The Tiger Has Landed

Yes, Blake and I are back in Vancouver. We stepped off a plane on May 25th, and I went in to EA for my first day of work the following day. The first week was a whirlwind of work, apartment hunting and cattle-driving, except without the cattle-driving.

In the end though, I managed to find a really nice apartment. It’s a little bit higher rent than I was hoping to find, but the place itself is beautiful and the location is awesome. It’s just off Commercial Drive, which is one of the hippest and coolest areas of Vancouver. It’s got a wacky mix of greasy-spoon diners, hippy fashion boutiques, high-end restaurants, vegetarian cafes, used book stores, very trendy pubs, antique shops, etc. It’s an area that has been transitioning from hippy ghetto to yuppy entertainment district for several years, and the patchwork that has resulted is fascinating.

Last night Vania and I walked up the length of the Drive, looking for a place to eat. We settled on a Greek resaurant, and it was excellent. On the way back, we found a little CD store full of alternative and world-beat music. I found a CD I’d been searching for for years, and saw a lot more stuff I’d like to check out too. I suspect I’ll be back. = ]

In the meantime, I’m camping out in a nearly empty apartment. My stuff isn’t expected to get here until late next week some time. Luckily, I planned for this. In my luggage, I packed my sleeping bag, my therma-rest, my camping pots, a plastic plate, a cup, a towel, an alarm clock, Blake’s favourite toys, etc. I’m not exactly prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse, but I am reasonably well equipped to survive in the apartment until the rest of my stuff gets here. At least I have internet access now, so the essentials are in place.

New Chapter

Today was kind of a big day, kind of a sad day. My last day at Rockstar New England (formerly Mad Doc Software). I’m leaving to take a new job at Electronic Arts Vancouver. Yes, big news indeed. For those who knew me in Boston, farewell, and for my friends in Vancouver… I will be kicking you in the shins very soon!

So one chapter is ending, and a new one is beginning. I actually expected the last one to be longer. I didn’t come out to Boston thinking it would only be a year and a bit. It looked like such a good opportunity… an AI position at a company that specialized in AI. For a while, it was great, I was up to my eyeballs in AI problems, and loving it. But I haven’t touched anything AI related in almost 9 months, and there was a big fat nothing on the horizon either… so I had to ask myself, why am I still here? Clearly, it was time to move on.

A friend at work asked me yesterday, what was the one thing I would end up missing the most about the US? Truth is, there is no “thing” I will really miss. Not that I disliked the US… that wasn’t the case at all. Honestly, there are many more things here that are the same than are different. It’s nowhere near as foreign an experience as, say, living in Japan!

But I will miss the people. I had more fun with the people I worked with here than I’ve ever had anywhere else. I can think of times I laughed so hard my stomach ached. I will definitely miss those folks, and I should count myself extraordinarily fortunate if I have half as much fun at EA as I did at Mad Doc/Rockstar.

Orange Juice

Once or twice a week, a bunch of us from work will go out for lunch, often to Mexican food place called On the Border (though Fuddrucker’s is also popular).

Which leads to a peculiar thing I’ve noticed. I typically order orange juice, which shouldn’t be that unusual, but much of the time, the server is unable to understand me. I usually have to repeat it, and even if not, the server will check to make sure. “Orange juice?” “That’s right.”

We did an experiment one day, where Josh ordered my orange juice, and I ordered his Dr. Pepper. The server understood him, no problem. Damn it! That means the problem is me. I’ve tried making a point of enunciating clearly… after all, those two fricative consonants (ge and j) together could be confusing, and I’m sure it often rolls off people’s tongues like one word. “Ornjooss!” But trying to speak it clearly hasn’t helped much.

I have a theory though, that what really throws them off is that I say please. Not “orange juice,” but “orange juice, please.” Most people don’t say please when they order food here, I’ve noticed. So my suspicion is that that extra bit at the end confuses the issue. Dunno. But I get to experiment with it on a weekly basis, and it has become a subject of some amusement among my coworkers.

No, it’s not my Canadian accent!

Where Streams of Whiskey are Flowing

If there was anything that annoyed my friends in college, it was my ardent love for the Irish folk-punk band, the Pogues. It was the most godawfulwonderful stuff I’d ever heard and probably still is. The frenetic accordian music, the gritty lyrics, Shane MacGowan’s drunken slurring and the random screaming all combined to bring out the wildman in me, and I loved it.

You remember that foul evening when you heard the banshees howl
There was lazy drunken bastards singing Billy is in the Bowl
They took you up to midnight mass and left you in the lurch
So you dropped a button in the plate and spewed up in the church

More than anything, I wanted to see the Pogues live. But then in ’91, the Pogues threw out their lead singer and songwriter, Shane McGowan, for being an incorrigible drunk. It was a window closing… though I might someday see the Pogues, they would never be the same without their frontman.

Some years ago I did get to see Shane MacGowan and the Popes live at the Commodore. At the time, I thought that would be the closest I would ever get to experiencing a full-on Pogues concert. But then a few weeks ago, I saw that the Pogues would be playing a concert in Boston. I knew it would be the Pogues without Shane, and I debated whether it would really be worth it… but I had seen Shane elsewhere, and I figured this would be my opportunity to see and hear the rest of the original band. So I bought my ticket and waited for the day.

I met my love by the gas works wall
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed a girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town
Dirty old town

On the way to the Orpheum, I played some Animal Crossing on my DS. I fished a bit, and ended up catching… an old boot. Somehow, that seemed like an appropriate omen. It was going to be an awesome show.

The wind it comes down and I can’t stand the chill
That comes to the streets around christmas time
A bugger to the nation and I haven’t got a penny
To wander the dark streets of London

I arrived at the Orpheum, which is kind of like what the Orpheum in Vancouver would look like if it were to suffer several decades of neglect. But that gives it a fair amount of character, so I give it a firm nod of approval. I bought a pint, found my seat (only 6 rows from the stage) and settled in.

There was a screen to one side of the stage, showing commercials and blurbs about upcoming shows. Then they showed a panel, “The Pogues,” and listed the band members. Right at the start was Shane MacGowan. Could it be? Could he be back with the band again? I didn’t dare let my hopes get up… for all I knew, someone had just grabbed the names off one of the earlier albums and didn’t know the difference.

I sat through the opening act, and then, finally, the Pogues came on stage. Sure enough, it was a grizzled Shane who staggered on stage with his glass in hand. They launched straight into Streams of Whiskey, and then Broad Majestic Shannon. I was on my feet and dancing up a storm for the rest of the show.

Did you keep a watch for the dead man’s wind
Did you see the woman with a comb in her hand
Wailing away on the wall on the strand
As you danced to the Turkish song of the damned

The show was great. Shane sounded as harsh as ever, and the rest of the band was solid. They played mostly early stuff from the first two albums (Red Roses for Me, and Rum Sodomy & The Lash) with only a few songs from later albums, which suited me just fine. They never took any breaks, but Shane did occasionally stumble offstage to let Spider Stacy, Philip Chevron and Andrew Ranken each sing a song of their own.

Well Jimmy played harmonica in the pub where I was born
He played it from the night time to the peaceful early morn
He soothed the souls of psychos and the men who had the horn
And they all looked very happy in the morning

They played all the songs I would have wanted them to. The crowd roared along with them for Body of an American, and I bounced around like crazy during Sally MacLennane. It was great! We each have a few bands that we absolutely have to see live before we die. For me, the Pogues was the biggest name left on the list. I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance again, and it makes me shudder to think I almost passed it by this time, not knowing the whole band had reunited.

What a great show. And I didn’t even understand a goddamn thing Shane said all night.

Rainy Saturday

It’s pouring down rain today. So of course, I went out for a walk in it. = D

I had to go to the Post Office anyway, to get my tax forms. It’s only about 4 blocks away, so it would be ridiculous to walk, no matter how hard it’s raining (and it is raining pretty hard). Besides, I love weather. The more weathery it is, the better. Even though I was soaked before I even made it to the corner, it’s really more about the experience than it is about comfort.

As I was walking, I noticed that all the little birds were sheltering under parked cars. Which got me thinking… isn’t that the kind of place cats would go to get out of the rain too? Presumably, the cats and the birds aren’t under the same cars, sharing some kind of uneasy truce until the weather lets up. So there must be some cars with birds, and some cars with cats. Cat cars and bird cars. How organized, how civil. Maybe the birds can peer across the street at other cars and see cats glaring back at them.

I spent most of the morning programming up a storm. Now that I’m basically done my S.T.A.L.K.E.R. mod (maybe I’ll post a link at some point), I’ve started a new project. This time around, it’s my own game, from scratch.

It might seem strange that after programming all day at work, I’d want to come home and program some more. But the two experiences are totally different. At work, I’m often working within a huge, pre-existing code base, making small additions or fixes. On the other hand, when I work on my own games, I get to start fresh and write everything. It’s like the difference between driving in city traffic compared to roaring down a wide open stretch of highway. I learn different things from those experiences too. At work, I see the solutions that other people have come up with for certain problems, and get to see the results and weigh their merits. On my own projects, I have to come up with solutions for everything myself. I get to decide how everything works, in a much more hands-on, experimental way.

I like that when I start a project at home, I get to start out by writing reams of code. At work, I seldom create new functions and almost never create new classes. When I start an independent project at home, I might write a dozen classes in a day. Er… sorry for the programmer-speak. But the gist of it is that doing my own thing at home is often a much rawer act of creation, and a lot more satisfying.

Anyway, all of this is in its very early stages. It will be a while before I even have enough going on that I can start posting screenshots and talking about the game. But the important thing is that I’ve started it, things are proceeding at a good pace, and I’m having fun. = ]

Hey!

I’m still alive, contrary to any impression you may have got from my neglected blog. I’ve just been working very hard lately, so that means I’ve had little time to post any updates on here, and even if I did, there would be practically nothing to report, since all I’d been doing was working.

However, last night gave a little bit of excitement, as we had a lunar eclipse. I had a great view of it from my apartment, since I’m on the third floor and the apartment is south facing. It all unfolded too slowly to just sit and watch it from beginning to end, but Blake and I made a point of checking on it every half hour or so, and we got a pretty good look at it as it went through all its stages. I don’t think I’ve really watched a lunar eclipse like that since I was a kid. I used to be wildly interested in astronomy… even thought I might become an astronomer when I grew up.

Not that I have any complaints, of course. = ] I’m still loving what I do. In fact, I would recommend that all of you

CLICK THIS LINK

to see what I’ve been working on for the past several months.

Milestones

Two interesting things to mark. First, I have now been in Boston for one year. It doesn’t feel like that long… but in some ways it feels like I’ve been here for longer than that. The second is that I finished updating my reading list. Only now it’s the “Reading List – 2007” since I’ll have to start a new one for the current year. And yes, I’m already behind on updating the list for 2008. =P

Happy Birthday, Blake

There hasn’t been much to report lately. I’ve mostly been busy with work and other things, and unfortunately the ol’ blog has been a bit neglected. But I’m here now to make up for that.

The one big, exciting thing that happened in the past week was Blake’s birthday. The little fella turned five on Jan 15th. And he got what every tiger wants… a Barrel of Monkeys!

He looked like he was having fun. = ]

Truth is, I don’t actually know precisely when Blake’s birthday is. It was five years ago that I made a donation to the World Wildlife Fund to adopt a tiger. I figured they would just send me a picture of a tiger or something, but a few weeks later, a big fat envelope showed up in the mail, and there was Blake. His adoption papers didn’t include a birthdate, so I’m just kind of estimating that he must have been born about 3 weeks before he ended up with me. That’s close enough for Blake and I.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go rescue Blake from his monkeys…

Joy to the Whirled

Before I write anything else, let me wish you, dear reader, a very Merry Commerce and a Happy New Year. I hope the past year has been good to you, and you’re having a wonderful holiday, and there are good things in store for you in the coming year. I still recommend you usher it in blinding drunk, just in case that turns out to be the high point.

I’m having a great holiday so far. I will now present my bullet point list of highlights.

Dan’s Bulleted List of Holiday Highlights

• getting blasted on French-Canadian beer (appropriately named “La Fin Du Monde”) with T&A, while playing endless rounds of TimeSplitters 2. I was the dinosaur on the rooftop with the chaingun.
• my dad has finished his book on our family history. I’m about halfway through, and it rocks.
• me, Vania, my two nieces, and my mom, all sitting around playing our respective Nintendo DSes. I got the girls Phantom Hourglass, and my mom is seriously hooked on Puzzle Quest.
• Doing a grueling class of Hapkido with Master Forster. It’s a great reference point to come back and train with him each year, and make sure I haven’t been backsliding.
• My eleven-year-old nieces know all about Thor and Odin. My sister has taught them well.
• There is half a metre of snow here, and we’ve had more heavy snowfall the last two nights. This is the way a white xmas is supposed to be.
• The devil invented a new card game and taught it to my mother. It’s called sets, and it’s cruel like salt in a paper cut. My mom loves it and makes us play it every night. Only for my mother…

In general, I’m having a great time. These visits home every year are like plugging in your cellphone overnight – it’s the only thing that keeps me going through the rest of the year. I find that as time goes by, my family becomes more and more important to me, so it means a lot to get back to see them every xmas. When people have known you this long, and still like you… you keep them close to your heart.

Back in Van (plus chocolate)

Yes, here I am, back in Vancouver for a week. And, get this… it’s raining!

I’m really just passing through on my way up to Prince George to visit with my family for Commerce holidays, but it’s great to have a couple days to see a bunch of old friends again (old friends, heh, I’ve only been gone a year).

In other news, traffic on this blog has spiked like crazy. It’s like a geyser with a stick of dynamite in it. And it’s all hits from people searching for one thing: chocolate. Apparently I’ve mentioned it on here a time or two. Now, it’s drawing people from all over the intertron. I wonder, is chocolate the new pr0n? Should I revamp my blog to be a hub for all things chocolate? Should I post recipes?

Ingredients:

1 litre Chocolate Milk

Directions:

Open carton. Makes one serving.

Should I (chocolate) increase the (chocolate) number of (chocolate) times I use the (chocolate) word (chocolate) “chocolate” (chocolate) just so (chocolate) I can boost the (chocolate) amount of  (chocolate) traffic here (chocolate)? No, I’m above such naked pandering to the masses, chocolate-crazed though they may be.

Because really, this is a blog about a boy and his tiger, not chocolate (though it does make the occasional guest appearance). It would be wrong to draw people here when they’re really just looking for chocolate, and have no idea who the heck Blake and I are. The proper thing for me to do would be to refrain from mentioning chocolate at all, so I don’t end up leading people astray. So there you have it, I won’t mention chocolate again. Except that I just said it.  Chocolate, I mean.

I’m such a brat. =D