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As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the game I’m working on will be revealed this morning at the Microsoft E3 press conference. It will be demoed live on stage with an audience of possibly tens of people but probably not more than a hundred. This is the first time a game I’ve worked on has been shown live on stage at E3. I just hope it doesn’t crash in a part that I worked on. If it does, I will be very embarrassed.

The links aren’t live yet but you can watch the press conference as it happens at 9:30am. I’m not sure where my game slots into the schedule but I’m hoping it will be near the beginning. This link should provide you a live stream. I’m super excited!

Several weeks ago, a good friend of mine and I decided we should make use of some coupons and eat fried chicken together. We settled on eating some of Church’s Chicken, which has for the last year or so, become my primary choice of fried chicken, replacing KFC.

We’ve already picked out the coupon we want to use. We’ll be getting 12 pieces of chicken for $20. That’s a fairly good deal in my books. For those who are good at math, you might have deduced that will leave six pieces of fried chicken per person. That might be a lot of chicken to eat in one sitting. There is a precedent however. Several years ago, the same friend and I split a 15 piece bucket from KFC. I ate seven pieces and he cleaned up with eight. We both felt terrible afterwards and it remains one of the most interesting things we’ve done as friends. So, six pieces should be no problem right?

Wiser people would just have a more reasonable meal but I don’t think my friend and I are those type of people.

So I went and looked at the crow’s nest from underneath, right at the base of the power pole. The nest is a lot larger than I had thought. The transformers hide much of it. It’s also difficult to see but I think I saw at least one baby crow in the nest. I’m going to bring my binoculars to work tomorrow to get a better look.

If there are indeed baby crows in the nest, the parents don’t seem to mind all the activity down below. There are people walking by and eating at restaurant patios, and most people don’t even realize the nest above them. I’ll try to get more photos tomorrow.

A few days ago, a coworker and I noticed a crow hanging out on a wire next to our fifth floor window. Birds don’t usually hang out next to our windows so this was something we’re not used to seeing. I thought this crow was just resting, as birds tend to do on wires, so I didn’t think about it beyond that.

This afternoon, I looked out my window and noticed two crows had built a nest amongst a set of transformers near where I saw the original crow. You can’t really see it in the thumbnail, so click on the picture to embiggen it. The nest is wedged between the pole and centre transformer. It seems to be made of mainly sticks. If I were a crow, I’m not sure if I would have selected that location. There’s a lot of foot traffic below. Compared to a busy street, there are fewer cars but lots of people day and night. I’ve seen crows get really protective of their nests before when they put them close to foot paths or sidewalks. They’ll divebomb people who get too close. I’ve heard they are intelligent birds but they easily could have observed how many people walk by a potential nesting site and decided it was too busy. I believe we might get some dive bombing here. Stay tuned.

Like most aspiring entertainers in LA, people sometimes have to take whatever jobs they can find before they hit it big. Conan was one of those people. In the video above, he did a gig for the National Association of Music Merchants.

Just under a year ago, as part of the “summer of me”, I stood on the top floor of a parkade for about two hours into the wee hours of a Monday morning. For those two hours, I watched the people making the movie Godzilla, film a scene in my neighbourhood. They had transformed a street into a disaster area. In those many hours, I saw the actors, who were soldiers in this scene, run together, take a knee, and then run up a street. I detailed my evening in this post.

I had no idea if this footage would even make into the movie. I had no idea if one of the principal actors, Aaron Taylor Johnson, was even part of the scene. Well, it took about a year, but I found out my answer this evening. I went and saw Godzilla this evening. I would have seen it anyways had it not been filmed near my home but I definitely was looking for my hometown.

It turns out they did keep the footage from the night I was watching them film. They condensed the hours of running up the street into a sequence that lasted less than ten seconds. It was a quick shot of them taking a knee and then were running up the street for about three seconds. I managed to see the overturned bus and the Starbucks.

It took a year to get closure on that post but I got it. The satisfaction is small but tangible.

As many of you know, E3 is less than two weeks away. The game I’m working on will be at E3 and this was something the team has known for a while. We originally thought the exposure to our game would be tightly controlled, very scripted on-stage portions, mostly videos, and just some backstage hands-on (if that even). Today we were told that our game might be demo’d live and on-stage, at one of the main press conferences. These events are packed with press and are watched live by millions through streaming and TV. Millions more will watch later in the day. These press conferences can sometimes set the expectations of games for months in the future.

I’ve never had any of my games presented at one of these huge E3 pressers, let alone demonstrated live on-stage. Some of my team are kinda worried but I’m sorta excited. Sure, things could go horribly wrong and the game could be mocked for months before release but the risk makes life interesting. The next few days will determine exactly how our game will be revealed.

When I woke up this morning, I saw that there was a development with my infected eyelid. The swollen part of the eyelid had become, for a lack of a better term, ripe for popping. I could see a visible amount of pus just underneath the skin. It looked like a giant pimple ready to explode. Everyone enjoys details like that right? I was really tempted to lance the thing and drain it but I stopped myself for two reasons: first, all the medical advice I read about my condition specifically warned me again popping the infected area because it might spread the bacteria, and second, I needed to go to work and I had no idea how messing lancing this thing would be.

Well, it turned out the whole thing was out of my control anyways! At work, my eye was getting itch and in the process of just gently rubbing the area, the thing popped with the slightest provocation. I felt a bit of wetness on the eyelid so I grabbed a tissue to dab at my eye. I saw a tiny bit of pus. I though there would be a lot more. I went to the bathroom to take a look and it wasn’t that bad. Based on how swollen the area was, I was anticipating a large amount of pus, followed by an equally large amount of blood. I’ve popped some pimples before where it seems like it just won’t stop bleeding for whatever reason. Luckily, I wasn’t sitting at my desk with blood pouring from an eye.

Hopefully, this is another sign things are getting better as usually most infected things start healing quicker after you drain the area of all that badness. Thanks for letting me tell you about my infected eye.

For reasons that still escape me, my garbage disposal unit is not working. I was hand washing some dishes last and went to flip the switch. Nothing happened. I heard a slight hum as if the motor wanted to run but it was caught on something. I got a flashlight and poked around in there. I couldn’t see the culprit. I saw bits of food but nothing that seemed like it would stop the blades of a garbage disposal unit. It was getting far too late for me to continue diagnosing so I just left it.

This happened to me once before. Unbeknownst to me, a ceramic spoon had fallen into the unit. I turned it on and was greeted by a horrible crunching noise. I quickly cut the power and went to look at the crime scene. Pieces of white ceramic had wedged into the blades. It took me several days to pick out all the broken bits. That was a terrible exercise in frustration. I triumphed, however, and the garbage disposal had been working fine until this most recent calamity.

At least with the previous problem, it was clear what the issue was. I don’t even know what’s wrong this time. I loathe to call a plumber though, as they are expensive and prone to showing crack. This is the type of thing that seems perfectly tailored for using a Saturday afternoon to solve.

So last weekend was a long weekend because it was a public holiday on Monday. This weekend was also a long weekend too but only for me. I took the day off today. In the past, I don’t think I’ve taken enough days off. This summer, I’ve decided to give myself one extra long weekend a month, over and above whatever public holidays there might be. It seems like the smart thing to do.

For my extra day off, I didn’t want to make it too ambitious. I slept in and got a healthy amount of sleep. I saw a movie with a friend. I got some exercise. I bought some fruit at the market. I was happy with how I spent my extra day off. I think it was good for the soul. Let’s do this again next month.