Found an interesting link on gamesutra today. (easy to read version)

From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks

By Benj Edwards

Gears of War. Unreal Engine. Journalists commonly use these two phrases to quickly encapsulate the history of Epic Games, a highly successful video game developer based in Cary, North Carolina.

And why not? The Gears of War franchise has sold gazillions of copies, and the Unreal Engine commonly powers blockbuster titles like BioShock. Both successes have made the gaming industry look up and take notice. But to stop with those platitudes is to ignore a much deeper and richer past.

Epic Games, founded by Tim Sweeney in 1991, has a much bigger gaming footprint than most people realize. When I hear “Epic,” I think back to a time in the early 1990s when I was deeply involved in my local computer bulletin board system (BBS) scene. BBSes were early dial-up online services that provided message boards, primitive online games, and numerous free files to download…

Makes me want to participate in TOJAM again next year and perhaps work on a simple 2D or even a text based MUD…hmm.

Text based adventure game?

Came across this from John Brown’s blog…

The Mutability of Literature

There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wandering thought which one is apt to dignify with the name of reflection, when suddenly an irruption of madcap boys from Westminster school, playing at football, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the vergers for admission to the library…(more)

As John says, it shines some light on what’s a priority in life. I semi got the answer to the question while back but this, and John’s blog, somehow makes me think I made a right decision. Of course, I am still neglecting my duties now and then so there is more work to be done.

Finally found the password to the site. Nearly moved everything to livejournal; still considering it.

Among other things, I have updated resources for writing I gathered past few months. I think I will also start writing ‘writing prompts’ from WritingExcuses.

Better catch up on my backlog of critters as well. Hmm.. I should add that on the resource list.

The other day, I read on some podcast that Wheels of Time author Robert Jordan had 12 drafts before he handed it over to his editor/wife. 12 drafts. I need to work on this bit.