David Bud Leiser

Category Archives: Personal

Designing a Life

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It’s been over a year since I’ve posted an update to my own website. Thankfully, I guess, no one reads it. So there is no pressure to maintain it. Just a $11 a year renewal fee from Godaddy, and a $2 a month hosting fee from Dreamhost. I managed to lock in a WordPress promotion that no longer exists. $2 a month for ‘unlimited websites, unlimited emails’. The bandwidth is limited I’m sure, but that doesn’t matter when you are invisible. Not a bad deal.

It’s been another hard year.  Continue reading →

Game Design Workshop – Post Mortem

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As the host I think it went fantastic. I covered a ton of content during the Lecture part of things and had to save some material for next time because I ran out of time. The crowd laughed at the right times almost every time, they asked very insightful questions so I know they paid attention and had a great time. But ya know, I’m a little biased in thinking that.

  • Dana eckhoff “Really great meetup, informative and fun, I am excited about the next one!”
  • Sorov “Good presentation and awesome workshop”

Continue reading →

You are a Game Designer – So what do you do?

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Is being a Game Designer the most mysterious job in the universe?

I have the wonderful pleasure of introducing myself as a Game Designer. But then comes the follow up question. “What does a game designer do”? Surprisingly that’s a very hard questions to answer. And if I can’t answer it, if it confuses me sometimes, how can I expect anyone else to get it?

Well, at least that is not as bad as these responses:

  • Oh so you are an artist? (Not really…)
  • So you are a programmer? (Not really…)
  • What programs do you use to do game design? (Because they look positively shocked when I answer “Mostly excel”)
  • Can you fix my computer? (Sadly yes… I probably can. But I don’t want to.)

 

So what do I do?

In a short sentence “I create systems”. That doesn’t really tell the listener (Or HR Manager) anything he can use or wrap his head around though. So I usually have to go deeper and give some examples. You have played (Insert game) right?

Continue reading →

On the way home

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Flying over Japan is like flying over Florida. I see lots and lots of lakes, rivers, farms and trees. I guess most 1st world nations infrastructure looks the same from the sky. I don’t see anything uniquely “Asian” or “Japanese” at least not from landing and takeoff. All the roads and fences cut the land into neat little squares and rectangles. It all looks the same.

JAL airport surprised me. At the waiting lounge flight crew members politely search all of your carryons. I guess they are nothing if not precautious and thorough; since I have been through not 1 but 2 security scanners already. These Japanese don’t play!

PRECURSOR:

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To think in 5 hours I will land in Japan but stay for even a single day. What a disappointment. Of all the countries I’ve wanted to visit and live in Japan has always been at the top. I’m so close…. but I have to get back to the US and handle “affairs”. Trying to operate remotely from a 12 hour time difference doesn’t work. Even in an age of emails and text messages. Continue reading →

Someone Call Ice Cube, Let Him Know It Was A Good Day! ♥

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Before I leave this Island of politeness, I had to make a road trip just to get my friend a gift. It started off with piling into a van designed to seat 14+driver. I think I counted 25. I was lucky to have some leg room sitting next to the door, I was unlucky to only get half of my butt no the seat. 40 Minutes later I’m strolling through the mall.

So what made this such a good day?

  • I found the gift I wanted to bring back
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  • I expected all the banks to be closed, not only was one open but they had the 1c and 5c coins in stock! SCORE! (Thanks Banco de Oro)
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  • I am a Thai Iced Tea connoisseur! Today’s Ice Tea was the best I’ve ever had. It was as thick and sweet as ice cream. Wonderful. I had to let the manager know and he was so pleased to hear it. (Plus I think he enjoys flirting with foreigners)
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What else can I say, today was a good day.

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Bonus:

Each of these bags is supposed to have 100 pieces of each coin. Whoever is filling these up is not doing a very good job though; When I couldn’t fit all of these coins into one slot I decided to count them. Each bag had 150 instead of 100!  I especially feel kind of bad since all these coins only cost me 12 piso (approx 30 cents!) I know it costs more than that to produce these coins. However both times I’ve tried to pay the banks extra, suggesting they charge me a service fee or buy themselves an ice cream, both times they smile and refuse saying they can’t. I think that officially means hell is freezing, a bank is refusing to charge me fees. It must be cold somewhere below.

I love me some Daft Punk

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mJirA9Hk8FY

When people say they don’t like Techno I doubt they have explored the Genre enough to know that they don’t really like it. Techno can mimic any other style, from rock and blues to symphonic and orchestra. However being born in the club scene it’s usually most associated with high energy remixes. In the 90’s however a new style of Techno dominated MTV, the sub genre was called “Big Beat” and featured musical artists such as Prodigy, The Crystal Method and Chemical Brothers. Daft Punk may not fit into the “big beat” sub genre, and I’m not qualified to say otherwise, but listening to Daft Punk brings back that nostalgic feeling. Good times.

Lucky Day – Shiny New Centavo’s for my Game Design kit!

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Thank you BPI (Bank Philippines Islands) I have been searching high and low for these coins! I went in banks, I called banks, I charmed, I begged. No one would give them up. The banks here are hoarding these little coins.  But today I walked into the BPI branch at a mall, I didn’t feel much hope they would give me any, I almost didn’t go in.

And to top it all off…THEIR SO SHINY!

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Sadly they didn’t have any 5 centavo coins. Those would have been so cool with the little hole in the middle

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Awesome my design kit feel so full. Now I just need a another little case like this filled with colored wood cubes and pawns.

So much stress and crap right now I’m glad to have found a simple happy pleasure today. Thanks Philippines.