| A New Home |
[Feb. 10th, 2006|01:10 pm] |
I've decided to branch out and step away from LJ. My blog from now on can be found at www.hiddenpugmarks.com.
I hope you'll all still keep reading it :) |
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| Chicken Pumpkin Pocket |
[Feb. 7th, 2006|04:47 pm] |
Today it arrived! At long last, after trying to get it since Christmas, it finally arrived. I have my nice shiny new copy of Paper Wings by Cauterize. No longer will I have to undergo the torturne of the 128kbs encoding of the version I bought from iTunes.
Tonight when I get home it will be ripped in all of it's lossless audio glory and the songs will find their way back into heavy rotation on my playlists.
I had tried to get it at the music stores around Montreal. I had tried to buy it from eBay. I had tried to buy it from the sites their website said it was available from. I got very close a little over a month ago when it was available on a website, but by the time I got the cart checkout it was sold out. Then on a lark I was checking the same site from work a week ago and it was listed. So I hurried the hell up and ordered it.
I've been doing this whole thing recently where I take risks. Like recently when I tried an El Salvadorian restaurant and found that I really enjoyed Papusas and Plaintains aren't bad either.
Today I tried a Guayanese(sp?) restaurant. I ended up with a "chicken pumpkin pocket". There was also a "goat pumpkin pocket" available, but hey, one risk at a time :p Overall it was pretty good. Inoffensive. It was exceptionally filling. I swear that there was a whole chicken and half a pumpkin stuffed in that pocket along with some other vegetables.
When a friend suggested the restaurant I was imagining a much smaller "pocket" in my mind. This thing was about 8 inches by 10 inches and 1.5-2 inches thick. I didn't manage to eat it all before it was time to get back to work.
Will I go back? It's uncertain at this point. I think knowing what to expect going into it I would consider it to be a really good meal. I had had my heart set on two eggs over easy, three strips of bacon, two slices of toast with strawberry jam, some pan fries, a coffe and an orange juice for lunch though. So my taste buds didn't exactly get what they had been anticipating.
Now, I just want to go home and smite me some trolls! |
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| Times, They May be a Changing... |
[Feb. 2nd, 2006|05:48 pm] |
I've been feeling and behaving somewhat despondently lately. It's actually very reminiscent of how I was before I left my last job.
I always used to say that the most important thing was how you felt about your life outside of work, and I still agree with this. I also used to say that what you did for work, whether or not you were hapy there, didn't matter. I said this because it is a lesser part of your life.
I've come to believe differently. Work is the reason you get up out of bed five days a week, sometimes more. It has to be at the very least tolerable, and really, it should be better. You need to be able to convince yourself to get out of bed on those days. I, am not always able to do so.
I do believe that having a family would impact this. I may be wrong. However, I believe that with someone special or a few special people in your life that depended on you to get up and do your job and bring money home, that it would be easier.
Again, I could be completely wrong.
I was late for work this morning. I took a long lunch. I'll probably leave early.
Why was I late? It wasn't because I couldn't wake up or because I couldn't get out of bed. I was up before 8:00am. I showed up for work around 10:15am. It only takes 45 minutes to get to work. I just couldn't convince myself that it would be worth my time to go. So, I sat at my computer for a while, put together a new resume, updated my portfolio, and applied for a new job.
It's really kind of strange. I've had four different job offers since starting at work here. I've turned them all down. They were all in different places. I really like Montreal. I am looking forward to the summer filled with all of the festivals and live music and fireworks and well, just flat out fun. It's a really good place to be at this point in my life.
Unfortunately, there are not a lot of opportunities for an english speaking programmer in Montreal. As such, I may end up heading west. Either way, I think things are going to change. I need changes.
When I couldn't sleep last night and I was just sitting in my living room in the dark staring off into space and thinking realized that I'm not the same person who moved to Montreal. I need to find that person again. That guy that was willing to take a risk. That guy that was willing to throw everything to the wind and see what change could bring him.
Overall moving has been a positive experience. I've met some cool and interesting people. I've found some flashes of love and relationship. Not the long lasting, life changing, relationship I've been looking for; but one step at a time.
Thanks for the constant cheeriness Meghan :) |
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| Spinach |
[Feb. 1st, 2006|03:18 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  freaked out | ] |
My lunch had spinach in it today. It looked so strange. It tasted so weird. So absolutely wrong. It sends shivers down my spine. I feel queasy every time I think about it.
Spinach FTL (For The Loss) not (Faster Than Light) |
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| On a Completely Unrelated Topic... |
[Jan. 27th, 2006|11:50 am] |
An Excerpt from the article "Great Design: What is Design?" by Joel Spolsky; or as I like to call it "The Mute Button".
"How could a mute button on a sound system hurt?" After all, if you don't want to waste time learning about the mute button, you can just ignore it completely, right?
No. Because at some point, someone will hit it by mistake, and no sound will come out of the speakers, and if they don't know about "mute," they'll start trying to turn up the volume knob all the way, so when they do finally unmute the thing, the speakers will blow out with an ear-shattering boom that creates permanent, concave warps in each of the walls of the room where the sound system was installed (and a matching hump in the floor of the apartment upstairs).
And since the mute button takes up space on the control panel, now all the other control panel buttons have to be a bit smaller, making them harder to read, and there are more buttons, so the whole interface looks scarier. I swear, it's gotten to the point where I don't dare try to use the clock radio in a hotel room to wake me up. With all the options they have I can never quite tell if I'm setting the alarm clock to wake me up in time for my Very Important Meeting, or programming the damn thing to download the latest news from Mongolia on the half-hour.
This hit me just right today. I broke out laughing at work =) |
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| "I can't get no sleep" - Insomnia by Faithless |
[Jan. 26th, 2006|01:25 pm] |
I just could not sleep last night. I tried my bed. I played some WoW. I tried my comfy couch. I played some WoW. I tried another couch. I tried my last couch. I played some WoW >.>
I listened to music. I installed development software and did some programming. I surfed the web. I counted sheep. I threatened myself with digging out the dreaded dragon book. (All of you Comp. Sci majors know what I'm talking about)
Eventually, sometime between 3:30 am and 4:00 am I just passed out on my bed. I woke up at 7:00 am. Thought "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot"! Coaxed myself back into dream land. Fought a losing battle with trying to sleep until a little after 8:00 am.
So yeah, I'm functioning on around 4 hours of sleep. Oddly I feel better than I do most of the time after 6-12 hours. I hope I can make it through the day and through the raid to Blackwing Lair tonight.
At least this morning, as I sat up on the edge of my bed, I figured out why I couldn't sleep. At least, I think I did. I think it's the same problem I was having with sleep last week, only augmented.
*Shakes fist at air and jokingly curses* Damn you feelings! Damn you!
All is teh gruvy now that I understand. No one else does, but I do. |
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| Super Mario |
[Jan. 25th, 2006|04:00 pm] |
Super Mario. The Francophone Kid. The Magnificent One. The boy who went to steel town USA and became a man saving their hockey team.
He has stepped away from the game he loves once more, and this time will be the last time. He has always magic to watch on the ice. Where Gretzky had hard work, force of will, a good hard shot and lady luck; Mario simply danced and dazzled. Gretzky made the puck go in the net, but for Mario it went in because it wanted to.
For a lot of people Mario is a hero. He was one of those rare people who become a legend in their prime. Mario brought glory and fame to the Penguins by delivering the Stanley Cup.
When Canadians doubted Mario's commitment to his country, he brought Canada gold. In doing so he became unable to finish the rest of the season with Pittsburgh. While this surely made Penguins fans unhappy, it helped to further immortalize The Magnificent One among his fellow Canadians.
It is sad to see such a wonderful career plagued by so many health problems. It is sad to see such a great player forced out of the game before his time.
Good luck to you Mario. The Hockey World will miss you. |
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| Push & Pull |
[Jan. 24th, 2006|11:32 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Why this Last Dance - Cauterize | ] |
Last night my brother-in-law and I made some Gnome rogues in World of Warcraft. We named them Push & Pull. We make a mean duo!
So far, only one person has commented on the naming. He won a prize.
There is a history to the push and pull naming. Many, many years ago when Zelda: The Ocarina of Time came out the original "Push/Pull" problem scenario presented itself to us.
In, I believe the Forest Temple, there is a room in the dungeon with what looks like a three sided vertical gear in the middle. When we got there, we instinctively thought "That has to move".
I happened to be in control at that point. I ran right over and pulled on it. Nothing happened. I pulled again. Still nothing. I believe at that point someone suggested pushing it, to which I said "If I can't pull it, there's no way I can push it."
We spent the next several hours trying to rotate the temple around the room in various ways. Always to know avail. Then ultimately we went back to the room, pushed on the gear, et voila, all was revealed. This is the most famous and fundamental example of Push & Pull.
There was another time previous to that when we were playing Earthbound, and at the final battle we had gone through every possible ability and skill save for one. You see, Pray was pretty much useless throughout the rest of the game, so we didn't think to try it. Then my sister comes in the room and says "Just pray. It's all that's left." My brother-in-law and I looked at each other skeptically, and then prayed. Sure enough, final boss, dead.
In other news, last night there was major wiggage. I was completely out of my mind there for a while. Whether it was the sugar, or the normal inducer for wiggage (there is none) I don't know. I know I was wigging enough that someone actually mentioned that I wasn't my usual self.
Wiggage is a wonderful phenomenon. This is a word that my brother-in-law and I thought we had invented. Then one night we were watching She's All That (I'm a Rachael Leigh Cook fan) and one of the characters used the word wiggage in a sentance. Much astonishment, disbelief and wiggage ensued!
I would like to find an adequate way to describe wiggage. It's like something overtakes you and you become someone else briefly. It's like being randomly intoxicated for free right out of the blue. Just BAM! and you're drunk on life.
The following is a major wiggage inducing line after hours of driving on a lonely highway in the dark: "Geese, Meese, Neese, Cabeese"
If you are not already an insider to the wiggage madness and can translate that from Wigganese to English you get <3 points! |
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| At an Alarming Rate |
[Jan. 23rd, 2006|02:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
My friends are leaving where I work at an alarming rate right now. Friday was the last day for my best friend Jamie. Today my friend Gary, who was our creative director, got flat out fired. No warnings or anything. Just a meeting and BAM!
To add to this, another friend mysteriously took the afternoon off.
So here we are, 7 weeks away from Alpha, and we are bringing in a new creative director with a new creative vision for the game. I feel like a deer caught in the headlights. All I can see right now is the insane and inescapable overtime bearing down on me. I can see this easily turning into exactly what I came here to get away from.
I got tired of working a 12 hour day and thinking, "Wow. That was a nice short day." 60+ hour weeks are for people who don't have lives or friends. If you have either or both of those, 60+ hour weeks will take them away.
I came to work here for two reasons. One, to see my best friend again and hang out for the first time in years. Two, to get away from the 60+ hour weeks and weekends. Now with my best friend gone, and the 60+ hour weeks on the horizon, I don't know if this is right for me anymore.
I've been thinking about going back to EA for a long time. I really love Montreal though. It's hard to say if I could get in to the one here. I know a few of the other studios are just a phone call away, but, ugggh... I really do love Montreal!
What also sucks is that if I were to go to the west coast, I wouldn't be able to keep raiding in WoW with my current group. However, if I stay where I am, and the impending overtime doom comes, I won't be able to keep raiding with them either.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why does this shit happen in my life?
Why can't anything ever be easy and feel right, right from the beginning?
I need a banana cupcake :P |
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| iPod |
[Jan. 23rd, 2006|12:23 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  good | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Nickelback - Far Away | ] |
So I decided today that I'm going to buy an iPod? Why? Meh. No reason more than I want one I guess.
So when I do get it, I'm going to have it engraved. What I'm looking for are some suggestions on what to get it engraved with. The engraving's maximum space consists of two lines which are each a maximum of 27 characters. So that's up to a ~54 character engraving max.
Fire away with suggestions :) |
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