Month: November 2011

I went to a fundraiser to fight cancer this evening. It was full of people from the local video gaming industry. I think there was about $4000 raised. There was also a silent auction. Someone convinced me to chip in $50 as part of a $700 prize which consisted of a one night stay at a penthouse suite at a local hotel. Apparently that suite goes for $5000 a night. A good deal for sure but I wonder how we’re gonna take turns sharing the bidet for the night.

More than a week into this month, I was on my way to work when I looked down at my transit pass. I was still using my October pass. The beginning of November arrived and passed me by and I had just forgotten to get a new pass. I had ridden on Skytrain at least sixteen times, about half an hour each time and luck saw to it that I was not checked once by any transit employee. Here’s the most interesting thing, I even rode on several buses while having an expired pass. I flashed the pass at the drivers and I usually keep the pass out long enough for them to read it. None of the drivers noticed and they all waved me through as if I had pulled that old Jedi mind trick.

Once I noticed I had an expired pass, I decided to get a November one. It took a few tries to find one, as most places had already sold out. I eventually found one at a corner store near the downtown east side. The lady behind the counter mentioned that it was almost two weeks into the month and here I was buying a monthly pass. I explained to her I’d ridden for free until now anyways so it would just even out.

I was lucky to have not been caught. A day after I bought my new pass, I actually was checked on the Skytrain. On a final note, freeloading and freeballing are not the same thing, trust me on that.

Welcome to another edition of “Did You Know?”!!!

Did you know in the almost three years I’ve lived in my apartment I have never had food delivered to my home? That’s right, no pizza or cupcake deliveries to my home thus far. The reason is I live very close to many different food places and getting things delivered would more expensive and actually take longer than if I just picked it up myself. I am within walking distance of a Boston Pizza, an independent pizza joint, a sushi joint, and a Chinese place. I suppose if the Keg Steakhouse did takeout I could count that too.

There isn’t a KFC within walking distance of my home, perhaps that I’ll be my first home delivery.

On Tuesday evening, I was at a social function where I met a group of people I didn’t know. As I was making small talk with a young lady, she mentioned she used to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers. They were the company that Black Box shared the building with when EA still had a downtown Vancouver presence at 250 Howe Street. I told her that I worked for EA in the same building and that we were probably were there at the same time.

She then mentioned how easy it was for her to figure out who worked for EA when everyone piled into the elevators to go up to the various floors. While her co-workers were in business attire, us EA slobs were in t-shirts and jeans. She then said that some EA dude actually wore slippers around the office building. That was me I said to her. I was the only guy I knew who wore slippers around the studio and I used to wear them in the elevator when I went between the 12th and 19th floors. Here’s a picture of me wearing my slippers.

I miss those days and being that guy.

A couple of months ago, I was waiting for the elevator to go downstairs in my apartment building. When the elevator arrived, it was packed full of people. There was barely enough room for me to slip in and slide into one of the front corners of the car. As the doors closed, my cell phone started ringing in my jacket pocket. Now some of you, my loyal readers, know that one of the biggest pet peeve is when people talk on their cell phones in small, cramped public spaces like in elevators and public transit. Why is that the people who talk the loudest on their cell phones in these places are the ones with the most inane, boring, and aggravating conversations? I don’t like being a hypocrite so I really didn’t want to answer my phone. I did, however, look at the call display to see who it was. It was a friend who was calling though, a dude who I was going meet up for lunch soon but hadn’t worked out the details yet. I know I could have just let it go to voicemail and call him right back but I didn’t want him to think I was ignoring his call. So I came up with a compromise. I answered the call said somewhat discreetly:

“Hey man, I’m in the elevator and I don’t want to be that guy. I’ll call you as soon as I get out.”

I quickly put my phone away and I didn’t think anyone really had heard what I said. I stole a glance to my right and I saw a young lady who was looking down at her feet and trying to hide a smile. I guess she overheard my short conversation. The rest of the ride down to the lobby went in silence. As everyone piled out of the elevator and began walking to the lobby doors, I heard the young lady say to her elevator companion:

“Dad! You’re that guy all the time! Ha!”

Young lady, I hope you and your father learned a lesson that day. Don’t be that guy.

 

This is a reminder that A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas is now out in theatres. If you like funny movies you should go see it. If you enjoyed any of the two previous movies you should go see it. If haven’t seen any of the two previous movies you should go see it. If you want to support movies with lead actors who don’t conform to traditional roles, you should go see it. If you have extra money lying around you should go see it. If you don’t want to go see it you should still go see it. Did I mention it has Neil Patrick Harris in it? That’s right, NPH himself. You should go see A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas.

A few days ago, I saw some of my co-workers coming back from lunch. After they had eaten, they took a small detour to do some shopping. They came back with some Nerf Vortex products. There is something very pleasing when you see grown men buy toys for themselves. It didn’t take long before I got shot in the chest with a disc with one of the weapons.

I wondered if they were going to do anything else with their toys. It didn’t take long for me to find out. After 6pm on Friday, I strolled into the lounge to find that a bunch of them had set up some sort of battlefield complete with cover consisting of portable walls, stacked chairs, and large boxes. I found out they had divided themselves up into two teams for some sort of war game. The goal was to capture three “flags” and bring them back to their respective home bases. These “flags” turned out to be magazines but that was ok. You could also win a round by killing all members of the other team.

I watched about three rounds of this and it was pretty entertaining. Each round didn’t last more than two minutes. In fact, it took longer for them to look for and collect all the shot discs than to actually play the round.

I’m lucky to live in an apartment that has floor to ceiling windows. The windows give me a great view of the city but it also gives the apartments across from me a great view of my living room. When I first moved in, I kept my blinds closed during the evenings because I felt like I was on display. As I got settled, I wanted to see the view during the evenings and I got lazy so the blinds stayed open.

Laziness also keeps a lot of my clean clothes in the dryer after I’ve done my laundry. I can’t be bothered to put it back into my dresser or a basket. This means that after I shower, I have to go get clean underwear directly from the dryer. The dryer is also in full view of my living room windows. I shower in the evening, so for several seconds every night, I expose my pudgy bare ass to anyone looking at my apartment as I look for clean ginch. I suppose I could get the underwear before I shower and bring it into the bathroom with me but that smacks of extra effort.

I generally don’t lounge around naked in my apartment at any other time. No one wants to see a naked dude doing chores or washing dishes in his apartment. I wonder if anyone has seen me in that short window of opportunity (no pun intended) where I am naked.

In 1999, I went to the theatre to see a movie called American Pie. It was a film that garnered a lot of buzz for being a new, raunchy teen comedy that re-energized that genre. Though the movie was rated 18A, a lot of teens under the age of 18 were able to buy tickets and get into the theatre. I know this for a fact because at my showing, several ushers came in and said they were going to check IDs. I was with some friends and we were all over the age of 18 so it was no big deal to us. The movie was rated 18A though, which meant you could be under 18 and still see the movie if someone old enough brought you in. Some resourceful kids in front of us turned around and asked us if we could be their movie “chaperones”. We reluctantly said yes but only if they would explain what high school kids thought was cool at the time. The answer was not us. Anyways, it didn’t matter in the end because the ushers checked less than half a dozen IDs in an auditorium full of underage moviegoers.

American Pie went on to make a lot of money and two theatrical sequels. I thought American Pie 2 was great but I wasn’t a big fan of American Wedding, the third movie. I didn’t even bother with the four direct to home video “spin-off” films which didn’t involve many of the original cast.

More than a decade later, the original cast has re-assembled for a new movie called American Reunion. I liked what I’ve seen from the trailers, one of which you can see above. It’s great that they brought back all the original cast members, even many of the actors who just had small parts in the first film. It’s interesting to see where all the actors have wound up since they made the first movie. One could argue Alyson Hannigan is currently the most visible performer out of the bunch with her regular work on How I Met Your Mother. Some of the actors don’t appear in mainstream Hollywood films anymore. It’s interesting to note that actor John Cho probably has risen farthest since his very small role in American Pie. His character had about two minutes of screen time where he originated the pop culture term “MILF“. If you don’t know what that stands for, go ask your Mom. In the last ten years, he’s gone on to star in the Harold and Kumar movies and he is the new Sulu in the Star Trek reboot. All that from being “MILF Guy #2”.

The Internet has and continues to give us wonderful, awesome things. Some of those things are illegal. An example of such illegal things would be pirated games. Don’t download pirated games, if not for your own conscience, for me. My livelihood depends on honest sales of video games. Then there are the gray areas. In this particular case, I’m talking about broadcast television. The streaming of broadcast television over the Internet has been a tug of war between the channels themselves and the people who stream it free. The channels believe this is stealing. Is it stealing if I find a stream of a channel at work but I already pay for that channel at home?

I mainly use these free streams to find broadcasts of Vancouver Canucks games that I don’t have access to while at work. The one site that I use frequently can be found here. It used to go by another name but I won’t mention here because they had some legal trouble a while back and I don’t want to bring that up again. You can probably watch every single NHL game that is being played on any given night, which is crazy if you think about it. If anyone asks, I didn’t give you that link.