The Pezman

Only if we work in something from "My Name is Earl."

But where is the saix?

For the record, given that I live so close to the city, you can basically put me down as a yes. The only way I wouldn't be there is if some catastrophe came up or if I happen to be in Philadelphia on the day of the meetup.

My previous post indicates that a meetup does not have to be big to be enjoyable.

Anyone else concerned that he's actually getting a record deal out of this? I like how he refers to his benefactor, DJ Tiesto, as "the world's #2 DJ."

Ditto. And I had no fucking idea it was going on.

Heh. The four person meetup that was myself, Jose, Bahamut and PP went to Chinatown. And that was fun. I got my ass handed to me in a couple of games and watched Jose and Bahamut do quite decently at Generic Vertical Shooter IX.

Ask her. She be online.

Wasn't it unintentional? You were actually referring to the color of the shirts? I should have taken a white one just to keep the humor going.

This from the girl who went "If you don't like black..." at last MAG's OCR panel. (told ya I was there)

I'll see you at the fest. And this time I'll know who the hell you are. Happy Birthday, from some guy you don't recognize or remember.

And here I thought you meant a judge Operating System, which would flash a big giant NO any time you tried to access protected files.

Well I'm more of a percussionist than a keyboardist, but I own a keyboard and will be bringing that. I will not be bringing drums. As such, I will grant permission for anyone to use my keyboard so long as they're careful (and... you know... don't steal it), and I hope someone with drums can extend me the same courtesy.

I only have, you know, 7000 ideas.

YOU'VE been less than ideal. Fale.

I investimagated. IIRC, all the descriptions in Pixie's long posts used to be hyperlinkage. No longer so... Incidentally, that was my newbie introduction thread.

As a Computer Science major/Creative Writing minor, I feel inclined to step in here. Then again, I've not yet done either professionally, so I could be full of crap. You decide. But consider the inherent subjectivity in one and objectivity in the other. If you write a program meant to perform a certain task, it will either function as it was meant to or it won't. And even if it does, someone could write a more efficient program to do the same thing. Then they have made an indisputably better creation. Not so with writing. Assuming comparable circumstances (ie two decent writers working on the same show) it can be very difficult to say if one is better, or even if either are good. Yes, there are some standards for writing but they can be broken if the author excels in another area, such as poor character development but an excellent plot. Case in point: in 12th grade I wrote this silly little film noir story about who killed Ms. Jacobs. Ms. Jacobs was the name of our writing teacher, and the five other characters in the story were obviously based on myself and my four classmates. People in my school loved it, but I didn't think it'd have any appeal beyond my school. But my first semester in college I heard about this mystery short story contest, and I submitted the Jacobs story for kicks. Imagine my shock when I won second place, and the author mentioned that "there wasn't much daylight" between his picks for first and second place. When I decided I wanted to be a Creative Writing minor, the teacher told us someone had to submit a story first. I volunteered with this story, and they tore it to shreds. The moral: you can never be certain what you'll get with a story. So that's how I see it. The writer takes more of a risk, but if they've got something good they should definitely be recognized for it. Moreso than a programmer, who can test, retest, and optimize all he wants before submitting it. Also, while one can indeed deem programming a creative act, it is not a form of expression. Writers put themselves out there through their stories and, for lack of anything else, are oftentimes judged by them. I wrote an exercise in which a guy has sex with an open wound, and no, I'm not kidding. Anyone who read that without knowing me would have a distinctly different opinion of me than someone who did. So no, I don't think programming and writing can necessarily be equated.

If this were last year I would have been able to agree with you. But it's not, so I can't. Instead, I'll give you tips from a MAGFest sophomore standpoint. I don't even remember the site I heard about it from, but when I investigated it it looked pretty damn cool. I spoke with Wayne, head of the Chrono Trigger Novel Project that I'm working on, and we decided to put in an appearance to advertise our novel. We were easily able to befriend Mr. MAGFest and get a table. But apart from him I came to this event not knowing anything about it or anyone there (with the exception of OCRemix, and even then only peripherally). I hadn't even met Wayne in person till he picked me up from the Washington train station. So, about those tips: 1. Go to as many events as you can. I kicked things off with Brendan's opening speech, and then Shael Riley got onstage to perform. This was difficult for me to appreciate since I didn't know who Shael Riley was (in fact, I heard his name as "Shea O'Reily"), much less this "Juese Belmont" song he was playing. Naturally I didn't recognize the bearded gentleman who looked vaguely like one of my friends rapping next to him, nor the Asian chick. But going to other events later on (including Virt's chiptune seminar, the ThaSauce panel and just about every fan movie screening that occurred) brought me up to speed in a hurry. 2. Don't be shy. I didn't post on this forum regularly yet, so I didn't know the community. But after the show I started talking with people. I got into a conversation with this one guy in an OCR Tshirt and he, for some reason, started talking about the novel Faust, but couldn't remember who wrote it. I politely stepped in and mentioned it was Goethe (butchering the pronunciation in the process) and that opened the gateway to a conversation. I asked how involved he was with the site, to which he replied, "I'm DJPretzel." I later attended the OCR panel, where I sang songs from Sonic 1 and won an OCR tshirt of my own, which I've worn to every meetup I've made since. Those are actually the only two tips I've got, and one is kind of a subset of the other. But it's very good to remember. Talk to people, get involved, and otherwise plunge headfirst into this mess of gamer goodness. By the end, Wayne and I were chumming it up with Larry and Geoffrey, and having a kickass time. I went to the closing panel, and Brendan asked for the MAGFest first timers. After I and others had raised our hands, someone commented, "You all got raped. Hard." I had a phobia of being in pictures at this point in time (though I can be seen in the milestone shot of Dave and Virt shaking hands), so I'm not in any of the following photos. But here is a photo journal of the CTNP's MAGFest M5 appearance.

What kind of engineer are you?

Where does Andy live when he's not in college?

Jere-MAH! 10-CHA!

E-102 is dead. He's a bird now. They thought replacing him with Omega would be a good idea. It wasn't. E-102's character was great... Omega's is just pure shit.

As you may recall, I'm in the area, so yeah. But I'm also studying for a test. So more on this later.

Isn't the ostensible purpose of this game to teach Spanish? I would figure a nonexistent Spanish population a plus. EEX, exactly what what did you do in your role as a designer? I'd really like to know.

My guess no, but it's a huge boost to their career. They can network and funnel their voice into one the corporations will have to listen to. As a Creative Writing minor, this is a tad unsettling for me. What's more unsettling is that I didn't hear about it till now. Ah well. I can always take this opportunity to start watching new shows.