A Personal Blog
Archive for March, 2006
I Am A Creature of Habit
Mar 29th
My wife always reminds me that I’m a creature of habit. Sometimes it’s when I get mildly distressed when my favorite cereal isn’t in the house anymore. Other times it’s when she doesn’t put the seat back in place in the car (even though she drives it more than I do). I’m getting better, but it’s still there.
Never moreso than just now.
We’re heading out the door (still) and I needed a belt (no need for a belt when I’m sitting on my ass all day working). I went looking where it *always is* (on a hook in the bathroom… don’t ask). I couldn’t find it, so I ask Shannon where it is.
Where was it?
On a hook on the back of the bathroom door. I walked past the damned belt to check on the hook inside the bathroom!!!
*sigh*
Getting better my ass.
All It Takes Is Some Whining…
Mar 29th
Yeah, so Mesh. When I heard that the guys behind it were thinking of doing it, to say I was pumped would be an understatement. I was off. The. Walls. Toronto absolutely needs a conference that brings the best minds in business and tech together. Particularly if those happen to be the best minds in Toronto as well.
When I heard about it, I’ll admit that I envisioned it being a Toronto event. Y’know, local experts, local speakers, local sponsors, etc. I’ll also admit that I fully expected to be invited to speak. Sure, some of that was ego (after all, I am The Jeremy Wright, bleh). Most of it was just “this is so my scene, I so want this to happen, why wouldn’t they want me there?”
Course, in my little whine/bitch-fest I didn’t allow for anything … like the speakers list not being finalized… or that they would just rather have me there instead of speaking.
Which should have been fine with me. But it wasn’t. I’m not apologizing for what I said, I’m just apologizing for being such a dick about it. After all, I could have just emailed the guys. I’ve done so enough times in the past.
Anyways, thanks in large part to them getting past my dickiness (I swear I am Canadian…), they have asked me to participate on one of the panels. More details to come.
In the future, feel free to not indulge my whining. Feel free to tell me to just shut up. I’m Canadian. I’ll probably just take it ;-)
Mesh – The Conference
Mar 27th
Some of Canada’s smartest minds have come up with a conference, May 15-16 of this year. Mesh. They asked for input, I gave it to them. Maybe I should have said “uh, have Canadian speakers?”, but I thought that was a given.
I’ll admit, I was quite disappointed that they didn’t ask me to speak, given that I am Canadian, I’m running an increasingly prominent web 2.0 style startup and… Ah heck, who am I kidding, I just thought it’d be a helluva lot of fun to speak.
I’ll probably still go, and I don’t bear the guys any ill will at all. As I said, smartest guys in Canada. And if they don’t think I’m right for the conference, then that’s … Well, it’s “okay” I guess. I’m sure it’ll still be a kickass event and, as long as I’m not on vacation (6th anniversary is 2 days before the event) I’ll likely be there.
I’d feel like such a fool to not go to one of the most kickass Toronto business / tech / blogging events of the year just because they didn’t ask me to speak. I’m not quite *that* much of a dick.
First Impressions: Perfect Dark Zero
Mar 27th
Well, I gave my first impressions of the 360 (which continues to just shine and shine to me, especially demos and the Arcade) earlier this month. Thought I’d spend some time with the first exclusive game I’d bought, Perfect Dark Zero.
Now, I loved Perfect Dark on the N64. I also loved GoldenEye. But Perfect Dark took all the great bits of GoldenEye and made them nearly perfect. Not totally, but my friends and I spent a LOT of hours playing PD on the 64.
So it was with some nervousness that I decided to buy Perfect Dark Zero. In fact, so much nervousness that until last night I hadn’t really played it. Last night a mate came over and we did the first 3-5 missions (not sure exactly which).
The initial impression was WOW. The game is gorgeous. I mean, freaking awesome. The controls were a little hard to get used to, because there is so much you can do in the game. The prompts for things like taking cover are helpful, but there is still a lot you can do. Once got through the first level, though, we were doing pretty well.
After that we spent about 20 minutes playing with the rag doll physics (ie: beating people up and then tossing them in the water, and then shooting them until they were flat against the bottom). One of the missions took us about half a dozen tries to do, because it wasn’t clear that when playing 2 players we each had to ID a guy (ie: I couldn’t just do both). That sucked.
And then our last mission (when Player 2 plays as Mr. Dark) was incredibly, incredibly hard. Probably took 10-12 tries to finish it.
Overall, this is an absolutely fantastic game. We played for 3 hours, and besides the last half hour of frustration, it was fun the whole time. The gadgets rock. Grenades are freaking awesome. Some of the ways you do things in coop (ie: one person goes up the elevator, then helps the other person up) were great.
Jeff and I found ourselves constantly getting separated, and the arrows leading to your partner were very helpful. So far the weapons have been fairly basic, but are still crazy fun. The shotgun rocks. Just rocks.
So far, that’s the end of my experience. A 3 hour, crazy fun, session of coop with a friend. I’m sure I’ll have more. Suffice to say that any nervousness I had about the game is completely washed away. Perfect Dark Zero is an absolutely amazing sequel to Perfect Dark. And it’s a kickass game overall. No complaints.
Weight Loss Plans
Mar 25th
Since I’m speaking at a cruise this fall, I figured it’d be good to drop some weight. Specifically, I’m looking to bring myself under 200 pounds. My “ideal weight” would be 180 pounds, but I’m not sure how realistic that is, given that I only have about 6 months to do this in, and don’t have the time for serious workouts every day.
So far, my plan is two stage:
Stage 1
Daily calorie intake: 1750 Daily calorie burn: 100 Weekly 1 hour workouts: 1
Stage 2
Daily calorie intake: 1500 Daily calorie burn: 200 Weekly 1 hour workouts: 2
I’ll let stage 1 go for 2-4 weeks, depending on how I feel. During stage 2 I’ll also up my vitamin intake, and alter my daily workouts to include more cardio than stage 1. I’m confident I can drop the 30 pounds if I stay at this, and maybe as much as 40 pounds, which’d bring me down to 185 or so. We’ll see how it goes though. Always hard to stay in shape and eat well when doing it on your own. So if anyone wants to join me, let me know ;-)
