In slightly less melancholy news…

To offset yesterday’s melancholy-fest a bit, some slightly lighter-hearted news…

Oberon is home from the vet and recovering nicely. If there’s anything that poses even the slightest threat to his speedy recovery from being declawed, it’s…Olivia. Her buddy is back and she wants to play! Thus far he’s taken to curling up on a sofa and going to sleep to avoid having to run from her. Olivia’s been locked up in a bedroom a couple of times too, to keep her from annoying the poor little guy – from birthday girl to bad girl in just one week! Oberon is slow to pick up on a couple of other hints though – he’s run outside twice, though I’ve recovered him both times. I don’t know at what point it’s going to occur to him that he is now more or less completely defenseless. Looks like we need to invest in those expandable “baby barriers” now. 🙄

Also, in PDF DVD news: the recently-rediscovered widescreen theatrical Dig Dug commercial will be making an appearance. It’s going to need a little bit of cleaning up on the visual end, but I’m really jazzed about being able to include it. Just one more nifty item to add to the already insane amount of stuff that’s going to be crowding this project.

While we’re talking PDF DVD, let me ask you (since, if you’re reading this, chances are you’re one of the target audience for this thing) – how much dividing up is too much dividing up? The organizational structure of something like this can get to be overwhelming. How I’m looking at it right now is that there’ll be a main menu from which you’ll pick a year from which to start (1971-1986). Within each year will be a menu that lets you look for a specific item within that – i.e. you’d be able to browse a submenu within each year to go directly to whichever clip you want to see. The problem there is that, once you get into years like 1982 that are absolutely drenched with products, you’re potentially talking about a single-year menu with 100 items on it (spread mercifully over several menu “pages,” with likely 8-12 items per page). I wouldn’t normally even contemplate that, except for two things:

1. We’re talking about marketing something to a hobby where people obsess over typefaces and catalog numbers on cart labels and release dates and creases in shrinkwrap. Yes, I can see that there would be a call for instant access to a specific game’s entry.
2. I’m a big fan of random access media – it’s why we went from cassette tape to CD, after all. If we’re not going to use that, this whole thing might as well be on VHS tape.

Let me know what you think there. I can’t guarantee it’ll change my mind on what I’ve outlined above, but I can’t guarantee that it won’t either.

Since there’s no OVGE show in Tulsa this year (a more detailed announcement should be forthcoming from the show’s organizers in the weeks ahead), I’m aiming for the PDF DVD to debut at CGE 2007, where it’ll be available from the Packrat Video Games booth. Whether or not the ones sold there will have any kind of special packaging or other whatsits, I simply haven’t decided yet – I’m more concerned with getting the editing finished at the moment.

Meanwhile, for those still toiling in the pixel mines…I couldn’t help but notice that the credibility of the Arkansas TV News Blog took a big hit, and right out in the open too. I visit it about once a week or so, but I’ve never felt compelled to post a comment there, because so much of the discussion there seems to descend into a pissing match between employees of rival TV stations, with just a dash of slander for extra flavor. Though I’ll admit that the World Of Warcraft spam right in the middle of this particular entry (in case it’s deleted: there’s a comment right in the midst of all the debunking that basically says “world of warcraft world of warcraft” over and over again, each iteration being a link to something different) adds a surreal bit of “calm the beef min” style comedy to the proceedings. There was a time when the ARTVNB was a useful, if slightly testy, way to keep one’s finger on the pulse of the industry; now I’m not even sure it’s good for much more than reminding me a little bit of the environment that I left behind.