I'm here!

Good lord, what an exhausting few days.

My dad and I drove with two cats in the car from Austin to Los Angeles, in one straight shot. It actually was a pretty good drive. Wasn't too crazy and the cats were pretty awesome. Uday slept most of the way and Qusay kind of found her place after I smacked her a few times. Dad and I have a few cuts on our arms from her crawling around while we were driving though.

Anyway, I made it in to town, unloaded my stuff and started settling. The cats have settled pretty well too. Uday is walking around like he owns the place and Qusay is slowly learning to live with the other animals in the house. (There are two other cats and two dogs currently living here too.) Their food is inside and their litter box is actually outdoors. So the cats are getting used to that too.

As far as me, I'm going to be living on the couch for a little while until I figure out exactly where my head will rest full time. It's not so bad though, the weather here has been insane. We leave the door open and the cool air blows in and keeps me happy at night.

I've been here all of three days and I've already participated in a photo shoot, a massive party for King of Fighters 12 and I saw Paul Rudd at a bar. Not too shabby.

My dad is flying back home tomorrow, and at that point it will be official. I will be living in California. I'll let you know when it sinks in.

The Final Countdown

This is it.

I'm about to break down my computer and pack it away for the long trip out to California.

Holy shit.

I'm seriously about to move to California. Something I've thought about every since I was in high school and got the bug to get in to the movie industry. Now, I'm sitting here, my house almost completely empty (save for a few paintings and the stuff I'm moving) about to move to California. A decade after that bug hit, I'm making the move.

It's weird, I've seen people over the past few days and had drinks with them, dinner, movies, whatever, and it hasn't really struck me until just now that I won't be seeing these people again until I fly back. Or they fly out to Los Angeles. I'm going to miss my friends, but in the age of the internet I end up chatting via AIM or Skype anyway, so what does it matter that I'm a few states away?

I do love this city though. I'm going to miss lots of things, Austin things. The Drafthouse (which now is home to a few of my arcade machines), Threadgill's, 6th Street, Peter Pan Mini-Golf and so much more.

I'm going to miss my friends. I love all you guys and I'm going to be within a phone call away. That is of course until The Big One hits and California is swallowed by the Pacific Ocean. Until then though...give me a call.

Of course, I'm going to continue posting here. I've got lots of stuff already planned for Los Angeles and Uday is ready for his Hollywood debut. It should be a blast.

Austin, I love you, keep in touch.

Wow...

Tonight was perhaps the best night ever.

Of all times.

That is all.

I found Crash Override!

While at the post office I spotted one of the main characters from Hackers!

Well...his/her ride at least.

Last Day

Today was my last day at a job I've worked at for over three years. It was weird, I've read countless "last day" letters, and I had the chance to write my own. Here it is, in almost it's entirity:

Aspryians...Aspyrites...Aspyrons?

I come to you with a heavy heart as today is going to be my final day with the company...again.

I’ll be moving out to Los Angeles after working for over three years with you fine folks. I’m going to be launching a unique business opportunity. It involves getting two people to give you a bit of cash, and having those people find two more people a piece to give them cash, and so-forth and so on. I’ve been told it works excellently! And we will all get rich.

Anyway, thanks goes out to all of you that made my time here toiling behind the video camera a lot of fun. I’ll have fond memories of dressing Andy Messner up in a monkey suit and nearly killing him. Or the time we dressed up Andy Messner with a fanny pack and soaked him with water. Or the time we launched a skateboard into Andy Messner’s shin.

Or the time I brought my cat Uday up to the office after hours where we shot a video involving a wheel chair, a cat, a disco ball, karaoke and a girl in a bikini. (For reals.) Fond memories.

So, thanks for everything Aspyr, you have been interesting to say the least.

If you want to keep in touch, there are a few different ways, I’ve got a couple of blogs. For you cat lovers, you can follow the antics of my cat Uday on Uday a Day: http://udayaday.blogspot.com/ Or if you want to follow my antics in California, you can at http://jackincalifornia.blogspot.com/

For serious, I’m going to be living in Los Angeles working with I Am 8-Bit making some really cool stuff for the video game world to enjoy. If you are ever out in the area, let me know, I’ll let you buy me a beer or three.

Until then though, play me off keyboard cat! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0up6R3hrHaU

-Jack Pattillo

Insert tear here.

Thoughts

So, apparently California is excited to have me as there have been FOUR EARTHQUAKES IN FOUR DAYS there. Awesome. I've never been in an Earthquake, but I have been on the Earthquake ride at Universal Studios, so I count myself prepared.

Had a few people come look at the house for possible rental, now just waiting on someone to make a solid declaration of YES, WE'LL TAKE IT and then pretty much all my loose ends in Austin will be tied off. I hope that happens before I head out, I'd hate to have to work that crap out while I'm away in L.A. Not fun at all.

Oh, and I stumbled onto something awesome today while doing my usual internet searches. Check out Will Smith rapping the Men in Black song over a ukulele. You never quite know where the MIBs is at.

Watch Will Smith performs Men in Black with Ukulele for German TV on CollegeHumor

Jonathan Coulton: Geek Folk Superstar

I had a few people over the other night to play some Rock Band. A buddy brought over the ION Drum Kit for Rock Band (Holy awesomeness), and there was much drinking of alcohols and playing of musics.

One thing that caught everyone's attention was when I sang Skullcrusher Mountain. Everyone except for Thorr (the ION-owner) had no idea who this musical genius was. (Coulton, not me.) So I tried to explain. Anyway, if you haven't heard of Jonathan Coulton, you need to check him out. Obviously you should check out his website or listen to these videos I've embedded below for your enjoyment.

We'll start with the one that kicked it off for everyone, Skullcrusher Mountain:



Probably his most famous tune, Still Alive, the closing credit song for Portal, the video game (sung here by Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog):



And one of my personal favorites, probably his sweetest track "I'm Your Moon" which is a song sung from Pluto's point of view about it's moon. It's a love song:



And there are so many more. Check out Code Monkey, Shopvac, First of May. All classics. Enjoy!

Too freaking cute.

I was doing my normal browsing of the internets and I ran in to this video, probably one of the cutest things you'll see EVER. It is relevant to this blog because it takes place in California. Hooray!

Give A Squirrel A Helping Hand @ Yahoo! Video

No words...

...can describe how incredibly awesome this is:

All gamed out

Dad came over earlier today and grabbed a few things from my house. I'm starting to move crap out in order to have an empty house to sell. Oh joy. So, he came over around noonish and took the garage fridge and the twin bed in my guestroom / office and a few other things and put them in the back of his truck.

After that I drove around looking for a rental space to put the rest of my arcade games and my random pieces of furniture. It's a lot more expensive than I had ever thought it was. I found a 10' x 10' space for $70 a month and that was the cheapest I could find around here. Eh... better than my mortgage I guess.

After lunch I came home and was reading through some forum posts and came across this excellent XKCD comic:



...which gave me the idea to throw in Rock Band 2. I played the other night at a friends and remembered how much I love playing drums. Apparently I bought the game and never really played it, which is a bit sad. I remember when I could do that. (When I had money.) Anyway, I probably put in about 5 hours of drumming and am more solid than ever with the sticks.

So, thanks XKCD for the inspiration for some Rock Banding, I had a good time. Tomorrow I'm getting my mane cut down and looking for boxes to start loading crap up. Oh, and maybe Star Trek or Wolverine and also maybe some lawn-mowing. Hooray.

Screw it, I'm moving to Cleveland

After watching these two videos about the great city of Cleveland, Ohio, I've decided I'm going to move there instead:

House issues...

So, one of the biggest factors about moving out to California has been what the hell to do with my house. I've had a few people kicking around the idea of renting it out, but I'm not horribly comfortable with just anyone moving in.

It seems those possibilities are dwindling to pretty much nil...so that means the house goes up on the market. Hooray selling a house in this AWESOME economy!

I talked with a former high-school classmate of mine today who is a real estate guy now and he told me a few things that I needed to hear, and it looks as though there may be a shot of me getting out with no cost to myself. HOPEFULLY. I really don't want to have to pay to sell my own house, that would be lame. Thanks shitty bankers.

So, I'm setting up a meeting with him on Friday to start nailing down stuff. Then it's a matter of moving shit. Anyone in South Austin want to store a few arcade games?

Actually, for those of you IN Austin, I've spoken with Tim League, the owner of the Alamo Drafthouse and it looks as though I can put a few of my machines in his theater. So, the next time you go to the South Lamar Drafthouse and see Street Fighter 2 or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on freeplay in the lobby, you know who to thank. (You are welcome Austin.)

Oh, and next week I'm flying out to San Francisco for a few days, and it looks like my return might take a detour through Los Angeles. See, I can't get away from that damn city.

Uday a Day

One of the more recent projects I've gotten myself in to is "Uday a Day," a website dedicated to my fat orange cat Uday.



He's so damn photogenic that I pretty much had to make a blog for him and his stupid-cute photos. Feel free to check out the site or you can even add Uday a Day if you are on Twitter.

One question remains, will I be able to keep this up if I'm in Cali and the cats are back in Austin. At least, until I'm settled out there. Oh the drama!

Jack is going to California

Alright, alright, enough screwing around. It's time for me to uproot and try something incredibly life-altering before I get too old to do this kind of stuff.

For those of you who don't know me, and why would you be reading this if you didn't, I am Jack, a native Texan. I've lived in Austin almost my entire life (one year in Orlando), and never really planned on moving away. Well, maybe I did. I'm not sure, I just pictured myself here my entire life. I went to the University of Texas and got a film degree and figured Austin was supposed to be the next big movie town outside of Los Angeles and New York, so why leave?

Yeah, that didn't happen so much. There were a few projects that sprung up and showed some kind of life, but then surrounding states started aggressively pursuing films, so the talent in Austin started heading to Shreveport or New Orleans or wherever there was jobs that weren't at Troublemaker studios.

I got a job working for a video game company here in Austin, doing video marketing, virals, sales vids, etc, and had a good time doing that. Spent nearly three years there until I was laid off this past December. I had also done some work with another local video-game based creative group here in Austin as well, but I'm no longer working with them either. No hard feelings, just a Lemony Snicket sized series of unfortunate events led us to part ways.

I was hired back on part time with my game publisher, but money has been cut down considerably and for the first time in my adult life, I'm having to tap in to savings to cover my mortgage. Not the best six months or so.

And that is where we are now. All those events led up to the ultimate conclusion that it was time for me to move to California.

But, but, but...no jobs in Cali! You might say. Not necessarily true. I've done some work with a really great group of guys out in Los Angeles and I'm going to be settling in with them when I get out there. These guys have pulled off some really cool events and I actually had the chance to work with them recently. It went well and I think I can help contribute to the group with my film making background.

Anyway, I don't really have a "place" on the web anymore, so I figured why not chronicle my move from my home in Texas out to California? Also, the occasional funny video or drunken ranting. I've got a few other projects in the works as well, and I'm sure I'll be talking about their progress here.

So, that's it, really. I'll be updating here pretty often as I have a lot of free time on my hands...at least until I figure out exactly what I'm going to be doing with my house. Then I imagine a lot of packing will be going down.

Feel free to stick around, this could get interesting.