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Wednesday, December 31, 2003:
I haven't had much success getting a dog yet. All the dogs I've checked out thus far have had issues like extreme separation anxiety or something else along those lines. So for the time being, I decided to get a different type of pet; the kind of pet that doesn't mind being on its own all day, if need be. He's a red bearded dragon. I won't have any decent pictures of him for a few days, since he's just a wee baby (5 weeks old) and can't be handled until he's comfortable with his new digs.
There were only two possible names for him that popped into my head. The first, "Spyro", seemed appropriate enough considering the last few games I worked on. However, since bearded dragons can live up to around 10 years old and I don't know how many Spyro games I've got left in me (plus he's red whereas Spyro is purple), I decided to go with the other name: "Trogdor the Burninator", or just "Trogdor" for short. If you don't know where that name comes from (in particular),then you may be living in a hole, deep underground.
I'll probably end up making a little section on my site for the little guy. Not to give him a voice, but something more along the lines of care and feeding based on what I learn as I go along. I'm quite certain it will be frightfully dull to anyone not fascinated by the little critters. Perhaps I'll attempt to inject some humour into it. He's just so terribly cute as he stalks and then burninates the crickets I put in his tank (and I can scream "Trogdoooooor!" each time he does so). Good thing there are no peasants in there with him. I was going to put some little ceramic houses in there so he'd have a village he could burninate, but then decided to just keep things simple.
Sunday, November 9, 2003:
I went to update my DVD pages this morning and got tired of editing all those stupid pages by hand, so I whipped up a perl script to build the pages from a single, unified list of entries. Now I only have to edit one file to update my DVD list instead of twenty seven files. It's about bloody time. A side benefit of doing it this way is the perl script adds additional information to the page, displaying the total number of titles in my collection and the total number of titles on each page. So now people can stop asking me how many DVDs I have (I get asked a lot). :)
Friday night was the company wrap party for Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs and one other project, so we headed out to Playdium in Burnaby for food and much, much fun. I had a great time repeatedly beating my co-worker buddy Dale at air hockey and trying to make him vomit on the Virtual Coaster. I soundly thrashed him at just about every driving game we played, too. Oh, Dale, will you ever learn? Heh heh.
It was a great party, and many thanks to Jeff, the boss, for throwing it for us. Playdium is a lot of fun. Wish it was closer to the office, though.
Friday, November 7, 2003:
GameZone posted a review of Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs today. They seem to have ignored any differences between it and previous Spyro games for the Gameboy Advance (it reads as though the reviewer never played them) but they still gave it 79% overall. The reviewer tends to hack on the amount of dialogue, as well as the game being very easy. This is about the nicest thing said about the game:
"The isometric view gives the game a closer-to-3D feel than any other game on the GBA. Even Banjo-Kazooie, which used a similar gameplay technique, is not as effective at pulling it off as Spyro is."
If I had to review GameZone's review, I'd say that Spyro fans who have played previous Spyro GBA games will find nothing very helpful, as it focuses more on explaining the controls, isometric view, and fire & ice breath than on describing any of the story or gameplay enhancements since Spyro: Season of Flame. If you've never heard of Spyro the Dragon, or ever played any Spyro games, then this review is for you.
Thursday, November 6, 2003:
Late in October, Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs finally hit the shelves. Thus far, the only review is from GamePro, which gave it a 4 out of 5 (80%). I've added an entry for the game to the "Games I've Worked On" section of my site. The UK version is called Spyro: Adventure, and should hit the shelves on November 14.
Friday, September 19, 2003:
I've been on vacation since Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs wrapped. I was planning on taking a month off, but it seems I may have to cut it short. My next project is going to require herculean levels of work and attention if it's going to get done on time, and there's precious little time.
At least I got some time to get properly settled in my house, and managed to get a few house-related things done that I wouldn't normally have had the time to accomplish. Oh, and I got a Brugmansia from my parents, for my backyard. That thing is amazing. I promised I'd post some pictures of it once it was in full bloom, so here they are:
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Sunday, August 17, 2003:
I finally set up my game consoles. Managed to get nine of them on a single TV stand with (disregarding the mess of wires coming off my receiver) no visible cables or cords, other than a single component video, A/V cable and power cord, which are strapped together and run along the wall and behind the TV. The whole thing is on castors, so when I'm not playing games it just rolls over and against the wall. Check it out:
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The Sega Genesis currently has no video connection since I have no A/V cable for it. I'm going to have to make one and I'm not entirely sure if I have to connect the sync line to the composite video line or not. Guess I'll find out.
Saturday, July 12, 2003:
It seems I've rather taken to gardening, or at least trying to stave off the death of my plants and lawn - a death which seems imminent without my constant care and attention. In the case of the lawn, my constant care and attention is what seems to be killing it. This must be the case, as everyone else on my street seems to generally leave their lawn alone and they have nicer lawns than mine.
Anyway, the plants seem to be doing all right, except for my Santa Rosa plum tree, which steadfastly refuses to bear any actual fruit. Judging by the leaves, I think it's attracted the interest of some as yet unseen pest, yet I can't seem to find any information on the internet that discusses such things, let alone how to deal with it.
Here's a picture (below) of the leaves on my plum tree. It looks like an insect problem. If anyone has an idea about what's wrong with it and how I might deal with it, by all means let me know. Did I mention that it refuses to bear fruit?
Saturday, June 14, 2003:
The move is complete! My email address has changed as you may care to note above. I also had to move my web site over as well.
All I have to do now is buy a veritable pantload of furniture. My books are all still in boxes until I can pick up some shelves 'pon which to place them.
It's positively heavenly waking up in total silence for the first time in eight years.
Saturday, May 24, 2003:
Time is a funny thing. Even though the days continue to grudgingly tick slowly by, it seems that my move date is perpetually two weeks away. This means that the completion date is always just over a week away. It's taking forever. It's like being 10 years old, when school break seemed to last ages and ages.
The funny part is that it simultaneously feels like I don't have enough time. During the next five weekdays, I have to put my closing costs together, obtain a bank draft for said costs, arrange a meeting with the lawyers to sign things and give them money, arrange an appointment with the car dealership to seal the deal on the car I've chosen, arrange an appointment with the insurance company to insure the car and house, and take my road test in order to renew my driver's license.
I also have to pack all my belongings and arrange to rent a truck to move all my stuff, but thankfully, that can wait until the week after.
Never, ever let your driver's license expire for longer than three years (in Canada, anyway). The amount of pain, stress and suffering required to get it back is rather surprising.
Thursday, May 8, 2003:
Golf, Canucks, Golf!
Monday, March 10, 2003:
I bought a house. I dreaded undertaking such a time-consuming process, since I never have any free time, but somehow I managed to locate a perfect house and successfully negotiate its purchase in less than 24 hours.
I looked at five houses and wound up buying the first one I looked at, which was so ideal that I figured I had to jump on it fast or risk losing it. As it turned out, had I waited even one day, I'd have lost the house. Bad for someone else, good for me. Yay!
So I'll be a homeowner for the first time. Am I cut out for this sort of thing? Only time will tell, I guess. Commuting to work will suck, but it's balanced out by the utter peace and quiet I'll enjoy compared to living in the city for the past eight years. No more car alarms, emergency vehicles, roaring buses, loud trucks, constant construction, night clubs, and screaming drunken people at 2:30am every single night.
Oh, and I can see the stars at night. On my own deck. Can't wait!
Sunday, February 23, 2003
My Sony Clié T665C has proved to be fairly useful. It reminds me when Canucks games are going to start, I can keep contact info on it (which has actually been helpful) and, of course, I can play Bejeweled on the bus. Heh.
It's not going to work as a remote control device, unfortunately. The OmniRemote software is far from polished (lots of cumulative visual glitches with the menus), plus the IR strength of the Clié is very, very weak. I looked at the IR LEDs through my digital camera in Night Shot mode and my Marantz RC5000 is a lighthouse beacon, while the LEDs on the Clié are barely noticeable when they send a signal. Oh well.
Still haven't gotten around to mucking about with MP3s on the thing yet.
I'd love to try programming the thing, since I spent a good deal of my career writing 68000 assembly language, but I just can't stand Code Warrior. If I can find the time, perhaps I'll see if I can get a straightforward gcc development system working with it.
Wednesday, January 22, 2003:
I bought a PDA yesterday. It's a Sony Clié T665C and it's my first handheld ever. I plan to use it as a remote control for my home theatre, and to listen to MP3s on the go (too bad it doesn't play OGG files as well). Any other usefulness I get out of the thing is a bonus.
Unfortunately, I can't use it yet, since it didn't come with a screen protector. I've got to get a protector today because not being able to play with it is driving me nuts.
Wednesday, January 8, 2003:
A fascinating forum thread on the Straight Dope web site has drawn tons of attention. The topic being discussed is "what if Lord of the Rings had been written by someone else?"
The hundreds of submissions from people, writing as everyone from Dr. Seuss to Dostoevsky, are spot on and very well done. Frightfully entertaining stuff.
(November 2003: I removed the link after discovering it's now broken)
Saturday, January 4, 2003:
On December 26, 2002, Konami finally released the Japanese version of Spyro: Season of Ice for the Gameboy Advance, and have put up a web site for it at www.konamistudio.com. The Japanese version is called Spyro Advance.