Trying to ween myself off the coffee (extra tall cafe latte with whole milk and a double shot of espresso every morning), but the flesh is weak, and I have a hard time resisting the Call of the Caffein. I get withdrawal symptoms. Seriously. Addiction's a bitch.

Been meaning to post an entry all weekend long, but obviously that didn't work out. I don't feel guilty about it. At all. Time away from the PC is time well spent, believe me. I get enough screen-time during the week to last me a lifetime. On weekends, I actually get to see that mythical place known as "Outside". It's wonderful.

The week. Ah, yes. Another working week has begun, and aside from the getting up and going outside parts of the experience (it's bitterly, cruelly cold), I'm happy to be at the office. There's a lot going on, a lot of fun stuff happening, and I look forward to writing about it...at some point in the future.

Heading off to the US in about a week -- next Tuesday or Wednesday, probably -- to the green and rainy northwest. I've never been very far north of San Francisco, so I'm absolutely looking forward to that. After that, it's almost December, and I'm planning to take an extended Christmas vacation. "Vacation" meaning I'll work on other things than games, like polishing off that long-overdue screenplay, for example. I look forward to that.

Played a lot of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City this weekend (it's oh-so-brilliant, and a great example of linear gameplay in a non-linear environment; I'll explain more about that some other time, it's an important design issue), but I also watched a couple of movies: Red Planet, which was okay (some great ideas, but lousy payoff), and Ring (the Japanese original Ringu, not the just-released Hollywood remake), which was great -- I've seen it before, but it remains an eminent creep-fest. If you like getting your willies (and who doesn't like getting those willies?), it's a must-see. It's not gory, no explicit violence, but it's still amazingly scary. I have Ring 2 and Ring 0 on DVD, but I haven't seen either of them yet. Will do so soonish.  ¶ 12:28