Yesterday was sort of a somber day in the office. The now-public delay of SimSequel has, inevitably, led to some cuts since that causes SimCompany to miss its earnings targets. As a result, they canceled some of the testers' contracts and they shut down work on one not-yet-announced project.

No one is terribly surprised about the not-yet-announced project though, and it's actually maybe working out for the best, since those people are mostly all engineers - engineers who are now being given the chance to tackle some really juicy engineering challenges in the long term. (I could almost see them salivating as the change was announced.)

Anyway, back to the N-Gage. I was supposed to load a build and play it, but smart chica that I am, I left my N-Gage charger at work. And now I have no battery left.

Argh.

...I would feel a lot better about working on this title if I knew there was a CHANCE that *anyone* would buy it.

The majority of yesterday was spent with the Dudes from ... um, Studio K? I forget what I called them. Anyway, the Dudes Dan and JC are always fun, and we had a productive meeting with only occasional tangents about robot vaccum cleaners and fancy water fountains.

At one point, a couple of the Console designers came in and participated in our design discussions - very interesting stuff. Whenever I'm in a design meeting, there will ALWAYS be a little voice in the back of my head that's saying "oh-this-is-so-cool-oh-wow-how-did-i-get-here?"

Real professional, right? :)

Tonight we have more plans with VA & boyfriend, Destry & girlfriend, and Ray & Laura. Quadruple date!!

We're apparently going cosmic bowling, then following that up with dinner at Benihana's (the showy Japanese chain restaraunt.)

A classic combination, to be sure. ;)

I have a history with bowling. Hunter loves to bring it up in context - "You know, she has a trophy."

Granted, it is actually numerous trophies. But that's because I had a big handicap. I was in bowling leagues throughout middle school with my two best friends, Liz and Vicki, as well as the daughter of our Algebra teacher. [That was weird; he'd grade our tests during leagues.] Our team name: Rolling Thunder.

Doesn't it just strike fear into your heart? I thought so.

I had the tiniest lightest ball (8 pounds?), but it was my very own ball with my name engraved in it and everything. It was an iridescent seafoam color. My average Back In The Day was something like 83 points. Out of a possible 300 that ain't grand. My high game was something like 130 or 140.

But our team had SPIRIT, and we did manage to win the league one time. I also won a personal trophy for some reason for my performance. I forget what it was for - possibly high game with a handicap or something. Don't let that delude you: I was not a great bowler.

The real problem, of course, was that I had NO POWER behind my ball. It was 8 pounds. I think it weighed less than the bowling pins did. It was not terribly uncommon for my ball to get all the way down the lane and bounce off a pin, failing to tip it over.

And since my wrists have always been flimsy weak things - to this day, they are 1.75 inches across, I shit you not - well, it sort of hurt to put a lot of energy into the ball.

But it was a good bonding experience, and it got us non-athletic types out of the house. I've got some funny pictures of bowling celebration parties (when our team won the league) in my old basement, all of us wearing bad early 90's fashions and posing with plastic bowling pins as if we were Cindy Crawford.

Oh, and then there was after-school bowling, which was even more ghetto. Half of the reason I did that was to hang out with my old geek buddies from elementary school. Milan, Bobby, and Scott P, who I had sort of had an on-and-off crush on since moving to the district in second grade.

Liz and Vicki went too. We would all call each other "bitnerds" and mock each other's bowling mercilessly. They were fun times, geeky as they were. I was shocked to hear back in 2002 that poor Bobby, who was a student at Stanford, died right before the holidays in his dorm room of a brain aneurysm. I can't imagine how hard that was for his family.

Anyway. That was a huge transgression. I will be sure to report back later about whether or not I have successfully "knocked over" any "pins."

Happy Saturday.