Pain

Marc is probably pained from his lack of sleep lately (see previous post). Coincidentally, he recently worked on Pain, a game for Playstation 3.

Last month he flew down to LA to record David Hasselhoff sing the feature song for the game and record the band. He came back and mixed it in the Sony studios here in the Bay Area. The Hoff is currently a judge on America's Got Talent and is also known for starring on Bay Watch in the '80's and 90's.

Sony got the rights to the song Do You Really Want To Hurt Me, originally done by Culture Club. Seems like the perfect song for a game called Pain.

The trailer recently came out for the game and includes a snippet of the song, which will be available as a download. Check it out.

Lovers Park

There is so much to write about...a week of fun during a visit from my dad, delightful visits with friends, the school walk-a-thon, a new school the kids have been visiting. The list is endless.

Life has been good, but busy, especially the last several weeks. Marc has had the opportunity to mix a new album for Kasabian, a band that's HUGE in England but no one knows here. He's had the best time mixing, with so many great songs, but it means working at his Sony job during the day and going straight to work on the new CD after and working until 3 or 5am and then doing it all over each day, plus working Saturday's. Kasabian's label is Sony BMG, so he's inadvertently been working for Sony about 20 hours a day. He's tired, I'm tired and we all miss each other. He finally finished in the wee hours this morning and we're so pleased to have him home again.

Now that life is starting to get back to normal, I need to muster up my memory of a sweet story that happened several weeks ago. I can't go without journaling it. I definitely want to remember it when I'm old. It's a story about Matthew.

We go to parks all the time and usually Matthew likes to play by himself or with Madeleine and me. One day we were at the park and a girl kept trying to get his attention. He ignored her but took note of it and asked me "boys don't play with girls, right?" I told him "it's okay to play with girls. I know at school that boys and girls tend to play separately...however, I recently heard that your very good friend Max has been making friends with girls at school". He seemed impressed by this fact and trotted along.

Next thing I know he's playing with two little girls and having a grand time floating all over the playground doing this and that. At some point, one of the girls leaves and Matthew is left to play with one remaining girl. I walked over and talked to them and found out her name, Bianca. Immediately Matthew gets starry eyed and says, "Bianca...Willie Wonka...Mom, I love her name!" He loved her name and loved playing with her. It was getting on towards dinner time. I was really tired and hungry, yet I couldn't bear to end things.

Finally, Bianca's mom broke the hard news and told Bianca is was time to go home. They both looked devastated. They realized that their poetic moment was over. Bianca started crying and followed her mom. Matthew stood and watched with his whole body melting in sadness. I told him he should run after her and say good-bye and and tell her that he had fun playing with her. He ran towards her and when he caught up he nudged her arm to get her attention and told her exactly what I suggested. She turned and looked with tears streaming down her sweet little face and then came a smile with the words "I liked playing with you too". She continued to follow her mom and went out the gate. He blew kisses to her and yelled "I'll miss you". She returned the air borne kisses and yelled "I'll miss you too". I said to the mom, "I think Matthew really liked playing with your daughter today" and she agreed that they got on well. I wanted to exchange numbers so that they could play again, but there was an awkwardness because, ironically, it was the first time we'd had a chance to speak to each other. They kept walking and Matthew watched for a few seconds before he lowered his head and sadly walked back to where Madeleine was playing.

As I watched, I noticed that Bianca and her mother had turned right at the end of the path, which led them back to the corner where we were headed. There was a hill there, so I told Matthew to look up so he could see Bianca again. Excitement filled his body and he yelled towards her "bye Bianca". She blew kisses back one last time and ran to keep pace with her mom. He blew two more kisses toward her back and looked longingly as she faded along the path into the trees. He glanced back at me and seemed surprised that I was watching. He had been caught up in a world all his own. For some reason he felt the need to reassure me and said "Mom, don't worry, I still love you more" and then he went back to climbing. I melted.