A chillaxing kind of weekend.

Here at Greenspeak Central, the work never stops. You may think this is just done by me, but, frankly, given everything that happens on this page, you really should know better. I'm not that good! In fact, since leaving Ziff Davis and starting at EA, I have slowly assembled a crack team of trained monkeys and recently graduated college English majors--along with some offshore phone operators in India--who work tirelessly around the clock in an unlit, windowless basement to bring you all of these phenomenal posts. So, before I go any further, I just want to acknowledge the team and say "thanks." I've left an extra pile of bananas by the door as a token of my appreciation.

So...I'm gone for a couple days. (Not the team though--don't worry! They're still on the job!) It is my birthday on Sunday (92nd, I believe), and my wife is absconding me and taking me up the northern California coast for a weekend of rest and relaxation. Yay! I think I have earned it! Also, before proceeding further, let me clarify that the use of the word "chillax" in the header above is done only with pure irony. In fact, I don't know if there is a more annoying or useless word in the English language today (except maybe for "work"). You are either chilling and/or relaxing. They are synonyms. They do not need to be combined into one word, because they both mean the same thing. I can chill out, and/or I can relax. I do not need to "chillax", no matter how many frat boys say I do. Mmmmkay? I will not accept this word. Nor should you.

I've got a lot to celebrate this year on my birthday. I weathered a tempestous 12 months, including the loss of my cat, a serious illness, the closing of my magazine, and--in more positive news--my daughter's so-far successful transition to high school and my so-far successful career change. That's a lot. Not a lot as many, many people on the planet, because, yeah--compared to most people, I have an easy life. I recognize this. But we all only play the cards dealt to us, and even those of us with pretty good cards have our trials and tribulations, our headaches and disappointments, our tough times and challenges. So I am grateful, on the eve of my (okay) 47th birthday, that all in all, I'm hitting this milestone in a better place than I was 12 months ago. Well, all except for the loss of my cat PJ, who I still miss every goddamn day.

And for those of you wondering, I am loving my new job. I really am. I will admit that I am not remotely up to speed yet (I'm somewhere between 1st and 2nd gear now, I think), and hopefully my new co-workers have not hit the "when is this retard gonna start doing something?" phase. Though I could let them know that my wife has been in that phase for 22 years now, and she's still with me. Switching to this side of the gaming biz has been a serious eye-opener for me--not that I didn't know it would be. Of course it is. But knowing it intellectually and then experiencing it on a day-to-day basis are two different things entirely. I will post more about it all in the coming weeks and months, I promise. If my posting has been slightly frivolous and erratic since starting, that is entirely because my head is invested full-time in getting myself in gear and worthy of being part of the big brains that make up The Sims team.

So, though I wouldn't normally be taking a break after a mere three weeks of work, the birthday is a convenient excuse to take one anyway. And getting out of town and into nature is going to be a nice head-clearer for me, before diving head first into the job again on Monday. The good thing is, however, I'm looking forward to Monday already. Now how lucky is that?

Happy weekend, y'all.