James has the database in a headlock right now and is beating it into submission. Things look to be greatly improving, and there is a plan of attack that will happen in phases over the weekend. We have to take small steps, otherwise if everything crashes we don't know which new change caused it. James has been doing an amazing job.
The UNDER 200 VOTE list has shrunk a lot this past week. Thanks everyone! I can't believe how close it is to being gone! If you don't know the story behind the list, please read below. We think the attention generated by the list this past week caused a surge in voting that likely contributed to our database issues. If the site seems to be struggling, it probably isn't a good time to vote on tons of submissions in rapid succession.
The positive side-effect of this past week is that when all is said and done, the database should be running better than ever.
In other news... James fixed the issues with malicious Portal submissions, and my friend Tim is prepping the new fileserver.
I am flying back to Philadelphia tomorrow night. I'll be going from t-shirt weather to sub-arctic ZERO DEGREE FREEZINATION. I produced a lot of Alien Hominid code these past two weeks... It is like programming boot camp out here. Synj is moving to Philly this weekend, so we plan to pick the momentum back up on Monday. I'm converting my BEDROOM to the office, and moving my bed into the small room that is currently my office. It just wouldn't be big enough for the both of us, especially with Synj's drawing tablet and stuff! I spend all my waking hours in the office anyway, so it might as well be a more spacious room.
We met with a sculptor today to see the first draft of an ALIEN HOMINID FIGURINE. We are planning to make a set of five, packaged together. The commitment has already been made, so watch for that in the next few months (the process doesn't happen overnight). I need to set up a YAHOO store or something to handle orders for this stuff! We are hoping that figurines can help off-set some of the costs from game development. Being hardcore indy 'aint easy, not by a long-shot! I'm always amazed at how much can be accomplished by small numbers of determined people.
So anyway... Thanks to everyone who has been voting down the "under 200" list, and thanks to everyone who has stuck around through the database nightmare this past week. It's been a rough start to a new year, but we'll get 2004 back on track, sho'nuff!
