Monday, November 27, 2006

HOW I SPENT MY THANSKGIVING VACATION

Hope you all had a great holiday. I sure did.

But now I'm sick at home with the flu, tho. So my 4 day weekend has become a 5 day weekend. Feel bad as I was going to head to Utah tomorrow for a marathon tweak session. Oh well, we'll do what we can with video chat and net play and I'll try to head out next week.

So yeah, the holiday was great. Saw a few flicks with my wife and brother (who came down from Los Angeles). One of my favorite parts about Thanksgiving and Xmas holidays is seeing movies. I could not talk my wife into checking out Bond, which is what I really wanted to see. But as you married folks out there understand, sometimes you gotta give up a bit to get alot :)

So instead of Bond and The Fountain (both of which I will see sometime this week if I feel up to it), we saw:

Bobby was a good movie but it was also an odd movie. It was well made and kept me interested the whole time. BUT I really wanted to see a film about the life and/or impact of Robery Kennedy. I know little about him as he was killed before I was born and I was eager to get an entertaining history lesson. Sadly, Bobby ain't that. 95% of the stories that lead up to the shooting of Bobby Kennedy seem to have nothing to do with Kennedy. The stories told are about folks who were in the hotel the night he was shot, yes. But you struggle to figure out what most of those stories have to do with Bobby Kennedy. Sure, if you really dig deep you can connect a few of the stories to the ideals and ideas that Kennedy preached about, but that's only for a few of the sub plots and even then, you're digging semi-deep to make those connections. Still, good flick. Interesting and Entertaining the whole time thru. Catch it on video. And hey, it made me and the wife tivo a bunch of Bobby Kennedy docs coming on this month as we DO want to know more about him.

We also saw:



The Queen was also entertaining but left you with a sort of 'meh' feeling. Maybe if you give a shit about the Royals it would have more impact. But as the whole film seemed to be a question on the validity of the Royal Family in modern times, and since I have always thought the Royals- as an institution in our modern times- are pointless at best, and arrogant at worst, it was hard for me to care about the film's struggling with this very issue. My mind about the Royals has been made up since my mom- who does dig the Royal Family- woke us up at 5am to watch the Princess Di wedding some 20 something years ago. It was neat I guess but even as a kid, the Royals just seemed a concept that did not fit with modern times. That said, there IS something cool about an institution that has been around for over 1000 years. The film does make you at least respect that aspect of tradition.

Anyway, what else did I see? Oh yeah, I saw this:


For you younger readers out there, that's Geroge Burns as GOD in the movie OH GOD!

Ahem...anyway!

So the point is, me and my brother took some stuff into our lungs over the holiday that shifted the way I saw the world. I don't do it all that often and when I do do it, I take alot of the stuff in as I want to see how far I can go. But this time, I'm totaly out of my mind, time is shifting all over the place ('temporal hallucinations' is what my brother called it) and I'm standing on my deck looking up at the stars and suddenly I become aware of God. As an agnostic, this is a rare thing to be sure. So I also become aware that the reason I can see/sense him is because of the shift my mind has taken. And I ask him:

How come you are in here? How come you make us go thru this shift in order to see you? Why do you hide from us?

And I hear a voice in my head that says: I'm not hiding from you. It is you who is hiding from me.

And then I see a shooting start.

I shit you now.

Wow, that was some good shit!

Ok, speaking of shit, that's what I feel like. Gonna go lay down and try to sleep this thing off.

Talk to you guys soon. Hope you all had a great holiday too!

David

ps. thanks for the heads up on the Wikepedia entry. I have deleted that last paragraph only because it simply was not truthful. I am 1000% ok with people ragging on me thru the entry but I'm not cool at all when they post stuff that is not true. For the record, I was never fired off GOD OF WAR 2 and while some members of the team may find me hard to work with- as I find some members of the team hard to work with as well-I think we all respect each other and what we each bring to the table. So the working relationship with the team was never the reason I did not direct GOD OF WAR 2. The reason I did not direct GOD OF WAR 2 was that my personal life was suffering in a significant way because I was never home. And my health was suffering as I was never at the gym. As much as I love my work, I love my wife and kids more and was not going to sacrifice them again. And the PSP project died because it was just not a good match with the developer (who was slammed with the epic that is WarHawk). So we did something me and Scott are passionate about anyway, which is the small games space.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome. I played Zelda all weekened and I got sick as well. Now I have to do finals (2.5 minute animation, 1 level in Unreal, and one scripted Level with fully functioning characters and weapons).

I saw Bond and it was awesome. Probably the best Bond since Goldeneye.

Well, back to work.

-Arnaldo

Dan said...

Sounds like a good time to me. I had both sets of in-laws, and my older brother in town. Hit CompUSA on Thursday night and watched a little college football ;-).

I hope you get to feeling better. My kids are in the same boat.

Danny

PlayStation Museum said...

Am I reading too much into this quote:
"So the point is, me and my brother took some stuff into our lungs over the holiday that shifted the way I saw the world"

Anyhow, I fully understand conflicts between work and home/family. I was at a job were I was at work 7am to 11+pm and it sucked. Day in and day out. It wasn't in the game field either so I was not enjoying myself. By the end of each night I was going looney.

Anyhow, even though the wikipedia entry sucks, it seems like Mr. Jaffe is thick skinned and won't lose sleep over it.

Anonymous said...

hey jaffe. cool entry. the shooting star story is pretty rad. i love when fucked up shit like that happens. :p

anyways, regardless of what anyone says, i think the fact that you took that initiative to work on a smaller game, rather than being overwhelmed on a large project like GOW2, despite how much pressure there must have been on you to stick with it is TOTALLY RESPECTABLE. i think if your heart isnt into it, the game WILL suffer. "Calling all Cars" is a unique and exciting game that i cant wait to play, and if and when you go back to working on a blockbuster like GOW3 (maybe :p) im sure you'll take some of that different perspective with you to help you make an even better game.

bond is pretty sweet, so i recommend you see that. the other movie i watched lately that i liked was BABEL. its all about miscommunications and false stereotypes and overall its really good, especially in this modern day setting thats so literred with ignorance, especially towards the middle east.

Chris Brown said...

Wow, that's pretty sweet. I'm very curious, however, about your PSP project. Will you ever start it up again? I want to see some of your excellent work on PSP. Oh, and I thought that the Wikipedia article was odd. I'm happy that it's been corrected now.

Tapion440 said...

Taking that paragraph out cut your Wikipedia entry in half :) We should update the page with some factual information and put a photo up...maybe the one of him in jail.

Zodiak said...

"...maybe the one of him in jail."
Ah the taking it from behind picture! ;)

Get better soon Jaffe!!!

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear about the sickness, I always hated getting sick on the holidays.

I've been trying to find a means of contacting you, but couldnt find any other outlet then this. I know you're busy but I was wondering if you might be willing to do a brief interview. I'm in a multimedia class at my college and I have the assignment of interviewing someone in the field I'm interested. It would be 15 questions long through email.
If you'd be up for it please email me at: hideous_charm@yahoo.com

Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Hi David,

I wanted to comment on your mind expanding experience. The mind is like a TV tuner. It is capable of tuning into various vibrational frequencies of information from which the universe is constructed. However, the tuner setting is generally stuck at its lowest frequency -- what we perceive as “reality” -- which happens to be the densest of the vibrational frequencies and contributes to the illusion of separateness. Anyway, I’m happy to hear that you were able to break through and speak to god. This world would be a different place if everyone had the ability to feel connected to one’s true self and knew that we all come from one place.
a

oto said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
oto said...

Just watched the Playboy Mansion interview on GameTrailers. I've never seen you speak before and, even though I'm risking coming across as a total ass licker, I have to say you seem like a pretty cool, down to earth guy.

Must've been all that alcohol. ;)

Anonymous said...

Can you tell us what HL stood for?

Anonymous said...

http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/god-of-war/david-jaffe-really-wants-to-make-god-of-war-3-218877.php


Please tell me this is true!?!