This Goes Out to My Pal, Rich

'Sup, Rich? I hear you were poking fun at my lack of blog updates to Tara! So I'm posting this out of spite :P

Anywho, FIFA08 is done and on store shelves. Exciting stuff. I worked on the "Soccer Academy" feature in the Wii version. While there's definitely room for improvement, I think it turned out alright. I'm also on to the next project, but since it's not announced yet I'm not supposed to say what it is. It won't be a big surprise, though ;)

Haha, so the funniest thing happened at work the other day. I was in the washroom, doing my thing, when I hear a phone start ringing in one of the stalls. I knew it was going to be awesome right off the bat since the ringtone was the Superman movie theme. Anyway, the guy picks up and is talking to what sounded like a new hire candidate (possibly looking to organize an interview). The guy says that he's a bit busy at the moment, but can he get their contact information. He gets their phone number and, right when he's getting the email address, the person in the next stall decides they can't wait any longer to leave and flushes the toilet.

Now up to this point, the person on the other end probably didn't know the guy was taking a dump, but only one thing makes a sound like that. And just to clarify things, a person in another stall leaves and flushes their toilet. Twice. The guy gets their email address and then says "So what was your name again? Ah, Melissa."

At this point, I was doing everything in my power to not bust out laughing. He hangs up and mumbles under his breath "Jesus Christ, that wasn't embarrassing." Possibly one of the funniest things I've witnessed first hand. Lesson learned: never answer your phone when you're dropping the kids off at the pool. Don't even take your phone with you to the pool. It's for the best. Gotta give him credit for keeping his cool throughout the whole thing, though.

I've also been getting into a new band called Mastodon. They're pretty well known by metalheads, I just never really heard them before. Awesome stuff if you're into metal!

Misc Ramblings

Well, it's time for my quarterly blog post of doom! A fair amount of stuff has happened in the 3 months since my last update, so I've got a bit to ramble on about.

Work is going well. The PSP version of FIFA is going to hit dev-beta this week (which means 0 bugs) and will hopefully be declared beta for real later this week after we hold 0 bugs for a couple days. The Wii version will be following behind by about 3 weeks. We're almost done, which is always a bit exciting. The next step is finding out what I'm working on next, getting a bit of comp time and then waiting around while we wait for the game to make it through Sony/Nintendo.

I've decided to go ahead and make myself a timeline of having a demo of my adventure game idea ready for the end of the next round of titles at work. Then I'll present it to management and hopefully it'll be considered for the next SKU plan. It'll be an all new universe and characters, so the potential as a new IP should be reasonably high. The demo will be quite a bit of work because I'll be writing my own engine for it along with the complete toolset, but I think it will be worthwhile. Sadly I can't really say much else about it if I want it to be considered for actual production ;)

So, the new Smashing Pumpkins album is out. Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, it's actually pretty good. I quite enjoy it. It's amazing how it takes me right back to memories of high school, though.

Lastly, we got awesome news a couple weeks ago. It turns out that one of our good friends has been transferred back to Vancouver from way up north. He's moving back down at the end of the month. I predict many drunken Friday nights in the future since that's pretty much what happens whenever we visit him anyway!

Also, everyone say "Happy Birthday!" to my brother. He's turning 27 today (holy shit I feel old)!

It's Been Awhile!

So I somehow got talked into starting a crazy website. It all started when I got a new tshirt that says "Have you got your tickets to the gunshow?" with arrows pointing to my (not particularly huge) arms. It was a hit at work and, over lunch one day with my coworkers, we came up with this crazy plan to start a website.

I give you The Travelling Gunshow: http://www.travelling-gunshow.com/

The concept is to wear the shirt and take pictures next to famous landmarks around the world. Eventually I'll have a way of doing user submitted pictures and provide a link to buy a "gunshow" tshirt to wear for said pictures (from Cafepress or something).

Should be entertaining!

Hot Damn, Pics!

My God, I finally got around to uploading a couple pictures.

This was coming back through Jasper after Christmas (in Hinton, I think), taken from inside our car. I just liked the way the light was. It wasn't really that dark, the camera was adjusting the brightness because the sun was actually slightly in view.


This is me in January when we went up to Whistler and took a snowboarding lesson (man, I hurt the next day). I now have a bunch of snow gear, used once! Next season I think we'll try to make it up more often since it was pretty fun.


Hey, I wonder who these crazy kids could be? I think the one in the back is known around these parts as the "Earmuff Nipple Molester" and the one in the front was just some innocent bystander caught unawares. At least, that's the word on the street.


Well, the Canucks have made the playoffs, which makes me a happy guy. And not only have they made the playoffs, but they go and resign defenseman Sami Salo to a 4 year deal (at $3.5 million per season) complete with a no-trade clause. I was actually worried that we were going to lose the man with the 100mph slapshot and then this news came in out of the blue. It's not even the normal time of year for contract negotiations to be going on. Not that I'm complaining, especially since he could have got way more money on the free agent market.

And last, but not least, "Phoenix Wright" is awesome. Everyone with a DS needs to get into that series!

Pics Forthcoming!

I know you don't believe me, but they seriously are. I actually got them off the camera, I just need to resize them (lol, 2816x2112 images) and then they'll be up! For reals! I even promise no nudie pictures of myself, no matter how strong the temptation or demand might be.

Anyway, been busy at work for the last while, with preproduction coming to an end next week. Then on to the "real" work, which shouldn't be as bad as the last project. We're entering production at about 85% capacity (like we're supposed to) as opposed to the (according to my rough estimates) 200% capacity on The Sims. I'm more relaxed already.

Tomorrow (today? since it's past midnight) is also the first game of the EA Ball Hockey League. Somehow I ended up as captain of my team, so we'll see how that goes!

Back At Work

Well, my vacation is over and I'm back at work again. It was a good seeing Jamie and Rich again, not so good seeing over a foot of snow in one day. Luckily the weather cleared up for our trip back over the Coquihala, most likely because Tara and I each bought chains for our car. Fate probably looked at that and decided we were no fun and moved onto some other poor sap.

My second Wiimote (actually part of Tara's Christmas present) finally showed up in the mail while we were away. My order had gotten messed up last time and they shipped me a Nunchuk and classic controller. A quick email to their customer service and a couple days later I received notice that the Wiimote had been placed in the mail and to keep the erroneously shipped classic controller. I celebrated by downloading Street Fighter II for Virtual Console and playing it until the wee hours of the night/morning.

One day I'll get off my lazy ass and finally post a bunch of pictures. We've got some of Jamie and Rich (along with the rest of the gang) from the vacation along with a bunch of pictures of our trip to Saskatchewan that I promised so long ago.

But for now I'm going to go play with my Wii some more. Zelda and Hyrule are still in peril!

Wow

So during the storms here the roof of BC Place Stadium collapsed (it was cloth, held up by air pressure). Someone was lucky enough to film it happening:

Sweet Cracker Sandwich, I Can See!

We got our replacement TV today, so we can watch CSI (and pretty much everything else) in glorious HD again! Our PVR was set to record our favourite programs so we pretty much haven't really missed anything, we just have a crapload of stuff to go through now to get caught up.

Now I just have to move my Wii back downstairs so I can play in widescreen progressive scan again :)

FutureShop's insurance department is also freaking awesome. Booked an appointment, walked in, they had all the paperwork done, we just picked up a gift card for the replacement cost of the TV (they didn't have it in stock at the Broadway location, so we had to go to Kingsway to get it) and the replacement remote. I think it took longer to actually purchase the TV than it did to handle the insurance claim. So two thumbs up for Al at Reclaim (name of the insurance department)!

Oh, I got that "sweet cracker sandwich" thing from the comic strip "Get Fuzzy". The cat in it (Bucky, whom we name our cat after) used that and for some reason I find it hilarious.

Amazing Informational Video

Is It New Years Yet?

Woo, I'm back in Vancouver. Tara's still visiting her dad and sorting some stuff out, but they'll be down here before the weekend (hopefully tomorrow sometime). Surprisingly, the drive to and from Lloydminster wasn't too bad. Almost no snow (there was a bit heading into Jasper on the way that was gone when we came back) and light traffic. I guess people tend not to travel on Boxing Day and on whatever day it was when we came back. Overall, the trip was good, aside from the 3000km or so I put on the car in about a week.

Christmas was about as good as it was going to get. I got a remote control Zamboni (pics forthcoming since Tara still has the camera), a subscription to Jugheads Double Digest (sweet) and a bunch of other stuff. Apparently I may still have another present bar fridge for my desk at work still on the way, but it's gotta wait for Tara to get back.

Our townhouse was not broken into over the break, which made me happy, and my extra Wii controller/nunchuk came in the mail and was waiting for me at the post office. And to top it all off, the Canucks beat the Flames tonight, their fourth straight win and third straight against Calgary. Awesome. Nothing makes me happier than seeing Kiprusoff get scored on, except maybe seeing the Leafs lose. Iginla was also held pointless in the game, warranting a victory beer after the game.

So we're slowly moving past Tara's moms death, me more so than her, though, because she's still taking care of her stepdad. She'll be able to get back to her routine soon enough since he's going out to visit an old friend on Vancouver Island. I think that's going to help him lots, which is good.

Also, we should get our replacement TV this week. Then I can hook my Wii back up and start playing Zelda again, dammit (when Tara's not playing Rayman or Monkey Ball, that is)!

So look for pics of the trip in the coming days!