Month: January 2008

Do you see the animated .gif above? I’ve seen at least two people use that as their avatar on message boards.

Does anyone know what the source material is for that .gif? I find it hard to imagine it was made specifically for an icon. Anyone know?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVxbAvD1onc&rel=1&border=1]

I didn’t notice this the first time around but there’s someone actually in the corner trying to do work in front of a computer while all of this is happening.

Around lunch time today I randomly surfed to the Future Shop web site. There on the front page was a link to Rock Band the Special Edition. That was strange because they usually don’t put a link like that to a product that has been continually sold out. I clicked on the link.

It was the Rock Band product page. There were 130 sets available for sale. Wow. I paused briefly since I wasn’t sure if buying it through Future Shop was the best idea. I refreshed the web page. There was now 120 left. These things were going fast. I thought about it some more. Hmm… Refresh. Now there were 91 left.

So it was right then and there that I ponied up for my own Rock Band. After shipping and tax, it came to $214. So why did I hesitate at first? Let me explain.

EA, my employer, is the distributor for the game, which means we sometimes get the game in our EA store at the studio. Actually, that’s only happened once and they had to draw names since the demand was so high. In any case, it was sold for $80 less than retail and you take it home that day and of course without shipping costs. Now the store hasn’t gotten any shipments of the 360 version since then and that was a good two months ago. Then again, they could get some on Monday and knowing my luck, that’ll probably happen.

Well, it’s too late anyways, so I’ll just have to wait for Canada Post to deliver my copy. According to Future Shop, the earliest I’ll get it is the 14th of this month. I can’t wait to try out all the instruments though I admit, I won’t be doing too much singing.

I’m also looking forward to a Rock Band party with potentially even girls there. As my place is too small for a proper shindig, I’ll be looking for other venues. Dr. Dave, I’m looking in your direction…

Some of the tracks I’m looking forward to playing:

The Killers – When We Were Young

Radiohead – Creep (always wanted to play the drums on this)

Weezer – Buddy Holly

I forgot to write a post last night because I was trying to figure out a problem with some code at work. I should really not think about work when I’m at home.

After 14 days away from work on holiday, I return to a normal life on Thursday morning. It was a good holiday, especially the Las Vegas part, but I wished I hadn’t caught a cold for the last half of it. Being sick pretty much negated any post-Christmas plans. There were no chicken wing eating contests, moonlight strolls along the beach, nor dinners at Applebee’s. I actually spent New Year’s Eve blowing my nose at home but that was ok because that stuff was coming out green and thick.

Anyways, I’m feeling much better now and just in time for the daily commute. I’d also like everyone to know I’m wearing my new Christmas underwear as I type this. I get a few new pairs of underwear every year for the holidays. As an adult, I’ve come to appreciate underwear as a gift.

I’m not a big fan of “end of the year review” blog posts but it sure beats putting up a proof by contradiction.

So 2007 for me wasn’t as exciting as getting married and then having a vasectomy but then again, how often that does that happen? The last twelve months was a very simple time for me. In short, I could sum up my year like this: saved lots of money, advanced my career a bit, held a job for the longest period of my life, went to New York, went to Las Vegas, played some 360, worked lots of OT, and helped shipped a game called skate.

Yeah, I worked a lot of OT from pretty much early spring to late summer. It was ok though because it turned out to be good for my career and skate. turned out to be awesome. I can’t imagine how demoralized I’d be though if we had spent that amount of time on it and churned out something like Yaris.

Anyways, if I could be not modest for one brief moment, let me point out some accolades for my very first next-gen title.

GameSpy – Sports game of the year and top ten game for Xbox 360

GameSpy – Sports game of the year and top ten game for PS3

Official Xbox Community Sports Title of the Year

Best New Multiplatform IPs for 2007

Some random site’s top ten for the year

Australia thinks we’re ok

Last but not least, the editor of Planet Tony Hawk liked skate. better than this year’s version of Hawk.

“I just know that Skate entertained me an awful lot this year and kept my attention far longer than THPG did, even if I shouldn’t be saying that.”

I look forward to an even better 2008… but with less OT.