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I never made it to work on Friday. I woke up with my alarm, got up, and made a decision I just wasn’t feeling good enough to be useful at work. I called in sick and just slept for the rest of the morning. I didn’t leave my apartment all day nor evening either as I had enough food at my place to sustain me. In fact, between Thursday evening and Saturday evening, I was inside my apartment the entire time.

I feel better than I did on Friday but I’m still not 100%. I still have a mild cough and very little congestion now but the most difficult issue is my body’s inability to regulate its temperature. I’ve had chills all week. On Friday evening, I wore a down-filled jacket while inside with the heat on and only then did I feel comfortable. Normally, I’d be sweating like that. This evening, I’ve been able to shed the jacket while inside and still feel ok.

This whole incident reminds me of the great illness of March 2005. For a whole month, I was incapacitated by a cough and extremely low energy. That whole month sucked. I saw about three different doctors in that time but they couldn’t find anything specific. It took a long time for me to get healthy again. I hope that’s not the case here. I am optimistic that I’ll be ok to go to work tomorrow.

So whatever illness I have is kicking my ass. After feeling better for about a day and a half, I regressed significantly. After feeling like crap last night, I somehow managed to wake up after only five hours of sleep. I woke up hungry and thirsty. After eating cereal out of the box and drinking some water, I laid in bed until I could fall asleep again.

When my alarm went off, I felt terrible. The aches that I felt on day one were back. I was also congested. Not wanting to blow too many sick days in the first month of the year, I dragged my ass to work. Was that a wise decision? Maybe not. Oh well.

People told me I looked green and that’s the way I felt. I managed to survive enough of the day to go home about two hours early. I came home, ate some food, and tried to nap. I’ve been feeling awful all evening. It’s almost like I caught a second illness while recovering from the first. I’ve also been eating a lot. My strategy is to give my body a lot of fuel to fight this thing. Just this evening, I’ve had a bowl of udon, tuna sashimi, a salad, and some dumplings.

I’m not sure if I’ll be well enough to go to work tomorrow.

I managed to drag my sickly ass to work this morning. Wasn’t feeling too great at first but things turned around at lunch. A nice bowl of steamy pho sure hit the spot. I was fine the rest of the at work. It was after work in the evening where things went south. I got the chills even though I was all bundled up. My sinuses became congested. I also started coughing. I actually feel worse at home than when I was at work.

I’m gonna try to get some extra rest tonight like I did last night. While I certainly felt ill today, at least I wasn’t tired.

Well, I didn’t make to work today. It started yesterday afternoon when I felt the need to cough a bit. I wasn’t sure why. It was weird. I thought maybe my throat was dry or something. I felt fine otherwise. I went home and had some dinner. Everything was ok. Then right before bed, I started feeling something was off. Was I getting sick, I asked myself? I ignored and went to bed.

I woke up about about an hour before my alarm was supposed to go off. I was thirsty, I had to pee, my head hurt, and the rest of my body aching as well. I felt terrible. I went to pee and then grabbed a glass of water. As I laid back in bed, I had a decision to make. Was I ok to go to work? Could I drag myself to work feeling like death and just tough it out while being unproductive? Or was it better to just call in sick and get some rest? In my younger days, I’d probably be a tough guy and go to work but now I’m older and wiser. It hurt just to walk to my kitchen, so I decided to make it a sick day.

I went back to sleep after taking an Advil. I awoke after 2pm. I had slept more than four hours. I guess my body really needed that rest. I spent almost the entire day either in bed or in my Snuggie. I still feel like crap and I’m hoping another evening of rest will make things better. I hate being sick.

When you walk the same general route to work every day at almost the same time of day, you expect to see some patterns, as I do each morning. On any given work day, I can expect to recognize perhaps three or four strangers as I make my way west towards Yaletown. This isn’t really interesting in itself as it’s no surprise that people get into a routine for work. What is interesting, is one particular gentleman who I see walking the opposite way.

I’m not sure exactly where this man is going, except that it’s east, generally in the direction away from Yaletown. He seems to be wearing the same thing every time I see him. No matter what the weather, he’s in a grey hoodie. The hoodie isn’t all that thick, so I believe he probably was quite cold during those absolutely freezing days in December. During that time, it was well below freezing and he was not warmly dressed. Even when it’s raining he was in the hoodie (though the hood was up). That’s not the most interesting part though. I’ve never seen this guy with both hands free during my walk to work. Without fail, every time I’ve seen him, he has a drink in both hands. One hand has what appears to be a disposable cup (coffee or tea) and in the other hand is a clear drink container with a straw. The clear container looks like a juice drink and it seems to be always yellow or orange coloured. I want to say he gets both drinks from Starbucks but I could be wrong.

We’re all creatures of habit and this gentleman’s morning habit appears to be wearing the same hoodie while holding the exact same two drinks every morning on the way to work. This is just an observation and not a criticism. Millions of people have the same cup of coffee in the morning on their way to work in the morning, so while his habit is different, it’s not crazily so. If I could ask him just one question, it would be, why the two drinks at the same time?

Like many Sundays, I had dinner with my parents this evening. We normally go out for dinner but my mother told me we’d be eating in tonight. So when I drove to my parents’ home this evening, I found that my mom and dad had prepared hot pot for dinner. Hot pot is usually delicious and a fantastic meal. Going to a hot pot restaurant almost guarantees a good time. There is always an element of danger though, especially when you’re having hot pot at home. The presence of raw meats and seafood can lead to food borne illness. You need to be careful to cook everything sufficiently to kill any bacteria. Even if you cook everything properly, there’s still the possibility of contaminating utensils and surfaces by using the wrong implements; for example, using the same chopsticks to handle raw meats and cooked foods.

Knowing all of this, I was a bit wary of the meal. I made sure the broth was really boiling at all times. You never want it to get too cold or it won’t be hot enough to kill off any nasty bugs. I was also super careful not to use the wrong chopsticks. My mom laid out two sets for everyone, one for cooking and one for eating. To be even more careful, I tried to avoid all the more risky foods. I stuck to fish balls, dumplings, thin slices of beef (which you can eat slightly raw), and vegetables. I avoided things like raw chicken, shrimp, and oysters. I could not avoid my mother plopping down half a small oyster on my plate. It looked cooked enough, so I ate it.

After dinner, I went upstairs to fix my mom’s printer. Not ten minutes after finishing dinner, I felt a familiar rumbling in my midsection. I know my body well enough to realize when it starts to rumble in that spot, that’s not a good sign. Five minutes later, I was in the bathroom, expelling the contents of dinner through one of my orifices. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was the oyster. Who knows? At least after I left the bathroom, I felt much better and haven’t really had any problems for the rest of the evening. It is interesting that I feel like I didn’t even have dinner tonight. I had to make a large snack later in the evening.

Ya gotta be careful when having hot pot.

I’m not feeling so great this evening and it’s all because I ate too much for dinner. I had dinner plans with a friend and we wanted to go to Joey’s for a decent meal. I had envisioned perhaps sharing a small appetizer and then getting a reasonable main course, probably salmon. When we got to the restaurant, the hostess said it would be a 45 to 60 minute wait for two people. What? We were starving so went to a nearby Cactus Club. We found a 30 minute wait there.

We wound up at a Boston Pizza, which was half-empty, which should have told you something. Anyways, my friend and I both had an order of wings for starters. My main course was lasagna, which I finished completely.

I’ve been feeling bleh since getting home. That was so the opposite of getting salmon for dinner.

So regarding my last post, today I was able to listen to the rest of the half hour video that this Albert guy made below. I was astounded at how easily the con man was able to convince him of almost anything. He would just say yes or no to whatever Albert asked him and Albert didn’t even press him for details. I can see why senior citizens fall for scams now.

I also previously stated that Albert was naive about the whole situation but now I’m thinking he let himself get into this predicament willingly. He runs a YouTube channel that contains videos that have been spreading false Skate 4 rumours for the last several months. In one of these amazingly stupid videos, he calls up what he says is the Electronic Arts product support line and then asks some low-level call center dude about any developments with a new game in the series. How dumb is that? No call center guy knows anything games in development. So this guy says yeah, he thinks another game is coming soon. Albert just believes him without any proof at all and hypes his video as proof another game is coming.

Other gamers have written that Albert is making videos like this on purpose to get more page views for his channel, which leads to potentially more revenue from YouTube. This is a distinct possibility because he has made several videos where he states absolutely false statements about what is happening at Electronic Arts. People call him out on his BS but if it’s about the page views, he won’t care.

He doesn’t do himself any favours by posting these patently absurd statements and I’m afraid now that money is involved, he’s going to learn a very harsh lesson.

As many of you know I worked on a series of skateboarding games a few years ago, entitled simply Skate. Those three games hold a very special place in my heart. Out of the many games I’ve worked on, I’m most proud of the critical reception that the trilogy received. Most importantly, the Skate team, by a wide margin, is the best team I’ve ever had the honour of working on. We were and continue to be family.

Though not as popular as say, Call of Duty, the Skate series has a small but extremely loyal fan base. It’s been nearly four years since Skate 3 was released and the fans of the game have been waiting the next game. Unfortunately, there is no next game for the foreseeable future. The team that made these games have now been scattered across companies and by distance. This fact, however, doesn’t stop some gamers from hoping for the next title.

About two weeks ago, a project popped up on Kickstarter, something called Skate 4D. It took me a while to figure out what was going on but let me distill it into the major points. Apparently, someone named Albert, who makes Skate 3 videos and posts them online (just a regular fan of the games), was contacted by someone posing as an ex-Black Box developer. This “Syed Faisal Shah” was trying to make Albert think he was one of us, people who actually worked on the Skate games. He somehow convinced Albert that he was making another game in the series (without EA’s help) and he needed Albert’s assistance. Here’s where it gets interesting. The poser also convinced Albert to put his name on the Kickstarter project and also be the face and voice of the fundraising effort. This mysterious “developer” is remaining in the shadows, except for his shoddy web site. If you’re curious, the website is registered through Pakistan.

In the meantime, Albert has made his pitch through videos and Tweets, asking people to donate money to the project. He has put himself out there as the public face of this thing. What I can’t believe is how easily Albert was duped by this shady con man. He gave Albert some screenshots of the game “in development”. You can actually see these on the Kickstarter page. These are just screenshots of the Unity development engine, which anyone can download for free. In these screenshots, the scammer just inserted some sky textures (probably from a .jpg he got by Googling) and added some blocky geometry. I could probably replicate these shots in half an hour at most. The “crowd creator” is simply a single model in a T-pose copied several times and placed into an empty Unity scene. That would be a minute of work to do. Laughably, the trickster also promises that the game can be done by May of 2015.

Despite what Albert wants to believe, this dude never worked with us and he certainly isn’t working on any new skateboarding game. I really want to say that Albert should have known better but he’s young and he doesn’t know a damn thing about making video games. On social media, he’s been confronted with several comments that this is indeed a scam but he doesn’t want to believe it.

Here’s what I think the con man wanted to happen. He wanted Albert to be the public face of fund-raising because he’s already is known to the online community. Albert would have an easier time of convincing people to raise the $500,000. It’s a shame unfortunately (fortunately?!) that the majority of the Skate community is relatively young and have no money. By some miracle, if they did raise the half million, I’m convinced the charlatan would have convinced Albert to send the money to him (for development costs of course). It would be at this point that Albert would no longer hear from this mystery man. Albert would then be left to deal with the angry investors who lost all their money.

The video above is long and I haven’t watched all of it. It does show some important points. First, I’m really touched by how loyal Albert is to the games. We poured blood, sweat, and tears into those things and to have people like him still appreciate it after all these years does make me happy. Second, is that Albert recorded the Skype calls to this dude. It’s fascinating to hear him try to pull the wool over Albert’s eyes.

In summary, I feel bad for Albert. I really think he’s just naive and doesn’t know he’s been taken for a ride. I believe there will be another great skateboarding game in the future and I’ll cheer for whoever is trying to make it (if it’s a sincere attempt). I do, however, have serious problems with people trying to use our past efforts to scam people out of their money.

I’m a big Conan O’Brien fan and as many of you know, I love the bits he does with his associate producer, Jordan Schlansky. In a previous segment, Conan caught Jordan coming in late on Fridays. In this latest adventure, Conan forces Jordan to clean his office. What follows is good entertainment.