Welcome to the twisted mind of Derek Manning aka "Bob Crane Jr."

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August 18th, 2009

I'm going to make a real effort from now on to update this thing more regularly. For everyone that follows me on facebook and twitter (Dynamic_Derek on twitter) you may hear some stuff more than once, but then again, why are you listening to me so much? :D

My PS3 crapped out on me a couple weeks ago, on my birthday no less. I had also just gotten Deja-Vu and Coraline 3-D on blu-ray as gifts. How awesome is that? So I contacted Sony, told them what the problem was and got a repair request number. Did you know that it costs $150 just to repair an out of warranty PS3! That is the most ridiculous thing ever! I was one of the early adopters who paid $600 for the system so now I have spent a total of $750 on that damn thing. Anyway, I talked to one of the representatives on the phone before I mailed it in to make sure that I would get the same system back. Since they discontinued the model I have, if I didn't get that one back I would have no way of playing PS2 games since they removed backward compatibility. (SUCKS!) They assured me I would, which is great. However, I was told that due to the problem I was experiencing, they would most likely be unable to get the information off of the hard drive. I had a lot of videos, photos, songs, and demos on there that I couldn't give two craps about, however I DO care about my saved games. I told them to try, she said they would but could not guarantee anything. That's fine with me as long as they try. I received a replacement system in the mail on Monday this week and lo and behold it was not my system. They sent it out the very morning after they got mine in for repairs. They did not even ATTEMPT to fix my system! They just simply sent another one. This pisses me off. I didn't realize how many games I owned for the PS3 and PS2 until I did not have any saved games for them. I know for a fact that I am not going to replay 2/3 of Manhunt 2 just so I can see the ending and say that I beat the game. I had also gotten about 50% total in GTA: 4, level 45 in COD: 4, and I was on my second run through of Metal Gear Solid 4. THIS S U C K S HARDCORE. I may end up just selling some of my games because I don't want to put that initial 50% effort back into any of the ones I have any desire to finish. I would be totally fine if Sony said that they TRIED and couldn't recover my data, but not even trying is a load of bull****. I sent them an e-mail detailing my situation asking them to return to my system and see if they can recover the data on it then send it back to me. I doubt they'll try, but you never know.

August 17th, 2009

Okay, so I'm not getting better about updating this page at all, lol. Almost two months without an update. Things are certainly a lot different around here now since my last post. Wow. With a heavy heart, I have recently moved off of the Legions project. I have also removed myself from the marketing side of the company as well. My new position simply will not allow me to have freedom to work between both departments. I am extremely excited about my new position as I have been moved into a lead role on a new project. I can't talk about what this new project is as we are fairly early in development, but it is something that I can really get my mind into and I'm having a lot of fun with it. Dang, it's getting late, already 8:30, I better get back to work.

June 25, 2009

Two weeks between posts. Okay well at least I'm getting better. While I'm waiting for my scene to re-light I figured I'd jump on here and make a post. Things have been going pretty well lately. I'm working on some really cool stuff right now, working very closely with Kelle whom I've always liked working with. She makes a great partner to bounce things off and basically can take anything I'm thinking in my head and draw it perfectly on paper. Not too many people can do that, especially when talking with me! I can sometimes be pretty scattered when I'm excited about an idea and I just start throwing things out there. So anyway, I guess I can't say a whole lot about "what" I'm doing since that would violate multiple parts of my contract here, but just know that it is awesome and hopefully I'll be able to talk about it soon.

June 8, 2009

So how is four months without an update for ya! So I have now officially been part of the GarageGames company for a year. What a year it has been! A lot has happened this year already. I've been much more active in the marketing department recently (as in the last six months), taking over as Legions Community Manager, running the Legions Blog (http://legionsblog.instantaction.com), the PlayLegions twitter account, PlayLegions facebook account, running the LAN planning portion of the marketing department, going to all the lans, I'm in charge of all the swag, I run the private tester service for Legions, all while retaining my level design position! It's actually not as much work as it looks. I normally work around 10 hours a day, but I really like it that way. I get a lot more done and feel like I'm really pulling my weight. I just finished up a new level for Legions, collaborating with Rich Tunnell on it, which was an absolute pleasure and honor. That dude KNOWS game design like the back of his hand and I'm really glad to have him as part of the Legions "squad." Right now Richard and I are the only level designers that we have at the company, but I almost like it that way for some sadistic reason. I like to have all the pressure and a lot of people relying on my work. I tell ya it really makes you feel good. It's so different from Buzz Monkey where we had, I believe, 9 designers total. No more design scrums here! :D We've been working on some just awesome stuff recently and I can't wait for it to be released. The minute it does, I will definitely post here again. ;)

Feb. 12, 2009

Wow, I don't think I waited long enough between this and the last post. :) Since I took over the Legions Blog on instantaction, I couldn't seem to find the time to update this. But I do have a few free seconds right now so I think I may as well. I've also learned that the stuff that I write in the Legions Blog and the crap I put up on here CAN be mutually exclusive. One of the big reasons for me realizing this is the fact that we've been pretty hush-hush on the project-side of things for a while now and that has kept me from posting there. However, that does not have to stop me from posting here.
So we just celebrated my wife's birthday a couple days ago and we had a blast! We went out to karaoke at a place called Taylor's which was pretty fun. Of course I did not get up and sing as anyone who knows me would realize there is not enough alcohol in the world that could make me get up in front of others and sing. Plus, no one wants to hear that anyway.
K, short post for now as I'm at work. Will try to add more later.

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