BREAST MILK

My good friends Nic and Marcia are in town for a wedding. I met both Nic and Marcia when I was living at St. John’s College. Until I busted out of my shyness cocoon and became the social butterfly that was Wu-Tang, they were my main friends at SJC.

Nic and Marcia live in Ottawa now. Since I last saw them, they managed to have their first kid, Nyah, a lovely daughter. They were nice enough to come downtown to have lunch with me. Lucky for me, they also brought Nyah along in an all-terrain stroller.

After many hugs in the lobby, we decided to head to Steamworks for lunch. We sat in the cafe part of the restaurant. I really liked it. It’s way better than the stupid basement part of the restaurant. It wasn’t long before Marcia asked me if I wanted to hold Nyah. I was apprehensive for like a microsecond before I remembered how much I love babies.

Marcia handed Nyah over to me. I held her underneath her arms. As she stood on my lap, she looked at me and I looked at her, in some sorta weird baby Mexican standoff, without the guns. Nyah began waving her baby arms about. Then the grabbing started. For some reason, she focused in on my mouth. With that odd and disconcerting baby strength that seems to come out of nowhere, she grasped onto my lower lip and began squeezing with some incredible force. Marcia had to intervene and removed my lip from Nyah’s hand. As I played with her for several more minutes, Nyah grabbed onto my face at least half a dozen times.

Finally, Nyah got bored of me and our food came. Back into the stroller she went. After we ate, Nyah got fussy and Marcia decided to feed her right in the restaurant. Marcia was very polite with her breastfeeding as I held onto one of Nyah’s feet, just because it was there to hold.

After Nyah was done, she was content again, so she got handed back to me. I didn’t realize it until after we left the restaurant, but Nyah had spit up some breast milk onto my shirt. It wasn’t a large amount but there it was, a streak of Marcia boob milk on my shirt. If you had told me in 2002 that would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Luckily, breast milk dries pretty clear and by 3pm, you wouldn’t even had known what had happened.

LOOPY!

I took a sleeping pill about half an hour ago to help me fall asleep faster so I can get more rest for the beginning of the work week. Unfortunately, I feel hella sleepy right now and I haven’t written my post for Monday yet. With my current mental state, there’s no way I can write anything coherent down. In fact, all I feel like typing is sgfsgfdg fgfd fdgf Jabba sgdgfdg gdfg.

So instead of one post focused on one thing, why don’t I just write what comes to mind?

– I saw Live Free or Die Hard today. Did you know it’s the first Die Hard to be rated PG-13? I wanna watch the DVD with the scenes that would have made it an R-rated flick. Overall, I really liked it. It was lots of gunplay and explosions. Kevin Smith was awesome as Warlock, the Star Wars loving hacker.

– I feel sorry for the boyfriend of the princess I had to stand in line next to at Taco Bell tonight. Oh yeah, she may have tanned legs up to Mars but with that crap attitude it must feel like getting shot in the kneecap everytime she says something.

– Thanks to a coworker, I’m now playing GRAW 2 on the 360. It is indeed better than the first. I am currently using the M468 (without grenade launcher) but am waiting for the SCAR to be available. Did anyone need to know that?

– The new Harry Potter movie is very popular. When I left the theatre today, people were lined out the door just to purchase tickets.

– I have a ripped shirt that I sleep in that exposes of one my nipples. If the shirt is inside out, it’s my left nipple. I didn’t rip on purpose, it came to be that way some how.

– I really should go to bed right now.

– The last digit on my encryption token right now is 5.

– There is a kid that is so excited about skate, he cleaned a store on the graveyard shift for three nights in a row just so he could have the money to pre-buy it. This makes the OT seem a tiny bit more palatable.

– This is the last item on this list

E3 2007

Are you familiar with video game conference/convention E3? Do you remember the over-the-top displays, throngs of scantily-clad booth babes, and full-scale assaults on your senses? Yeah, all that’s gone now.

E3, which stands for something new now, has been toned and scaled down. Now it takes place in Santa Monica rather than Los Angeles. The focus is back on the games. They also moved the date from May to July, this week in fact.

If you remember my post over a year ago, I was happy to be part of E3 as a developer via the game I was currently working on. That game was Shadow-Born for the N-Gage, reportedly the most expensive cell phone game in history. Even while I was writing that post, I knew I was flogging a dead horse in a manner of speaking. I already knew the chances of Shadow-Born ever appearing in the marketplace and being actually played by people were almost nil. The N-Gage turned out to be a pretty bad failure for Nokia. As a result, Shadow-Born will never see the light of day.

More than a year later, I’m working for a new company and on a new game. skate will be at this year’s E3. Unlike Shadow-Born, there will be genuine interest in skate from both journalists and regular gamers alike. Also, unlike Shadow-Born, skate will be definitely be released.

We sent out a pretty solid build for E3. I’m hoping we make some great impressions with people this week! Stay tuned for coverage!

BRUSH WITH DUMBNESS

I have never been much of a car guy. I have yet to own a car. When I drive, I’m just content to have a car that can take me somewhere. If I ever move downtown, I’ll probably just join a car co-op like Zipcar. Since I was 16, I probably have spent enough on computers, video game consoles, and games equal to the cost of a new economy car. If you consider the cost of my education, what it took to get two degrees, you’re looking at a new, luxury sedan right there. So yeah, I’ve never put a whole lot of value on owning a car.

Last night, I was bored and I typed “Porsche” into the search box on Wikipedia. A few minutes of reading and then clicking brought me to the Porsche Cayman, the new entry-level sports car model offered by Porsche. It replaces the popular Boxster model which debuted at the turn of the century.

I’m not a huge fan of sports cars but this model is beautiful. It’s a great looking vehicle. They did an awesome job of designing it. Then I thought, there’s a lot of dumb things I could do with my money right now and one of them is to buy one of these cars.

The base model Cayman is approx. $70 000 CDN before taxes and all those other wonderful charges. In just cash alone though, I’d have enough for a substantial downpayment. Add in my RRSPs and I’d have about half the car paid off before I even drove it off the lot. Considering that Porsche is comfortable selling their vehicles to people with zero downpayment, there’s no way they’d turn down my offer to by a Cayman. Given my current financial situation, I could probably pay off the car in about three years. Think of it! I could be driving a brand new Porsche Cayman!

So while the above is true, let’s turn common sense back on right now. At this point in my life, I should be saving money for retirement and/or the possible purchase for real estate. My money should grow, not devalue the instant I drive it off the lot (no matter how freaking hot the car looks). Let us not forget I have no where to park the car. I’d have to put it outside in a semi-private lane outside the townhouse complex I live in. What kind of person can afford a Porsche but can’t park it indoors? Also, consider what my driving habits are. I tend to drive a car to go to the movies, the mall, and to buy groceries. Do I need Cayman to do that? No. I suppose that once I had such a nice ride, it’d be a waste not to just go on a Sunday drive once in a while. That would probably be a lot of fun, especially in the summer time. Plus, it would be interesting to start dating a girl that just liked me for my car, I’ve never had that happen before. Seriously though, this car would probably sit idle at least five days of the week. I might take it out only on the weekends.

In reality, it would be impractical for me to buy a Porsche Cayman but in some really egotistical and self-indulgent way, I’ll have to be satisfied that I could buy one if I wanted to.

TRANSFORMERS

Lots of people have seen the movie Transformers in the last few days. I was, unfortunately, not one of them. I just didn’t get around to it this weekend. It’s probably made enough money already that a sequel is inevitable.

I’ll probably see it next weekend. By the way, if you’re wondering, the above still is actually from the movie. When I was deciding pics for this post, it was down to that one and a pic of Optimus. I flipped a coin. Sorry Prime.

UNOFFICIAL SKATE GAMEPLAY

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okLWiJJcGgE]

So some dude in Copenhagen recorded about ten minutes of gameplay footage from our game and then uploaded it to YouTube. The above video isn’t the best quality since it was recorded off an LCD TV. It’s the longest and most detailed video of our game currently out on the Internet. The best parts of the video are near the end.

As a developer on the team, we’re really not supposed to comment on these type of things. I will say, however, this isn’t the final game. The video doesn’t show all our cards.

ELEVATOR OF DEATH

I had a meeting at 11am this morning. At 10:50am, I decided I had just enough time to head off to Tim Horton’s across the street to grab a doughnut. It took me only five minutes to get my chocolate dip doughnut and I was inside elevator #5 at Pricewaterhouse Coopers Place in short order, going back up to my floor. Incidently, the building that EA leases their space from was named Vancouver’s “office building of the year” for 2006.

As the elevator rose to my floor on 12, it stopped like it normally did, except the doors did not open. I looked up. The LED display blinked off. The panel was blank. I pressed the door open button. It did nothing. I pressed for the ground floor. Nothing. I pressed for our reception floor. Nothing. Damn, I was gonna be late for that meeting.

I could hear people on my floor beeping in with their access cards, so I was definitely on 12. I looked at the panel again. There was a button for the alarm and there was a button to call someone. I’ve seen both buttons for over two decades of elevator riding. Today was the day I got to press one of those buttons.

I pushed the call button. To my surprise, someone answered in a less than a second.

“Hello?”

“I’m stuck in an elevator #5.”

“Do you know what floor you’re on?”

“Yeah, I’m on 12.”

“Is there anyone else with you?”

“Yes, there’s a supermodel with me and she’s giving me unwanted advances.”
“No, it’s just me.”

There was a flurry of chatter on the other end. Whoever I was talking to was radioing to other people. I began to eat my doughnut.

“Ok, we’re sending a security guard up to 12 to have a look.”

“Sure.”

“Are you having any medical conditions right now?”

“Um, no.”

“Can I have your name?”

“Sure, it’s Erwin.”

“What?”

“(lowly)Fuck.(/lowly) It’s Bob.”

“Ok, Bob, do you work for EA?”

“You bet.”

By now I could hear someone banging on the elevator door and yelling.

“Hello?!?!?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“What’s your name again?”

“It’s Er-it’s Bob. Bob is my name.”

“Is there someone you want us to call?”

“Is this for next of kin?”

“Oh no! Not at all!”

“You can call my Mom if you want.”

“Are you doing alright in there?”

“Yes, I’m doing fine. I’ve lived a long, full life.”

“Oh ok.”

There was a silence for about a minute. My doughnut was now consumed. Then the voice returned.

“Is there someone at EA that we can call for you?”

“Well, I am late for a meeting, so maybe you can call my manager.”

“Ok, we can do that. We’ll also need your full info so we can compensate you.”

“I’m looking forward to getting that t-shirt.”

Just then the elevator started to move and it went up to 16. The doors opened and I was emptied out into a reception area for some stuffy company. I went around the elevator bank and proceeded into the stairwell. No more elevators for now.

I made my way down to 12 and passed by the elevators to get back into our studio space. There were three security guards there on walkie-talkies.

“You should probably get #5 looked at.”

Then I ran to my meeting as fast as possible since I was ten minutes late already. Turns out the meeting was delayed, so I went back to my desk. Soon after, one of the SEs, Derek came to my desk.

“Building security wants to talk to you.”

I went back out to the elevators. They didn’t even know that the elevator went up to 16 and let me off. They insisted on my full info so they could “compensate” me. I told them my real name and phone number, which a security guard proceeded to write down as “Earwin”. What the hell lady? I corrected her with incredible indignation.

I was trapped in the elevator for approximately ten minutes during which at no time did I even feel like I was in the slightest danger. What compensation could they possibly offer me? By the end of the day and for me that was 10:30pm, I had received no offer of compensation.

That was my first time I was trapped in an elevator. It was exceedingly devoid of excitement but perhaps that’s how all such stories should turn out. Here’s a list of elevator mishaps. The worst by far are the ones where a decapitation is involved and the head is trapped in the car with other people.