Month: June 2008

It’s a day off here at et.com HQ, so that means everyone has a four day long weekend. I’ll be back later tonight with a post.

A few days ago, I was walking back home from the bus stop when I noticed a fairly large and new sign posted on a metal pole next to the sidewalk. I like to think I’m a perceptive guy, so I swear it wasn’t there the day before.

On the sign, it read that a black bear had been sighted “in the area” and that residents should take care when walking nearby. It then went on to list a few things you should do to make a bear attack less likely. This isn’t the first time such a warning has been posted. A few years back, my sister read a paper sign that said pretty much the same thing. This of course, led to the infamous “woman with a baby stroller or possibly it was a dog” incident that my sister is still trying to put behind her.

Anyways, this time around, it was a full-on colour metal sign on a nice aluminum pole that would be welcome in any Festivus celebration. Port Moody must be serious about its bear warnings now. The odd thing is, I don’t really know where this bear might be coming from. Actually, if you read GK’s post, it might shed some light on where this bear is living.

In any case, it would totally suck if a bear attacked me on the way home.

Before proceeding with this post, I just want to say that I think it’s really great that people want to be nice to me and that they are invested enough in a conversation to mention something relevant to the both of us. I’m trying real hard not to be grumpy and this isn’t a plea for people to stop talking to me or making smalltalk.

Having said that… in my everyday dealings with people, I’m often asked what I do for a living and specifically who I work for. When I mention that Electronic Arts pays my bills, there’s been a fairly common response that goes something like this, “Oh yeah?! I know someone who works there. Do you know <insert first name only here>?”

I usually smile politely and say no that I unfortunately don’t. Here is the reality of situation. There are close to 2000 people who work out in Burnaby at EA Canada. At EA Black Box downtown, we’re about 350 strong. I certainly do know a few people out at the Burnaby studio but it’s far from all 2000. At Black Box, I know most of the people on my team, if only by name in some of the cases. Outside of my team, I know far fewer people on the Need For Speed projects.

The point is, with just a first name, the chances of me actually knowing the person they’re asking me about is low. I think in the almost two years I’ve been at EA, there have been only two random “do you know”s that actually resulted in me knowing.

Of course, I’m not counting the times where a person has prior and detailed knowledge about the local games industry. There have been times where I mention I’m on the skate. team and I’ll be asked, “Oh, so do you know <artist name here> or <software engineer name here>?” Most of the times I’ll answer in the affirmative because they knew my co-workers and what they were working on.

So I hope I don’t sound like a dick by writing about this. Like I wrote above, I don’t think people should stop attempting to have an engaging conversation with me. Just know, if you’re gonna pull the blind “do you know” on me, don’t be surprised if there’s an awkward lull in the conversation afterwards.

No, this is not a post about Hakeem Olajuwon. I rarely dream when I sleep. I suppose I might be dreaming and forget that I did but it’s difficult to say for sure. When I do dream though it’s been the same dream for the last couple months. I had the dream again last night.

I’m hesitant to call it a nightmare since it’s not a scary dream but then again I’m not dreaming about being surrounded by supermodels and fried chicken. The situation I always find myself in is thusly: I am for some reason enrolled in a math or science course at the university level. I have attended the first couple of classes but do not show up for subsequent ones. I also do none of the course work. I believe I neglect the class simply because I get too busy and then forget about it, possibly because of my work commitments.

The main part of my dream centers around the moment I realize I’m still in this course, I’ve done no work for it, and the final exam is either next week or very soon. The dream never proceeds any further than that. I never actually dream that I miss the final exam.

I’m not sure what to make of this dream. When I was at UBC, I never had this happen literally. I never missed a final and I never forgot I was enrolled in a class. I’ve actually heard of people failing classes because they forgot they were still enrolled but this is rare and such stories didn’t really strike fear in me. So is the course a metaphor for something? Am I neglecting some responsibility that I’ve forgotten about? Is it a responsibility to someone? My family? My friends? Who? Maybe I’m neglecting a responsibility to myself! Oh noes!

Dream analysis isn’t an exact science. Perhaps this dream means nothing at all.

So while I was waiting for the bus this evening I saw something interesting. There was a young lady walking out of a lane way towards the street. She had a business-y type outfit on. Up top she had a nice dark jacket and below she had on a smart looking skirt (I think it was an A-line) that ended at her knees. To complete the look, she had some sensible though nonetheless high heels on.

Seeing such a lady on the street isn’t usually blog worthy except she also had a helmet on and was wheeling a decent looking scooter out on the road. I watched her get on the scooter and then zip away, high heels and all. Though I’ve seen my fair share of scooters on the road these days, I’ve never seen someone dressed so formally while riding one. It was the most interesting thing that I saw all day.

I don’t know if its because I travel through the dowtown eastside a lot but I sure see many a dude lying injured in the street. Tonight around 8pm, Hastings Street was closed between Gore and Dunleavy. Lying in the street was some shirtless dude. What appeared to be his bicycle was next to him. On scene were police, firemen, and paramedics. It’s hard to say what happened to him as I was just driving by. It’s possible he just fell ill in the middle of the road but they don’t block off an entire block for things like that. The more likely story is that he got hit by another vehicle though it wasn’t readily apparent which vehicle that was. Maybe it was a hit and run.

I’ve been looking for a local news story about this but so far I can’t find anything. I bet this wasn’t newsworthy.

Both my hosting and e-mail packages were renewed for another year this week. The event which passed quietly made me think about the times when I had free hosting and e-mail. My “server” was actually located in a decent data centre, in Harbour Centre, just a block away from where I work now. The unfortunate thing was that the server was actually someone’s hobby computer. As some of you long time readers know, it was prone to crashes. This site along with my e-mail were unavailable anywhere from hours to days at a time. Since I didn’t pay anyone for such services, there was no tech support of any kind. I had to rely a friend to physically go to the server in some windowless room and reboot the computer by hand.

It’s been nearly three years since I started paying for hosting and e-mail. I wish I had done so earlier. I can’t think of a single time since then that this site or my e-mail has been unavailable. I wholeheartedly recommend the fine folks at GoDaddy.com for all your domain, hosting, and e-mail needs. I pay less than $40 a year to keep this dog and pony show running and it’s worth every penny.

Like the title says. Check this video out.

In a previous post, I detailed my attempts to not eating from McDonald’s until I got back from a wedding in Hawaii. That original post was written on April 30th. It’s been nearly two months since I’ve ordered anything from McDonald’s. There have been two occasions where I stole some fries from a designer but I’ve been good other than that.

Of course, the ban was only for McDonald’s. In the nearly two months, I’ve had fried chicken at least twice, ordered from A&W, and had several slices of pizza. Interestingly though, at the times where I would have usually eaten from McDonald’s, I’ve ordered sushi instead. I will always love sushi and sashimi but I admit the craving for a Big Mac and french fries sometimes becomes strong. Wow, just writing about that made me think about the special sauce and double patties. Oh man, think about baseball and dead puppies… wait, that’s for something else.