I managed to get a fan site removed from our game's official list on our website.

It's a minor change - but it is a visible change that I caused. A drop in the water of this huge company's vast pool.

Yeah, kind of silly.

But cool to me.

You see, the site in question - well, the webmaster was MIA, and the site was dead, but it was still charging recurring subscriptions to people, and even accepting new subscriptions - and the guy still exists, because he responds to email now and again.

Very sketchy.

The site doesn't have a "warning" or "closed" message on the front page - the news posts are a little weird, but not informative.

So I didn't think it was prudent to be directing our new fans to a site that was stealing people's money. Especially when that site was almost at the top of the list.

Watch out, sketchy fan site webmasters of the world. Athena will crush you in the name of innocent people who don't know better than to submit their credit card blindly to sites where forum members were calling the Better Buisness Bureau.

Haha!

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One of my current tasks is to conduct a survey of all of the fan sites I can find and basically rank and review them for company-wide reference.

(I've been pretty productive today; I've gotten about 23 sites done, plus 11 object spec documents.)

The funniest thing about this task is watching the gossip about my team's current game.

You see, Amazon.com is taking pre-orders for our game.

A game that has not been formally announced anywhere outside of SimCompany or its SimParent.

Sketchy sketchy sketchy.

And they specified the full title - which happens to (if it were theoretically correct) reveal quite a bit about the nature of our game.

Well, fans are fast talkers, and the boards are abuzz with talk. Is it for real? Is it a mistake? Would they really make another one?

I swear, some of the theories these people come up with are comic gold.

[But they're not supposed to be.]

I wish I could share more, but I'd be exposing my cleverly veiled ruse about my current employer.

Riiight.

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Anyway, my hard lemonade is settling in my stomach, courtesy of the weekly company happy hour. They had free alcohol and sushi and fruits and vegetables and wings.

Sheesh.

And I still haven't played the freeplay pinball machines or taken advantage of the game library.

So much to do, so little time.

It's pretty cool being here. :)

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I saw them putting together my new desk today. I imagine my stuff will move over the weekend, and then - voila! - a magical window space will be mine.

I'll be sharing the space with one of the artists, I think, which is pretty cool. Although I must admit it's been fascinating listening to Cooper try to deal with our previous game's issues. (A bad run of CDs is causing mucho problems.)

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Hunter and I continue to do OK in our apartment, with its ghetto lack of furniture and inflatable bed.

Last night, I read "The Lovely Bones". It was really quite good, although terribly sad. I read the whole damn thing in one sitting - we got home at 9 or so, and I was done at midnight.

Reading is an expensive habit for me.

Now I'm back on a Terry Prachett. I need to get Hunter reading them; he'd like them much.

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Keeping in touch with people from over here in CA is fucking hard. How do I take care of phone calls to the East Coast if they're sleeping before I get home from work??

Hunter and I are officially bicoastal. Well, sort of. If you consider the Missisippi River one of the coasts. :)

Have a lovely weekend, all.