24 Aug 2009
I 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 :)
06 Aug 2009
Things 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!
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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.
19 Jul 2009
There 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:
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.
05 Jul 2009
Somewhere 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.
13 Jun 2009
Well, I have to start by saying congratulations to the Pittsburgh Penguins who won the Stanley Cup last night.
As for my Wings? I’m disappointed. I’m not disappointed that they lost. That I can accept. I’m disappointed that they didn’t play last night. Other than about two minutes in the second period and maybe another two minutes in the third period, that wasn’t my Detroit Red Wings team that I have come to know and love. I understand that most of them are injured. I understand that they had a long hard road to the final. In the end though, they just didn’t show up. It resulted in what has to be the least exciting game seven I’ve ever seen.
I am also disappointed by the officiating that took place in the final round. It was bad for both teams. It was bad for the league. That game last night was a return to the clutching and grabbing style of hockey we got used to in the mid 90’s.
I enjoyed the officiating in the first three rounds of the playoffs where they didn’t call every little thing like in the regular season, but in the final round they simply put the whistles away. It was a disgrace to the league and to the sport. I always hear the line “they don’t want a playoff game to be decided by officiating and power plays”, but I don’t understand. Isn’t that how the other 82 games a year that each team plays is decided?
One other disappointing thing for the league, is that because of the way the game was being called it went from what should have been one of the best match-ups to watch in this years playoffs to one of the worst. It couldn’t hold a candle to the hockey that I saw played in the previous three rounds.
You can’t structure the rules and the enforcement of them to let your stars shine, and then turn out the lights during the big show and plan to draw in more fans.
I’ve watched a lot of the NBA playoffs this year as well. They haven’t changed the officiating in the final. Just the other night half of the Laker’s starters were on the bench in the first quarter because of foul trouble. That’s the way it should be.
If the rules are going to be different in the playoffs than they are in the regular season, how can you possibly build a team to be great at both?
I also have to say that the scheduling this year has been atrocious. I miss the days when the playoff games were every other night. Again, it is just crazy to schedule back to back games in the playoffs, and then to turn around and have massive breaks between games of three and sometimes more days. It causes a loss of momentum for fans. You never know when the next game will actually be. I understand that sometimes the arena has been scheduled for other things; but honestly, aren’t those arenas normally built for the professional sports teams? Is it too much to ask them to keep the schedule clean for the few weeks that the playoffs last? I definitely don’t understand bowing to the schedule of NBC who doesn’t even pay to show the NHL playoffs.
Here’s hoping for an exciting off-season starting with an exciting draft.
Go Wings! Go!