Well, I managed to escape Vegas, and DICE 2006, without completely losing my shirt.  Craps was, as always, the most fun and the quickest way to lose my money.  Fortunately a last-minute hot streak at the Blackjack tables with fellow programmer Paul Bettner turned things around.

While my wallet was intact, my dignity was not...

Yep, that's me in the Elvis costume. 

I can't even blame it on being drunk.  It started out with me kvetching about the no-jeans policy at the AIAS awards.  When I saw that I purposely packed nothing but jeans, because I think it is a ridiculous rule (I'm not big on dress codes).  In some discussion of this in Vegas, someone jokingly declared that I should wear an Elvis costume or something.  I agreed, of course not expecting anyone to have such a costume on hand.  Little did I know that fellow Ensemble-ite Brian Lemon had secret connections in Vegas and had one whipped up for me within a few hours. 

Not being one to back down, nor one afraid of embarassing myself in public, I went ahead with it.  All those years of training in the theater didn't go to waste!  It was actually kind of fun to wear the costume around Vegas and to the awards ceremony.  My physical attributes don't generally draw a lot of attention normally so it was a fun change of pace and I got to do my (truly awful) Elvis impression many times that night.

In the end, I guess you could say I mostly did it because I wanted to point out that there are far less appropriate things to wear to an awards ceremony than jeans to highlight the futility and pointlessness of the AIAS rules.  These awards should be about the developers, not about pretending to pomp and circumstance in a ceremony that is neither representative of the members of the Academy nor properly respectful of the work that they represent. 

I think recognition of these developers is tremendously important, but my wearing regular clothes to the ceremony is far, far less disrespectful than the way AIAS treats the ceremony:

-- Omitting the most important games because of who is and isn't willing to pay dues (most notably this year, Resident Evil 4's omission).

-- B-grade Hollywood stars telling obscene jokes (last year including, no exaggeration, jokes about rape).

-- Failing to note actual contributors or even properly representing their work at the ceremony, like not even mentioning the actors nominated for voice work awards or playing car sounds during a soundtrack award.

These ceremonies aren't perfect, and I don't expect them to be.  I think having a good, legitimate awards process is healthy for the industry.  But the problem isn't that developers are being developers.  It's that the AIAS is trying to turn them into Hollywood stars, which they just simply aren't.

(Despite all that the awards ceremony this year was at least better presented than last year, where none of the A/V clips for the games worked and sometimes award winners were revealed before the nominees were shown)

In an attempt to catch up on "the stack" I've been playing some overlooked RTSes from late last year.  Act of War is a sharp and attractive modern-era RTS that is very reminiscent of C&C Generals.  Unfortunately it crashes my display driver at random every 10-15 minutes.  Ah, hardware compatibility problems. 

Darwinia is a brilliant little title from Introversion.  It recently became available for direct download via Steam, which reminded me I had an unplayed copy of it.  This game has a wonderful style, an "in the computer" look akin to Tron.  While the interface has some unfortunate flaws the gameplay is a nice blend of Syndicate-style action and some strategic high-level decisions.  The result is a compelling mix and well worth finding this gem off the beaten path of the usual game store hit parade.

New game wise both Wild Arms 4 and Star Wars: Empire at War have been on deck.  More on these in the future but so far I heartily recommend both (especially Wild Arms 4).