Columbia writing test

Yesterday, I went and took my writing test at Riverside Community College – Norco. It was a good thing that I’ve been feverishly reviewing the 2004/practice test, since there were a number of questions descended from that test on the 2008 edition, although they were invariably harder.

I did pretty well, I think, on the news writing segment (Jenn, who saw a copy of the story I wrote, was so drawn in by it, she demanded to know what happened in the case), the news editing segment was pretty routine after editing interns’ work for several years and the essay portion went well, I think.

If any part trips me up, it’ll be some of the general knowledge questions. I did pretty well on the international stuff, due in large part to reviewing that practice test over and over, but I know I blew it on some of the domestic questions.

As the old saying goes, you don’t have to run faster than the bear, just faster than the guy running next to you. Hopefully there’s a few folks with untied shoes running alongside me this year.

James’ first words

“Mom, enough with the camera already!”

Hanna in the window

James Allen Yarbrough: Flip-flopper

As of this afternoon, James has now mastered the difficult task of flipping over onto his back. (The previously mastered task, of flipping over onto his front, is just for newbies.)

Blizzard launches podcast

Blizzard has just launched Blizzcast, their monthly (?) podcast talking about all things Blizzardy. This inaugural edition kicks off with interviewing Sam “Samwise” Didier, their art director, who talks about his history and process and a bit about StarCraft II. There’s also talk about the Sunwell Plateau, a new area coming to World of Warcraft later this year.

One of the things I like about Blizzard’s podcast is that the transcript is freely available. This was probably originally done to make translating the podcast into other languages easier, but it’s nice for them to make it widely available. (And, on that note, Blizzard, make the text for the voice emotes in WoW visible again, like they were in alpha. That text is also available for translation purposes, after all.)

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