The Strange Trip Continues

Updated for clarification purposes. I must be really tired.

With Rachel on her way to Canada for 10 months in August on a postdoc, and with my 6 year cyclical savings plan coming due this year, I have, for the first time, a chance to NOT work full time for a number of months.

I was really hoping the budget would allow me to take off an entire year, but one can't have everything.

My "plan" was to eventually look for something part-time, supplemented with blogging income, maybe game design, and who knows what else.

That last part is important: "who knows what else". I have obligations and families to support, which I have been doing non-stop since 1989. I'm really tired of it, but I know that I can't really stop. I have always forced myself not to quit a job until I knew what the next one was going to be.

This time I simply stepped into the unknown.

Last week I "quit" my job (actually, asked to be let go), in anticipation of my trip to England and Scotland. But mostly, because I was tired of the same old same old [1], when what I really wanted to do was blog and design games.

I had no idea what would happen next. What I really should have done was crawl under my bed for few months, and only then send out some resumes.

But old habits die hard. Somehow, I found myself already sending out resumes for positions that I know how to do - but don't really want to do - and a few other positions that look interesting, but are radically different from what I usually do.

Lo and behold, I already received some interesting replies. A number of people are happy to have me set up websites and blogs for them on a project basis.

But best of all, I walked into a job offer for a programmer position - for which I am rusty but qualified - and offered them, instead, to hire me as a part-time blogger. And they agreed!

In other words, if we can come to an agreement on the salary, I will now be a bona-fide part-time professional blogger for a living, still doing my own blogging and game design on the side. And maybe a few websites here and there, if I need to.

And I owe it all to The Secret.

Ha ha, just kidding. Actually, after watching The Secret, I have decided to devote all of my spare thinking time into thinking that The Secret doesn't work. Since, according to The Secret, thinking results in reality changing to whatever I think, I am expecting the resulting maelstrom of paradox to wipe out the Earth.[2]

Life is getting weirder by the day.

Game News

I knew there was a reason that I wrote about storytelling a few days ago; storytelling versus movies and television is like board and card games versus video games. The differences are infinite adaptability and human connection.

Nevertheless, storytelling is a part of any game, and Man Bytes Blog delves into it here.

HDRL contemplates the shift from long video games, which only teenagers have time for, to bite-sized game experiences such as Settlers of Catan, which are made for adults.

Mary Bellis of about.com interviews Tim Walsh, designer of Blurt and Tribond, on the occasion of his one millionth sale.

Polly Vous Francais experiences a store owner's take on the difference between types of board games.

Meanwhile, you'll be happy to know that Haifa has decided NOT to do a wild boar hunt within the city. Whew.

Yehuda

[1] And a job where I wrote technical manuals that nobody actually read.

[2] So no, I don't endorse The Secret.