Scott M. Rouse

Working on video games I have the opportunity to do something fun almost every day. Today went beyond fun and into the realm of TOTALLY RAD! Xbox and 343 Industries announced that award winning producer and composer Neil Davidge will be creating the score for Halo 4. As part of the announcement I worked on a live chat with Neil via Facebook. Listening to him talk about the creation of the music was incredible and I can’t wait to play this game.

Last weekend I spent a few days at PAX Prime here in Seattle. I attended a number of game industry related seminars and got to check out a bunch of upcoming games including Gears of War 3, Forza Motorsport 4, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Ratchet & Clank 4 All, Skulls of the Shogun, Dance Central 2, Kinect Sports 2, A Space Shooter, Mass Effect 3, Rage, and Rise of Nightmares.

Within the PAX convention was Halo Fest, a celebration of the first 1o years of the Halo game franchise. There was a lot of cool stuff to check out so I spent a significant amount of time at Halo Fest. On Saturday I took Henry and his friend Sam to check it out, they were beyond excited.

Halo Fest

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I pulled two more pieces of second grade creative writing from Henry today. A couple of poems that tickled my funny bone.

Doughnuts 

A doughnut I say getting

dipped in coffee

not that

fun.  

Harry

Harry

my Cat

hissing at me

not so good

hissing

equals

BAD KITTEN! 

Another piece of second grade creative writing from Henry.

On Sunday I went to the skatepark with my dad.

This is either Satan’s Halfpipe or Henry is dropping into the jaws of the Exogorth.

Going though Henry’s writing from second grade I found this cute (fictional) story.

I went to an arcade with my dad. It was called Power Play. I played Running With An Ax. It is where you run as far as you can without tripping. I got to level 31. Then we had pizza and Sprite. Then I bought a game called Fusion Fighter 3. Then we played more games and went home.

I love this story, we’ll have to go to an old school arcade sometime soon. Who wants to play Running With An Ax?

Easter Sunday was a relaxing day at casa de Rouse. After church we came home, ate brunch, and played games. Me and Henry tried out the co-op game on Portal 2 and played some Lego Star Wars III on Xbox.  The weather brightened so we all went on a bike ride to a local wetland to look for frogs and snakes. We got home from our bike ride just in time, it had started raining again. Henry and I decided to play a few games of pass the pigs. At the end of a game he declared “dad I have an idea!” and ran upstairs to his room.

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When I was a kid my mom would sometimes make salmon pie. We didn’t have it often but I always enjoyed it. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest we ate a lot of salmon and I still enjoy it grilled, poached, baked, fried, and smoked but I have not had it in a pie for years.The other week I was at Trader Joe’s and I noticed they had canned Alaskan Red Salmon on sale (also known as Sockeye Salmon). I bought a few cans and made a quick call to my mom to ask her to email me the recipe. Today I baked this for the first time myself. It tasted just as I remembered, especially when accompanied with HP Sauce.

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Last week was Spring break so for a family vacation we went to Legoland in Carlsbad, California. The trip was a combined Christmas gift for the kids from me, my wife, and our parents. By about mid February the kids started counting down the days and by about March 20th it was all they could think about.

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In February I started a new job as a Digital Producer at Roundhouse. We have offices in Portland, OR and Seattle, WA offering a full suite of services from web development to event management. My role is focused on management of digital marketing campaigns in the social media space for our gaming clients. Check us out at roundhouse agency

Here is the view from our Seattle office

My office

Bad, bad blog daddy indeed. When I started this page I thought it would be easy to write a few times a month and as it turned out it was easy in the beginning (when I didn’t have a job). Then in March of last year I accepted a 12 month contract at Microsoft working on Xbox marketing and all aspirations flew out the window. Work, time with family, and other hobbies left little time to write. Continue reading