I have spent much of the past few days playing the portable version of our game - chasing chickens and the like.

Yep.

One particularly amusing bug - in the current burn of the game on my cartridge, if you save your character? You can only buy sinks at the store from then on. Nothing but sinks.

Weird.

What do sinks have to do with saving?

---

I'm trying the best I can to turn this position into a proper job. Little by little. I think my best course of action is to make myself invaluable to the producer of the Game Boy team - not just because she's awesome, but because she's overworked and needs the help.

Localization isn't bad, but it's not my cup of tea either - it's not challenging enough.

For now, though, I still feel like I'm in limbo. My desk is with my old team, and I just stick out like a sore thumb as I play the darned Game Boy repeatedly amidst all of these PC developers.

I know, I know. Stop complaining.

My boss, (well, one of them) seems to dislike me, or perhaps he thinks I'm just a nuisance. Or maybe he's just grumpy. I haven't quite gotten a read on him. I finish my tasks too quickly for him, I imagine - but that's hardly a horrible problem to have.

---

Last night, we went upstairs to visit Ray and Laura, and we all watched Goonies together while enjoying fine malt beverages.

Beforehand, we were in the computer room in their apartment when Laura exclaimed "I have presents for you!"

Now, when I heard her say this, I figured they were some small trinkets or supermarket coupons or something. It wasn't, after all, a holiday.

But she proceeds to hand me a small velveteen bag and Hunter a lovely box. "I had my parents bring these from Egypt," she explained.

So, quite unexpectedly, I received a lovely sterling silver ankh bracelet (in a bag emblazoned with the name and address of a Cairo jeweler) and Hunter received a small box inlaid with all manner of mother-of-pearl, onyx, and the like.

It was really sweet and really random, and one doesn't exactly know how to respond. But it was nice. :)

All in all, it was a nice evening among friends.

Our apartment-building circle of friends will soon be growing - our dear grad program friend Ira got a co-op at the SimCompany on Hunter's team, and he'll be moving in right next door to us.

Yay! There is much more board gaming in our future. [This is the friend we visited in LA, and who came down to visit us a few weeks later.] And we get a bonus from the apartment complex for referring him. Win-win!!

In a way, it's just like being back in school in the dorms. But the dorms didn't have a lagoon pool surrounded by palm trees, so I imagine it's a step up. :)

Our landlords do seem to be perplexed at the sudden influx of SimCompany people, though...

Generally, I'm sort of manic lately - I'll go from little-girl-silly to morose and gloomy pretty fast. I'm my father's daughter in that respect.

I just hope I start to feel at home in this new team soon...