Autumn is thick in the air, I can feel it. This is my favourite time of year; the sun shines brightly, golden leaves are falling and my next door neighbour's daughter gave me a conker this afternoon. Mist creeps in a night and I've finally lugged my winter quilt from under the bed (yet the heating is off and the window open a crack at night). Samhain is a-coming and it's my favourite festive, especially as my estate has lots of kids who will be prowling around after sweets. Me? Time to crack out the cakes and cider along with my cauldron and broomstick.
So this week has been hectic. This time of year is the countdown to Christmas period, usually editors don't want to work between Christmas and New Year so there's a mad rush to get several issues out (normally on of them is released on Boxing Day because by then folks need something to read). This means yours truly gets IMs/emails from editors asking for last minute reviews/previews to plug holes, this makes me very happy, even if it does involves vast amounts of game playing in an insanely short period of time.
Basically this translates to me working weekends, which I don't mind as long as I can recoup days later in the week because, of course, deadlines are ALWAYS first thing Monday, or possibly second thing Tuesday (which actually means last thing Saturday/Sunday and the wee small hours of Monday morning).
Anyway, one of these games (which I don't want to talk about due to an embargo - technically I can as long as I don't go into specifics about said game but what-the-hey) was one I was dying to play. I pestered, badgered, begged and finally bit my editor's hand off when he offered me the review. Said game came with a letter an a request that I duly took to heart by spending Sunday afternoon playing it while my mother - who doesn't get games and doesn't play them unless I break out my Wii - came over to cook dinner. While she drank her umpteenth cup of tea she started looking at the screen and eventually said: 'Wow, that's really pretty'.
I think everything's going to be okay, you know.
When I have a bundle of deadlines, I basically get so focused on work that I don't to things. By things I mean basic householdy stuff: the cat gets fed, I subsist on toast, interweb TV and loud music but I don't cook, I kind of forget to do his litter tray and the washing mounts up, ditto the dishwasher. The one thing I do want to do however is spring/summer/autumn/winter clean. Procrastination FTW!
So after my deadline were done and The Feature From Hell for ImagineFX was lingering, returned from the grave once again, I decided I wanted to sort out my books/consoles/DVDs. I get loads of DVDs, books and games from numerous publishers and once I'm done, they generally go on my shelves (if I like them) or get dumped in my spare room if I done until I get time to give them out to friends/family/the library. Anyway there are now so many that my spare room is starting to look more like a library which isn't good, it needs to be fixed uh soon or I won't be able to get in there.
So when my mother turned up and had spent an hour doing all the cleaning that I can't. It sounds really bad, I know, especially as she's like sixty uh something - but I would like to remind you that I CAN'T SEE .... uh well enough to do that stuff. She also brought some cable ties with her and we elected to start the seasonal cleaning with my TV unit. So she hops behind my TV and starts unplugging, I gingerly move my numerous consoles and we try to figure out new places for them to live while removing dust three inches thick. Ew.
I'm very pleased with the result - even if I spent an additional two hours trying to figure out why my Sky+ box wasn't working property (message to self: check the position of SCART leads next time!). I now have everything in an accessible place. I don't have to unplug component leads from the back of my TV to switch between Xbox 360s and the disc drive of my debug PS2 no longer hits the support pole, plus I have a place to stash the many MANY controllers and my debug code spindle (which I can never find when I need the stupid thing). Score!
Next is my other bookcase and my desk. EEEEK.
That aside it's BlizzCon time and I'm not there. Jonnie is, as is Trina and some other folks I know from WoWInsider and Kotaku (Fahey, I hope your having fun!). Fortunately I can follow all the stuff as it happens and listen in to many of the panels which makes it a lot easier than the WWI where I didn't get to do a single talk :( Next up is the closing ceremony, yay!
I have no idea what I'm doing this week work-wise, which is part of the fun. I'm pretty sure doing my accounts figures somewhere though ... joy but at least my website's been updated. It takes AGES! However the next couple of weeks are hectic, I've got my brother's birthday, then the MCM Expo where I'll be helping out on the NEO stand as well as catching up with Matt, Tom and loads of other folk I've not seen in ages, then it's Samhain and my birthday, and we're into November and the release of Wrath ... whoa!
Right I'm going to catch the next BlizzCon panel - cinematics I think.
EDIT: BTW, see this post - Lifehacker FTW -if you want to do some seasonal tidying!
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