It has been released.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Once Again
Hollywood is in no short supply of girls I’ll never be with.
Elizabeth Banks
Particularly her character in 40 Year Old Vigin. She was a SUPER-FREAK!
Jennifer Connely
I don’t think I really need to write anything here…
Kristen Stewart
Let me first say I have no respect for anything Twilight. But I don’t need respect for what I’d do to her. I’m a dirty old man.
Mary Louise Parker
The Mom from Weeds. If she was a friend’s Mom, he would be my best friend.
Sarah Chalke
Back in the Scrubs days, very pretty.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Moon
In the previous post, the movie mentioned was Moon. Saw it at The Princess, an old theater that looks like it’s from the 50’s. It’s on Whyte, and only has 2 screens, one per floor. The screens were tiny and the seats broke by back. But it was a fun experience.
The movie itself was a bit disappointing. It was good, but I was hoping for more. But I LOVED the soundtrack, and it turned out to be by Clint Mansell, so that figures. He can do no wrong.
Another Awesome Weekend
Yup.
Over the course of the weekend I hung out with several friends, hung out on Whyte, went for lunch, for dinner, for beers, for wines, for walks, for movies and for road-trips. All of this took place in the midst of an Edmonton heat-wave. It was a good weekend.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Creepy Chad
Whenever I’m talking to Chad on my iPhone he creeps me out as he peers at me through the gui.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
An Awesome Weekend
Had a great weekend, as you may have deduced from the post title. Weekend was off to a great start with the last 2 hours of work on Friday being Beer Day. At 4:00 everyone went down to the second floor lunchroom and drank free beer, and had free chips, pretzels, etc. It has been beautiful out so many of us just stood around on the smoker’s deck in the sun, beer in hand, and chatted. It was great.
As people started to take off for the weekend Nathan, Reid, Owen and I stuck around and played some Soul Calibur 4 until about 8:00. It was something we’d been planning on doing for a while. After we were gamed out we headed to Boston Pizza and chatted over good food. A good day.
Saturday I woke up early and caught up with Kyra. I still miss that girl. Great hearing from her again. It was beautiful out so I went and hung out with some friends on Whyte Ave. We walked around shopping, had some food and drinks at Next Act, and enjoyed the weather. I bought a very cool skin for my iPhone, replacing the Mass Effect one I had. Very cool.
Eventually we went back to their place and watched movies until a GIANT storm hit. It was really powerful, causing quite a bit of damage. The power ended up going out on all of Whyte Ave! On a Saturday night… So bars were full, energies were high, streets were packed, etc. I’m surprised a riot didn’t break out. We took out some candles and played some cardgames and got to know each other really well, it was great fun.
Once the storm passed we went for a walk down Whyte in the dark. It was weird to be in the heart of the city but still be able to see a sky full of stars. There was quite a bit of storm damage too, many LARGE branches and trees had been broken right off. I had been parked under a large tree so I’m lucky there was no vehicle damage.
Around 1:30 I headed home, it was a really great night, one of my best in Edmonton so far.
Sunday I took a lazy day. For the most part I just laid in bed and watched my old House DVDs, lol. Andi called and I chatted with her for a while, always good to hear from her.
And now I’m back at work. Vanessa just introduced me to more of the team, and I’m just waiting for an export. Good times.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Movin’ On Up!
So I’m no longer on the Consoles team. I’ve managed to get into the PRC (Post Release Content) department, specifically as QA Design =D
Earlier this week my new boss, Jason, scheduled a quick meeting with me in his office. I went down, not sure what it was about. It was just a quick chat to get me comfortable with the new position, what I’d be doing, and what the overall plan was. And he told me, in no uncertain terms, he wants to get me fulltime! He can’t make any promises of course, but the department is in desperate need of some qa. This is fantastic news! Him and one of the producers on PRC have been embedding me deep in the team, putting me on a fast-track to be as involved as possible. Things are definitely looking up.
Yesterday was my last day in my old office. I loved that room and will miss it. Packing up my stuff at the end of the day for the movers was a weird feeling.
But this morning I came to work to my new office. And it is AWESOME! It’s a window office, unlike the old office which was always dark, I’m now sitting in sunlight. The room is me, and John, a programmer who’s rarely at his desk, so I usually have the room to myself. My desk is in a corner facing the wall, so I have privacy. I’m not a slacker, but I do like to have privacy and not have people able to see my monitors all day. So it’s pretty great.
Today I was told to come in late, the movers usually don’t finish setting up new offices until about 10:00. So I came in around then, though Jason told me to just mark it as 9:00 since it was out of my control. I have a big meeting at 1:30, a bi-weekly meeting for the PRC team, and I’m to be introduced to the new team then. And then at 4:00 it’s officially Beer Day. All of Bioware goes down to the lunch rooms and drinks beer for the rest of the day, paid. God I love this job. We work hard, we play hard.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Great Monday
This morning I headed into work, and started my week with the link I posted in my previous entry. The day was off to a good start.
For lunch Nathan, Dave, Owen and I went to Ikea for some cheap hotdogs, then we drove down to West Ed to buy a hard-to-find game.
When I returned to work, Zac (my boss) immediately said “Dale, come with me!” I had no idea what this was about. He took me over to Jason’s room and told me I was being moved to the PRC (Post Release Content) team to do QA Design work for them! I’ll be moving offices (window office!!!), attending all the QA Design scrum meetings, and working exclusively with them now.
If you remember, a few weeks ago I took some initiative and brought up the idea of doing some QA Design work for PRC, which the right people seemed impressed by. Since then, on my down time, I’ve been playing the PRC stuff and submitting design bugs, and have been getting very positive feedback from them. Well apparently the need for some more dedicated QA Design work on the project came up, and my name came to mind. So the power-play a few weeks ago accomplished exactly what I wanted it to, and as a result I’ll be making a jump to the career-path I’ve been trying to get on for the better half of a year!
This is great news!!! I applied recently for that QA Design fulltime salary position, so this can’t hurt my chances. And the job comes with much more responsibility. As an example, immediately after I got the news I returned to my desk and had several meeting requests waiting for me in Outlook. The rest of my day was spent in meetings! The first was a playthrough of some PRC with the QA Design team to critique some of the new stuff. I was nervous, as I didn’t know any of these people, and many of them were big names, including David Gaider, lead writer for Dragon Age. I wanted to make a good first impression.
Despite my intimidation, I spoke up during the meeting, introduced myself to people, etc. Throughout the meeting I made my ideas heard, and several were even accepted. That means they will be changing elements of the game based on my ideas. Not just technical stuff like “That door won’t open” but more creative stuff like “This should happen in a cutscene to emphasize the emotional impact of the event” I find that amazingly cool, that I now have some creative input on the final product!
Tomorrow I have a meeting with someone from the team and they’re going to show me the infrastructure and all the tech stuff I need to know for the job. I’ll probably be moving offices by the end of the week. I will miss the office I’m in now though; Zac is a great boss, and the whole room is filled with great guys. Reid and I always have intense debates while we work, Dave and I always rib each other, and we all collectively rib Owen, lol. I will definitely miss that. Though I’m just down the hall, and when Nathan moved offices to help with the audio team it’s not like we never saw him again. Hooray for in-office MSN.
My calendar is literally packed now with all the meetings I have. I’m really excited about the more involved role I’ll play now. The more responsibility I’m given, the more chances I’ll have to prove I’m the right person for the position. And I truly believe I’d be great at this job.
-- Meetings! --
Also, the PRC project I’m now on will be my 4th official sku with my name in the credits!
I find it funny that I was never the ambitious type. There was a time when I thought I’d be fine working at Pita Pazzaz in the mall food court the rest of my life. I was a total screw up, but put me in the right place and suddenly there’s a fire I can’t put out. And I love it; I love that I’m always on the way to something even better, while loving where I’m at. I love that the further I get, the more I have to show for it. This has been a great ride so far, and I feel I’ve grown along the way. I’d really hate for this ride to end, or more specifically: I’d hate to have to take a 3 month hiatus from it. But today was a big step in the right direction. It was a good day.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Video Game Mind-Fuck
I came in to work this morning and the first thing I did was open a link from Colin on msn. This is what it was.
Almost Again
Ever since I cancelled my dalefurutani.net domain my playlist has been down (though I don’t know who other than Chad listens to it) so I threw together a quick one tonight and stored the files on fileden. It’s a playlist of what I’ve been listening to lately, and thus this one is sorta all over the place, with everything from good-mood indy to downright metal. Enjoy!
- State Shirt – Cassettes
- Hercules And Love Affair – Time Will
- Metric – Gold Guns Girls
- Dredg – I Don’t Know
- Muse – Starlight
- Linkin Park – New Divide
- Dredg – Information
- Metric – Blindness
- Nine Inch Nails – Me, I’m Not (Pawn Project Remix)
- Devin Townsend Project – Heaven Send
- Strapping Young Lad – Almost Again
- Amorphis – Sampo
- Amorphis – Silver Bride
- Devin Townsend Project – Ki Push play --->
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Maintenance
Thursday was a rainy day, and on the way to work I turned my headlights on. “Don’t forget to turn them off!” I thought to myself… I forgot.
After work, sure enough, the battery was dead. “No big deal,” I thought “I’ll just go back upstairs and see if someone in the office has jumper cables.” That someone ended up being Brian. But after 15 minutes we could not get my car running, even with a third passerby helping us. My car was dead!
Nathan was nice enough to give me a ride home, but I was now stressed out. I kind of need a car. I live almost out of town, making it hard to get anywhere to get anything without a car, not to mention have a social life and get to work. I’ve been thinking of getting a new car, but that was maybe a year down the road, it’s not a realistic option quite yet. So this sucked, and I was stressing out.
The next day I caught a ride to work with Bill. My car was still dead in the parking lot. At lunch Nathan gave me a ride to PartSource and I bought some jumper cables and some fuses. I’d burnt a fuse a while ago and figured maybe that was why we couldn’t jump start the car. After replacing the fuse we tried jumpstarting the car, and it worked! Thank God. Put me in a great mood. And on the way back up to the office some strippers from the strip club across the street were putting up some signs dressed in almost nothing and came and talked me up for 10 minutes. That put me in an even greater mood!
Not having a car, even for one day, made me realize how much that would suck. I figured I should probably take care of the one I have, so on the drive home I stopped my Mr. Lube and got an oil-change, engine sealant, etc. My rear driver’s side turning signal had just died so I bought a replacement light for that too. I then went back to PartSource and bought a new air filter and changed that too. I have to get my car safetied for Alberta soon too.
It was actually pretty fun getting my hands dirty under the hood of a car, even if it was only minor repairs that anyone could do. But I’m still a tech-geek, and as proof, screenshots of my new theme for my jailbroken iPhone!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Andi’s Visit!
Andi came through Edmonton! She was heading to Winnipeg to visit family and friends, and passed through Edmonton on the way. It was just for a night. Sadly she was planning on coming in at around 4:00 PM but the trip took longer than expected and she didn’t get in until around 10:00. We only got to hang out for a few hours, which is a shame cause I was hoping to introduce her to some of my friends and show her our regular pub, Next Act. Melissa in particular was really hoping to meet her. Next time.
It was great to see her again. Last time we hung out was on my visit to Winnipeg at Xmas. It was bizarre too, in that we were both now out on our own, chasing our dreams and making lives for ourselves. Everyone was growing up.
It was also just like old times though, sitting in the Honda and chatting, sharing a cigar, etc. I miss her, and it was good to see her again. I’ll definitely have to visit her on the next major road trip!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Happenings
First of all, you may have noticed my blog is no longer at dalefurutani.net. I haven’t been interested in photography as a career in some time, so it just didn’t make sense to keep paying for the domain name anymore. One downside of this is the playlist on the right doesn’t work at the moment, since the songs were all stored on that domain. I’ll migrate the mp3s to some free file-storage site some day, but until then playlist is down.
Anyway, few new things going on. First of all, I can’t remember if I wrote this, Bill and Tia bought some kittens! First they bought Isabella, a 1 year old cat, very vocal and friendly… To people. Then Tia bought 2 new kittens, maybe 2 months old. They’re super cute and love each other, but Isabella hates them, lol. It’s been entertaining watching the cat politics as they establish dominance and alliances.
I ordered some blucigs. I loved smoking, but the health risks and financial costs made it a bad idea. These get around both of those. $60 for a starter kit will get me enough to last 3 months, then 20$ will refill me for another 3 months. There’s no carcinogens in them, so no cancer! That’s a plus! No stinky smell, no second hand smoke, I can smoke indoors (including at my computer in the office), and plus the tech-geek side of me thinks they’re so neat! They light up blue instead of red when you puff! I’ve talked to a few friends who have tried them at different times, and they said they’re actually quite cool. So that should be interesting.
Back to work tomorrow, and I’ll get to file some more design bugs. I honestly can’t wait to get back to work tomorrow. What a life.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Canada Day Dilemma
Hung out with Dann, Melissa, Colin, Renee and Jo last night. Played some fun drinking games, ordered pizza, had an apartment nerf war. It was good times. I broke my glasses though (simply taking them off, not from drunken rough-housing, even though there was plenty), and that sucks because that’s like $400 at least, which I don’t have. They’re still wearable, and the break is hardly noticeable, so for now I’ll get by.
Today is Canada Day. The office has bear-bones staff in today, but the consoles team were told they could come in if they wanted, which I took advantage of. Making time and a half. And we get free Boston Pizza for lunch.
Not sure what I’m going to do tonight. Dann is hanging out with Brian at a bar, which I’m invited to, but I’m broke. Melissa works, Nathan is out of town (Vegas!), etc. Supposedly every Canada Day Edmonton has an amazing fireworks display downtown, with a giant WATERFALL off a bridge. Sounds amazing. Canada Day was always a big deal in Winnipeg with my friends and I feel like I should go out tonight, but at the same time I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately. Being very ambitious at work, my Mom was in town so entertained her for the weekend (don’t get me wrong, it was great to see her), and then drunken fun last night… I could really go for a relaxing night at home. So I might just pick up a case of beer and play some videogames all night with Chad, we’ll see.
Regardless, hope everyone has a great Canada Day!
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