Jamie Antonisse

Somewhere in America people are walking outside in the morning and seeing their breath evaporate in white puffs, leaves are turning from orange to brown and migrating into driveways, and middle-aged men are tuning their Sunday afternoons to football instead of baseball. All right, the last bit is happening in Los Angeles too... but regardless I'm starting to get a bit nostalgic for actual seasons.

This is one of the best fall movies out there, one of the few good halloween stories... and if you don't care about any of that crap, ITS IN 3D! If any of you obsessive stereophiles or Tim Burton lovers are interested, I'm going to see this at the El Capitan Theater this Sunday at 7... but it's playing at several theaters through at least Christmas.
In the meantime I'll be campaigning for a sensorama version of Pee-Wee's Big Adventure.

Good news!

The blog icon system has been democratized: you can now change your blog pictures whenever you want.

Here's how it works:

1) Format your picture. It should be a jpg or pct file, and a perfect square, 32 x32 pixels. If you send the computer something larger, or something in a different shape, it will force the image to 32x32. So keep in mind, anything really visually complicated, like an army of zombies or a bear fighting a shark, will look like soup.

2)Rename your picture as [your user name] dot [jpg or pct or whatever].
In case you've forgotten, your user name is probably the first letter of your first name followed by your last name... for example, I, Jamie Antonisse, am jantonisse. I renamed my picture jantonisse.jpg. Don't tell anyone.

2) log into MT as if you were going to write a new blog entry
(in case you've forgotten, the url is here. )

3) Click on "upload file", choose the picture you created, and upload. If it doesn't show up within a few minutes, double check the file path. It should be set to .

So please, go forth and differentiate yourselves. We'd like to minimize those lopsided IMD ninja stars on the "people" page.

... that this Friday, May 4th, is a national holiday, a day of Independence?

http://www.nopantsday.com/wp/

This is probably why we moved the thesis opening to Cinco de Mayo.

Today: a seven hour drive through cow country, a stop at Pea Soup Andersen's (easily the best German restaurant in Santa Nella), and a hundred rounds of three-player Mario Kart DS in the backseat. It's surreal, feeling a real car swerve under you just as you power slide around a corner.

Tomorrow, I'm joining six other members of Team Winterbottom at my first Game Developer's Conference.

Well, I am back in the hotel room, and I have a moment to mull over my GDC education.
But not MUCH of a moment... sometime in the next hour I have to move all my stuff to another hotel room. Best Western Americania is a harsh mistress.

So in place of a full rundown of the hurricane that has been Team Winterbottom's GDC Adventure, here's the first important thing I learned this week:

THE THIRD YEAR STUDENTS
WILL BE DEFENDING THEIR MASTERS THESIS PROJECTS
TODAY (YES, TODAY, March 13th 2008)
IN ZEMECKIS 201, AKA THE ZML,
AT 6 PM SHARP-ISH.

This event is open to the extended IMD community and the Interactive-curious. It is a formal presentation of / critical in-depth look at each of the 11 projects that will be showcased this May at the Thesis Show.

Little known fact: the average horse chokes on exactly seven blog posts. Now that Spring Break is here, and I have enough half-written entries to choke a horse, I figure I'd better get to work.

I'm thinking one a day. Here's the playbill:

Wherein I attempt to engage in thoughtful discourse about the South By Southwest Festival while watching the movie Bubba Ho-Tep.

The late Pausch gave an inspirational lecture in "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" - now four young students will get help to reach theirs.

You may recognize one of the names (well, two of them if you include Randy).

Congratulations, Diana!

May 9-15, 2009

Full details at http://interactive.usc.edu/thesis2009.

Second Skin, a documentary on hardcore MMO gamers, is coming to Los Angeles for a one week theatrical run, starting tonight!

Thanks to some help from me and a few other friends, the director, Juan Carlos Pineiro, has driven (that's right, DRIVEN) out from New York to attend the LA premiere. He's going to be holding a Q&A at the Friday shows, and probably some of the Saturday shows as well. I'll be there at the 9:30 show tonight (Friday) if anyone wants to meet up.

Buy tickets online here.

With the start of Indiecade, Andre, RJ, John and I have officially formed The Peanut Gallery. By our powers combined, we will make Awesome!

Here's our site: http://www.peanutgallerygames.com

And collectively, we have two games at Indiecade this weekend... Minor Battle and Spectre! Come check them out!