They are searching every one going both ways across the border. Good start to the weekend?
Archive for the ‘Life’ Category
Border Woe
Friday, September 25th, 2009Phone-tastic
Monday, August 24th, 2009I finally joined the smart phone revolution. In fact i’m blogging from my phone right now!
No, I didn’t get an iPhone. I looked at them, and yes they are cool, but I like mine even more. I ended up getting an HTC Magic; one of the phones running Google’s Android OS. It fits well since my life is basically Google-powered anyway. Everything has worked smoothly and intuitively right out of the box.
Since getting the new phone and literally having the internet at my fingertips I’ve been going through a phase that I can only compare to when I first got internet access 12 years ago. I’m up until ridiculously late every night just surfing the web, listening to internet radio and watching YouTube.
It is also my first GPS device. GPS + internet is very cool and filled with possibilities! Some of the “augmented reality” applications are very cool. One example is using the GPS+maps+camera to overlay the map data on top of the live camera image using the GPS data.
Well hopefully this post works 
The Getaway
Thursday, August 6th, 2009Things sure haven’t been ideal at work lately. If you read the gaming news you’ll know that the project I’ve been working on (which I won’t mention here) has been put on hold. As part of this change I’ve been moved to a new project. A project that I have zero interest in.
I hate times like these. Going from something great to something terrible.
On the plus side, it means that I got my compensation time a little earlier than planned and I have enjoyed having the week off. We headed over to Salt Spring Island for the long weekend, and it was fantastic. They have one of the top rated Farmer’s Markets in Canada, and it definitely lived up to the billing. We love food, and it surely delivered.
We also had fun touring around the island. I think I could have stayed there forever. It reminded me a lot of small town life, and how in some ways I really miss that. I miss being in a community of friendly people where strangers say Hello on the street. A place that isn’t over run with the homeless. Most importantly, a place where life is a little more relaxed.
Once again, the thoughts of running my own studio have drifted back into my mind. It is pretty much a given that at some point I will end up working for myself or starting a company either myself or with others I know and would love to work with again. Being a low paid cog in a multibillion dollar machine can be a little depressing at times.
Enough of that, time for some pictures!
In addition to the Market, the view and the farms; we also found a great little restaurant. The kind of place we wish we could find around where we live. If you are ever in Ganges on Salt Spring Island I whole heartedly recommend that you should stop by Auntie Pesto’s (their homepage is under construction, so this is a link to the Salt Spring Island Chamber of Commerce site that has the pertinent details for the restaurant) for a bite to eat. I have never encountered such a perfect balance of quality, portion size and value. It was so good, we went twice and nearly trekked our way there for a third round with their menu.
And now it is time for a couple of days of dedicated gaming before making the return to the grind.
Good, Bad Action Movies
Sunday, July 19th, 2009There never seems to be enough time to do anything these days; and blogging keeps falling to the bottom of the priority list.
Work has been… odd to say the least. There have been a lot of organization changes in the last month. This all leads to uncertainty for everyone as to what product they will be working on next. There are some great opprotunities career-wise, but they don’t sound like fun. There are also some fun sounding opportunities, but they won’t necessarily be good career-wise. I guess we will all just have to wait and see what happens.
We’ve been watching some movies lately. It has actually been quite a while since we spent much time watching movies. Generally we stick to the longer, more involved, plotlines of good television shows. (Speaking of which Torchwood – Children of Earth was absolutely fantastic and you should go watch it right now if you haven’t already seen it.)
However we have managed to have a run of good luck with some quirky, yet excellent, smaller films. In no particular order:
Franklyn (IMDb)
- An interesting split narrative. Essentially one story is taking place simulatneously in two different realties and time periods. Pulled off quite well.
The Fall (IMDb)
- This one is by the director of The Cell. I’m not sure I need to say too much more. The bulk of the film is a story told by an injured stuntman told to a little girl as seen through her imagination. It is well crafted and well acted. I’m not sure how the world managed to miss this film.
The Science of Sleep (IMDb)
- A quirky french film about a man who often gets reality and his dreams mixed up; and how that complicates both his work and his personal life.
After watching those movies, which were all basically independent films, I started thinking more about all of the movies made around the world that don’t make it to North America. I miss the days of my youth when so many of the Asian action movies would make there way here.
So, I started looking around for some Top 10 lists for various countries. Japan, Korea, France, even good ol’ Canada. And much to my delight I discovered that martial arts action movies (which have slowly been dying out in North America) are still very much alive over seas. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about epics like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (IMDb) or John Woo’s latest Red Cliff (IMDb). I’m talking about campy, over the top action like Crows Zero (IMDb) and Marine Boy (IMDb); or what people like myself would call “fun” movies.
Along the way I found some pretty cool sites for Asian movie reviews such as:
- Koreanfilm.org
- HanCinema The Korean Movie & Drama Database
- LoveHKFilm.com
- Midnight Eye – The latest and best in Japanese Cinema
- JAPAN CINEMA
It is indeed good to know that there are still good, bad action movies being made out there. Even if I do have to watch them with subtitles.
The Work Marathon
Sunday, July 5th, 2009Somewhere along the way towards our fourth milestone, and then alpha, life started getting a little fuzzy. I was at work for 28 out of 31 days there at one point. The worst thing is that on a team of close to 40, there were only 7-10 of us there getting things done.
That kind of situation is never good for team morale.
Regardless, that period is behind us now. I am now on the last day of a three day weekend and I am finally starting to feel like a normal human being again. I know the push to all of the milestones between now and beta will be tough, but at least we won’t be getting heaps of new features piled on us.
Alpha to Beta is one of my favourite parts of a project. It is the home stretch of the project. The point at which you are just fixing bugs. Grinding away at them until you finally hit zero and then scrambling to keep them at zero.
As much as I do enjoy this part of the project, I really can’t wait for the whole thing to be pushed out the door.