Because I'm mentioned in Time Magazine this week the subject of "the company" came up from time to time at the wedding I attended.

One question that comes up, inexplicably, is "are you still running your company out of your house?"  I've had this question posted 4 times by family members. I'm not sure how this comes about.  Our company was never run out of our house.  It was in my dorm room for a very short amount of time, 11 years ago. But since 1995 it's had an office. 

I've wondered how that sort of thing got started. Why the assumption that any company I would have would, inevitably, be too small to have an office building (let alone a 7000 square foot one we're in the process of purchasing).  Not that we're some sort of mega corp.  But we're a long long way from being a garage shop and have been for a good decade.

Being parnaoid, I tend to read a small amount of patronization when discussing "the company".  Nothing malicious mind you. But a sort of "Oh, that's cute he's started his own little computer company." 

I think most of that patronization is my own fault. While my writings don't tend to convey this, in person, I tend to take on the role of comic relief. I enjoy trying (though usually failing <g>) to make people laugh.  I used to be much more like that when I was younger (teen years especially). So I think it's hard for some people in my family to take me very seriously.

Is it just me or does anyone see the irony of the people who are hysterical about the swift-boat attacks on Kerry?  Kerry, who is running for President, and his supporters arguing that these guys, many of whom are pretty normal "regular guys" are somehow political activists with (egads) an agenda.

And because they have an agenda what they say can't be trusted.  But somehow we can trust what Kerry says...because..he doesn't have an agenda?

My cousin Dirk got married this weekend. The wife and kids and I went out to Plainwell for it and had a good time. It was a pretty thorough family reunion for the "Bradley" side (my mom's side of the family).  Dirk and Danielle had been together for 13 years, that's a year longer than my wife and I. 

Normally with weddings you hope for the best but you can never be sure with how things will work out. Not so with D & D since they are a great couple.  Why they decided to get married now I'm not sure. I suspect that their parents both hope there's kids in the future.

But we sure had a good time. It's always good to talk to relatives who you haven't seen for a long time.

Every so often I see someone say they're not going to blog anymore because they didn't get their articles featured to the home page or because there aren't enough comments on their blogs.

I think those people need to ask themselves why they're blogging in the first place. 

Personally, I blog because I enjoy writing. I enjoy communicating with others.  And yes, I do want others to read what I write.  But I don't sit back and wait for some automated system to promote my stuff.  There are blog sites that simply track what's happening in the blogsphere.  Those people who are interested in getting their work out there need to do some leg work to promote their blogs.  Secondly, they need to keep at it for a long time.It takes time to build readership.

Anyone who thinks they can crank out a blog site and have hundreds of regulrar readers in a few months is in for disappointment.  Well, I should qualify, what makes JoeUser unique of all blog sites on the net is that many bloggers will get a very rapid readership. So JU is your best case scenario and even then, it's still going to take effort and time.

One of my favorite blog sites is called One Hand Clapping. It's been up for a long while. Every day high quality articles for years on end.  Many articles have few, if any comments.  But he keeps at it slowly building up his readership. 

So before giving up, ask yourself why you're blogging. If you want to succeed it takes both time and effort. Don't be over reliant on the built in system to instantly generate an active readership.

There have been some reports that the Ubi Soft Safe Disc CD protection mechanism causes the game to crash on some systems where it cannot detect a CD-ROM drive.

If that is the case:

(1) Make sure you download 1.01

(2) Contact [email protected] about this.

(3) Post here so that we also know about it.

(4) In a pinch, you can email me at [email protected] if you are interested in trying out an unofficial version that may resolve it.

The Political Machine 1.01 is now available for download for those who purchased the retail boxed version.  The new version adds a multi-save game manager and now includes much better multiplayer support (a built in lobby is now available).

It also fixes some bugs that users have reported. Most notably, the save game during a campaign game bug is fixed (if you saved a game during the middle of a campaign and came back, it wouldn't count it as a victory).

We also improved the load time, fixed some typos, and added in a few more portraits.

You can download it at: https://www.politicalmachine.com/downloads.asp

A demo version should be out "soon". We wanted to get this version.  If you have TotalGaming.net (www.totalgaming.net) or were one of the users who downloaded the game via the pre-order, you already have this version and should not download this.

Wired News has reviewed The Political Machine. 

"The game itself, at least at intermediate levels, is quick-moving and addictive. I was able to hustle through the 41-week election cycle in about three hours. That's all the time you'll need to win at the beginner's level. But as you boost the difficulty (the levels are labeled "tough," "painful," "masochistic" and "crippling" -- enough to dissuade anyone from going pro), each decision requires considerably more thought and research."

http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,64625,00.html

Here is how you can add new candidates to the game and share them with others:

Step #1 Find the image.  I went on Google and found a picture of John McCain.

Step #2 convert the image to a small PNG.  Don't make it too huge. I made mine something like 150x186 but as long as it's not ridiculously large it should be fine. Then save as .PNG with your favorite graphics package.

Step 3: In the game, create a new candidate and pick your new image and then set him up.

Step 4: Exit game.

Step 5: in your \Data directory there will be a new .candidate file.  Feel free to open it up to give some reasonable value (between 1 and 5) to values that are set to 0. You don't have to touch this, only if you're a perfectionist.

Step 6: Put the .candidate file and the .png in a zip and make it available.

Here's mine:

https://www.politicalmachine.com/extras/johnmccain.zip

PUt the .candidate file in the \data directory and the .PNG file in the \gfx\candidate_images directory

Load up game, pick 'em.

You can put pictures of yourself in too. And in 1.01, those images will transfer over the net.

1.01 should be out very soon, just waiting for the posting okay from Ubi Soft.

Here's what's new:

1.01 Update
-----------

New Features:

• Added function for Saving and Loading games
• Added customization of candidate and portraits in multiplayer
•  Save and Load capability
•  Custom candidate and portraits in multiplayer
• Lobby in Multiplayer

Enhancements:

• Updated election data and minor tweaks to character stats and issues
• Multiplayer scoring enhanced to account for the game speed
• New interface for seeing online players
• Snail pace was slowed down considerably and the players wouldn’t see a countdown timer.*
•  Now allows for Player Name to be changed while in Find Game Screen.
• Removed Intro Movie when playing in windowed mode.
• Will no longer allow you to create two new candidates with the same name.
•  Minor tweaks to character stats and issues
•  Multiplayer scoring enhanced to account for the game speed
•  New interface for seeing online players.
• Tweaks for DirectX for greater compatibility

Bugs Fixed:

•  Corrected assorted typos.
•  Fixed TV Show window that was showing up over Main Menu if you backed out during gameplay.
•  Fixed Player Name to always display even when restarting a new game.
•  Fixed potential crash at end of multiplayer games.
•  Fixed 'double text' bug when chatting in Multiplayer menu.
•  Fixed two or more webmasters in a state giving you money
•  Fixed campaign ladder mode potentially displaying all the unlocked candidates
•  Fixed report of clicking or double clicking on textfields crashing
•  Fixed where custom candidates weren’t always sent across the net in multiplayer
•  Fixed where candidates with a 0 for personal attributes were internally given 5
•  addition of a missing string for the end-game summary screen
• -updated readme to reference firewalls and network play at the top of the readme
• -updated readme to indicate Minor tweaks to character stats and issues
• Creating 2 new candidates with the same name
• Hijacked TV Show window shows up over main menu
• Intro Screen in windowed mode
• Player name not always stored properly
• Player name change in Find Game Screen
• Potential crash at end of multiplayer game

CNN has a really nice article on The Political Machine, the game I worked on this past Spring/Summer.  Check it out.