Author: Erwin

http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=18660

EA has released another trailer for the game I’m working on, skate. This one features a lot more game footage.

Well, as one can predict when you tape together a watch strap, I managed to lose my watch on the weekend. The plastic strap on my Swatch Chrono Skin watch broke about three months ago. Rather than go to Metrotown to get a replacement strap, I decided I could tape together the strap. Indeed, that did work for about three months. I’d have to retape about every five days or so but it did the job. I’m pretty sure I lost my watch at work or on my way back from work on Saturday because I sure didn’t have it on my wrist when I came home on Saturday night.

I really liked my watch. My parents got it for me for my birthday about three years ago. At 6.6mm in thickness, it was the lightest watch I’ve had in a while, if not ever. This watch kicked ass. I’ve only had to replace the battery once in three years and the cliche about accurate Swiss timing is no joke. My Chrono Skin did not lose a single minute in months of operation. I’d set it to match an online atomic clock and she’d keep pace right with those Cesium atoms.

I feel weird not having something on my left wrist. I like knowing what time it is at well… all times. Actually, more than anything it’s the missing weight on my wrist. I don’t know how people can not wear a watch. I got my first watch in grade three I believe. I worn a watch nearly every day of my life since then. It started off as cheap digital watches you’d get from places like Wal-Mart (Woolworth’s back then). They’d cost less than $10 each. The timing was so bad, it’d almost be five minutes off by the end of the day. There was a button for illumination. It’d power on a lamp that’d drain your battery dry if you held it longer than two seconds. Those watches also seemed to be water-absorbent rather than water-resistant.

As you can imagine, a kid can go through several of these a year and I did. Sometimes just washing my hands would do in a watch. Around when I was 14 or 15, my parents took the family to Hong Kong for the first time. When we were there, they bought me my first Swatch. It was water-resistant which meant I could wash my hands and get water on it. It was also shock-resistant which meant I could drop it on the floor and not break it. It also kept precise time which meant I only had to adjust the time for DST.

I think I wore that watch for about three years, only to start wearing another Swatch. Since then, I’ve had a few more. The only reason I stopped wearing one was because I just wanted a new model or that the material holding the strap pin broke off. The internal mechanisms were all still working.

This has been an excellent commerical for Swatch. I hope I find my watch or Swatch sends me a new one.

In an previous post, I mentioned how I cautiously made a Facebook account. I wasn’t sure if it was just another MySpace clone or if it was at all fun or useful to have. After spending just a few days playing around with the site, I’ve decided Facebook is indeed way better than MySpace.

I was up until 4am last night just looking for people I knew and what they had put on their profiles. Sometimes, I just wanted to see what other people were doing. Adam wrote something on Frank’s wall? I gotta see that! Carly joined a group. Hey, it’s the ex-SJCers group. I must join as well! Who’s that hot girl that Zoe knows? Let’s look at her pictures.

Ok, less time posting, more time Facebooking!

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

Today Vancouver hockey fans were still buzzing about Roberto Luongo’s record 72 save performance in Wednesday night’s game. It reminded me of a game nearly thirteen years ago. It was game one of the 1994 Stanley Cup finals. The Canucks were in New York to face the Rangers. Kirk McLean had magnificiently backstopped his team through three rounds of playoff hockey including a save in the seventh game in overtime versus the Flames that people still talk about today.

I was fortunate enough to watch that game on TV, then again, most of BC was doing the same. McLean was simply brilliant all night, stopping wave after wave of Ranger forwards. It probably should have been a blowout but McLean kept the Canucks in it until Adams scored in overtime.

In my opinion, that first game in Manhattan still remains the greatest display of Canuck goaltending in the history of the team. The short video above shows some highlights of that night. Stay until the end where you see Adams one-time the puck past Richter. My heart had never felt so much joy.

The Canucks defeated the Stars tonight in the fourth OT period, with the game ending around 12:30am local time. Six hours after it started, it was all over. For people who attended the pre-game ceremony it was probably a seven hour affair.

Vancouver game up three one-goal leads and a single two-goal lead. They were thoroughly outplayed in the third period. They gave up 40-something shots by the end of regulation. If you examine the stats, they really had no business winning this game. The reality is they got lucky tonight. If they don’t make some adjustments for tomorrow, I guarantee you the next game won’t go into OT.

There are going to be some tired people out there tomorrow and I don’t mean the players.

As much as I was hesistant, I have a Facebook account. This thing looked like a MySpace clone
from a mile away, so I was ready to lump it into the same trash pile as Xanga and all these other social networking sites.

I’ve been on Friendster for years but very few others that I knew were on it. It just didn’t reach critical mass. On the other hand, I’ve been amazed by Facebook. People who I never thought would join a social networking site are on it… lots of people. Why is Facebook taking off while sites like Friendster didn’t? The answer is unclear to me.

Actually, there are some things about Facebook that I’ll cautiously say are nice features. First, Facebook prevents you from taking your profile page and turning it into a UI disaster. There’s no embedded audio of some stupid song. There’s no changing the colour of the background so that your text is illegible. Compared to MySpace, it’s night and day comparing the two interfaces.

I haven’t bought into the whole Facebook thing yet but look me up if you’ve got an account. Feel free to poke me or add me as a friend.

Throughout this hockey season I’ve been nearly silent about the local professional hockey team, the Canucks of Vancouver. To be honest, at the beginning of October, I believed the Canucks would fall short of making the playoffs. I wasn’t alone it seems since a local poll run by one of the newspapers showed a majority of respondents thought they wouldn’t make it either.

Fast forward to several months later and it turns out I was wrong. The team won their division based on the heroics of their new goaltender, Bobby Lou himself, Roberto Luongo. Yes, there many other players with a great showing but if you averaged it out, Luongo was the difference this season.

On Wednesday, the playoffs begin with the Canucks hosting Dallas. On paper, Vancouver is the third seed while Dallas is the sixth. In reality, the Stars finished the season with two more points (and one more win) than Vancouver and their year was just as good, if not better. Dallas played in the super competitive Pacific Division, while the Canucks were able to capitalize on a bad year for Edmonton and Colorado.

To say the Canucks have an advantage would be folly. Indeed, I am going on record here to state that Dallas will win the series in six games. The Stars are a powerful team and the Canucks will undoubtedly try to go to the well one too many times. Bobby Lou is only human and he can’t rescue an entire team all the time.

It will be a good series but Dallas in six.

I’m fascinated by new stories such as this one. A California care centre for seniors is being sued for negligence. The suit claims that the centre allowed a rat to enter the mouth of a 90 year-old senior, whereupon the rat died.

Apparently, this centre has been in trouble in the recent past as well. Just last year, a senior with dementia wandered away from the facility and was never found.

I am extremely gassy tonight.

In speedy fashion, my manager approved my request for virtual private network (VPN) access. This means I can partially work from home now. Using Windows Remote Desktop, I can now access my work computer from my home computer.

As you might expect, the level of security around all of this is pretty high. EA uses the RSA SecurID system which I believe is fairly common for companies. A username and a password isn’t enough for me to connect to the EA network. I now carry around a small keyfob with an LCD display on it. It shows a six digit code that I have to enter in whenever I log in. This code changes every sixty seconds according to a specific algorithm. The servers at EA know this algorithm as well, so the numbers have to match up at both ends.

As a test, I connected tonight after coming home. I added a couple lines of code. It’s not exactly like being there because the connection lags a bit but it’s not bad. While I can write, edit, compile, and read code, there’s no way to really test the game. I can run it but since I can’t see my TV or move the controller, it does have its limit. Still having e-mail access and the ability to write code is still pretty nice. Yay! EA now gets productivity from me even when I’m home!