Sunday
May062012
Make life take the lemons back
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost been a year since I graduated from University. This time a year ago I had just completed the epic tome on my final year project and was preparing to revise for my final exams; a grueling and terrifying experience. The time since then has been a very transitional period of my life as I get my head around being out of education for the first time ever (let’s not count those early years where I was banging lego bricks together) and used to the idea of having an adult life.
It’s very easy with a full time job that involves hours of commuting every day to get very complacent and lazy. The simplest way out is always to get home after work and want to do nothing but veg out in front of the television and honestly, I’ve done a lot of that. I ended up as a web developer not because anyone told me there was money in it, but because when I was 15 I accidently created a video game website. It was pretty terrible and the most horrific shade of green, but the next day I went back to it and was blown away to discover that people had started using it. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that website was an incredibly important turning point in my life and I truly don’t know where I would have ended up without it.
Three years ago that website died as I was unable to maintain it during my placement year and the small group of users moving on. Since then I’ve always had the desire to fill that “personal project” shaped hole in my life with something new, but inevitably ended up in front of the television instead. It’s just so much easier.
It’s very easy with a full time job that involves hours of commuting every day to get very complacent and lazy. The simplest way out is always to get home after work and want to do nothing but veg out in front of the television and honestly, I’ve done a lot of that. I ended up as a web developer not because anyone told me there was money in it, but because when I was 15 I accidently created a video game website. It was pretty terrible and the most horrific shade of green, but the next day I went back to it and was blown away to discover that people had started using it. I didn’t realise it at the time, but that website was an incredibly important turning point in my life and I truly don’t know where I would have ended up without it.
Three years ago that website died as I was unable to maintain it during my placement year and the small group of users moving on. Since then I’ve always had the desire to fill that “personal project” shaped hole in my life with something new, but inevitably ended up in front of the television instead. It’s just so much easier.
FWXD.netAnd then Mike showed up.
My former co-worker, who has this insane plan to emigrate to Australia, despite the fact I’m reliably informed they eat British people with afternoon tea, suggested one day that we make a video game blog. Mike worked at the company as a professional writer talking about how whisky tastes of “synthetic banana”, and had just gotten into gaming. I guess he just really wanted to write about it and had no outlet to do so. I think I probably agreed with him at the time, because it's easier to agree with people and normally they forget the next day. Except he didn't forget, so I guess the joke's on me now.
Mike’s enthusiasm for the idea is what got me out of my rut. We’ve been working on the site for several months (with the original idea dating back to January) and have put together a crack team to write for it so there will be regular updates. It's been truly awesome to work on and I look forward to seeing it grow.
My former co-worker, who has this insane plan to emigrate to Australia, despite the fact I’m reliably informed they eat British people with afternoon tea, suggested one day that we make a video game blog. Mike worked at the company as a professional writer talking about how whisky tastes of “synthetic banana”, and had just gotten into gaming. I guess he just really wanted to write about it and had no outlet to do so. I think I probably agreed with him at the time, because it's easier to agree with people and normally they forget the next day. Except he didn't forget, so I guess the joke's on me now.
Mike’s enthusiasm for the idea is what got me out of my rut. We’ve been working on the site for several months (with the original idea dating back to January) and have put together a crack team to write for it so there will be regular updates. It's been truly awesome to work on and I look forward to seeing it grow.
Welcome to the aviator clubIt turns out that naming a website is really hard though. It needs to be memorable and unique while containing as many Google friendly keywords as possible. Unfortunately Video Game Blog dot com was already taken and Mike thought appending the word “Nazi” to it would be considered bad form. We went through a lot of names before arriving on the one we used. Having lived with the name we chose for so long I couldn’t imagine another choice, but there was a long period of time where the best thing we had was “video game creed”. Feel free to take that one when I let the domain expire...
Nazi Clown Fish really wanted to be a website mascot...I present to you... Gaming With Lemons... dot com.
TL;DR
TL;DR
tagged 
gwl, video games, web development
gwl, video games, web development 
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