Video Games

1. The video game I'm working on at PlayFirst is going to ship really soon.
2. I really want a Nintendo Wii but a big part of that is just because they're so hard to find. Also. I don't want to pay extra. I want to pay the $250 list price. It seems like a scam from Nintendo... "Hi, yeah, the Nintendo Wii is only $250! Not expensive like the PS3 or XBox. What? Oh, sorry, we're out of stock. We accidentally didn't make enough so demand is way higher than the supply. So you can buy one for, mmm, how 'bout $450?"
3. Really what I like is to buy old PlayStation 2 or GameCube games. I think I'll wait until the Wii is older. Maybe when the Mini-Wii comes out or something. I like those old consoles. They've been around long enough that the games are cheap ($10 or less used) and its been established which games are really good. Or important for me too, which games are at least pretty good but cool and different (e.g. Odama... See below!)

Now that I have a little free time (see #1 above) I've been catching up on my stack of used PS2 and GameCube games. I played some Karaoke Revolution. It's like karaoke. Except with a score. And when you sing well you unlock more stuff. If only there was the ska or punk rock Karaoke revolution. Kelly even sang a couple songs. I'm an okay singer, but Kelly is really good. I knew she was a good singer before but now we can finally harness that skill for something useful. Unlocking everything in the game. :-)

Also played some Animal Crossing which is a genius game. It's just really well designed.

I played Lord of the Rings: Two Towers which I thought wouldn't be so fun. I loved the Lord of the Rings movies but was skeptical that the game would be fun. Note: I still bought it for like $5 used though. Anyway, it's fun but maybe too hard for me. The two cool things they do in the game are: 1) The game shows clips from the movie then transitions from those into the game graphics really smoothly so the difference between the movie and the game graphics isn't so jarring. 2) There's no goofy tutorial or tons of intro stuff to get through. It just dumps you into this battle and you start fighting bad guys. LOTS of bad guys. There are very brief tips on screen like Press X to attack (or whatever).

I bought an EyeToy PS2 camera a while ago for $10. The games that came with it were fun for like an hour. "Hey, look at me on the TV! I'm fighting ninjas. Sort of." All the games show the player onscreen and none have like any depth to them. I just bought AntiGrav and it's a whole 'nother thing. It uses the EyeToy camera but you don't watch yourself batting away cartoony ninjas and hamburgers. Instead it's a cool looking hover board race game. You jump to jump over obstacles, you lean left and right, you put your hand out to grab power-ups etc. I haven't played it a lot, but it's pretty damn cool.

Oh yeah, I played Odama a bunch on the GameCube. Well, for me a bunch is anything over an hour. 'Cause once you have babies that pretty much ends "doing things" for more than 10 minutes at a time. Anyway, Odama, wow, it's weird and cool. It's a combination of a real-time strategy game and, well, pinball. Now I love pinball, but computer pinball games don't usually suck me in. Apparently the promise of real-time troops walking around on the playing field while I, the player, gets to hit a giant pinball around was enough to get my interest. p.s. The game comes with a microphone so you can tell your troops what to do while you're busy knocking over the bad guys or hitting a floodgate to stop the river. Crazy! Also. The setting is feudal Japan and the narrator is an old Japanese guy and everything he says is in Japanese with English subtitles. Nice.

I'm too lazy to put pretty pictures in this post now. I'll update this later.

It... might... have... switched... to...

We were sitting at the dinner table tonight and Jonah started telling us to stop and go. He was pretending to be some kind of stop and go machine. So we were eating our food and he would put his hands up with his fingers spread and we'd all stop eating (except for Ari, that kid never stops eating*). He was pretending to be a stop and go machine. So he'd put his hands down and we'd eat. Hands up, no eating. No moving. Hands down everything is all right. Good times, right?

So we're doing this and I think "Crap. I'm hungry. I wish he'd put a little more time between the "Go" and the "Stop." This is ridiculous. And that's right when the Stop and Go machine (a.k.a. Jonah) broke. His hands went down and he made that "Whrrrrrr" sound that the breaking machines/robots that are turning off and breaking make. And I said "Uh oh. What happened to the machine? It's broken." And I thought "Hey, I can go back to eating. Nice."

Then, as Kelly and I were celebrating the end of the machine, Jonah as narrator said "You have to be careful because the machine..." and we're not sure what else he said. We were busy eating and, you know, happy the machine had quit its thing. Next we heard "It... might... have... switched... to... choppers!" And that's when he started chop chop chopping furiously with his chopper arms.

Kelly and I were talking about how you really have to pay attention to those red and green traffic lights to stop and go. Or else look out, maybe CHOPPERS! That started the uncontrollable laughter. Jonah followed up with changing into hammers, pokers, cutters and wackers.

* Note: Ari is only 16-months-old, so he's not really a kid, but "that kid never stops eating" sounds funnier than "that baby never stops eating."

Hello?

Please tell me this is working.

Thanks,

Eric

test

is this thing on?

My message to Apple's web site feedback...

Here's a message I just sent to Apple about their web site. I'm red/green "Color Blind" which mostly means I have trouble telling the difference between red and green sometimes. Anyway, as someone who is passionate about user interfaces and making life easier for users, I got mad when I saw Apple's iPhone availability web page. It made me extra mad because normally they know better than to use red and green dots. Duh.

The iPhone availability screen uses red and green dots to show which stores have and don't have iPhones. That's not-so-good for the 8-10% of men who are red/green color blind like me. You'll have a much better shot at my business if I can tell which stores have the iPhone.

You may want to revisit that artwork and follow the old (and very good) Apple Human Interface Guidelines... Don't use color as the only way to communicate something. You can use shape/pattern/whatever. Or for me if you used blue and red that would do it.

Thanks,

Eric Snider

Update Hey, my brother David let me know that Apple updated their availability page. Now it uses squares and circles. Nice! I'm not sure if it was me who got them to change the page. But I'm going to assume it was. Now I need to start writing congress about electric cars or something. Maybe plug-in hybrids?

I look like David Schwimmer?

iQuiz -- My iPod game shipped today!

It's been months since I worked at Apple. I haven't been able to tell anyone what I worked on there, until today! They shipped the iPod game I was working on this morning. It's called iQuiz. Check it out! Here's a review at iLounge

I work for PlayFirst! in San Francisco now which is an awesome place to work. Way more fun and rewarding than my time at Apple. But I'm so glad to see the game ship today. Thanks to Leo, Alan, David, Dexx and Brian for all their help.

Oh, and thanks to my beautiful wife, Kelly, and my two sons Jonah and Ari. They all put up with a lot of late hours for me.

Snow, family, friends and pictures!

We took a long (and mostly unpaid) vacation in Lake Tahoe with Jonah and Ari. Kelly rented a house for us which we will refer to as the "Snow House" from here on. I'll update this later with stories of injuries and board games. My friend (since 8th grade), Mitch, and his beautiful wife Pepper came to visit for a few days at the Snow House. It was great seeing them and I'm so glad they could make it. They're photographers and they took a mother lode of pictures of us and Jonah and Ari. Here's their journal page with some of the pictures.

Happy Birthday, Ari! It's Ari's birthday today. I don't think he realizes it though. We'll bake a cake tonight and maybe have a big dance party. Also fireworks.

Okay, maybe no fireworks. We might give him a bath though.

CalTrain

I hurried this morning to get out the door with Jonah, drop him off at daycare and make it onto my bullet train to San Francisco. I made it with five minutes to spare. Nice. I felt sorry for a lady I helped in the parking lot minutes before. She asked me how to pay for parking. I pointed out the machine and explained she had to pay $2 and put a tag on her dashboard. No big deal but the train would be leaving soon and her car was far away. She wasn't going to make it. I thought about what she would do if she missed the bullet and how much longer it would take her to get where she was going.

The good news is I'm sure she made her train. The bad news is that it's 40 minutes later and the train still hasn't left. There was an announcement that a "Trespasser" had been on the train in Mountain and all trains are stopped.

I got a really good seat. So that's nice. It faces the direction the train would go. If it were going. And my battery says it'll last another 2 1/2 hours even while I play music. I'm going to upload a picture and then get back to work. At least I have a job where it's not a big deal if I come in late.

Update!We'll be leaving in 4 minutes. I'm glad I stuck it out. We'll see how long this train takes to get to San Francisco now. Normally it takes an hour.

That's a picture of Jonah as a conductor there. He's not the actual conductor today.

Cooties

Jonah and I played Cootie, the game for preschoolers. It was a lot of fun strictly because Jonah is so funny and nice.

It's no surprise when I say Cootie is bankrupt of depth and fun. At least for adults. It does have plastic cooties though! And dice are good. There's nothing wrong with dice. Well, it has one die. So not "Dice" per se. Still though it has a die. Don't be confused when you read the rules though. They call it a "Cootie Cube," but let me assure you, it's a die.

The basic deal in Cootie is you roll the die on your turn. If you get a 1 you can pick a Cootie body. Once you have a body then you need to get a 2 to get a head. After that the sky's the limit! Well, okay 3-6 and you get other Cootie parts.

The beginning of the game is all about rolling that sweet sweet 1. That elusive unrollable 1, without which you cannot do anything. That 1 that Jonah rolled right away and that took me more than 20 rolls to get.

Actually Jonah offered to roll for me. And he rolled the 1. I'm pretty sure I'd still be rolling now if it weren't for his help.

I have some pictures of our Cootie game but I'll have to post 'em later.

Eventually Jonah achieved Cootie perfection with all six legs, some antennae (which he preferred to leave unattached), and a mouth. Mine was 3 legs short of a full Cootie.

A short interview with Jonah about Cootie: What was your favorite part of Cootie? My favorite part was the red shiny die.
What were your favorite numbers that you rolled? 2s and 1s, 3s.
Was I good at rolling or bad? Bad.
What should I tell other kids who might like to play Cootie? Make a picture of this movie on the computer. (Note: We were watching a DVD at the time...)

And a picture of my pretty wife

Also - I guess I should share this photo of my good-looking girlie, Kelly. She's pretty AND she's good at holding babies!

Kelly's Guest Appearance

Here's some pictures of my family, by request of Joyce Coffee. Ari is 11 months old now, and Jonah is 3.5 years. Jonah is taking dance class with Miss Terri at Act 1 Dance Studio. He's REALLY good and he loves the noisy tap shoes. Happy New Year, everyone!

I'm in ur base killing ur d00ds

I ran into this weird funny thing related to online multiplayer games. It makes me laugh out loud. I'm busy right now, but I'll explain it a little another time. Encyclopedia Dramatica explanation of "I am in your base killing your d00ds."

BoardGameGeek Gift Guide

I worked on the BoardGameGeek Gift Guide recently. As I'm always saying... BoardGameGeek.com is like the www.imdb.com of board games. Anyway, the BGG web site is awesome, but daunting for any normal person. They're getting lots of hits from people trying to find good board game gifts for the holidays. So someone smart suggested that us board game geeks should work together to make a gift guide to help those people out.

This was right up my alley. I love board games. And I hate when people have a hard time using things. In this instance I could imagine some kid's mom coming to the BGG site while trying to search for board game advice. And then I could just see her freaking out at the sites crazy complexity and then that kid would end up with another copy of Monopoly.

So I helped out! I really enjoyed working on it. I rallied support from other BGG users for some games that I wanted on the list. I suggested adding price ranges for the games and then looked 'em up up and put 'em in. And I edited the intro paragraphs to be much more concise. The coolest for me was that I learned about Wikis. I had heard about them and I use Wikipedia all the time. I call Wikipedia the new Google. It's the place to go when I want to look up something specific.

Oh, so Wiki's are really cool. I was able to suggest ideas and then implement them right away. On BGG there were no special rules about who could do what. So if you had an idea you could run it by everyone or you could just implement it and see what they thought. Anyway, here's the board game gift guide. It's got great games on it and almost every one is very approachable, even for non-geeks. :-) I own around half of the games on the list and they're all really good. I hear you saying "But Eric, don't you own like 150 games? Mathematically you'd have to own half these games." Well... yeah. But I swear, these are good games!

Anyway, Wikis are cool. And board games are fun. Check out the gift guide!

I only saw one robbery on my first day at work

I started my job at PlayFirst! on Monday. So far it's been awesome. From what I can tell already I have a lot in common with the people in this company. They're a start up in San Francisco that's doing well, and this may seem like a minor thing, but they have free snacks, and drinks, and medicine and Kleenex. I had to bring my own Tylenol and Kleenex to work when I was at Apple...

But this story isn't about that. It's about my walk to the CalTrain station on my way home from San Francisco. I walked out of the office and intended to catch a bus to the train station. After a few blocks I turned down a side street. I passed two policemen who were walking slowly talking to each other. Halfway down the block I saw two women talking and walking towards me. One had white headphones on.

Then I saw a really heavy woman running from behind these ladies. Her, um, heft, was shaking all over. I thought "Where's this lady running in such a hurry? That looks really uncomfortable." She didn't veer around the two talking ladies. Instead she burst right between them, turned quickly and grabbed the one lady's iPod or whatever she was listening to. She kept running, fast. The woman who had just been robbed yelled and then gave chase. ("Gave chase?: Ha, I've never used that phrase in my life.)

At this point everyone nearby stopped. It didn't look like the victim would catch the, uh, robber. But if she did, then what? That's about when someone yelled for help. And on cue the two policemen I had passed earlier ran across the street to intercept the robber lady. One ran behind her and one ran ahead of her. They caught her in less than a minute from when the whole thing started. I decided there were enough witnesses already that I should still try to make my train...

So in the scheme of things it worked out pretty well. I mean, how many times do you see someone robbed and the police catch the perpetrator within a minute. Nice.

Still... I'm holding onto my cell phone a little more tightly.

Google maps for the Palm Treo

Wow, I downloaded and installed Google Maps for the Palm Treo. It's awesome. It's easy to install and it's a native Palm application rather than a Java application. I know people love Java... but native applications can always be better because they can take advantage of specific system features.

Anyway, Google Maps for the Treo is really nice. I knew finding directions on my phone would be helpful, but the existing web sites were always slow and difficult to use with my Palm's web browser. Google Maps for the Treo is a lot easier and nicer to use than the competition. It includes normal street maps and satellite views. You can find a location, zoom in and out, and even look for businesses nearby. I've used it to get directions and it's worked great. If only my phone had a built in GPS so Google Maps would already know where I am.

Slashdot

Slashdot is a cool technology/geek news web site. You can check it out at http://www.slashdot.org/ They cover the geeky stuff I like. Sometimes they're even too geeky for me (like when they cover crazy Linux stuff) and I don't know what they're talking about. But mostly they're cool.

I'm always reading news on my cell phone (a Palm Treo 650). I've been doing it a while and realized that one can read some cell-phone-formatted pages in a normal web browser on your computer. So now I'm a big fan of reading Slashdot's Palm formatted page in my regular web browser. It loads instantly and only shows the headlines of the stories. It's crazy fast and easy to use. I don't have to navigate anything extra or see any ads etc. Now you try:

www.slashdot.org/palm

BGG.Con 2006 (BoardGameGeek convention in Dallas, Texas)

(I fixed up some of the shorthand and added a few details, but I originally wrote this on my phone when I was flying home from Bgg.con 2006 in Dallas, Texas.)

I'm on the plane from dallas to san jose on my way. I had a great time and met some really nice people at the convention. Since I didn't know anyone I had to introduce myself and talk to people.

I arrived at the Dallas airport and couldn't find the shuttle. I finally found one. Waited. Wondered how they make money at $17/person with only 4 passengers. Ah. I see. They pack every seat in the van and we all wait until that happens. So it's me and 9 other passengers before we leave. I am the only person wearing a seatbelt. Unless you count the driver who has his draped across him, but not connected.

45 minutes later we arrive at the adam's mark hotel. I check in. Room is fine. I walked across the street to the Westin. Ask clerk how to get to convention etc. The elevator line is super long. I smartly go through the restaurant to the stairs to the 2nd floor THEN get on the elevator. I am a genius. I wander the 5th floor and see no signs of a board game convention. I'm lost? The hotel guy lied to me? I run into a man and a woman (Eric and Amanda) who are doing the same wandering and looking for the convention.

We realize we're in the wrong place and band together to find the convention. 10 minutes of walking and three elevator rides later we've found the right place through trial and error.

A nice woman helps check me into the convention. And amanda and eric are there to help. The woman is super nice. I win a game right away. I get to pick from lots of old looking flea market stuff. I pick Razzia! A german game still in the shrink wrap. A guy tells me it's like Ra, a very popular game.

Woman shows me around. I explain I'm hungry and don't know anyone. I wait.

She brings Randy and makes him my friend. :) Randy goes looking for others and comes back with Mark.

We go to the light rail. A mod-looking guy and a homeless-looking black guy both try to help us buy tickets. The weird hard-sell helping prompts me to look for another machine. I bought a one-way for $1.25 and we're off.

The popular Irish place we head for is busy with no one to seat people, and no open seats after we wander the restaurant looking. I'm glad we don't stay. We move on to a sushi place. I think to myself "This looks like a nice place. But how good is sushi goong to be in Texas?"

It turns out that the sushi place has great service and the food is really good. We head back to bgg.con in time for the poker game. Everyone at the table I'm at is nice. I play okay, but I'm out early. At least I wasn't the first one out of the tournament.

I buy a disheveled copy of shocking roulette. The seller says to test it and bring it back if it doesn't work. I think "Great. I have to play until I shock myself or go find someone to help." I opt to put one finger in and play 2 player. I wonder "if I get shocked am I gonna fall to the floor or what?" It's like a roulette wheel. That shocks the winner. A lot. It turns out mine works on the first try.

I play Hameln, a new game. The theme is about the pied piper of hameln which is cool. Points are gotten indirectly but the game is pretty fun. There's a lot of marrying and baby making in it which offers lots of joke opportunities. everyone is nice. Played with mischa. Fun but not worth $100.

Sat sleepy. Don't want to miss the flea market! vow to go, get food on way back and sleep. Buy family business and villa palletti mcdonalds sucks after leaving ziggy's line. bought 13 cookies to share. entire plaza is horrible. I wonder is it just here or is all of dallas this way?

Sweet sweet sleep. Drank diet coke, took advil, slept for 2 hours. later feeling way better.

found randy teaching people to play shadows over camelot fun game. The woman who turned out to be the traitor in the game literally played the card that meant we all won and she lost. That wasn't very satisfying. She never did anything traitorous. At all.

Saturday Before prize drawing - played a few games of pitchcar mini until the crowd for the prize drawing was too big

game show Looking for game and people to play with. Finally play Can't Stop and I win.

See carabande. Holy crap. It's HUGE. It looks cool but I find people in the library and play starfarers of catan...

A few people I played with... There are way more, but I happened to get these into my phone notes on the plane. geosmores - david namasky and david turner taught how to play dturnerfish

Fun. great bits. But breakable. But maybe not enough player interaction? The exploring and building is really good though. Should have played to more points. Bob, dave, david, big blonde guy and dave's wife?

Get pizza from roaming delivery guy.

find randy and brien and charles after game show and we play taj mahal Brienc - played taj mahal + randy + charles singer Thesongoftheday.com - Randy's upcoming web site. Skokie is where randy's game convention is in feb Brien (Charles?) 'splains caylus. We play one practice turn which clears up lots of questions. I worry I will be crushed and not get it enough. I pull out a turn where I build 3 castle walls(or something) and get a lot of points. I took 3rd place, but x played 30+ times before and takes first.

Go to bed 4am. Bleah. Get up at 9. Mcd not open 'til 10 and only lunch. Thanks mcdonalds. Other restaurants closed but sked says should be open. return another unplayed game. Wander con areas looking for people going to airport. Ask two guys on escalator. Yeah - going NOW! buy mcd breakfast for all. And have way better experience than a cab or shuttle. Forget water but otherwise awesome. joebelanger and tomfisher

I'll clean this up more and add some pictures. But that's it for now. I had a great time and am hoping I'll be able to go next year.

Binkies and Fire Trucks

Kelly and I wanted to convince Jonah to stop using his pacifier (a.k.a. "Binky") at night. We managed to reduce the time he had it to just night time. So we went into negotiations with him. We hammered out the details and agreed that we would get him a remote control fire truck in return for him throwing the binkies out. And we went into specific detail about how they would be gone gone gone. He went over the story many times. How the garbage truck would come and take them away. And they would be gone.

He got a little carried away with the garbage truck thing and started talking about also throwing away Vaca (his ratty, yet loveable, stuffed cow that plays Mary Had A Little Lamb). That was just crazy talk. Although he hasn't been as interested in Vaca since then.

So I found a remote control fire truck online for ~$30 and ordered it. When it arrived I was excited to see the poorly translated marketing descriptions on the box...

The high distance it can shoot out about 6 meters when the shooter turns by 60 degrees.

Press three funtions buttons of the control most at the same time,or the car can't work.

Anyway, it all worked out and Jonah doesn't use a pacifier any more and he likes driving the fire truck around and spraying water on everything.

I'm a little sad he's not as attached to Vaca any more.

Jobs and pirate names

I'm no longer at Apple. So bring on the jobs and the crazy business proposals. :-)

Also. I just found out my pirate name is Dirty Tom Bonney.

My pirate name is:

Dirty Tom Bonney

You're the pirate everyone else wants to throw in the ocean -- not to get rid of you, you understand; just to get rid of the smell. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from piratequiz.com.
part of the fidius.org network