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Meet the Mods: KatieHal

Started by KatieHal, November 02, 2010, 11:08:46 AM

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KatieHal

Forum Name: KatieHal
Goes By: Katie
Real Name: Katie Hallahan (pronounced: HAL-la-han, not HALL-a-han)
Current location: Boston, MA!

About me:

I'm 30 years old and I've been a Boston native all my life. Grew up just west of the city, went to Boston College for undergrad, and stuck around afterwards, too. Despite this, I do not have a Boston accent! It's sacrilege, I know. I also don't really like seafood despite living here my whole life.

I work in the educational publishing industry as an editor in my day job, an industry that's all over Boston. My major in college was English, so this is no surprise really. I also love to write, and I hope to one day actually complete a story and get it out there and published! You'd think being IN the publishing industry would help with that, but I'm completely the wrong end of it for publishing science fiction and fantasy novels!

Stuff I Like:

I LOVE watching TV. I have a crazy list of shows I watch throughout the year, and that I've watched in the past as well. A few on the list of current shows are Supernatural, Gossip Girl, Glee, The Amazing Race, Community, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Doctor Who (the new series), and I'm adding The Walking Dead to that, too. Past shows I've loved include Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica (new version), Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and LOST. I just really enjoy good stories, good characters, and some good drama. :)

I also love reading, again mostly sci-fi and fantasy. I'm currently re-reading The Dresden Files and went as a character from those books for Halloween. There's also the Song of Ice and Fire series, Harry Potter, Codex Alera, the Chronicles of Prydain... I'm drawing a blank, but I enjoy the genre books, YA books, and I've also got The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on my reading list right now, too.

For a more unexpected fact about me, I've been taking American Jiu Jitsu for almost six years now. Our style/school focuses on practical self defense, ranging from ground fighting and joint locks to submission holds and throws. I'm only 5'3", so I really enjoy that the style does not depend on size and strength and is something anyone can learn and use. I'm currently a 3rd rank brown belt and a certified instructor, and sometime this spring or summer I'll be testing for my first rank black belt and then I'll be Sensei Katie! :ninja:

King's Quest:

My first King's Quest game was either 3 or 4, back when I was close to ten years old. I'm pretty sure it was 4, since the cover had a girl on a unicorn and that was just about a guarantee of how to suck me in! I loved walking around, exploring, typing stuff in, finding objects and the whole fairy tale feel of the games, it was all right up my alley.

I found KQ through some other Sierra Games, however. We first had The Black Cauldron from a family friend who gave us a bunch of their old games (which is also how I discovered the Chronicles of Prydain book series!), then we bought Space Quest 2, and then finally King's Quest 3 and 4. I would not beat any of the King's Quest games until MUCH later, however--not until I found the first KQ collection years later and had some serious help from hint books, too!

The Silver Lining:

After graduating college in 2002, I was jobless and living at home and killing some time playing old Sierra games when I decided to go see if there was another KQ game out there. Sadly, there was not, nor was there a Sierra anymore really, but I did find the group that would become Phoenix Online Studios one day! I applied to be a staff writer and was hired soon after, quickly ending up as Cesar's co-writer. This thrilled me to no end, as a pipe dream when I was much younger was to write adventure games when I grew up. And here I was, actually doing it!

At some point, I'm not quite sure when, I became the official Co-Designer and joined the Board of Directors. I'm actually the only female director we have, which I think is pretty cool. :) Back in April or May of this year, I added PR Manager to my title as well, and it's been so much fun doing PR work! The team's great, the work is fun, really just working on TSL in general has been an amazing experience and dream come true!

Other favorites:

Purple
Pot roast
Mexican food
French vanilla coffee
Pumpkin-flavored things
Red hair
Role-playing games
Corgis
Halloween
Karaoke
Friends & family!

And some pictures!

Halloween this past weekend:


Last fall at the 'Davis Mega Maze' (huge cornfield maze with game stations etc inside, really fun!):


Me with horns:


And Rich & I at PAX East last year with our TSL shirts(I'll be there again this year!) (actually this is at a pub across the street):


Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

kindofdoon


Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

Deloria

Indeed! :) Are you a natural redhead? :)
 
Holy Roman Empress
Queen of *all* Albion
Précieuse and salonnière! :D
"In cases of doubt about language, it is ordinarily best to consult women."-Vaugelas
Space! :D Extraterrestrium! :D Espace! :D

KatieHal

I'm actually not. :) But I pull it off as though I were! My actual hair color is brown with red & blonde in it--so, sort of chestnut-ish.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

wilco64256

Do people really try to pronounce it HALL-a-han?  Ouch.
Weldon Hathaway

KatieHal

Oh yeah, all the time. I get why, I mean it does have the word 'hall' in there.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

kindofdoon

Quote from: KatieHal on November 02, 2010, 11:28:32 AM
I'm actually not. :) But I pull it off as though I were! My actual hair color is brown with red & blonde in it--so, sort of chestnut-ish.

Woah, plot twist!

Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

Haids1987

Quote from: KatieHal on November 02, 2010, 11:08:46 AM
I'm actually the only female director we have, which I think is pretty cool. :)
!!!

STATUS:
-Drinking water
-Checking the forum. 

Perpetually. ;D
Erica Reed is Katie Hallahan.
Leader of the "I <3 Doon" Fanclub

KatieHal


Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Deloria

We can even do it without overdoing the mascara like on the poster. :P
 
Holy Roman Empress
Queen of *all* Albion
Précieuse and salonnière! :D
"In cases of doubt about language, it is ordinarily best to consult women."-Vaugelas
Space! :D Extraterrestrium! :D Espace! :D

crayauchtin

Quote from: KatieHal on November 02, 2010, 11:08:46 AM
Current location: Boston, MA!
YAY!!!!!!!

QuoteI also love reading, again mostly sci-fi and fantasy. I'm currently re-reading The Dresden Files and went as a character from those books for Halloween. There's also the Song of Ice and Fire series, Harry Potter, Codex Alera, the Chronicles of Prydain... I'm drawing a blank, but I enjoy the genre books, YA books, and I've also got The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on my reading list right now, too.
What is Codex Alera?
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!

KatieHal

Boston FTW!

Codex Alera is a six book fantasy series by Jim Butcher, who also writes The Dresden Files.

Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

Haids1987

Quote from: Deloria on November 02, 2010, 01:40:27 PM
We can even do it without overdoing the mascara like on the poster. :P
Well, y'know.  Good ol' Rosie the Riveter does the job even with the mascara. ;)
STATUS:
-Drinking water
-Checking the forum. 

Perpetually. ;D
Erica Reed is Katie Hallahan.
Leader of the "I <3 Doon" Fanclub

KatieHal


Katie Hallahan
~Designer, PR Director~

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix." Christina Baldwin

I have a blog!

crayauchtin

*How* fantasy is it? High fantasy? Low fantasy? Somewhere in between?
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!

waltzdancing

I didn't even know that was such a think as high and low fantasy. I though fantasy was fantasy.

kindofdoon

I've heard of "high fantasy", but what is "low fantasy"?

Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

crayauchtin

Low fantasy is like when there's not a lot of magic or where magic is kept secret so it more closely resembles reality -- whereas high fantasy is like Lord of the Rings and King's Quest, where you have elves and dragons and every other person is magic or part of some prophecy.

Low fantasy is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where the people who do know about magic have to try to keep it a secret (you know, until the series finale in which case it's totally fine to have the Hellmouth swallow your town or have a dragon flying over the city and breathing fire at skyscrapers.....), the world itself is not magical and most people have no idea that there's magic about.

Then you have "mid-fantasy" (I guess it's called?) which is like Harry Potter -- it's low fantasy in that the world itself is not magical, but it's high fantasy in that there's a sort magical world-within-a-world.

Am I making any sense here? :P
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!

kindofdoon

Yes, you are. Thanks for the explanation.

Daniel Dichter, Production/PR
daniel.dichter@postudios.com

crayauchtin

Quote from: kindofdoon on November 02, 2010, 11:35:19 PM
Yes, you are. Thanks for the explanation.
Good, cause I was confusing myself. :P
"If your translation is correct, that was 'May a sleepy hippopotamus lie down on your house keys,' but you're not sure. Unfortunately, your fluency in griffin-speak is too low."

We're roleplaying in the King's Quest world: come join in the fun!