Thursday, September 30, 1999

by the Wunderland Toast Society

At some point during the last month or two, while working out the production schedule for Icehouse, one of us optimistically wrote the phrase "the calm before the storm" on the September page of our calendar, anticipating that there'd come a time when we'd be just kind of sitting around, waiting for the printer to deliver the proofs, waiting for reviewers to get their corrections in, and waiting for the factory to deliver the amazing new Icehouse pieces. (The storm of course will come in early October, when we have all the elements needed in hand, and can begin assembling game sets and filling the tons of pre-orders we're sitting on.)

Not surprisingly, the calm hasn't been all that calm. Instead of just kicking back and waiting for the printer, we've had to troubleshoot a series of problems, most (although not all) of which have finally been resolved. We got the beta editions from our printer today, and they look great! Copies are currently being FedExed to the Pittsburgh, Boulder, and New York offices; the local reviewers will get their copies tonight. As for the pieces, the good news is that the mold is nearly done and as early as tomorrow we may be summoned to Baltimore to see the first samples come off the machines! We're getting so excited that we can hardly stand it.

But although we've been as busy as ever, we did take a lot of time out this week for socializing. Firstly, Kory Heath flew out from California to see us, and we've all been getting along with him so well that we've already decided to add him to the Wunderland Toast Society. On his initial page you'll find the rules to his Icehouse game, Pantopia, but more importantly, he's currently putting the finishing touches on a fully operational Java implementation of Aquarius! That's right, soon (hopefully by next week) you'll be able to play Aquarius against 3 computerized opponents, right here on the web. Gina did some beta-testing this weekend, and she summed it up like this: "Java Aquarius is amazing and great!"

Also this weekend, we blitzed down to Charlottesville, to see my brother Jeff. He and his family have just moved there, since he's becoming the editor of some big Jefferson project at Monticello. (I should probably get a more accurate description of that...) So we went down to help with unpacking (we hooked up their computer and stereo and built a bookcase and so forth) and to gift his daughter Sharon (my god-daughter) with a stuffed broccoli. She liked him so much that she carried him around throughout dinner, often times by his nose. She's almost 3 now, and she's grown a lot just since our last visit with them, in June. (Which is to say, she is extremely cute.)

While we were in Charlottesville, we also got together with Pete Fenlon of ICE to talk about Fluxx and what his company's Chapter 11 status means to us all. I'll tell you what we told him: we're gonna let ICE keep selling Fluxx through this Xmas season at the very least. (The last thing we need right now is more work and/or decisions on our plate.) The 3 of us had a great time playing games and hanging out with Pete and his lovely wife Olivia, and we got a lot of good business advice from them, too. (For one thing, as soon as we got home, we redesigned the back of the Icehouse box...)

And as if all that weren't enough, we went to Ginohn's Drum Circle/Didj Clot in the Woods, ushered with Alison and her mom at the Woolly Mammoth's production of "The Dead Monkey", and entertained Alison's beloved but long absent friends Stephanie and Robbie. Like I said, lots of socializing. Which means that this week, we need to get back to work.