Week 694

What’s this? I’m blogging about my work on a weekly basis – a simple way to track and archive whatever it is I spend my time on.

Last week I wrote a new Next Level column for nrc.next, about Jack Tramiel, the forceful founder of legendary computer company Commodore, who died last April. Years ago I read the book On The Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore by Brian Bagnall – which was recently re-released as Commodore: A Company on the Edge – and I felt I had to share some of its excellent stories. (It’s a good book, though perhaps a bit heavy on the technical details.)

The column wasn’t published yet, unfortunately. Things are a bit slow at the paper, it seems, although the masterplan for more frequent and consistent games coverage seems to be moving forward.

They did publish my Fez review after two weeks, so I shouldn’t complain. (Do note, though, that Super ‘Pepper’ Mario is not my typo.)

Otherwise, it was a short week full of distractions and without much actual work.

On Monday, I celebrated Queen’s Day with my (extended) family.

On Tuesday I drove to Leiden to get a huge stack of terrace tiles for in our garden. It seems that this summer, after five years, our garden will actually be finished. We worked on it almost every summer, though, going from a piece of bramble-filled jungle that turned out to hide a small pond to something somewhat representative of our middle-class decency. Without a pond. What all this means is that we might, at long last, throw a housewarming party later in the year.

On Wednesday, I drove to Kampen to visit Harry Hol and discuss writing, freelancing, Bashers.nl, and more.

On Thursday, I hosted did another Bashers Gameclub, on a welcome subject: Thatgamecompany’s latest ethereal game Journey. At over a 100 minutes it may have gone on for too long, but the discussion was pretty good and almost everyone in the audience chimed in.

It’s interesting how this game seems to reflect its players, both yourself and the your anonymous online travel companion. For example, my experience of the game was something resemnbling a race, because the first player I encountered seemed (to me) to be in a hurry. I always felt he was right behind me and I had to get out ahead. So was that player actually rushing through the game, or am I just paranoid? A bit of both, probably. Download and listen to the podcast for more stories.