So, yeah. Two updates in the space of a year - you lucky people! I did lament the fact I didn't update this journal much in the last journal entry at the start of the year. Well, for a limited time only - I'm here! I also noted the New Year Resolutions I set myself on the last journal update, and I'm sticking to them kinda closely - well, two of them. I'm working less due to the fact we're no longer crunching, and I'm steadily losing weight again thanks to running and the joy of Wii Fit. It thinks I'm overweight, though it used to think I was obese. That means something... Wii Fit definitely needs some DLC though.

The mural on my wall is something I'd like to try - get a load of videogame characters up there in one fantastic collage. Maybe I'll restrict my palette depth to a few choice colours, but I want to try and get the same look and feel as the videogame-related office decor I saw (and can't find on the internet, grrr) of black and white sketches "painted" along with flashes of rough painted colour underneath. I think I've saved it on my work PC, I'll update this journal with the photos when I get the chance. Surely I didn't dream it... it had really cool caricatures of Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe. Gah. Oooh, did find this though -

So the mural is "in progress" while I finish the DIY job in my kitchen (plastering, painting, applying awesome Blik vinyls)... the Cult of Karl video with music by the wonderful Chris Merritt is also "in progress" - bits have been done on it, just need more motivation and time. I'm extremely tempted to start broadcasting my desktop on Ustream and show me working on it in real-time - I'm sure Chris would approve. Weekends maybe... if it's a regular thing, it could get all popular and have my Twitter blocked up with Ustreamers thanks to Ustream's new turd of a chat system. Yeah, Twitter. I gave in - it's great for finding hidden gems though, although I'm not a hardcore full-time Twitter kind of bloke who has his desktop took over by a massive TweetDeck, constantly updating and scouring the internets for its collective opinion.

Wheelman also recently came out to an extremely wide selection of opinion and reviews - some great reviews, a lot of average reviews and some low-scoring reviews. Well, I say *reviews*. One of them was a full-blown rant with GTA4 deep in the mind of the reviewer in question. It's also interesting to learn that Metacritic's average is anything but - the doom-laden IGN review is a "weighted" average as the site is a trusted source. What the fuck? Ah, well. We can't do anything about it and carry on with the next project - life at Midway Newcastle is reassuringly productive although the dark doom-cloud of bankruptcy still worries me somewhat. I dreamt last night we were thrown out of the studio and all lived in tents like some funky commune right outside.

For those of you who downloaded the Wheelman demo, bought the game and gave us level-headed reviews and positive feedback - thank you.

One last thing before my next update in Christmas (I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case..) - I saw King of Kong recently and really enjoyed it. The strange thing is that in those extras, Billy Mitchell comes across as quite a nice chap. On a Facebook reply, the Walter Day linked off to the King of Kong section of the Twin Galaxies forums and... well, it makes very interesting reading. Let's just say that some of the facts in the King of Kong documentary were kind of... twisted?

Take care, m'dears.