Late night dinners

The video games industry is plagued by periods of crunch time--necessary overtime to make sure what needs to get done gets done. Games-in-development live a very precarious life and constantly need to prove their worth to their increasingly fickle frugal publishers, so from time to time we put in the long hours to make sure we have something impressive for the guys that pay the bills. And, of course, at some time you need to finish this game so the publishers can make all that money they gave you back.

I've worked for some companies that seemed to never stop crunching and others that seemed to manage these milestones better and work more reasonable hours. So far my stay in the land of the 35 hour work week has been relatively crunch free, but we recently had a few technical difficulties that led to late nights last week to (mostly) get things done.

Companies can ask (or force) you to work late, but they certainly cannot ask you to skip dinner, so when the late nights come a calling, the calls go out for Late night dinners.

Late night dinners in France are surprisingly similar to those in the states. First night we had burgers and friend chicken, or at least the menu had burgers and friend chicken, what we got was pretty much inedible. The burgers looked like they were made of plastic, and apparently had the consistency of play-doh. The fries looked like fries, but were cold and pretty much swished to a pulpy potato mess when you squeeze them too hard (like trying to pick them up), and the fried chicken still had feathers.

That's supposed to be bacon

Every piece had these weird thick hair/feather things sticking off it

The rest of the week's dinners were better. Tuesday night was Chinese food from a local place called Mendo's that has pretty good main dishes, but generally over-priced, over-salted, and under-tasty appetizers. Wednesday was pizza, and well, pizza is pizza (although the french are fond of putting raw eggs on top of their pizzas which might be a little weird for some Americans. Hi Dad!). Thursday was Indian, and I loves me some Indian food, and Friday I didn't work too late, so I just had a PB&J sandwich when I got home.

Click the crappy cell-phone pictures for bigger versions.