Category: Uncategorized

So the above video is interesting for several reasons. First, I think Bobby Lee is a funny guy and second, I know some people who worked on this game. Also, Khalya and Bobby have a relationship that is somewhat out of the ordinary.

The above photo is one I took of a glacier while on a boat during my Alaska trip. I used my phone’s photo blur feature, which admittedly, is way better for things closer to you. It’s supposed to keep your subject in razor-sharp focus while blurring the objects around it. It was hard to focus on the glacier given it was miles away. Anyways, it was a nice attempt at a photo.

In the last week or so, I have two random dudes, people who I’ve never met before, compliment me on my clothes. Specifically, they really liked the t-shirt I was wearing. I was actually wearing a different t-shirt each time I received the compliment, so I must be choosing my clothes properly.

The first time, I was walking in a suburban mall with my Weyland-Yutani t-shirt, Weyland-Yutani being the fictional mega-corporation in the Aliens universe. This is one of my favorite t-shirts, not only because of its simple design but because I love the deep shade of blue and because it’s made of a very thick cotton. The whole thing just adds up to a really great t-shirt. Anyways, this dude was walking in the opposite direction and as he was just passing me, he said, “awesome shirt”. I barely had enough time to process that he was talking to me and I quickly blurted out a “thanks”.

Then, just a few days ago, I was walking into the dollar store downstairs when some dude sitting on a bench outside yelled out, “love your shirt”. I was in this awkward predicament of being halfway in the store and half out, so all I could do was yell back, “thank you”. I was wearing my Black Mesa Research Facility t-shirt at the time. It looks similar to the shirt I linked to but mine is a much more fashionable dark grey rather than black and my silk-screened logo isn’t distressed and is of a much more reasonable size.

I don’t usually get compliments on my clothes but in the last week or so, two dudes have given me their verbal thumbs-up on my threads. Given the subject matter of my t-shirts, I’m content knowing my geek cred is legit. I wish women would start complimenting me on my clothes but I’ll take what I can get!

The above video is apparently a genuine training video that Wendy’s used in the 90s (I’m taking an educated guess here). If this is indeed true, much respect to the corporation for making training fun!

So, I went from being on vacation yesterday to back to work and doing OT tonight. We have a big deadline coming up and stuff just had to be done tonight. There was no easy transition back into the working life.

I had bahn mi from DD Mau as my OT meal. I’ve ate there a lot so it was dependable as usual. I got the hell outta work well before 10pm as I didn’t want to get caught in the fireworks crowd.

I’ve done OT before where I was downtown and didn’t leave before the fireworks ended. That was a huge mistake.

Anyways, I hope OT doesn’t continue for too much longer. To think I was at a remote, scenic lake just a few days ago.

For my trip to Alaska, I chose to stay in the downtown area. The only other reasonable alternative was a newer neighbourhood in Anchorage called Midtown. Midtown contains a lot of restaurants, malls, and office buildings but it felt like a suburb more than a place for a visitor to get the real feel of the city. After my first couple of hours walking around downtown, I knew I had made the right choice. There were plenty of great restaurants and all nearby to the wonderful Anchorage Museum, Ship Creek (with so many salmon), and the iconic Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.

I did, however, notice some quirks about downtown Anchorage starting on my first day. I made a stroll through the Fifth Avenue Mall. There was a Starbucks at the mall, which itself is a fairly normal thing to see in a mall, except there was a huge line of people waiting to get their coffee. It was about 4pm in the afternoon, which is a weird time to see people queued up for java. I went on with my day.

The next thing I noticed was when one of my friends got a bad case of heartburn after dinner one night. We were back at the hotel and we were trying to find some antacids for his condition. Our hotel was fairly crappy (that deserves its own post) so it didn’t have a lobby store so we had to go looking elsewhere. My friend and I then realized we hadn’t seen a corner store or a drug store anywhere in all of downtown Anchorage. Usually when you travel to the US, there’s a Walgreen’s or a CVS on every other block. We didn’t see any of these. There wasn’t a 7-11 or similar type store in all of our exploration of the downtown area. I then went on Google Maps and saw none of those type of stores were anywhere close to us. We’d have to travel outside of the downtown core to get to a drug store or convenience store.

I thought about it a bit and then I realized downtown Anchorage is devoid of large corporation type businesses. The Starbucks in the mall was the only Starbucks in all of downtown Anchorage. I didn’t see a McDonald’s or any other giant fast food place. In a way, that’s great because most of the businesses are then unique and run by actual people rather than a massive corporate entity. On the other hand, we couldn’t easily buy sundries of any kind at all while we there. I’ve been to many cities in North America and I’d be hard pressed to find a time where I couldn’t get a package of Tums if I needed one at 9pm on any given night but this was a problem in downtown Anchorage.

My friend got by without his antacid but it sure would have helped that night.

Greetings loyal readers! I have returned from Alaska safely and without being eaten by any wildlife. It was a very action packed trip. I am very tired but I’d like to post at least one memorable photo. It’s a 360 photosphere, so I unfortunately had to use Google+ to share it properly. If you click on the image above, you’ll be able to see an awesome 360 degree panoramic image of Crescent Lake. I took a very small float plane to this lake where the pilot landed and allowed us to explore for a short while. It was a breathtaking view. I’ll have more to write about in the next few days.

I’m leaving for my trip to Alaska tomorrow morning. For once, I booked a reasonable outbound flight as the scheduled departure is around noon. This means I won’t have to either stay up all night or get a miniscule amount of sleep before waking up.

I’ll have free wi-fi at the hotel, so I might write the odd post here or there. I’m hoping to get a few photos of the wildlife for you, my loyal readers. In any case, I’ll be back next week with your regularly scheduled programming.

Tomorrow was supposed to the studio-wide summer BBQ at work. The whole studio was supposed to go to Stanley Park with family and guests for a wicked awesome summer time and sunny BBQ complete with a whole, giant roast pig. They even arranged for transportation in the form of a bus to take us from Yaletown to Stanley Park. Unfortunately, the weather calls for upwards to 20mm of rain tomorrow. In light of this, the BBQ was called off and delayed pretty much at the last minute before the end of the business day.

It’s rather unfortunate as lots of people had been looking forward to the social event but I guess there wasn’t a lot of covered areas in the chosen spot and the organizers were afraid people would just get wet and be miserable. It was the right call to make. We did find out, however, the event has been re-scheduled for the end of August. There’s no guarantee it won’t be rainy then as well but let’s hope for the best.

Well, since I’m heading out to Anchorage on Thursday, I thought I’d search YouTube for some related videos. The one above is straight from the tourist board. I hope to see half the things in this video!