I'LL CELEBRATE WHEN IT'S DONE

IGN named the game I’m working on as the best sports title shown at E3 this month. While it’s nice, it’s only one website’s opinion, albeit it’s a pretty well-read one. If you looked at Gametrailer’s “best of” lists, they named Madden 08 the sports game of the show. According to IGN though, we beat out not only Madden 08 but another game called Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground. It’s nice to get recognition but the real big prize is how the finished game does in the reviews. No one remembers E3 awards, it’s the game that we put on the shelves that counts. To put into perspective again, one game I worked on was given the title of best mobile RPG at E3. Shadow-Born never saw the light of day.

One final note, the Xbox 360 demo for skate went out the door this week. It’ll be a few weeks of certification, then if all goes well, it should be available for download in mid-August.

COPS IS FILMED ON LOCATION

What a late night at work! I left just before midnight and there still lots of people still at the studio. In a bit of consolation, there was a bit of junk food being passed around and a producer was giving away skate clothing.

Anyways, on the way home, my cab passed by an accident scene just outside of the downtown core. A van was sandwiched between at least six police vehicles. Some were behind it, others in front, and still more from the side. It was clearly the site of the end of a police pursuit. The front of the van had been bashed in, no doubt having contacted the front of police cars at some rate of speed. All the windows of the van had been broken, either by the crash or by police means.

I bet it was a crazy scene when it all went down. I bet the police drew their guns when the van came to a rest. I would have liked to have seen that. It probably looked like this.

SUITED

Well, I now own two suits, both from Banana Republic. Before we go on, let’s acknowledge I probably paid more for a suit than I should have. If I had the time, I probably could have shopped around and found a similar looking suit for less money. I work crazy hours as you know, so the fact that I was able to find, try on, and purchase a suit in about fifteen minutes is quite impressive. I don’t recommend such a tight timeframe however.

The suit kinda looks like this. In fact, I think that might be the exact one. Anyways, as soon as I put on the 40S coat, I knew it was going to be a better fitting suit than my old one. Man, that old thing made me look like a clown. It was, for a lack of a better term, a clown suit. It was just way too big for me.

This new one is much slimmer in fit and I think for the first time in my entire life, I might actually look good in a suit.

To end this post, I’ll make a cryptic comment. I have made very indirect contact with Tracy Tang. No, not my sister. If that confuses you, I’ll explain soon in another post. Strangely enough, my sister will understand. Tracy, she knows about us!

BREAST MILK

My good friends Nic and Marcia are in town for a wedding. I met both Nic and Marcia when I was living at St. John’s College. Until I busted out of my shyness cocoon and became the social butterfly that was Wu-Tang, they were my main friends at SJC.

Nic and Marcia live in Ottawa now. Since I last saw them, they managed to have their first kid, Nyah, a lovely daughter. They were nice enough to come downtown to have lunch with me. Lucky for me, they also brought Nyah along in an all-terrain stroller.

After many hugs in the lobby, we decided to head to Steamworks for lunch. We sat in the cafe part of the restaurant. I really liked it. It’s way better than the stupid basement part of the restaurant. It wasn’t long before Marcia asked me if I wanted to hold Nyah. I was apprehensive for like a microsecond before I remembered how much I love babies.

Marcia handed Nyah over to me. I held her underneath her arms. As she stood on my lap, she looked at me and I looked at her, in some sorta weird baby Mexican standoff, without the guns. Nyah began waving her baby arms about. Then the grabbing started. For some reason, she focused in on my mouth. With that odd and disconcerting baby strength that seems to come out of nowhere, she grasped onto my lower lip and began squeezing with some incredible force. Marcia had to intervene and removed my lip from Nyah’s hand. As I played with her for several more minutes, Nyah grabbed onto my face at least half a dozen times.

Finally, Nyah got bored of me and our food came. Back into the stroller she went. After we ate, Nyah got fussy and Marcia decided to feed her right in the restaurant. Marcia was very polite with her breastfeeding as I held onto one of Nyah’s feet, just because it was there to hold.

After Nyah was done, she was content again, so she got handed back to me. I didn’t realize it until after we left the restaurant, but Nyah had spit up some breast milk onto my shirt. It wasn’t a large amount but there it was, a streak of Marcia boob milk on my shirt. If you had told me in 2002 that would happen, I wouldn’t have believed you.

Luckily, breast milk dries pretty clear and by 3pm, you wouldn’t even had known what had happened.

LOOPY!

I took a sleeping pill about half an hour ago to help me fall asleep faster so I can get more rest for the beginning of the work week. Unfortunately, I feel hella sleepy right now and I haven’t written my post for Monday yet. With my current mental state, there’s no way I can write anything coherent down. In fact, all I feel like typing is sgfsgfdg fgfd fdgf Jabba sgdgfdg gdfg.

So instead of one post focused on one thing, why don’t I just write what comes to mind?

– I saw Live Free or Die Hard today. Did you know it’s the first Die Hard to be rated PG-13? I wanna watch the DVD with the scenes that would have made it an R-rated flick. Overall, I really liked it. It was lots of gunplay and explosions. Kevin Smith was awesome as Warlock, the Star Wars loving hacker.

– I feel sorry for the boyfriend of the princess I had to stand in line next to at Taco Bell tonight. Oh yeah, she may have tanned legs up to Mars but with that crap attitude it must feel like getting shot in the kneecap everytime she says something.

– Thanks to a coworker, I’m now playing GRAW 2 on the 360. It is indeed better than the first. I am currently using the M468 (without grenade launcher) but am waiting for the SCAR to be available. Did anyone need to know that?

– The new Harry Potter movie is very popular. When I left the theatre today, people were lined out the door just to purchase tickets.

– I have a ripped shirt that I sleep in that exposes of one my nipples. If the shirt is inside out, it’s my left nipple. I didn’t rip on purpose, it came to be that way some how.

– I really should go to bed right now.

– The last digit on my encryption token right now is 5.

– There is a kid that is so excited about skate, he cleaned a store on the graveyard shift for three nights in a row just so he could have the money to pre-buy it. This makes the OT seem a tiny bit more palatable.

– This is the last item on this list

E3 2007

Are you familiar with video game conference/convention E3? Do you remember the over-the-top displays, throngs of scantily-clad booth babes, and full-scale assaults on your senses? Yeah, all that’s gone now.

E3, which stands for something new now, has been toned and scaled down. Now it takes place in Santa Monica rather than Los Angeles. The focus is back on the games. They also moved the date from May to July, this week in fact.

If you remember my post over a year ago, I was happy to be part of E3 as a developer via the game I was currently working on. That game was Shadow-Born for the N-Gage, reportedly the most expensive cell phone game in history. Even while I was writing that post, I knew I was flogging a dead horse in a manner of speaking. I already knew the chances of Shadow-Born ever appearing in the marketplace and being actually played by people were almost nil. The N-Gage turned out to be a pretty bad failure for Nokia. As a result, Shadow-Born will never see the light of day.

More than a year later, I’m working for a new company and on a new game. skate will be at this year’s E3. Unlike Shadow-Born, there will be genuine interest in skate from both journalists and regular gamers alike. Also, unlike Shadow-Born, skate will be definitely be released.

We sent out a pretty solid build for E3. I’m hoping we make some great impressions with people this week! Stay tuned for coverage!

BRUSH WITH DUMBNESS

I have never been much of a car guy. I have yet to own a car. When I drive, I’m just content to have a car that can take me somewhere. If I ever move downtown, I’ll probably just join a car co-op like Zipcar. Since I was 16, I probably have spent enough on computers, video game consoles, and games equal to the cost of a new economy car. If you consider the cost of my education, what it took to get two degrees, you’re looking at a new, luxury sedan right there. So yeah, I’ve never put a whole lot of value on owning a car.

Last night, I was bored and I typed “Porsche” into the search box on Wikipedia. A few minutes of reading and then clicking brought me to the Porsche Cayman, the new entry-level sports car model offered by Porsche. It replaces the popular Boxster model which debuted at the turn of the century.

I’m not a huge fan of sports cars but this model is beautiful. It’s a great looking vehicle. They did an awesome job of designing it. Then I thought, there’s a lot of dumb things I could do with my money right now and one of them is to buy one of these cars.

The base model Cayman is approx. $70 000 CDN before taxes and all those other wonderful charges. In just cash alone though, I’d have enough for a substantial downpayment. Add in my RRSPs and I’d have about half the car paid off before I even drove it off the lot. Considering that Porsche is comfortable selling their vehicles to people with zero downpayment, there’s no way they’d turn down my offer to by a Cayman. Given my current financial situation, I could probably pay off the car in about three years. Think of it! I could be driving a brand new Porsche Cayman!

So while the above is true, let’s turn common sense back on right now. At this point in my life, I should be saving money for retirement and/or the possible purchase for real estate. My money should grow, not devalue the instant I drive it off the lot (no matter how freaking hot the car looks). Let us not forget I have no where to park the car. I’d have to put it outside in a semi-private lane outside the townhouse complex I live in. What kind of person can afford a Porsche but can’t park it indoors? Also, consider what my driving habits are. I tend to drive a car to go to the movies, the mall, and to buy groceries. Do I need Cayman to do that? No. I suppose that once I had such a nice ride, it’d be a waste not to just go on a Sunday drive once in a while. That would probably be a lot of fun, especially in the summer time. Plus, it would be interesting to start dating a girl that just liked me for my car, I’ve never had that happen before. Seriously though, this car would probably sit idle at least five days of the week. I might take it out only on the weekends.

In reality, it would be impractical for me to buy a Porsche Cayman but in some really egotistical and self-indulgent way, I’ll have to be satisfied that I could buy one if I wanted to.