After a couple days of down time, The McMains Chronicles is back. Apparently the folks at Dotster with whom we’d registered our domain don’t send an email when a domain is up for renewal, but instead hijack it and send it to their servers. In any case, all is now worked out, though if you’ve sent me anything important over the last few days, it may need resending.

When we moved from Denton to San Marcos, we left behind a number of very dear friends we’d made in the area, and whom we have missed frightfully since. Among our closest companions up in Denton were the Davenports, a family we’d met in a parenting class at church, and who had similarly aged children who loved our kids, and vice versa. Yesterday Lynn brought the children down to San Marcos, where they’ll be staying with us until Friday. It’s great to get to see them again and catch up on visiting, family news, and play time for the wee ones. Regrettably, Chad wasn’t able to make it down, as his job anchored him to the DFW metroplex for the week, but we’re sure grateful to him for sharing his family with us. What a treat!

As many of you know, I work at Origin Systems, one of the pioneers of the computer gaming industry. I remember playing their first ground-breaking game, Ultima, back in middle school, and being delighted throughout high school and college with each new product they created. Their games were a part of my (arguably misspent) childhood, and it was a delightful denouement to my decade-and-a-half love affair with the company to come to work there 6 months ago.

When I came on, I started playing Ultima Online, Origin’s 3 year old Internet game, for the first time. (They no longer make their games for the Macintosh, so this was the first time I’d been able to play.) The sense of community and involvement among the game’s 220,000 or so subscribers is a remarkable thing to behold, and quickly sold me on the power of this kind of game — Persistent State Worlds, as they’re called in the industry.

Even more exciting than UO to me, however, was two more PSW’s that were in production: Ultima Online 2, which was going to take Ultima into a beatiful, fully 3D world, and the unannounced but widely-known Harry Potter Online, based on J.K. Rowling’s books chronicling the adventures of the yound wizard. UO2, though late and over-budget, was among the most widely-anticipated games for 2001, and Harry Potter Online could hardly help to be a hit with Harry Potter mania at such a fever pitch.

Yesterday so very much changed.

After doing an audit of all the Persistent State Worlds that Electronic Arts (Origin’s parent company) had under development, the decision came down that UO2 and Harry Potter would both be cancelled — UO2 because it was way over budget and still a long way from completion, and Harry Potter because the decision-makers were afraid that they would have missed the peak of Pottermania by the time the game actually hit production. In addition, most of the UO2 and Harry Potter staff would be released, since their wouldn’t be any work for them to do.

In fairness, it looks as though EA is really trying hard to make this a minimally disruptive transition for the people losing their jobs. The terms are the most generous I’ve seen in a situation like this. The artists and world-builders are being given help getting their portfolios updated with the work they’ve already done for UO2, HR has brought in people to help the displaced find new positions, and the range of job opening at other EA sites is being made available to these folks. Kudos to EA for the way they’re handling that part of things.

But that doesn’t make things any less sad. While making these announcements, Jack Heistand’s voice broke more than once. The artists who had invested an enormous amount of their creative energies into the cancelled products looked on in disbelief as the wolves of financial pressures ripped their children to pieces before their stunned eyes. There was a steady stream of people leaving the meeting room after the announcement was made, even before the Q&A had wrapped up.

So, today Origin is a sad place to be, even for those of us staying. The people who will be leaving the company are in their offices until Friday, gathering their personal effects and finishing a few things out. The news has broken across the Internet, where there’s bile, ambivalence, and sadness. (And lot’s not forget saddened ambivalent bile.)

And me? I’m still here. But the halls of Origin no longer seem the magical place they did 24 hours ago. With these departing artists and visionaries goes a lot of what makes Origin a special place to be. Farewell, folks, and best wishes.

One of my co-conspirators at work, Tim Keating, just got in the Powerbook G4 he’d ordered a while back. A long-term Windows/Linux guy, he’s been laughing a bit at himself over the weeks he’s been waiting, saying “If I actually went out and bought a Macintosh, it’s a strong testament to their product engineering.” He brought the box and some Krispy Kremes by this morning for the great opening ceremony, and I think the thing has lived up to and perhaps surpassed his expectations so far. The photos of the unit that I’d seen on the web up to now don’t really do it justice. You have to see it in person to really appreciate the diminutiveness of the unit and the expansiveness of the screen. A remarkably nicely engineered product, I’m looking forward to seeing how it performs over the next couple months. We’ll be installing OS X on it next week.

Emily: Hey Daddy! What do you do when your nose goes on strike?
Sean: I don’t know, Emily. What do you do when your nose goes on strike?
Emily: You picket!

I’ve been meaning to rent Fierce Creatures for quite a while, and finally got a chance to see it this weekend. Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and many of the Monty Python Alumni, it centers around an American business magnate’s purchase of an English zoo. As one might expect from this group, the film is quite funny and enjoyable, smacking a bit of Neil Simon’s situation comedies, but with a fair bit of Python-esque humor slipped in as well. Definitely good for a laugh or a dozen and easily worth the $.99 at Hastings for the John Cleese Freudian Slip scene alone.

This past Saturday was my 31st birthday, which I celebrated by dragging my family down to the Tower of the Americas in downtown San Antonio where we met up with Dad McMains, Lana, and Meara. We all enjoyed a meal at the top of the tower, where the rest of my crew had never visited before, watching the miles-long view wheel along below us as we ate. It’s amazing just how far you can see from up there.

We then proceeded to the San Antonio Zoo, a fantastic place that was build largely by the WPA, and which has grown and gotten even nicer ever since. The kids had a great time running around and seeing the various critters. The adults were a bit hard-pressed to keep up, but enjoyed the time quite a bit as well. I had hoped to drop by the Japanese Sunken Gardens after the zoo, but everyone was tired and work was paging me incessantly, so we headed home.

Sunday saw a visit from Mom McMains, who generously offered to come up to San Marcos since we were still road-weary from the day before. We all enjoyed some dinner and visiting time, rounding off a very enjoyable birthday weekend. Thanks for making it a great one, everybody!

Any of you folks know more about decent brands of PC computers than I do? I haven’t done much shopping for the other side of the fence, so any input you PC-wise folks can provide would be welcome. Here’s what Dad had to ask:

Speeking of computers, I will be looking for a PC to
complement the Mac. Much of Meara’s work in webmaster
class and other classes are on a PC platform. Any
suggestions that combine the best in quality, features
and affordability?

Popcorn is the best snack in the world, and here are several axiomatic truths to help you enjoy it more:

1. Popcorn is intended to be popped in oil. Air popped and microwave popcorns are but a pale imitation of the true glory of oil-popped corn. If you’re into redundancy, corn oil works well, but I prefer olive oil. You know why movie theater popcorn tastes so good? It’s because they pop it in coconut oil, the most saturated, least healthy oil you can get that doesn’t come from a dead animal. (Exception to this rule: microwave caramel corn, which can be glorious, but is also pretty tough to find. Additionally, it’s not really wonderful because of the corn, but because of this gooey caramel stuff and the convolutions you have to go through to get it distributed across the popcorn evenly, building oddly shaped apparatus out of tinfoil that burn your fingers before dumping the piping-hot caramel-popcorn mixture all over your new carpet. But I digress.)
2. Popcorn is versatile. Though butter & salt, the old standby, works pretty well, one must experiment to make the most of this snack of all trades. Some of my favorite flavorings include Lowry’s brand seasoned salt (accept no substitutes!), Tony Chachere’s cajun seasoning, parmesan cheese, and chili powder & salt. There are also various powdered cheeses available at finer popcorn stores everywhere that are good if you like that sort of thing.. (Heaven knows I do.) And now that I think about it, experimenting with curry is probably worthwhile too. I’ll let you know.
3. Finally, the very best part about popcorn is after you eat most of the fully popped kernels and get down to the unpopped ones at the bottom, and find the rare barely-popped kernels that have just a bit of white peeking out of the husk. They only comprise about 2% of any batch, but they’re the best part of the whole experience, something akin to eating fish eyes for an eskimo, I suspect. Why doesn’t Frito-Lay make a barely-popped-corn snack? Would having them removed from the rest of the batch of popcorn somehow cheapen their specialness? A question for the ages, I guess, since nobody seems inclined to pick those kernels out for me. We can put a man on the moon, blah blah blah…

To summarize: popcorn. It’s yummy. Eat it.

I’ve got a few more eBay auctions going now, so go buy my stuff and help put my kids through elementary school. Items on the block are an Airport Base Station and a big chunk of my game library, which I’m a bit sad to see go. Sniff.