Johnny Utah and his Wave of Thoughts

Time Goes

2007-05-22T13:51:00.001-07:00

Well it has been over a month and I've been consumed by the Oblivion hole. They owe me a month of my time back. That is all I want. Simple request I think.

Halo 3 Beta was released with multiple class action law suits thrown at them because of it. OK not really, but all the little kids who don't understand the point of a beta and the fact that software gets delayed fairly often. Also the crying that a 14 hour turn around to find, solver, test and release the fix was too long. They just don't get it. Nor will they ever.

For another example of how those not involved in software just don't get it. http://www.ncaastrategies.com/utopia/showthread.php?t=48569

It starts off with an innocent "how much you think it costs too develop this game" question. That leads to SQL server debates and so on. I actually enjoy when we get to this "You are right that I don't know how to code on that level. But I don't think it would be impossible to learn." He doesn't think it would be hard to learn how to code on that level. Really does he just think anyone can do this stuff. Honestly I work with VLT's all day. Now thats basic as the actual possibilities of those games is very basic. HIT PLAY. But give me a break. I haven't seen the code nor do I want to see a football games code. I can only imagine how much bigger a RTS or and RPG looks like. Some people just don't understand. This brings up Old Man Winters saying " the thing about common sense is that it's not very common".

The next thing on the horizon is NCAA 2008. Having to play a high school game should be interesting where I only control one player and have no say in the plays. After that who knows. My guess would be Mass Effect from Bioware.

Other debates. Buy dirt for the lawn (so I can make grass yippy) or a new TV. Hmmmm. This truly is a hard one for me. Lawnmower, dirt, seed, whipper snipper thing is what's needed for the lawn. Plus labor, which I need to pay myself.

Oblivion Finally

2007-04-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

I've put this one off long enough. Since my recent XBox 360 purchase I can now play Oblivion. I really couldn't run the game on the crappy PC I have so I had to wait. But no longer.
Chose to be a redguard named Peerquin. The controls are very basic on the 360. The one problem I'm having right now is for the hot key items on the D-Pad. Up/Down Left/Right are easy to get. Its the items that are on the diagnol direction. There not so easy to get. Finding that a little frustrating at this point in time.
My improvement suggestion would be pressing up would scroll through a few items you have stored in that direction. So basically you cycle through items in the up direction that you have preset. Same for the other directions. The angled directions are just to awkward.

I'll have to adjust the brightness to my liking for where I have the TV set up. Night time is kind of hard to see when playing with the way the light is on the TV. So thats just an adjustment I have to make.

I'm on my way now to join the dark brotherhood. But I have to go kill someone to join. So I'll see what happens.

Nerfbat has a discussion right now on dialog presentation. Oblivion doesn't seem to give you much choice other than you can say all the responses and it doesn't make a difference. From what I can tell at least in my short playing time.

2 new Halo 2 maps come out soon. Not really interested in them since the Halo 3 beta will be out soon. But there only doing a beta for the matchmaking. But at least I can see how the game controls are working. Still don't think this is going to be the last game in the series. They'll continue the story somehow.

Battlefield Bad Company

2007-04-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

EA has been saying that Bad Company will have an 85% destructible environment. Now I only wonder how this is going to work. Since I'm a marshmallow eating smores camper around the fire with the sniper rifle, this is of great interest to me. Will the game keep all the debris throughout the match or will it keep it for a short period of time and then have it disappear like they do in the other games. Example being a truck destroyed. After a set time the blown up truck disappears. Now will that happen with the portion knocked off the building. I would have to say if the side of the building is on the ground it should not miraculously re-build itself. But what about the debris EA? They need to keep it

The other question is whether or not this is for multiplayer and singleplayer?

If the destructible world is not in the multiplayer, well I'll be playing Bad Company as much as 2142. Now if it is in multiplayer and they don't keep the debris on the ground for the entire match, I'll be less annoyed and play it as much as BF2. But that everlasting debris could keep me on that game for a much longer time. I just want the simple satisfaction that if a building is destroyed that it will stay and I can return to my camping ways. I want the same feeling that I get when I watch the movie "Enemy at the Gates". The sniper used that debris to his advantage as a hiding place. It's a simple request. Now simple to do is another song and dance.

Shame on Konami

2007-04-05T12:50:00.000-07:00

Shame on you Konami. Subliminal messages in your VLT games. Tisk tisk. www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/25/video-lottery.html

Its bad enough that these machines are set up to percentages where over time the machine wins out. But adding subliminal messages goes over the line. Don't be blaming it on a bug. That seems intentional. What will Konami do next? Rig it so the payouts are lower than reported.

Pool Money

2007-04-04T18:50:00.000-07:00

The NHL regular season is coming to an end shortly. Unfortunately I was unable to get my crown back for the Biggest Fantasy Hockey Pool in Southern New Brunswick. Its been away from me for a few years now. Oh how I miss it. But this year it looks like I'm gonna take home second place. Which is not all that bad since I made zero trades. The money helps with the pain of not winning it all. I'm greedy.

In the 11 years we have been doing the fantasy pool I am still the only person to win the regular and playoff pools in the same year. Its like the 72 Dolphins and there perfect season. Its magical when it happens. That year I just had all the stars aligned for me. I was just perfect that year. I was helped out by the aliens (Daniel and Henrik Sedin) and Useless Huselius who was picked in the second to last round. Guy was a stud this year.

Thanks go out to Newelly for hosting the pool every year. www.officepools.com for having a kick ass cheap site to keep track of it all and to all those who come out and donate money to my habits. DBonds that means you too.

On to other things. Crackdown. That is so fitting. It's "crack" alright. I've been done the actual game for a long time now. But I'm still stuck on 499 of 500 agility orbs. How the hell will I find that. Even using a simple glitch to get under the map doesn't help me. I can swim around and do a grid search easier. But the map is so big. The sense of accomplishment when I find it will be awesome. Followed by "Why didn't I check there before. Gosh. Idiot".

Congrats go out to Mike and Judy Upward for being named as a recipient of the Governor General's Caring Canadian Award. Since my brothers played football for him, as did I, I've known them since I was a little kid. With the dedication to football and the kids over the years, they deserve it.

Slot Junky

2007-04-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

It has been a little over 4 years now since I began my plunge into the game industry. Not the conventional games that ones may think. Slot jockey type machines (VLT's). I would have thought I would be working on PC/console games. But its a start and I couldn't have asked for much more I guess. Same province and little over an hour's drive from home. Well I could but that would be greedy of me.

What's next in this little adventure I've been thrown on called life. Something new I hope. Life cycles of these games are very short. From development to release is only a few months. I'm gonna say 3 to 4 months. But theres gaps of nothing in the middle. QA side of things can be as short as 4 to 5 weeks. Now Free Spirits is a totally different story. Thats about 3 - 4 years. But with complete graphic and code changes. Probably 3 years of nothing in the middle. But for the most part very short on the game cycle. Platform is again different. Who knows when that will finish. I suspect it might be a long journey.

Since I've been going to football games on the east coast I've been checking out places in the area. Being closer to the games will be a benefit to all of us. When people come down they would have a place to crash instead of hotels and I get to see games more often. The area also seems to be very similar style to what I'm used to. The big city not so much but the suburb type areas are very nice. On our last trip to Hartford to see UCONN play we stayed in Vernon Connecticut. On the way back to Vernon we got a little lost and did a scenic tour. Cool place and very friendly. 99's food rocked.

I recently found www.nerfbat.com . From initial scanning it seems to be all about MMO and some other none game related info. Some interesting points about MMO and technology.

Trying to get back into NCAA 07 lately. www.ncaastrategies.com has a dynasty section. I had started around december to create a Canadian dynasty. That failed when the XBox died. But recently with someone else's XBox I started up another. This time I borrowed slightly from a book I had read and created a Theological school. All players are monks. Which means I suck. But it can also lead to odd storyline plots. The Holy Roller himself the Pope has already made a visit. So far I've stopped from using last names. Just been calling them Brother X Y and Z. I'm thinking when they go off to be priests I'll give them last names. But who knows. Fielding Blue has a good one going with his EZRA Silverbacks. I'm thinking slushies are back now but he won't reveal too me. Damn him.

Anyways. Thats about it for now.

Shift in progress.

2007-04-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

No time, no time, no time. Trying to make the shift to something else. It might be a slow process but I'm going for it. I've been reading some good info on what to do and not to do. We'll see what shiftbeyond.com has to offer in advice from others. That and I'm looking small first. Let's be realistic. I'm not going to dominate the world in a day. Maybe 2 but not 1.

Well lets see. What has happen since July. Hmmm. Completely screwed up my shoulder/neck and spent 2 and 1/2 months doing physio. Won't make that mistake again of flipping over the bike handlebars. That takes us to basically christmas. For those that did the math it might seem wrong. Silly me waited a long time before seeing a doctor. Oooops.

That was followed up by a few months of Battlefield 2 game play.

Bought a new living room set and since I had money left over in the budget, I got myself a XBox 360. Crackdown has been too much fun.
That takes us up to now basically.

Rafting Time

2006-07-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

OK so I forgot the password. Bla bla bla.

Its been almost 3 months since the deal. Still nothing on the walls as far as pictures and such. But thats my style or no style. Who needs them anyways. Its just a big waste of money for "features".

Car show was this weekend and some of the old school cars were nice. Other than that it was another typical Friday at Navs downing a couple Clancy's and some Vito's pizza. If your ever there on Friday drop in cause the deal is get a Clancy's and then get pizza for free and a ballot to win a trip to Cuba. Ya can't beat that deal. "IT'S A BUDGIE".

The week off went quick but it was still relaxing for the most part to just turn the brain off for a week and just do nothing. Wait I do that at work as it is right now. Had a "fun" time getting the raft in the water at my parents cottage. Put the cement buckets on top of the raft and floated it out to where it was to go. Push the buckets off and let them hit the bottom. Cool were done. NOPE. Oh thats not far enough they say. Well that means the cement blocks at the bottom of the lake need to be pulled out farther. Like another 15 feet farther. If anyone has ever tried to do this they know the diffuculty. Yes the blocks weighed less under water and all that scientific bull crap. But still moving them is a pain in the ass. Dive down and lift. That moves them what 6 inches. Try that for 15 feet and see how you feel. Putting a rope on them helps so you can drag them, but still it sucks. Oh well. The things out there and the kids can have fun. Although there are rules.

Couple of other notes. The movie "Running Scared" with Paul Walker. SUCKS. Don't even bother with it. Trust me. "Puff Puff Pass" Its a stoner movie and thats all I can say. It was interesting but thats it.

Poker Tourney at Pat's. Finished third. Getting kind of boring now. Same people at the end. This time last 3 were myself (small stack of 20% chips), Xaveir aka Fes (41%), and Yves (39%). I kept stealing the blinds with such crap cards. Of the 5 I stole only one was a legitimate starting hand. A Q suited. Other than that had 3 4 off suit way too many times. Good portion of the night all low cards. Final hand I was dealt K J. Yves put me all in I called and Fes followed. 3 way all in. Fes had us both dominated with A J suited while Yves had A 9. In the end Fes took it down. First time he doesn't finish third. Best win of the night. I've got the big blind. Noel is on the button and he raises it the blind amount. The ppl before him had folded. Yves sitting in small folds. I was chip lead on this table at this point. Such a small raise so I just called with 10 5 off suit. Flop comes 10 5 something else. I check and so does he. Turn has another 10. I've gut the nuts so I push him all in with a small stack. He calls. He was chasing a flush draw. Like it matters with my full house. All Yves had to do on the hand was call Noel and I would have folded. Still good night as I got a profit of 20 bucks. I'll take it and run.

I'm out. Self Proclaimed Row 5 Manager.

D Day

2006-04-19T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well its finally here. The day I became a man. Oh wait, that was back in the 90's during high school. Actually its the day I became a grown up. Papers are signed and all is payed for and now the big bitch of a place is mine. Today was the day I took ownership of my first house. I've gone into this subject somewhat already. So I won't go into the pane of this. It is exciting and all that stuff.
My problem today was with the lawyer fees and crapola. I go there and we get through all the signing of retarded documents. Yippy. Then we get into the money thing. He then tells me that a personal cheque is not good enough. It has to be certified or a draft. Whatever they call it these days. So by that time it was already 10:30 or so. So I had to go across the chocolate river and go into the bank to get the draft and then go back across it to drop it off. Then I had to head into work. Arrived there by about 11:15 - 11:30. Plan was to get back to work at 10. As you can tell that plan failed. Since the day had started off so badly I decided to keep it going. Again that wasn't the plan but thats what happened. It ended up being "the least productive day since I've been working here".
I'll give a big thumbs up to the real estate agent and the contractor. They were the easiest to deal with throughout this whole process. Coming back to fix up the hardwood floor proves what he's like. Plus the bottle of wine from one of the agents makes me happy. Its gonna be a good nights sleep.
Couple of other little things I want to mention at this time. Some NCAA reviews have been coming out about new features. So far those new additions seem positive. Next thing on the list in GO HABS GO.

Kiss my ass Washington, Toronto and any other team I can't stand. Have fun golfing. Next year at least show up to play the god damn game.

Outsourcing

2006-04-12T19:56:00.000-07:00

Outsourcing. When the Simpsons did an episode on outsourcing, I couldn't help but laugh. To some who are not directly affected by this, the episode might not have been that funny.
Paraphrase of Mr. Burns: "your job won't be loss. It will just be done by someone else in India." How true how true. It might be somewhat true that jobs are not loss. The problem is that new jobs are not created. It's unfortunate but its just a matter of business these days.

Real life can be funnier than made up crap on T.V. Some of the best episodes recently of the simpsons have been on real issues. Outsourcing, Gay Marriage, American Idol, Drug Smuggling.

When Homer told the workers in India of overtime, pensions, sick days, etc... it might not have seemed that funny to a regular viewer. But to me it was hilarious cause its true. These things that seem so normal to North Americans are not common practice in these outsourcing companies. Have all these luxuries that we take for granted made us lazy and complacent. This might be the case but with out these benefits we could be taken advantage of, like our counterparts in India.

With the negatives of outsourcing, there are also positives. The simpsons hinted to one of these. Moving nuclear plants and other industries that are bad for the environment can be good for North America. Decrease the smog and all the crap polution. I don't like polution anywhere but its a way of life and the farther away from me the better.

My opinion matters and yours doesn't.

Names:

2006-04-11T16:38:00.000-07:00

Names. I like to give people certain names for a couple of reasons. Main reason for them is to make fun of those people. Example of this is "time tracking". Now this person had a bad habit of showing up to work between 9:30 and 10:30. Problem with that is, we start at 8:30. Actually the name is "time tracking manager" but I shortened it up a little.
The story: Since everyone and there dog wants to be a manager at work (myself not included) I gave myself the title of "Row 5 manager". Now others in the row have there titles. Assistant manager, international manager (he moved depts.) and then to figure out the role of one person the whole time tracking with Project server came to mind. So that person from that point on was known as the "time tracking manager".
The best part came when some of the "real" managers asked where she was. I couldn't lie to them, so I told them the truth of when she arrives. I was then thrown an easy one by a co-worker when they asked what I called this person. I couldn't resist and had to spit out the whole "time tracking". Now to see the expression on "tell a tubby" was priceless at this point. His face turned a bright red and then he started laughing. I think he tried to hold it in but he just couldn't. "FES" also had a little laugh. I would like to thank the person for throwing me that easy Grand Slam.

I'll end with the best name of all "DODO". Genesis said it all in there song with the same name. Here it is, enjoy.

Too big to fly, dodo ugly so dodo must die,
Doggo with fear on its side, can't change, can't change the tide.
Dog baiter, agitator, asking questions, says he wants to know why.
Ain't no reason that money can't buy.Mink he pretty so mink he must die, must die, must die.
Sun he giving life in his light,
Part of the system,
Friend to man, friend to the trees,
No friend to the snowman.
Where does he go, what does he do?
Does he meet with the mole, the stream, the cloud
And end up at the bottom of the sea.
ish he got a hook in his throat,
Fish he got problems
Where does he go, what does he do?
Does he hope he's too small, to poor a haul,
Who'll end up being thrown back in the sea.
I'm back in the sea.
Caretaker, horror movie,
Only one eye, only needs one boot,
Sweet lady, she knows she looks good
Vacuum coming for the bright and the brute.
Big noise, black smoke
So pig-headed couldn't see the joke.
But it ain't funny
Ask the fly on the wall
It's only living
It don't matter at all, at all, at all.
Pimp, he make you drool and grunt,
He got an answer.
One he got a dream of love,
Deep as the ocean.
Where does he go?
What does he do?
Will the siren team with Davy Jones,
And trap him at the bottom of the sea?
I'm back in the sea.
I'm back in the sea.
I'm back in the sea.

House

2006-04-10T20:32:00.000-07:00

Well I recently underwent the 25 year screw of a lifetime and I purchased a house. Now to some this seems like a great big deal. To me on the other hand it just means I signed a contract to be broke for 25 years. Ya ya I know I get the point that I'm paying for it instead of renting. Hence the reason I bought the place. What I don't get is how people can enjoy dealing with all the little F'n headaches that come with them. It first started with picking out the counter tops, knobs, tiles, paint and carpet. I spent about an hour going over paint counter tops and tiles. Then come to find out what type of hardwood and carpet color you have makes a huge difference. Well that just threw out the last hour of picking crap. So that brings on about another 2 hours of discussions. It also leads to a trip the next day to Home Depot to look at some of this crap. BORING. Seriously who finds this stuff interesting. Well that was just one day. Then we get into the whole Cable, Phone, Internet debate. How does the telephone company think they can charge for "turning the jack on". What the F. They better Jack off is what I think. Then for digital cable the company doesn't give me a free preview. OK why would I want the same channels from regular cable plus more money on digital cable. I want digital so I can get special channels. One of those being the NFL network. I wanted to scream at this point. The only hook up fee that went easily was the power hook up. I'm just waiting for the move day. That should be rather interesting. Everyone has an opinion on lawyers so I won't get on that topic.

To start

2006-04-10T20:07:00.000-07:00

Its very basic. This is a spot for me to say what I want. From personal interests to work. My view is the only one that matters to me at this point in time.