Category: Uncategorized

I normally work from home on Mondays but with the long weekend, I’ll be working from home tomorrow, a Tuesday. I’ve been working from home one day a week for a few weeks now and I gotta say, it’s great.

My work from home days are much less stress-free and there are times when I get more done and am more productive on those days compared to my “regular” commute to work days. My particular business unit doesn’t have an official work from home policy but some other parts of the company do. I wish it were more universal and more people had the chance to partake.

I just got back from the wrap party. It was pretty damn good. There was lots of food and it seems like almost everyone attended. For the last hour, it was open bar too. Lots of people took the day off tomorrow, which means it’s a four-day long weekend for them. I, however, have an important 11am meeting tomorrow instead. I need to go to bed.

Tomorrow is the wrap party for Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville. I’ve lost track of how many wrap parties I’ve been to but I make it a point to go to every single one that I’m invited to. It’s a huge endeavour to make a video game and it’s gotten more difficult as time progresses. I think it’s important to celebrate with my colleagues that we made a tangible thing that people can go and experience. It is no small feat and I’ve never lost sight of that.

To us! Thanks to everyone on the team who put in an amazing effort to get this game out the door!

I almost bought a new keyboard on Amazon tonight because I thought my current keyboard is old and dirty. To be honest, I have no idea where this keyboard came from. I might have picked it up for free from work. It’s a bit grimy but not totally disgusting and more importantly, it still works. Am I missing out on cool RGB lighting? Are there keys that feel better to the touch? Perhaps I need to have programmable macro keys.

I’ll probably succumb to my capitalistic tendencies and get the new keyboard later this week.

If the Internet is to be believed, it was the coldest October in the greater Vancouver area since 1984. The average temperature was 8.86 degrees Celsius. I actually saw frost on the ground on some mornings last month, which is a rarity here in this city. This week won’t see too many chilly nights but I wonder what the rest of the month will bring.

For the last month or so I’ve been working on loan to another game development team based in one of our California studios. Today, I was informed that temporary loan will end soon and that I will be re-assigned to yet another team, the people who make FIFA.

Many details are still up in the air, including how much longer I’ll be working on my current assignment. I’ve been hearing the FIFA team would like me to start work as soon as possible but my release from my current temporary assignment needs to be negotiated. I won’t be present during these negotiations but it’ll be interesting to see how things play out.

I’m also uncertain what role I’ll be taking on while I’m on the FIFA team. I’m hoping it will be something that sets me up for success and can leverage my existing knowledge of the Frostbite engine. They wouldn’t have selected me for this unless they thought I’d be of use, at least that’s my thinking.

The one thing that I do have clarity on is that the temporary assignment will be for just under a year. I’ll return to my “home” late summer of 2020 or early fall of the same year.

Admittedly, I am a bit wary of what is to come. In experience, I haven’t had too much success in these temporary assignments to other teams nor in situations where I’m working on a sports game. Neither has led to much enjoyment and I feel like these past situations did not set me up for success. I’m hoping this time will be different.

So I have some friends who live in Northern California and if you didn’t know, the local power utility, PG&E is actually having scheduled power outages that lasts for days in some cases. This is to prevent wildfires from happening because it’s been proven that the power company’s equipment has caused fires to start in the past. That’s a crazy situation.

One of my former co-workers and friend, went three straight days without any power. He does not live in the bush or anything. He lives in a regular suburban area, dense with people. A whole 72 hours without any power. Imagine if that was you. Three days without power is a very long time to not have electricity if you think about it.

We may complain about B.C. Hydro once in a while but they’ve never had to shut off the power purposefully for thousands of people for days on end because their equipment was lighting the land on fire.

In the above video, YouTube sensation and chef Andrew Rea makes a recipe from a video game made by my employer, Electronic Arts. In Apex Legends, a character named Mirage references his favourite pork chops and the recipe itself is listed on a loading screen.

Rea attempts to make the recipe as accurately as possible, leading to… well, let’s just say that sometimes game developers should stick to making games.

On Sunday evening, I sent an e-mail to the strata property manager, where I detailed how I was trapped in the elevator on the weekend. He responded by saying he e-mailed the regional manager of the company that made the elevators in my building. He asked for an explanation for what happened this weekend and how we can prevent this from happening again. I’m not sure if he’ll share with me what the manager responds with but at least I made my concerns known.

If I do get a follow-up, I’ll write another update.