barely fatal

So yes, I finally registered on Twitter. I have no idea yet what I’m gonna use it for, but apparently there is no way you can NOT be on Twitter. Yeah, pretty lame, eh.

It seems to be some kind of not-so-instant messaging. I can’t really see the point yet, but that’s why I need to try it.

So I watched Cloverfield and I actually liked it, pretty much even. Yeah the camera work made me wanna puke at times, all in all an impressive piece of movie making though, new or not.

The orange light from the nearby sun cast very sharp shadows. Jarod’s silhouette on the floor had almost life-like proportions as he stood in front of the large panoramic window. He tried to make out the stars, but the bright sunlight made them disappear in the black, as if they were trying to hide from him. Although he had been standing there for minutes, Jarod couldn’t feel any warmth, on the contrary, a stream of fresh air swirled around his neck and gave him shivers. He kept his eyes closed, even filtered through the darkened glass he couldn’t look directly into the sun for long without squinting.

It was then, in that perfect moment of silence, when he felt the ground shaking. It was just a quick burst that lasted no longer than a blink of an eye and it was hardly noticeable in its intensity, but it was clearly a tremor. The first thought coming to Jarod’s mind was that it could not have been just the ground. Given the nature of his surroundings in fact everything must have been involved: floor, ceiling, walls … it had just felt like the ground, because that had been the only point connected to his body. Then again, how silly was it to think about up and down, above and beyond in such an environment. Nevertheless, he decided to investigate.

Outside of the hotel room, the corridor was empty. In the elevator that took him to the reception a viewscreen promoted the special breakfast offers. In the lobby, a group of twenty something tourists swarmed the receptionists shouting wildly in a variety accents. Jarod walked right up to a member of the hotel’s security guards who was standing next to the hallway leading to the central mall and customs. When he saw Jarod he just pointed down the corridor and waved him past, while eying the group of tourists anxiously at the same time.

The central mall was built around a multi-story rotunda, with an visitor’s information booth in the middle. Usually buzzing with activity, the place was now deserted with the exception of some security personnel shoo-shooing tourists and shop owners to their hotel rooms or living quarters. Jarod walked past the Marshal Service public office and towards the seemingly endless tunnel that would bring him to customs. A young deputy emerged from behind a large billboard and called out his name. “Mister Arris sir. There’s been a small explosion in one of the private loading bays. Security have it all sealed off, but the area was depressurized for a minute or two.”
Jarod continued walking towards the tunnel and the deputy had to increase his speed to catch on with him. “Marshall Kelleay has been informed, he will be docking anytime soon, sir.”
Jarod stopped sharply and the deputy almost bumped into him. He hadn’t expected the Marshal to be in communications range. No need to interfere with anything when the local authorities could take on the problems themselves.
“Sir, we -”
“Uh-hm. I’m on holidays.” Jarod said and turned around, slowly walking back the way he had come. Back to the matters at hand, he still had to make a decision.

So what did the first work week in 2009 bring? Work. Lots of it. And more is yet to come. Next week we’ll have the yearly company meeting in Amsterdam, this year we should be around 800 people. It won’t really help to lower the stress load, but it’s sure going to be fun.

Anything else? Not really. I thought about going into a different direction with the blog, let’s see if I still believe it to be a good idea tomorrow.

Happy new year! Now that’s out of the way, and we can talk business.

Dark Knight remains great. No socks, but a sweater. iTunes coupon, book, Watchmen comic, eh, sorry, I mean graphic novel. And GTA IV, and that has been keeping me busy for the last days.

Installation was a nightmare with all the extra crap, activation and so on. Didn’t run at all out of the box, patching helped. Occasional crashes. It runs okay, though not totally smooth. Bad port. No anti-aliasing, not even enforced – pretty is different. Couple stupid ideas regarding usability, and long loading times. The game is still great, of course – but the flak it gets it gets for a reason.

So, when’s Jumpgate Evolution coming?