On the eve of the launch of The Sims Online, here’s an interesting article on Electronic Arts, my employer for the last couple of years. Most of what’s covered in the article matches up well with what we’ve heard internally with regard to EA’s direction and vision: “To be the best entertainment company ever.”

This would have seemed ridiculous hubris for a video game company a few years back, but as the people of my generation who grew up with video games have matured, we’ve not stopped playing them, and as a result the revenue generated by this industry has started to rival that of Hollywood. (In fact, as games have gotten more sophisticated, they’re started competing for some of the same talent that would otherwise be working in the film industry.)

I was especially gratified to read of EA’s official focus on family-friendly fare. (Kathy seemed a bit surprised when I explained to her a while back that not only does the company not publish Grand Theft Auto, but it wouldn’t publish it. While it’s a brilliant game, the grittiness and adult content don’t line up with EA’s corporate image.) An interesting glimpse into the past, present, and future of this company. (Full disclosure: In addition to working for them, I own some EA stock.)

In the past week, our slightly-extended family has seen three birthdays and five people afflicted with vomiting. Though Liam had recovered from his illness in time for Sunday’s party celebrating his, Kathy’s, and Meara’s birthdays, Kathy was still feeling pretty rotten until this morning.

We thought about calling off the party, but had invited enough people that it would have been as much work to get in touch with everyone than to actually have the event. It turned out just fine, though a little more modest than is our wont for such events. Thanks to our generous friends, there was no shortage of good things to eat and good company. (We did, however, lack a piñata — an unusual omission at a McMains birthday party.)

Thanks to all the wonderful folks who helped make it a special time in spite of the illness. Photos of the party are on the way…

David Brin is one of my favorite science fiction authors — not only because he can write a good novel, which he assuredly can and does with regularity, but because he also thinks well and writes some super essays laying out those thoughts.

His latest tackles The Lord of the Rings. It’s an interesting and engaging critique, hitting many of the same themes that his essays on Star Wars did, but stretching into some new ideas as well, including the tension between the Enlightenment thinkers and the Romantics. One particularly interesting concept for me was the casting of science fiction as a bridge between artistic and scientific thinking.

As always, good reading, and especially worthwhile for Brin and Tolkien fans.

We received Emily’s acceptance letter into Crockett Elementary’s Gifted and Talented program yesterday. While I had little doubt that she would get in, given her intelligence, creativity, and curiosity, it’s nice to see other people recognizing those qualities we so enjoy in her.

Congratulations, kiddo!

While we were in Denton, we went to see UNT’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor. This was Kathy’s first Opera experience, so I was delighted when we got to the box office and plunked down our money for the cheapest seats remaining, we somehow ended up in the third row.

UNT’s crew did a fine job with the show. Though the acting seemed a bit aimless at times, the orchestra and singers were top-notch. The woman playing Lucia was especially noteworthy, jumping around in coloratura range wonderfully nimbly, and evidently very much enjoying the chance to play a character afflicted by madness. It was a bit odd to see a bunch of people running around in kilts singing in Italian, though.

Thanks for the great evening, UNT folks!

We came back from Denton with a big trampoline that one of our old neighbors whose kids have grown was ready to rid herself of. Remembering my juvenile trampoline-assisted attempts at self-destruction, I’m rather nervous about our kids having such a thing at their disposal. Now that our backyard has a treehouse, a pool, and a trampoline, I’m thinking of a bubbling cauldron of lava and an alligator pit to flesh out our child-imperilment options.

Hopefully Nietzsche is right about the things that don’t kill you making you stronger. And hopefully the trapoline will remain in the category of things that don’t kill you.

Oh, gosh, can it really have been almost three weeks since I posted last? Tempus really does fugit, I guess, especially when one is up to one’s eyeballs.

We’re just back from Dallas, where we spent a week, ostensibly for me to take a Java class, but secondarily to provide an opportunity to visit with our long neglected north Texas friends. In spite of having done our share to contribute to highway erosion since we moved to San Marcos, we hadn’t gotten back up to Denton, where we lived previously, in that two and a half year span. So, seizing the opportunity to off two avians with a single sedimentary deposit, off we went!

Of course, nothing is simple with the traveling circus that is our family. We had only just gotten settled in at the home of our friends Chad & Lynn Davenport, who went above and beyond the call of duty by opening their home to us for the week, when Liam started displaying worrisome little red spots and complaining that he didn’t feel well. Sure enough, by Tuesday, he had a full-on case of Chicken Pox going. Fortunately, all the Davenport children (excepting the still prenatal one, of course) had already had the Pox, so his infectiousness was less of a concern than was the fact that he woke up every 8 minutes during the night complaining of itching, a problem that seemed only to be remedied by twitching and kicking me as he dropped back off into unconsciousness.

(Side note: We have four children. The Davenports have three ex utero, with one in progress. Add that to the two extra boys that Lynn babysat one day, and you can quickly begin to guess what an entertaining madhouse their home was for the span of our visit.)

In spite of all the chaos that inevitably surrounds our family road trips, we were able to get some good visiting time in with our friends. As I mentioned, the Davenports were kind enough to host us for the week, which afforded a few moments of adult conversation between child-management duties. My friend Greg Pierce signed up for the Java course I was taking, which made it much more enjoyable than it would otherwise have been. We carpooled together, and brought guitars one day for a bit of pickin’ and grinnin’ at lunchtime. I got to visit Jason and Aleka Myre, who were in the middle of major home renovation, one night while desperately seeking an Internet connection. And a number of other friends turned up in response to our short-notice “Come play with us at the park before we head out of town” email. Thanks to all of you again for going out of your way to come visit!

Now we’re back home, catching up on our sleep, and enjoying being able to do that in our own beds and looking forward to the prospect of a couple of months with no long drives planned.

In Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, he creates a compelling vision of a Virtual Reality world called the Metaverse. One of the interesting things about Stephenson’s vision is that participants in that alternate reality could create their own objects, choose their own appearance, and program the behavior of the world in some significant ways.

The company I work for, Electronic Arts, is very close to releasing The Sims Online, a virtual world that embodies many of the concepts in Stephenson’s work. However, the folks at Linden Lab seemed determined to outdo everyone else’s efforts here. Their in-development product Second Life is a fully realized 3D world that will allow players to do most everything depicted in Stephenson’s Metaverse, including creating (and programming) custom objects, vehicles, and weapons for the combat areas in their virtual world. I’ll be very interested to see what their programming language ends up looking like (and who writes the first virus in their world)!

I suspect The Sims Online will be a bigger commercial success than Second Life, both because it has the momentum of The Sims PC Game series behind it, and because games that include 3D modelling and programming are necessarily less accessible than those that don’t. However, the creative possibilities are correspondingly larger in Linden Labs’ world, and I’ll be watching their progress with at least as much interest as that of my own company.

Dad McMains, being the observant and incisive thinker that he is, is nearly impossible to surprise. Over the years, many attempts have been made — none have been successful.

This past Sunday, we surprised him. Lana and Meara took point on putting together a party, inviting people and coordinating arrangements by email and cell phone. I worked things out with Cheatham Street, where I played on Sunday, to have some space available for our party group. On the day of the event, Lana feigned illness while Meara and her grandparents arrived early to make final arrangements and to greet people. Around 4:30, my stunned father arrived to a room full of friends from San Antonio and San Marcos. We in the band struck up Happy Birthday as the cheers went up and the celebration began.

It was great for us to see Dad in the company of good friends and enjoying the event so much, and meaningful to me to be able to be part of the entertainment for the event. We love you, Dad. I’m delighted we could be a part of this milestone. Happy birthday!

Emily, Abigail, Liam and I all went to Fiesta Gardens in Austin on Saturday for the Austin Celtic Festival. The weather was, unfortunately, authentically cold and rainy, and even though we’d planned ahead and were appropriately dressed, it took a toll; the kids slept all the way home.

In spite of the precipitation, we had a great time. The SCA was out in force, doing combat demonstrations every half hour. There were a ton of great bands, none of which we got to spend sufficient time in front of, but all of which we quite enjoyed. A lot of the groups are doing interesting things combining traditional instruments, such as pipes and fiddle, with full trap sets, electric guitars and basses, and other rock instruments. The fused sound is a great one; eminently dancable and listenable. I give it a 10!

The kids especially enjoyed the childrens tent, which included stenciling, digging for money in tubs of oats, and coloring of their own coats-of-arms. I was a bit disappointed that there weren’t more instruments available for purchase — not a single pennywhistle maker that I could find — but there was a Uilleann Pipe Club, which as far as I could tell consisted of two members. (One of those had actually built his from scratch — no mean feat.)

Alas, we missed the Highland Games, which were scheduled for Sunday. I’m definitely looking forward to next year’s event, which will hopefully feel more like October in Texas than in Scotland.