blog.erwintang.com

Has it been another year already? From everyone here at et.com, I’d like to wish you and your loved ones the happiest of holidays.

Free wifi at the airport is nice. So you may have guessed I’m the airport in Vegas. I’m just waiting for my flight to depart. I hate writing on this PDA so I will end this post here. Be in touch soon.

I’m leaving this morning for Las Vegas for a few days. I’ll be back on Sunday night. I am meeting up with some ex-SJCers there. A contingent of current SJC residents is already there and Newmark hails from Vegas, so he’s back for the holidays.

I’ll be meeting up with Tyson, Adam, and Phil. I haven’t seen Tyson since November of last year. I haven’t seen Adam since the Canada Day Classic of 2006. It’s been over two years since I’ve seen Phil.

It should be a good time. We haven’t planned much but I figure if we even just have a few beers together, it will have been worth the trip. Actually, I was thinking if I had more time, I would have arranged to have two hockey nets placed on top of a parking garage somewhere and we’d play a round of ball hockey, just like old times. That would have been awesome.

I don’t expect to be posting on the road, so I’ll be back on Sunday with a report.

I’m looking forward to the holidays. Among the many reasons, one of them is that I’ll have more time to write some quality posts. For both you, the readers, and me, that’s a good thing. In the meantime, here’s a quick peek at what I have in store. If posts were movies, these would be trailers and from the looks of it, there seem to be some sequels.

In a recent post, I wrote about how I’ve noticed that the general gaming public loves to hate my employer, Electronic Arts. In fact, it almost seems like the default cool thing to write “EA games suck” or “EA developers are lazy” on message boards. Beyond what I wrote in my original post, I have some more thoughts on this subject. Do you think I’ll agree with those statements above? You’ll find out soon enough.

During grad school, I wrote a post about the hypothetical situation in which, somehow, I became the last person on the planet. In my theoretical predicament, every other person had disappeared. I detailed how I might find shelter, food, and amusement. It was an interesting exercise. In light of seeing the new movie I Am Legend, I’d like to revisit this post and add on the details of survivors. I am no longer alone. Civilization is gone but I now also have to deal with light-fearing, violent former human beings. How do I survive now in the Greater Vancouver area?

I’d like to write a post about my left knee. That’s all I want to say about that for now.

I’ve recently discovered some old high school acquaintances on Facebook. From looking at their pictures, a large majority of them have now started families. I also met up with some of my old undergrad friends last week. Three out of the four couples there had at least one baby. The entire evening was almost exclusively baby talk. When I write that, I mean they were discussing babies, not speaking like a baby would. Anyways, being still single, I have some thoughts on seeing all that.

Last but not least, I’d like to discuss some orzo recipes that I have tried in the past.

I’ve watched the first hour or so of Will Smith’s movie, I Am Legend. Not only is it a pirated copy, it’s a streaming copy too. How easy is it to partake in piracy these days? Back when I was a kid, you had to find a torrent and then spend hours, even days waiting for peers and seeds before you start watching a movie.

Anyways, while it’s streaming, the quality, both in video and audio is complete crap but you get the idea of what’s going on. If you know me, there was no way I wouldn’t see at least a bit of this movie in some way. It’s got all the elements that fascinate me when it comes to fiction: human survival in a post-apocalyptic world brought about by a pathogen that turns humans into dangerous, violent creatures.

I Am Legend started out as a book written by the talented Richard Matheson. It was written in the 1950s and has been made into film form twice, once with Vincent Price and the other with Charlton Heston. I rented the Heston version once. It was nearly unwatchable, in fact I remember forcing myself to watch the end even though I just wanted to return the tape half way through. The Vincent Price version is better, though I haven’t finished watching it. That version is now public domain, so you can watch it for free (legally) now. Try this link if you’re interested.

I must have read the book about seven or eight years ago. The thing that I still remember now about the book is a section where Matheson describes how Neville, the protagonist, makes dinner alone in his home. We are shown how Neville gathers vegetables from his pantry, he taking note how much he has left, especially the garlic. We privy to the clatter of a frozen steak against a black, cast-iron frying pan. In short, it’s a few paragraphs describing a man making a simple dinner with ordinary items that anyone can identify with.

What no one could identify with, is the reality of the world Neville is doing this in. The context of which is what makes the ordinary, the making of dinner, stand out so much. Early in the day, he had gone out, in sunlight, to hunt infected human beings, rousing them from their dark hiding places and staking them through the heart. The fact that there are no grocery stores anymore makes it that much more compelling that he’s even able to make an ordinary dinner. His steak was frozen. Where can you get beef in such a world? How do you even get electricity to run a freezer? When does it become normal to go home and fry up a steak after killing infected people?

In stories like this, we can all agree that the zombies and the vampires are indeed interesting but let us not gloss over the human survival aspect of it. How could a person survive? Where would they get food? What would cities look like? Where would you live? How would you arm yourself? Would you go insane?

It’s telling that in many reviews of Smith’s new movie, the critics say their favourite parts of the movie are early on, when Neville is shown alone in the city with only his dog to keep in company. He’s just going about his daily routine in a strangely deserted New York City. These same critics feel the action-parts, later on, where the infected humans starting showing up, are the weakest parts of the film.

This won’t be the last movie of its type and when the next one comes along, I’ll be asking, “what would I do in that world?”

I knew I should written a post before taking a sleeping pill. Now, I’ve waited too long and I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s a shame since I was going to write about what I had for lunch today. I’ll try to make up for it tomorrow.

If you’ve been reading this blog you know that I sometimes post some errand e-mails that come my way. They’re not intended for me but nonetheless wind up in a rarely used account.

So there’s this “Erwin” guy that I get all his e-mails. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why I was getting all his messages but now I know. He’s inadvertently setup his e-mail client with my e-mail address. The weird thing is, he’s able to send e-mail from his own address because I always get the messages when people reply to him. So the thing I don’t understand is how he’s able to enter in my address in his client but be able to send messages with his own account. Geez, what if he’s actually using my address when he sends? Anyways, I rarely use this account so it’s no big deal.

The last e-mail I got that was intended for him was pretty interesting. He sent some instructions to his stockbroker. His broker replied but was nice enough to include the original message which included the dude’s full name, bank account number, bank address, and bank identifier code. Now, I don’t intend to do anything with this info nor could I really with this interesting yet non-actionable info. I do wonder, however, if it’s time to tell the dude what the hell is happening.

I know he knows something is wrong because every once in a while, I get “test” messages from people, probably because he’s trying to diagnose the problem. I can almost guarantee this guy is over 40 years old, if not older. No one our age would or could let this problem linger this long. Another sign that he’s old is that Google turns up nothing on his name.

What to do?

I just drank some juice from a glass.

So this evening, I’m gaming on my Wii (yes, I’ve finally started using my Wii again) when I heard this loud bang outside the window. Not a split-second later, the lights flicker but they don’t go out. I look on the screen and yes, I’m still in Nazi-occupied northern France.

Upon further inspection of my home however, reveals that some lights have indeed gone out. It turns out that anything that isn’t powered via an electrical socket, for example fixture lighting, isn’t receiving anything juice. A quick check of the breakers reveals none have been tripped.

So while I’m able to get my ass kicked in 32 person multiplayer on the Wii, I have to pee in the dark in the bathroom. I’ve never seen something like this before. The next weird thing I noticed was the electric stove. These things use a special plug, so it wasn’t a surprise to the stove’s electric clock was off. When I tried to turn on one of the elements though, it lit up and actually got hot. I tried heating up a can of soup but I noticed something was wrong. Even though I had it cranked up to max, it wasn’t getting very hot. It took about twice as long to heat my soup up compared to normal. So it would appear the stove isn’t getting enough juice.

I wonder what’s going on?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymoaNxWyxnI&rel=1]

The video quality isn’t the best but the above video shows the full segment from the “Best Individual Sports Game” part of the VGAs. No one told Big to call out the president of Neversoft but it sure was funny.