Category: Uncategorized

The highlight of my weekend was buying a new band for my watch. This particular watch was one I bought in Hawaii in April. I liked the look of the watch but I knew the leather band was going to be a problem.

Leather watch straps for the most part aren’t resistant against moisture. Moisture from washing your hands, sweat, or anything in involving liquids can ruin a leather strap. Even if it dries out, the strap can retain the smell of whatever liquid got on it. The strap can also start to smell moldy after a while.

I knew I was going to replace the strap with a synthetic one eventually but I was waiting to see how long it would before it became a problem. Well, it became a problem about two weeks ago. I guess the summer weather made the strap start to stink. I’m not even sure why they make that type of strap that retains all that moisture.

Anyways, I went to the Swatch store and replaced it with a silicone one. It’s awesome. It’s light and thinner than the leather one. It will obviously be water-proof and much easier to clean.

Well, next weekend needs to be way more exciting.

As part of his shows in San Diego for Comic-Con, Conan visited Ironhead Studio, a practical special effects firm specializing in superhero costumes and suits. They’ve done amazing work for both Marvel and DC, including Batman vs. Superman.

Conan went to see what goes into making such a suit. I don’t want to spoil it but he gets fitted for his own Conan-style suit and it looks phenomenal. Seriously, it looks amazing. Part of the awesomeness is that it’s not plainly obvious if his physique is enhanced by the suit or not. Part of you thinks those aren’t really his muscles but then again, it looks like it could be. If I were him, I’d wear that all the time going forward.

On Monday, Stephen Colbert returned as his character Stephen Colbert from The Colbert Report for the start of the 2016 Republican National Convention. Every four years, I wonder how is it possible that I hear even more hatred, fear-mongering, and Bible-thumping compared to the last convention, yet right-wing Americans dig deep and find the strength to hold back humanity again. One might even be able to laugh at this if the stakes weren’t so high.

One of the perks of returning to EA as a regular, full-time employee is the game console credit. This perk is not new as I believe it’s something they were offering almost twenty years ago. It used to be a one-time $100 credit towards the purchase of a new game console. It was literally a one-time thing though. If you bought a Sony PS2 in 2002 and used up your credit, you’d be on your own paying for any new consoles years later. As consoles came out in subsequent generations, long-tenured employees complained it kinda sucked that they had just one credit.

EA changed their mind and now all regular employees (even those who used their original credit) have another credit to use towards the purchase of a new console. The credit is even adjusted based on your country of residence. Due the variation in console pricing between regions and the strength of a country’s currency, consoles can be much more expensive in certain countries. I believe for US employees, the credit stands at $100 USD for but Canadian employees, it’s $150. The credit also had a time limit. It has to be used within six months of your start date. For me, I’d have to buy a new console by December 6.

Getting $150 off an Xbox One or a PlayStation 4 is a great deal. The interesting thing is, I’m not even sure if I really want either of those. I loved my Xbox 360 but neither of the current consoles have had me running to the store. If had to choose though, I’d easily choose the PlayStation 4. I’m slightly biased because I’ve had a chance to develop at least one game on either platform. Microsoft made the Xbox 360 a joy to develop for, especially compared to the PS3. Microsoft took all of that good stuff and threw it out the window. Making a game for the Xbox One is a pain compared to the PS4. Sony learned from all their mistakes on the PS3 and now the PS4 tools work really well.

So why don’t I just go with the PS4? It would be that simple, except that there is more powerful PlayStation 4 coming out sometime in the next six months or so. Therein lies the problem. The Playstation Neo is definitely coming out but the release date hasn’t been confirmed. Some people say it will be out sometime in 2016 but that’s not a given. I don’t want to be in a situation where I buy the current PS4 model and then see the beefier model in the stores the next week. Why does the increased horsepower matter? At E3, earlier in June, I read that the faster PS4 was designed in part, to properly power the PlayStation VR headset. Though this might be just hearsay, it’s been speculated that the current PS4 model is not powerful enough to truly give a proper VR experience. If I were to get a PS4, I would also be interested in getting the PlayStation VR headset.

So do I wait and hope the Neo comes out before December 6? And if it doesn’t, do I spent my credit on the slower PS4?

Of course, this is a completely silly problem to have, worrying about applying a credit on piece of consumer technology designed to entertain. The other option is to just wait. Time is the ultimate discounter. In late 2013, the Xbox One was $500 at launch and now you can get it for less than $350 in some places.

This is another of those first-world problems that most other people would love to have. Will there be a PlayStation 4 in my living room before December 6? I’ll keep you posted.

The 2016 Republican National Convention is taking place this week in Cleveland. So far, it’s been an absolute mess and about one “hail victory” away from being a Nazi rally. The convention is a focal point and magnet for of the worst kinds of people who call themselves Americans.

This farce though is a goldmine for political commentators and comedians. Stephen Colbert was or still is at the convention but in the form of “Caesar Flickerman”, one of the characters from The Hunger Games. I know that Triumph is also at the convention! Can’t wait to see his stuff too!

For the last two weeks I’ve done my best to eat healthy every single day. For lunches at work, I have the same old boring salad with boiled chicken breast, walnut pieces, dried cranberries, and a strawberry vinaigrette dressing. I avoid snacking as much as possible, with maybe an odd small cookie or two during the day. In the evenings, I have a decent dinner, reasonably low in fat and carbs.

On Friday, I was starving after work and I decided I’d earned a little bit of delicious food so I went and got a chicken burger and some fries. In the grand scheme of things, not a terrible bad meal. It tasted so good, especially after my two weeks of healthy eating. About two hours after dinner though, I felt hungry again. I heated up a PopTart, thinking it would be enough to last me until next morning. An hour after I ate the PopTart, I was hungry again. This time, I decided to heat up a can of soup. I felt like there was a deep-rooted hunger in me that just wanted to keep eating.

I went to bed without eating anything more. On Saturday morning, I woke about 11am. I had a dentist appointment at 12:30pm, so I decided to have another PopTart for breakfast. I was thinking it would be enough until I could get some lunch after the visit to the dentist. I left the dentist office at about 1:30pm and I was almost shaking with hunger at that point. I was so hungry. I immediately went to the pizza place two doors down and got two slices of pizza and brought it back up to my place. I ate both slices in quick order but it felt like it barely dented my hunger. I was already thinking where I could get some more food. I somehow waited another hour before heading out to get some Thai chicken wings and some rice and gai lan. I came back home with the food, ate all the wings right away and ate about half the gai lan and rice. It was only then I felt somewhat satiated.

From about dinner time Friday to about dinner time on Saturday, I felt like eating and eating some more. I’m not sure if my body detecting some sorta deficiency in my diet. I like to think I’m not deficient in protein, vitamins, or any of the really important stuff. I’d like to think that I’ve cut back on my carbs, sugar, and fats. Of course, that’s all the good stuff and maybe that’s why my body is craving it.

I’m going back to my boring salads for lunch on Monday and more sensible dinners in the evening. I wonder if I’ll get these ravenous cravings again.

This evening I saw for the first time, real, nearly finished gameplay footage from a game I worked on over two and a half years ago. If you recall, I wrote a post about the game’s announcement trailer but at the time, neither myself nor the public knew what the game looked like during actual gameplay.

Apparently this footage was taken during E3 last month but even though I was there, I totally missed this. It’s quite odd to finally see what the game looks like with nearly complete textures, levels, visual effects, lighting, audio, and game mechanics. When I was there it was very early on in the project and obviously I could not imagine what it would look like now. I don’t want to get into the details but there has been a lot of churn in the project. For example, the lead campaign designer in the above video was not there when I was on the project.

From a completely selfish point of view, I now wonder if my name will be in the credits. Probably not.

At work today they sent out a company-wide email. Someone at the studio is battling cancer and receiving stem cell treatment. The email wanted people to sign up to become a donor for stem cells because it was so helpful for the person with cancer.

I thought this was a great idea so I read the email further about the requirements for being a donor. I quickly saw that you had to be in good health and between the ages of 17 and 35. I felt a slight sting because I am over 35 years of age. I could not be considered a stem cell donor. At least from this point of view my body was too old to help anyone. What a bummer.

I turn to my co-worker next to me who was also reading the email at his desk. He’s also over the age of 35 and we both sat there thinking how old and useless we were.

Getting old sucks.

We as a civilization have built this incredible thing called the Internet, a vast data network connecting people from all parts, even the remotest, of the world. While technically there are no borders on the Internet, people, government, and corporations have placed artificial gates across the global network. For example, not every single video on YouTube is available to people, depending on where you live.

The dreaded “The uploader has not made this video available in your country” message appears because corporations have paid money for digital distribution rights for that particular country. Those corporations don’t want you to see that content on YouTube, they want you to see on their (most likely paid) platform. This problem is particularly evident in Canada where many popular YouTube clips are not available.

There have been many harebrained and inconvenient solutions to this problem but none have been as easy and slick as the one I found last week. The site YouPak allows you to view any YouTube video no matter where you are visiting from. The site seems to know whenever any YouTube video has been uploaded, so it looks essentially like a mirror of the actual YouTube site. It also contains all the meta-info for the original YouTube video, including comments.

As an example, try to view this video if you’re in Canada. Nope, you won’t be able to. I’ve been able to embed that video though above by going through YouPak.

If you ever encounter a YouTube video that has been blocked from your country, Canada or otherwise, just replace “youtube” in the URL with “youpak” and your video will be available.

Let’s make the Internet more global again.