The Java Project That Cannot Be Named is going swimmingly (and that's the second time I've used that adjective this week, esoteric cuss that I am). They were hoping for "first playable" (i.e. you can start to interact with the game) to be ready around the second week of August, but I hit that milestone last Friday. I'm looking at being feature complete (game is fully playable with placeholder graphics and text) today.

Being ahead of the game is a plus, because that'll give me a couple of weeks to add not only polish but also a pile of niceties that they were hoping I could add. Stuff like animated sparkles and jumping bonus icons dancing porcupines and such.

Okay, maybe not dancing porcupines.

Speaking of which, I've been having the weirdest conversations with my daughter lately while on the way to Kinder-Care. They go like this:

Maggie: I see a porcupine!

Me: Where?

Maggie: [pointing up] Up in the sky!

At first I thought she was just being random (a skill she acquired from her father), but I finally figured out what was going on. She was pointing at the logo for the Southlake Dragons (the local high school football team) on the side of the water tower near our house. It's a circle with a spiky dragon-head in it, and it could be confused for a cartoon porcupine if you were two years old.