Got someone to throw a glass of water over a colleague today – and caught it all on film. Boy, some days… more on what that’s about soon enough.

Working hard on everything Leipzig. Pay attention to Twitter, if you’re that way inclined (or if you’re not, the most recent updates are on the front page here) and you’ll get a minute-by-minute.

Okay, you won’t, that would be stupid, but you’ll get occasional random updates when I’m too busy to sit and type here. Tonight my brain isn’t functioning enough to do anything more creative, so you see me here, rambling.

Let’s see.

We’ve now seen whizzo 3D mockups of the booth for Leipzig/GC. They look fantastic. I was tempted to ask if I could put them up here, and might still do. I always love looking at those sort of things – photo realistic fantasy architecture. The scale of the stand is just colossal, too. We were looking at one view and someone said “We’re thinking of replacing those TVs, as they might be too small.” Without being sarcastic* I had to say “What TVs?” as I couldn’t even see them.

Some pointing revealed them – three 42in widescreen TVs… which looked like matchboxes on the side of this stand. It’s… big.

We’re recording material for episode no. 4 of the podcast tomorrow; going to try and make the whole thing a lot faster this time out, more bite-sized. Speaking of podcasts if you haven’t listened to TabulaCast recently go have a listen – John and Matt did an excellent interview with TR’s Lead Designer, Tom Potter. Tom strikes me as a really good guy (not met him yet), and I was impressed with the questions, and with the interview style. Well done guys!

Speaking of interviews, you’ll like this (although I suspect, not a lot). Martin ‘Amboss’ Rabl asked me to answer a few questions on ‘getting into the games business’ recently, and I finally got around to answering them. Honestly, I pretty much dashed off my answers because I was in a hurry. I have no way of knowing if he edited what I wrote… because naturally he translated it into German and posted it on his (official) Aion blog. So if you read German, then…

By the way, have you seen the Aion site now? It’s beautiful. Like the game. Trust me on the latter; been editing video of it all afternoon.

Uhhh… yeah, that’ll be it for now I think. Lots of video editing right now, casting should conclude next week, more Leipzig stuff is coming… and more I can’t even think through or process. G’night zzzzzzzz.

* Which most people I work with would agree, is an unusual occurrence.

What ho. So the illness, which started off as some sort of bizarre muscle pain and then just decided it was a cold after all, is now running its course. Lemsip. Strepsils. You know the drill. As my wife delights in pointing out, apparently I have some sort of Super Immune System when it comes to colds, so she has zero sympathy.

We’re busy at work. Very busy. Busy in that “So much to do, what next??” kind of way. It’s almost all to do with Leipzig. I’m teaching myself the intricacies of Final Cut Express by cutting together videos for the Bristol Comic Expo and UK Games Expo, which is teaching me how I’ll be able to hack together promotional videos for the show. At the same time, I’m dealing with our casting (almost done now) and helping the community guys with their crazy ambitious plans. As one of them put it today “How come we knew we wanted to go to Leipzig a year ago, and we’re still running around trying to get it finished a month out?” Ask me that again next Easter.

Anyway, this is preamble to say that posting will probably be light here for a while. Keep an eye on Twitter if you want semi-regular updates. (By the way don’t be offended if you ‘follow’ me on there and I don’t follow back. I tend to keep Twitter fairly one-way, otherwise it’s just more distractions throughout the day.)

More stuff coming. It’ll just be slow.

I know I’ve been quite absent lately, but hey – this is what happens when work gets a mite busy and out-of-work gets busy too. Between work, socialising, theatre trips, writing and the (very) occasional game of something-or-other, it’s left very little time to think. Let alone write.

To guilt-trip myself into doing them here are a few posts in the brain hopper, ready to go down the chute:

• UK Games Expo (in one post) – half, maybe two-thirds written
• Something on being ‘almost famous’ which is not as dumb as it sounds (I think)
• Reflection on comments made by Richard Bartle recently… go Google it
• Something on the games industry, students, breaking in, etc…
• The reality of, well, working in the biz

As you can see, pretty half-formed stuff. My mind’s been on the whole industry/students/breaking in/reality vs fantasy/dreams vs reality thing a lot recently.

Hope you can make sense of this, I’m not sure I can.

Ah, those lazy days of summer. Although of course they’re not lazy, as you can probably tell due to the lack of activity around here.

In fact pretty much the opposite; the To-Do list at work has been growing rapidly in the last week, and that leaves me with very little time to even think about blogging, let alone doing it. So sorry about that.

It’s all for your good though, dear reader, with the possible exception of some of our ‘internal facing’ projects which are of course directed inside the company. Naturally, plenty going on but not much I can really talk about. All will be revealed in time.

Speaking of, I don’t seem to be able to get a handle on time during the summer, which is odd. I keep telling myself I have loads of time before Event X or Event Y, and then realise that X is in fact pretty much around the corner, and that Y isn’t too far long after that. About then I count back in my head and realise I’m already behind schedule.

It’s also a myth that summer’s any kind of quiet time; instead we’re working to prepare for the end of the year, when the next round of ‘stuff’ starts to happen.

So for instance even though Memorabilia is five months away, I’ll have to start thinking about it seriously pretty damn soon. Although the proposed ‘MiniCon 2′ (needs a better name) won’t happen until next Easter, there’s stuff to do regarding that, as well. Before all that though, there’s other things on the near-horizon that need much more urgent attention. So the to-do list blooms and we get busy.

Not a whole lot to say then I guess, but just wanted to check in and let you know I was alive. The next couple of weeks will have some interesting stuff in ‘em, so stay tuned, and hopefully more will be revealed.

Last day in the office for a week. Three weeks until the MiniCon. Holy crud do we still have a lot to do.

• Started the day in the coffee shop, trying to power through the schedule a bit more. We’ve had to divide the busiest days into half-hour blocks because we’re trying to fit so much stuff in.
• Back to the office and straight in to trying to knock down my to-do list before I go.
• Chris/Aero finishes the final, final mix and cut of the first podcast episode; fingers crossed it’ll be live next week, while I’m away and can’t hear people laughing at my voice.
• We make it out to lunch and talk over what we still have to do; it’s a lot. I make calls on the way back to the office and apologise to answerphones that I sound like I’m in a wind tunnel.
• Get a nice sketch from Andrew Wildman for the sketchbook; he must have been picking up my mental projections… Chris reminds me that we still need plenty more, but we’ve got a month.
• Struggle to finish the official announcement story for the MiniCon. Four days of ‘stuff’ can be hard to shovel into one story.
• Have a quick phone chat with Andrew over secret stuff, where I use the phrase “I have a million things to do and have to go” twice before I get off the phone… I can feel panic rising.
• Catch up meeting with marketing and community at 3pm. I find out that several people are unaware of several big things, including the MiniCon, so fill them in. Grab the road atlas we bought from our store cupboard for use tomorrow.
• Have to leave the office for a doctor’s appointment, and lose all of my momentum; appointment’s at 4:20pm but I don’t see the doctor until 4:54. I’m out with prescription, I kid you not, at 4:57pm.
• Because of the delayed appointment and all I have left to do, I have to miss the grand opening of our new staff room, which is packed with goodies and gizmos and games galore. I’ll catch up with it when I get back.
• Blitz the last few things and put the official announcement live at just a shade before 6pm. Leave at 6:30 or so after a few hurried emails.

I’ll be sending a few more before sleep tonight, too.

So tomorrow the wife and I go to Devon for a week, where I expect I’ll be pretty much off the grid, while getting cosy in a cottage, and taking bracing walks around Exmoor.

Back around the 8th with full exciting commentary. Unless I find a wifi hotspot.

Ohmigodyesterdaywentbysofast,

andthenIjustdidthatdamnpresentationallnight,

andnowI’vegottoomuchcaffeineinme,

andthere’ssomuchtodo,

ohmigod.

Fast, slow, fast. In that order.

• In early because I wanted to get some stuff done, knowing that I had to leave at 11:30 or so.
• I’m on the phone with Omega Sektor as I’m making toast and coffee, checking on Hero Pass sales. They’re still brisk, but both of us are getting confused by the passes we have on reserve – some for Omega Sektor regulars, some for our incoming European players.* We decide we have a few passes left.
• Welcome back Spaff, who’s been ill for the last couple of days. He starts to move his desk, which we’ve been waiting to do for several weeks. He’s only in for today though. With him at my back – literally – we start to feel like more of a cohesive team again.
• Do a last minute rehearsal of my presentation for Spaff, who approves. It’s 12 minutes long, with 70 slides.
• Leave the office and take the bus up to the Sussex University campus to do said presentation for an audience of (mostly) second years. It goes well, but I’ll post about that separately.
• Back on the bus, experience a moment’s panic when I’m sure we’re heading towards the countryside. Turns out there’s a really rural campus just over the road. We head back to Brighton soon after.
• Back in the office just after 4, and work flat out until 7:30, mostly dealing with the Forums, writing up our ‘official NC Crew Sidekick’ program, and listening to the near-final mix of the podcast.
• Oh, break at 5pm to chat to an enterprising Forum member who wants to work with us. We come to an arrangement that I hope will work out for all….
• Come home, re-check Forums a few times while watching TV. Eventually realise it’s kind of a waste of time, and write this instead.

Tomorrow: more busy-ness.
* For anyone thinking we’re screwing people over, consider the players (who might not speak English) and the staff of Omega Sektor (who might not speak anything except English). It’s easier all round, with phone booking.