribute towards
Jodie's monthly upkeep. We currently have no income and so we are
still living off my ever diminishing savings. It would need to be a
reasonably substantial amount as you know first hand how much things
cost."
Note...to help us with the decision.
Now, it may seem trite at this point to note that Jodies Dad, has not paid maintenance for Jodie for some time..due to his losing his job a few months back and for....various other reasons...mostly revolving around him not having thought about it at most points in Jodies life, indeed on odd occasions where Bina has had to push the point the CSA threats tended to produce some token amounts.
But trite or not, its true. Dad has been delinquent on his maintenance payments all Jodies life, has failed repeatedly to honour promises to have her stay with him or take her on holidays ever)...but now they want us to pay them!
oohhhkay....well we're not Dad so we're willing to discuss some finances, after all, as has been pointed out by the partner, neither of them are working....and can't afford to pay for a 14yo***(I'll come back to this point later)
Already alarm bells are ringing for us...as I am sure they are for you...Jodie is not a commodity to haggle over, and also its not really the "partners" place to be discussing this...yet Dad refuses to get involved, as he’s on a business trip to Amsterdam....presumably with no access to phones or emails...or indeed the chance to take a few hours out to get on a train to Breda to see Jodie!!!!
Finances really should not be the reasons behind such a decision yet here we are taking about money alone!
We offered what we thought was a fair amount, considerably more than Dad has ever paid per month...and also were willing to continue to pay Jodies monthly allowance of 200euros while she could buy her own clothes and girlie stuff..
This was not enough, indeed they/she wanted more and suggested we reduce Jodies allowance and they would let her get a Saturday job..
It seems this amount was based on the information Jodie provided them about how much we were willing to spend on paying for Jodies education here. This time I do have the quote
"From what Jodie has told me you and Brian have been spending money
on School fees and also Jodie's weekly travel and were prepared to
commit to another year of fees and travel. Therefore if Jodie comes to
live here you and Brian will effectively be saving money"
This indeed is true, but what was not considered was that I was taking on extra freelance work in order to pay for Jodies education, due to the fact she did not want to go to a Dutch school..I'm not too keen on the idea of continuing to take on freelance work so I can give it to them.
Now at this point I had had enough, going back to my *** point earlier. While Jodie has been busy discussing details of how much we are spending to keep her educated in The Netherlands, she's also been telling us a little about Dad and partners spending habits...which seem rather excessive given the fact neither of them currently has an income and are living of the partners "ever diminishing savings".
We can't help but wonder if the need for a "substantial" amount, is to pay for their recent new laptop purchases, or perhaps their high end cars? Perhaps its to pay for some outstanding ironing service bills? Or maybe its to pay for their cleaner, who keeps the house nice and tidy and therefore fit for Jodie to live in "well" (another comment made by the partner), there are a host of other little titbits we've been told...frankly we're getting back to this idea of lack of grasp of reality or stupidity. But perhaps also something more unpleasant.....
In my usual, what the fuck are you on about way, I asked Bina to stop these negotiations and confronted Dad, we asked him why he had not taken responsibly for his child personally at such an important decision point. he still refused to accept it was his decision. indeed going so far as to say when he met his partner he was a single man with no kids and he found it remarkable she was willing to consider taking Jodie on now....
Well...Dad..I don't find it remarkable at all, because you may well have been single, but you are a fool to suggest you had no kids. You have had a child for 14 years.
Now in times gone past I have called Dad a sanctimonious prick, due to his unpleasant and often sanctimonious comments to Bina. Though he seems to disagree. Of course its very easy to be a parent from the grandstands shouting down advice. Its quite another to be the one on the receiving end of a terrible teen.
As such our relationship is not the best, and invariably we end up arguing, usually with me insulting him and he in turn focusing on the insults rather than the relevant points. In this case his daughters well being. He is a sanctimonious prick, and also a coward and a hypocrite, I have no respect at all for the man, were it not for the fact we share a Childs interests I would happily avoid this waste of space.
While still refusing to accept his responsibilities and recent failings (letting her go AWOL) our argument reached enormous proportions and he retired to a bizarre “You are a bully” defence when I pointed out all the failings in their dealings with Jodie.
By now we had realised that Jodie’s interests simply would not be best met by her living with her Dad, Yes we’d have a lot of hassle to deal with, but at least Jodie would not be sent out on a try before you buy basis to someone who seems more interested in how much they can make out of having her and another who refuses to accept that he has responsibilities as a parent.
Jodies is staying with us…while the decision was not popular with her, hopefully we have finally drawn a line and she no longer uses her Dad as an excuse to keep the links with a troubled past open.
Surprisingly once the decision was made and finalised (Partner has decided not to continue with her "kind and generous” offer to have her due to my rude and insulting mails…ha!) Jodie seemed to settle down again and accept things.
She’s attending to her school work, looking forward to a school trip to Spain…and…has noticed a few boys at school… Also we found a Rubgy club in Breda that she can join as she really enjoys girls rugby.
Lets hope the sanctimonious prick and his partner try and support Jodies moves forward this time!!
Perhaps we should start talking to them about their maintenence payments which should be paid unitl Jodie is 16...we can use their estimate of how much is needed!!!
Ahthankyew
Thursday, 24 September 2009
arghh
Busy busy busy
work is busy
life is busy
busy is busy
Usual strife with Jodie, but things getting better...actually I will blog this later as its been a revealling few weeks.
I will try to do a couple of updates soon to make up for things
oh mum is coming over to the Netherlands...course I've had to pay for the old dead beats flights and otehr expensies...I just hope she does not hit the bottle and get into my herion stash when she gets here ;)
Ahthankyew
work is busy
life is busy
busy is busy
Usual strife with Jodie, but things getting better...actually I will blog this later as its been a revealling few weeks.
I will try to do a couple of updates soon to make up for things
oh mum is coming over to the Netherlands...course I've had to pay for the old dead beats flights and otehr expensies...I just hope she does not hit the bottle and get into my herion stash when she gets here ;)
Ahthankyew
Sunday, 6 September 2009
AWOL or MIA
Oh dear, its been a very busy few weeks,so there's been little chance to update the blog...that and I am incredibly lazy.
I guess there are 3 main things to talk about, home, work and the IGDA farce of recent weeks...Probably best I split them into separate blogs.
Lets start with home and by extension holiday.
I have to get the pics from the holidays onto my PC, but Bina sent me one which is nice, she took most of the pics during our holiday and her SD card is full of them showing us in differing stages of white-red-brown, or brown-dark brown in her case.
It was a really great holiday, incredibly hot some days (we were told it was getting close to 50degs in the sun) lots of fun memories and nice times, though the hotel entertainment was dire, we still managed to get out and amuse ourselves..Not sure we'll go back though, Alanya is one of those places that when you've been there a few days you've pretty much seen all it has to offer.
One thing that did take my breath away though was the Dim Caves
The pics on the site really don't give justice to this awesome amazing place. I've never seen anything quite like it.
Another highlight was a "jeep safari" riding around the countryside in convoy with other tourists, with the maddest jeep driver I've ever met..Who spent 20 mins at the start of the event filling up drink bottles with water smiling and showing an evil glint in his eye, since he knew what was going to be coming next to his unsuspecting passengers.
We found out soon enough as we headed out, and had to run a gauntlet of water hoses, which signaled the start of a surprising but in the end great fun, water fight the whole day.....hence the bottles which he never missed a chance to refill so his team would win (and cool everyone down in the blazing sun).We returned to the hotel totally soaked to the skin but having had a great day.
I even had the chance to swim in a freezing clear river at the end of it....not something I do often as despite being an all round Adonis and sporting hero (ahem) I'm a very weak swimmer.
I enjoyed the walks around, examining massive insects and a range of crickets and grasshoppers as well as the odd lizard. These things interest me :D. Bina and I even managed to slip away from the kids (Jodie's friend Shamielha came with us and we let them do some things on their own) and do some things we wanted to do.
Since getting back we've been working, setting up for the new year, getting our courses in place, and in my case working hard to get some Sony PSP dev kits to work...This has proved to be considerably harder than 1st anticipated and has eaten a lot of time. This can go into another post thugh.
I finally finished the wallpapering!!! Yes that inner hall has now been finished..all thats left are a few skirting strips to be cut and nailed....maybe next year.
My Nintendo project....failed a couple of submissions but went back in..and we're still waiting to hear...this has become one of the longest submissions ever. Very frustrating as I'm keep to strip this PC down and rebuild it with some new SSD drives but can't while there is even the slightest chance of a comeback from Nintendo.
Jodie...ah there's lots of news on the Jodie front. She went AWOL on a trip back to the UK to see her dad. who foolishly in my opinion, allowed her to travel up to Leeds to see her "friends", she of course ended up in Bradford several hours after she was supposed to have been back at her Dad's..Bina was worried sick of course, nothing worse than getting calls from people saying they can't get hold of Jodie.
The ramifications of this will go on for a while, but as they are still under discussion best to keep most of that under wraps for now.
And thats it..I promise to put up more pics when Bina puts them on a flash card for me. More posts will follow on the other subjets...when I've done those skirting strips.
Ahthankyew
I guess there are 3 main things to talk about, home, work and the IGDA farce of recent weeks...Probably best I split them into separate blogs.
Lets start with home and by extension holiday.
I have to get the pics from the holidays onto my PC, but Bina sent me one which is nice, she took most of the pics during our holiday and her SD card is full of them showing us in differing stages of white-red-brown, or brown-dark brown in her case.
It was a really great holiday, incredibly hot some days (we were told it was getting close to 50degs in the sun) lots of fun memories and nice times, though the hotel entertainment was dire, we still managed to get out and amuse ourselves..Not sure we'll go back though, Alanya is one of those places that when you've been there a few days you've pretty much seen all it has to offer.
One thing that did take my breath away though was the Dim Caves
The pics on the site really don't give justice to this awesome amazing place. I've never seen anything quite like it.
Another highlight was a "jeep safari" riding around the countryside in convoy with other tourists, with the maddest jeep driver I've ever met..Who spent 20 mins at the start of the event filling up drink bottles with water smiling and showing an evil glint in his eye, since he knew what was going to be coming next to his unsuspecting passengers.
We found out soon enough as we headed out, and had to run a gauntlet of water hoses, which signaled the start of a surprising but in the end great fun, water fight the whole day.....hence the bottles which he never missed a chance to refill so his team would win (and cool everyone down in the blazing sun).We returned to the hotel totally soaked to the skin but having had a great day.
I even had the chance to swim in a freezing clear river at the end of it....not something I do often as despite being an all round Adonis and sporting hero (ahem) I'm a very weak swimmer.
I enjoyed the walks around, examining massive insects and a range of crickets and grasshoppers as well as the odd lizard. These things interest me :D. Bina and I even managed to slip away from the kids (Jodie's friend Shamielha came with us and we let them do some things on their own) and do some things we wanted to do.
Since getting back we've been working, setting up for the new year, getting our courses in place, and in my case working hard to get some Sony PSP dev kits to work...This has proved to be considerably harder than 1st anticipated and has eaten a lot of time. This can go into another post thugh.
I finally finished the wallpapering!!! Yes that inner hall has now been finished..all thats left are a few skirting strips to be cut and nailed....maybe next year.
My Nintendo project....failed a couple of submissions but went back in..and we're still waiting to hear...this has become one of the longest submissions ever. Very frustrating as I'm keep to strip this PC down and rebuild it with some new SSD drives but can't while there is even the slightest chance of a comeback from Nintendo.
Jodie...ah there's lots of news on the Jodie front. She went AWOL on a trip back to the UK to see her dad. who foolishly in my opinion, allowed her to travel up to Leeds to see her "friends", she of course ended up in Bradford several hours after she was supposed to have been back at her Dad's..Bina was worried sick of course, nothing worse than getting calls from people saying they can't get hold of Jodie.
The ramifications of this will go on for a while, but as they are still under discussion best to keep most of that under wraps for now.
And thats it..I promise to put up more pics when Bina puts them on a flash card for me. More posts will follow on the other subjets...when I've done those skirting strips.
Ahthankyew
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