Avatar

Finally went to see it with our friends Jay and Lola. It was fun and the CGI special effects were amazing, but the plot was light and it was fairly cheesy. Interesting to see the fruition of the project that I'd been hearing about for the last three years, what with James Cameron being on the board at Multiverse.

Wii!

Yes, I got one for Christmas...a Wii. So far, it's pretty fun, but mostly seems like just a novelty due to its motion-sensitive joystick. Wii Sports, which came with the box, is OK, but I wasn't too impressed with the Star Wars Lightsabre duel game. Candice loves the 3D Pinball game, though.

I think I'll be more impressed when I find some truly interesting games.

First week at Linden Lab

Started my new job at Linden Lab, makers of Second Life. I think I'm really going to enjoy working there. It's got a very unusual and compelling work culture that emphasizes personal responsibility and communication. And they have a very cool product, Second Life, a virtual world--for many people, THE virtual world--that continues to be very profitable even in these dark times.

I have been consistently impressed with the intelligence and friendliness of the people at LL. Having been around the Valley a lot, I've seen plenty of smart, motivated people in tech, but all too often they are arrogant jerks. Not so at LL...as a general rule, the people are very nice, yet smart and efficient. How refreshing!

Multiverse's Big Splash

Just returned from the Virtual Worlds Expo in LA, where my company, Multiverse, made a number of big announcements, including announcing of a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" online game. We also announced Multiverse Places, which we've been working on internally for some time.

Now, on to Austin!

D&D Online

Been playing this MMOG with old friends that I used to play D&D with, back in The Day, including John in Australia, Rod in Santa Barbara, and Mike & Tracy in San Jose. It's pretty fun, but I've kind of fallen behind the others because I never seem to be able to find the time to login.

Games

My love affair with boardgames began in the early 1970s with the Avalon Hill military strategy games. I think I got D-Day as a present, and quickly moved on to Blitzkrieg, France 1940, and SPI games. I remember being blown away by the complexity and novelty of SPI's StarForce, one of the earliest science fiction simulation boardgames.

Over the years, I played probably hundreds of different titles, and even got involved in miniatures gaming, including 7 years war, with my friend Jon Southard, and WWII micro-miniatures.

I also played various role-playing games, the progenitors of todays MMOGs. In a sense, they were the first virtual worlds, because they created rule sets to define the operation of an entirely fictional world. Later I gravitated to multiplayer games for their social aspects.

So, going to work for Multiverse, was sort of coming full circle for me.