I am slightly depressed to be back from Italy. It was a great vacation and it felt great to mingle a bit with a culture that's so different from ours, but now I'm sad to return to the grind.

I did all the tourist stuff just cuz you kind of HAVE to take advantage of that opportunity when you visit a place like Italy. I saw:

-The Colosseum
-The Roman Forum
-All the various Piazzas and fountains in Rome
-The Pantheon
-The Vatican Museums
-The Sistine Chapel
-St. Peter's Cathedral
-Assisi
-Terni
-Pompeii

My favorite tourist attraction had to be Pompeii. It's amazingly well-preserved and I'm a nut for really ancient stuff. It was a bit like looking back in time. I mean, some of the PAINT is still intact on these buildings and the general layout of individual homes and community gathering points has been kept how it was in the 1st century BC!

All that touristy stuff being said, my favorite part of the visit was the food and the people. Since my wife used to live in the area she was able to arrange a visit with an Italian couple in Terni. We spent the whole afternoon and evening with them. Their home is built on the ancient stone streets of Terni and they've laid tile right over the top of it and constructed a home and garden.

They were so warm and accomodating. The wife, Luciana, took the day off work to be with us and the husband, Franco, took me under his wing and showed me his gun collection and hunting trophies, all the work he's done putting up the walls in his house, running the plumbing and electricity, and constructing his own private kitchen, and finally how he prepares pork chops and sausage.

Their daughter, who runs a local gelateria, brought us a sampling of assorted ice creams which were the best we had on our trip.

When it was time for us to catch our train, they basically emptied their fridge to pack us a lunch for the next day...lots of fresh bread, prosciutto, cheese, and some aranciata (a delicious orange soda you can only find in Italy) and then Luciana walked with us over a kilometer to the train station.

It had been 8 years since my wife knew them, and they'd never met me, but they really made both of us feel like they were our surrogate parents...it was a really refreshing experience and restored my faith in humanity. It was also great practice for my rusty Italian.

Anyway, if you've made it this far, thanks for reading!

Here's a pic of me in Pompeii (it was raining hard so the place was almost deserted):

I'm heading to Italy for the next 2 weeks (leaving Friday at 12:00) ! My old lady and I have been saving and planning this celebration of our 5th wedding anniversary for a while now. The winnings from various NG competitions, sponsorships, and the new in-game ads have made a lot of this trip possible, so thanks NG crew! I never imagined doing something I love as a hobby would pay off so well.

For those who don't know, both my wife and I lived in Italy for around 2 years before we met. We were there as LDS missionaries, then we met back in the states as Italian teachers at the same school. We've always wanted to go back since we love the people, food, culture, and speak the language, but this is the first opportunity we've had, so it's very exciting. We'll be staying at a bed and breakfast in Rome and taking day trips out to all the sites round about.

I'll be checking in on things every so often, and secretly working on sprites for the game I'm making with jmtb02. Shhh, don't tell my wife! When I get back I'll be coding up another epic game with Rog and Pox. But for the next 2 weeks I'll just be chillin' out and eating pizza and gelato every day!

Leave me your jealous comments.

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It's still Pico Day in my neck of the woods. Just wanted to wish everyone the best on this momentous occasion.

God bless us everyone.

Ok, using the term "viral" makes me feel like a buzzword-happy MBA student, but I can't think of anything better to describe the purpose of latest game I submitted to the portal:

Vanquish Those Viruses

Now, before I go on, I know it's a Dr. Mario clone, but it's a darn good one and the first Dr. Mario clone I've seen in flash.

My involvement in the game was actually pretty limited, I directed my WW art team and a programmer at Woogi World coded it. Originally it was crafted for inclusion in the Woogi World "Nutrition Buiilding" so had some things about it that didn't make it very friendly for distribution on the web, so I took the .fla and tweaked some things like adding a preloader and a pause button and some keyboard controls for navigation.

Its main purpose is to drive traffic to Woogi World by being stolen and spread around the Internet. We've started to see a small trickle since its release and the flow is steadily increasing. I'm of the opinion that a more original game would probably do a lot more for us and I have one that I was more heavily involved in (concept, art, and level design) called "Wooglings." I'm prepping it to release sometime soon. It's similar to my game "Moroni's March" but with some interface tweaks that I wish I had thought of for Moroni's March.

Hopefully that one will make a bit more of a splash on the Web and get the word out about Woogi World.

In other Woogi World news, we just completed the first phase of our PETS. We call pets in WW "Xoogies." There's a pic of the Xoogi store launch party below. Also, Chase from Tomorrow's Nobody and 2 other artists have joined the WW art team to design Woogi Clothing and Furniture! Right now WW is a bustling and up-coming online community, but we really need to get lots of kids to join up so we can keep going strong.

So, how do you think we can get a flood of kid traffic to Woogi World?

Get pumped, pico day fast approaches:

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Mostly just testing the video embed, but this thing really scares me.

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UPDATE: New WW game here - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
435173

Here is a long transcript of a game idea I pitched to my buddy Matt, it would have been the greatest game the Internet had ever seen, but there's a reason I didn't go very far with it. Tell me what you think:

me: it's a game kinda like mega man, but only with bosses.

matt: I love it!

me: so you have a set of bosses u have to beat to unveil the ultimate boss

matt: and you get to take the beaten bosses powers?

me: and you get to fight them in whatever order - and get a power from each - then you can assign those powers to certain keys - so you "equip" the powers - so you can have like 2 or three ready at hand at all times. Anyway, the characters would all be 80's icons like:

hulk hogan
the teenage mutant ninja turtles
lionel from thundercats
darth vader
mr T
the ghostbusters and slimer
karate kid
marty mcfly and doc
robocop
captain N
He-Man
Opimus Prime
Teen Wolf

Each one gives you a unique power to equip once you defeat him. But here's the funny part:
you play as ALF!

...

so what do you think?

matt: HA!

me: any additional ideas?

matt: who's captain N? the full house girls? kimmy gibbler or the olsen twins or the small wonder. I think you already got all the cool icons lined up for the game...Maxx Headrom !!

me: maxx headroom is a great idea, maybe he'll be the mastermind behind it all. Captain N is the guy who got sucked into his nintendo while playing mike tyson's punch out and had a controller belt buckle and a zapper in nintendo land and his letterman jacket had a big N on it.

matt: hmm I don't remember him

me: he could press start on his controller and freeze time - he fought mother brain, and the eggplant wizard, and had sidekicks: megaman, kid icarus, and simon belmont.

I played a boss-only game at the nickelcade the other night and it was really fun.

matt: it sounds like a cool game, and playing it in different orders would add replay ability.

I recently teamed up with Rog from I-MOCKERY to produce my most epic game to date. This was so intense I had to focus entirely on the programming and let Rog handle the art. Play it here:

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/
432991

Coaly, the man behind Tom's bearded boss face, claims to be the master of our new game. He's a lot better at it than I am. So here's a video of him dominating "The Beard."

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I heard it has magic powers and takes him out crime-fighting while he sleeps.

What do you think it can do?

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