<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	>

<channel>
	<title>Gather 'Round, Kids</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog</link>
	<description>...good things are about to happen.</description>
	<pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:44:44 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5</generator>
	<language>en</language>
			<item>
		<title>Plot Twister, Optional Quest</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=11</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=11#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2008 23:44:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=11</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Finally done with my real facebook application Plot Twister (http://apps.facebook.com/plottwister), please check it out (yeah, that&#8217;s right, all 5 of you). One new page of Button Men is done and one is done on paper. I&#8217;m also going to redesign the site soon. Currently, I&#8217;m working on some reuseable code for future games and will [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Finally done with my real facebook application Plot Twister (http://apps.facebook.com/plottwister), please check it out (yeah, that&#8217;s right, all 5 of you). One new page of Button Men is done and one is done on paper. I&#8217;m also going to redesign the site soon. Currently, I&#8217;m working on some reuseable code for future games and will be working to finish a few games soon. If I run out of material, Mike Doty has a new flash game done that I can leach off of when I relaunch the site.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=11</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Facebook API must&#8217;ve saw me comin&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=9</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=9#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Sep 2008 21:26:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=9</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Remember how I&#8217;m trying to sell out? It&#8217;s a fire sale. All dignity must go! Well, it&#8217;s sad because I&#8217;ve made no money. So I did what any rational person would do. Sell out even more. Recently I&#8217;ve been trying to learn how to do Facebook apps. It was a pain in the butt debugging [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Remember how I&#8217;m trying to sell out? It&#8217;s a fire sale. All dignity must go! Well, it&#8217;s sad because I&#8217;ve made no money. So I did what any rational person would do. Sell out even more. Recently I&#8217;ve been trying to learn how to do Facebook apps. It was a pain in the butt debugging flash to php to facebook and back, but I think I finally got it. Behold!:</p>
<p><a href="http://apps.facebook.com/evasivemaneuvers/">http://apps.facebook.com/evasivemaneuvers/</a></p>
<p>Yeah, it&#8217;s the same game as the one on Optional Quest except it keeps track of your top score and displays your friends&#8217; top scores along with overall top scores. But you know what? Add it anyway!</p>
<p>While learning this, Facebook decided to change its API and look on me. Not only was there very little documentation out there in the first place, now I have to sift through articles with depreciated info. It also seems that forcing people to add it to their profile page has become harder. I guess Facebook became aware of the cluttered profile pages with a billion app windows. So now, you&#8217;ll have to &#8220;allow&#8221; it to be added to your profile page, which certainly takes away from the viral-ness (virality?) of my app.</p>
<p>On a different note, I came back and I got 3 comments on my last post. I thought nobody read this. One might be spam, I don&#8217;t know about the rest, but I&#8217;ll take it! I celebrated this record high number of comments by mixing some baking soda with vinegar. It&#8217;s never too late to make that model volcano science project that your teachers told you lacked viariables and a hypothesis.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=9</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Halverson and Chang</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=6</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=6#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2008 00:58:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=6</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I had to write up a fake newsletter and memo for Technical Writing class. I had to come up with a company and write a few stories for it. I started the assignment 2 hours before class started and barely got it done. If there are typos in this thing, it&#8217;s because I didn&#8217;t proof [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I had to write up a fake newsletter and memo for Technical Writing class. I had to come up with a company and write a few stories for it. I started the assignment 2 hours before class started and barely got it done. If there are typos in this thing, it&#8217;s because I didn&#8217;t proof read. If you actually want to start a rickshaw business, please contact me, we can be potential partners.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/memopage1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-7" title="memopage1" src="http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/memopage1-231x300.jpg" alt="" width="231" height="300" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/memopage2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-8" title="memopage2" src="http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/memopage2-231x300.jpg" alt="" width="231" height="300" /></a></p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=6</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Lacking Content</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=5</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=5#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 May 2008 02:14:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=5</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Alright, so Optional Quest hasn&#8217;t been the focus of activity lately. So far, the only thing being updated regularly is the comic book (Tuesdays and Saturdays). So, I&#8217;ve finally run out of excuses, school&#8217;s been over for almost a week and I haven&#8217;t started on any flash games yet. That one flash game per week [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Alright, so Optional Quest hasn&#8217;t been the focus of activity lately. So far, the only thing being updated regularly is the comic book (Tuesdays and Saturdays). So, I&#8217;ve finally run out of excuses, school&#8217;s been over for almost a week and I haven&#8217;t started on any flash games yet. That one flash game per week thing is way overdue. So what am I going to do about it? Well nothing yet. Just, a few more days of doing nothing, that&#8217;s really all I&#8217;m asking for.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=5</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Selling Out</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=4</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=4#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:52:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=4</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Alright, so I added some ads onto the website, officially making me a level one sell out. To give a scope of the level distribution of the character class &#8220;Sell Out&#8221;, here&#8217;s break down of the levels with examples:
Levels 1-19: The Novice
Generally, these guys advertise for money on the side. They take their normal career, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Alright, so I added some ads onto the website, officially making me a level one sell out. To give a scope of the level distribution of the character class &#8220;Sell Out&#8221;, here&#8217;s break down of the levels with examples:</p>
<p><strong>Levels 1-19: The Novice</strong><br />
Generally, these guys advertise for money on the side. They take their normal career, talents and fame and attach sponsors to them. At the top levels in this region are Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most Professional Athletes - In order to support their drug habit during the off season, many athletes have added Sell Out as a secondary class. Besides, I&#8217;m sure they have to pay for their own Steroids.</li>
<li>Corporate sponsored interest groups. - Let&#8217;s face it, it&#8217;s just not as great of a protest if you don&#8217;t all have matching T-Shirts. And nothing says the we mean it like &#8220;H&amp;R Block Says Stop Experimenting on Animals&#8221;.</li>
<li>Most content driven websites. (note I didn&#8217;t make the distinction of good content, so this includes Optional Quest)</li>
<li>Most Newspapers and Magazines. - These publications need the classifieds and advertisments in order to fuel their honest journalism.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Levels 20-39: More Ad Than Content</strong><br />
For movie stars and athletes to reach this point, your career or fame is essentaily over, and you&#8217;re just cruising to a stop. In order to get here, they&#8217;ll have to pass up possible class changes at level 20 such as doing porn, releasing an internet sex video or entering politics. This class also includes low grade actors that eventually become a spokesman for a particular brand.</p>
<ul>
<li>Burt Reynolds and William Shatner - Okay, I saw William Shatner doing a commercial for a local law firm, that&#8217;s pretty dang low.</li>
<li>That Verizon Wireless guy. - Being a guy, I don&#8217;t completely understand what women think is attractive&#8230; but am I missing something here? What&#8217;s this guy&#8217;s ace? Is he somehow super attractive or an acting genius that Sprint has kept him for the past 10 years and trying to expand his role in the commercials? I&#8217;m pretty sure it doesn&#8217;t take Tom Hanks to pulled off complicated lines like &#8220;Do you hear me now?&#8221;</li>
<li>Local businesses, especially car dealerships, owned by former athletes. - Why are they always yelling at me?!?!</li>
<li>Nascar racecars (if they were people).</li>
<li>Gossip Magazines - &#8220;Is Angelina Jolie cheating on Brad Pitt with aliens from Braxas?&#8221; Somehwere between the lines of bolded font lies and heavily doctored photos, I&#8217;m sure there&#8217;s an ounce of real journalism.</li>
<li>Games for Windows magazine - If every other article you write has to starts with &#8220;I know we are sponsored by Microsoft but&#8230;&#8221; then you&#8217;ve sold out.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Levels 40-50: &#8220;All Integrity Must GO!&#8221;</strong><br />
Once you&#8217;ve relinquished your soul, you&#8217;ll have advanced to level 40. From here, you&#8217;re a shell of your former self. You no longer have anything to do with the field you originally set out as, but really, in order to get here you have to shed your soul and all respectability. The quest to do this, is extremely difficult and very few people make it through. Here are some examples:</p>
<ul>
<li>The creators of the movie &#8220;Mac and Me&#8221; - <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cqqjOUdgAw" target="_blank">Here&#8217;s a clip</a></li>
<li>Bill O&#8217;Riley - journalist? No, I just get on TV and piss people off.</li>
<li>All the producers on the 20th or whatever it is season of American Idol - When&#8217;s the last time one of the winners had a successful career? Season 1? They should name it 15 Second Idol.</li>
</ul>
<p>Back when &#8220;independent games&#8221; meant free hobby-developed games, many people like me had the dream of making games that people can play for free and enjoy. Eventually, we found out that the only people who were playing our games were other developers. I need to well eat too.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=4</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Happy Birthday To Me&#8230;</title>
		<link>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=3</link>
		<comments>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=3#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Apr 2008 05:07:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Zheng Han</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[All]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?p=3</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today, well, yesterday according to the timestamp, was my birthday. The quarter century mark is almost here and I finally finished this site. I guess that&#8217;s my present. Went out to eat, but was really too old to enjoy a birthday without alcohol. I made my friends cancel that clown and petting zoo rental after [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Today, well, yesterday according to the timestamp, was my birthday. The quarter century mark is almost here and I finally finished this site. I guess that&#8217;s my present. Went out to eat, but was really too old to enjoy a birthday without alcohol. I made my friends cancel that clown and petting zoo rental after they found out how old I really was. They then made me show him two proofs of identification but eventually concluded that I was some master of forging official documents.</p>
<p>Optional Quest, hmm&#8230; will it succeed? Am I selling out? (more on this later) It&#8217;s this or a 9 to 5 middle class job. I&#8217;m not complaining but I had big expectations for myself growing up and so did everyone around me, well, until they found out how old I was. Apparently, if you&#8217;re considered extremely smart for a 14 year old, you&#8217;re actually slightly below average for a 23 year old.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
			<wfw:commentRss>http://www.optionalquest.com/hanblog/?feed=rss2&amp;p=3</wfw:commentRss>
		</item>
	</channel>
</rss>
