that ring of confidence

As we prepare for Las Vegas

there are only two more sleeps until I go to Las Vegas. If you do the math right, and don't count afternoon naps and the times I fall asleep watching the evening news, that means that I'll be on a plane and leaving Canada for the City of Sin and Celebrity Chefs on Thursday. Though Lydia [iatl] is going for the shopping and a meal at Bouchon Bistro [bb], I'm excited to go to the new Star Trek Experience. (I'd link to its webpage but apparently it's down which does not bode well for getting to have a drink in Quark's bar).

I've got a little money, but I doubt I'll be doing much gambling. The fact is the house always wins eventually and I'm not blessed with enough luck to make up for the fact that I can't be arsed gaining the needed skills. I might play some Blackjack since that's about the only card game that I feel like I've got enough knowledge of to make a game of it. Poker I can play on my iPhone that's about it. I don't understand most of the other games, and as far as I can tell there's no money and no fun to be had from playing the slots.

Apart from Lydia I'm going with the rest of my immediate family. My parents are heading to see Jay Leno, because apparently his nightly appearances on television have not been enough to convince them that the man is painfully unfunny, and Neal and his girlfriend MC are also coming. I don't think they're going to see Leno, so maybe they'll nerd it up with me at Star Trek.

Or maybe not.

One night we're also going to go see the Cirque Du Soleil show Love, which is the one that uses all the Beatles music. I'd been to one of their shows in Vancouver back in 2006 [mbv], and it was pretty impressive. I think the addition of the Beatles music will make it a bit more enjoyable for me. I mean I liked the last one I saw, but I didn't love it.

I'm not quite sure what the blogging situation will be while I'm gone. I've got to find out if the hotel we're staying at has Wi-Fi and depending on that I may or may not bring my Macbook. I will bring my iPhone, but I really don't like blogging on it, especially given that the fancy drop caps that I've been starting every post with is a bit of an HTML workout and with no copy-and-paste on the iPhone I'd have to remember all of it which clearly is not going to happen. If I don't blog before I go, and I don't bring my laptop, I'll do a summary post for the trip when I get back.

Nothing to report... except a Mario Party!

Sean Tamaki and I went to a group interview for the soon to be opened Apple Store at Pacific Centre [mbv]. It was mainly a meeting telling us why we should work for Apple, which I already knew I did. I've not heard from them since, though Takamki's gone back for a follow-up interview and looked certain to get a job. I'm starting to feel like I'm not about to get a call, which has left me a little despondent today.

How to cheer up? I suppose the only way to get happy is with a Mario Party, and that's what Lydia and I are doing right now. Later on we'll be heading to her house so that she can pack for her two weeks in Ontario visiting her parents.

That means I've got two weeks without my fiancee. Anyone want to be my friend? I've got Mario Party.

I win a contest and clean my deck

Trevor says: Have you entered the Miss604 contest yet?
Originally uploaded by miss604.

First up I won a contest on Miss604 [m604], the blog of fellow Metroblogger Rebbecca.  I only entered for the awesome retro Trevor Linden figure, but the rest of the swag is going to be fairly awesome.  So what all did I win?  I'll let Rebbecca describe it, by copying and pasting from her site.

- A limited edition, not sold in stores, collector, uncut sheet of 2007/2008 Vancouver Giants hockey cards

- A Canucks carabiner, keychain thingy

- Two tickets to this Saturday’s Everett Silvertips

- Two tickets to the BC Rockies vs Canucks Alumni hockey fundraiser game on March 22nd

- A McFarlane, in-package, mint, collector, Trevor Linden action figure

- A coveted Miss604 sticker as seen at Northern Voice or…

- You can also chose a limited edition solid-colour Miss604 sticker

You can watch the tension packed drawing of my name at her site [m604].

Meanwhile I woke up early on Tuesday and spent about two hours cleaning off my deck.  I've never really used my deck because when I moved in it was filthy and I always knew it was going to take the sacrifice of a mop to get it clean.  I had bought the kamakazi mop a few months ago, but it had been hiding in my closet wanting to live.

After the cleaning Lydia came over and we went to get some food and then watch Once on my AppleTV.  I've had the soundtrack for Once for a few months now but the movie is a still worth watching.  It's not quite a romantic flick, but it's certainly sweet-hearted and good natured.

The final thing is that I applied for a job I want to get, and now have an interview (almost) lined up.  Which should be good and exciting.  To make it more exciting I'm planning on bringing a car full of fire ants and emptying them down my shirt's neck five minutes before the interview so that for the entire talk I'm trying not to scratch my arm pits or yell out in pain.

Never say that I do things the easy way.

No matter what button I mash I lose

Sean came over last night after work and we set about on another one of our Sunday game nights.  Typically he omes over and beats me at whatever the latest release of EA's NHL series is, but last night we had Halo 3 and so there was a thaw in our cold war.  I'd already played for about half of the game, but with Sean in co-operative mode we managed to burn through it fairly quickly. 

Or rather if felt quick, by the time I glanced at the clock I realized that it was nearly midnight.  We squeezed a few games of NHL 08 in and of course despite never having played the game he beat me again, and again.  The first game I managed to keep within a goal, but the next he just worked me.  No matter what I did the Canucks just could not beat the Senators.

It was depressing as always.

Halo 3 is done. I'll play through on one of the harder settings later, but for now my attention is going to turn to Paper Mario (Wii), the new Metroid (Wii) and Bioshock (XBox 360).

Tomorrow we race

My second Forza car
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

Still anxious to get some serious time playing deep into Forza Motorsport 2 for the XBox 360. Today I woke up too late to play any and most of the time I did have was spent dealing with the fact that the new White Stripes album did not seem to want to work in either of my computers. My iMac and my Macbook both rejected it, and iTunes kept freezing while the disc was in the drive. It's probably some weird copy protection but I'll go to HMV tomorrow and get the disc exchanged just in case.

Stupid DRM.

The fact that I don't listen to CDs and don't have a CD player in my home, aside from the drives in my computers, makes it pretty much worthless to me if it can't be read by computers. I could listen to it only in my car, I suppose. But I want to race, and my car can't go as fast as I can in Forza, in video games.

Late nights

Skytrain
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I hate the closing shift at work. Finishing at 7:30 last night actually turned out to be me finishing at 9:30. Tonight finishing at 9:00 turned out to be 10:10. Add to that the late night Skytrain ride home, and then walk from Canada Place to the apartment, and it's a late night.

Now I'm going to microwave the meal that I should have eaten at lunch, copy the new White Stripes album that I bought instead of eating my lunch to my iPod, eat the lunch that I did not eat at lunch and watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report before turning in.

Damn I've also got to play some Forza 2 tonight.

New video game and not enough sleep

  My first Forza car 
  Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

I was supposed to finish work at 7:30 last night, but was kept at work an extra two hours.  Now this should be okay because we are now paid hourly (so a 50% pay cut and we're hourly like I was at McDonald's) and two extra hours should equal overtime.  Well it does, but because they take us off the clock for our mandatory lunch break I didn't get as much of it as I'd earned.

Nor did I get to play as much of Forza 2 the new XBox 360 racing game that I got yesterday using some of my $200 worth of EB Games credit.  Delme told me it was good when we were chatting on XBox Live the other night, so I decided to check it out. 

It's quite a deep game, and I'm sure I'll barely scratch the surface of it, just like I did on another car racing game Grand Turismo 3 back in the PS2 days.  Like GT3 Forza is a realistic racing game, meaning the cars don't leap off cliffs and aren't driven by Italian plumbers.  You start off with a small amount of money to buy one basic car and work your way up by racing.  Pictured is the Mini Cooper S that I bought to start the game, and the car I'm rotating with a Porsche that I won early on.  Both cars I've spent thousands on upgrading the parts.

One cool feature is that you can take a photo from within the game (as you can see I did) and put it on the internet, a wonderful tool for blogging and letting the game's players promote the game.  More games should be so clever.

The trouble is between working late and driving Lydia home from work and getting up early to play the new game, I'm a bit short on sleep.  Add to that the fact that I'm here to at least nine tonight, and I might have to take a nap in the back of the store.

Xbox 360 update death

Green A
Originally uploaded by Rune T.

My Xbox 360 died nearly 3 weeks ago. I was trying to play FIFA when it wanted to install a software update from Microsoft. This happens periodically if your 360 is connected to the internet so I didn't think anything of accepting the update that was verified from Microsoft.

Sadly I should have distrusted MS as much in the console market as I've come to distrust them in th operating system space. Upon restarting after the update my Xbox died a horrible death and now refuses to do anything other than display two red lights on the front of the machine.

I called Microsoft right away and they promised to send me out a box which would arrive in about nine days that I would use to send the machine in to them. That was three weeks ago. Today I phoned them and they told me they were waiting for me to send it back myself, which was a mistake. To their credit they've once again promised to send a box out to me.

Meanwhile I've found the problem seems incredibly widespread. Didier at work had the same thing happen to him and it's become quite common [wp].

Microsoft, sigh. Even when you make something as beautiful as the 360 you have to fuck it up somehow don't you?

One of 132 reasons I want a Wii

I still haven't been able to find a Nintendo Wii anywhere in Vancouver. Meanwhile the games for it sound freaking awesome. The game talked about in this video clip is super fun. Neal has it and I played it at his place shortly after he had gotten a Wii.

One day.

One day.

Another best of seven series lost

Tamaki!!
Originally uploaded by Jeffery Simpson.

After Sean Tamaki won the last best of seven series [jks] I knew I wanted a rematch.  XBox 360, NHL 2007 and we were set.  He took the Sabers and I took the Oilers.  Best of seven.  Just like for the Stanley Cup.  It was on, it was deadly fucking serious this time.

I leapt out to a quick lead in the first game, Ryan Smyth notching two early goals to put the Oilers up.  I couldn't hold on however and Tamakia scored a late winner to put the game beyond reach.  That broke my team's spirit and the next game they barely put up a struggle, and I was down two to  games to nothing.  But we did not go quietly into that dark night, oh no.  Game three was won by the Oilers, but Game four was the Sabers. 

Heading back to Edmonton for a two game home stand we were in trouble.  Tamaki was up three games to one, so one loss and it would all be over.  I needed to win three games in a row, a display of near perfect video game hockey ability not rivalled since EA took out the wrap around cheat from the game.  It was not going to be easy, but if I managed it my name would go down in The Great Book of Awesome.

Game Five.  Edmonton.  Once again an early lead for the Oilers, this time we were able to hold on for the victory.  It got close when Tamaki started to peg me back goals, but a mid-third period flourish ended the Sabers hopes. 

Game Six.  It would be nice to say that I won this game, leading the Oilers to a dramatic game seven, leading to my eventual vanquishing of Tamaki.  Sadly I can't.  The game was close but in the third he took a two goal lead and even a fluke centre ice goal was not enough to get me back into it.  It was over, once again Tamaki was victorious.  Once again I was done like the dinner we bought from Pizza Hut.

I won, activate the balls!

So let me just begin by saying it was a lot closer than I thought it was going to be.  Our first matchup of Trivial Pursuit 90s' edition was hard fought and at the end of the day it came down to some lucky dice that helping me win.  That dear readers is as humble as this post is going to be, because frankly I won.

When Babe Ruth pointed past the outfield fence and hit his home run yeah it required some luck, but he was confident in his skill and backed up his boast with action.  I was confident in my mastery of the trivia of the 1990s' and I backed it up with a win.

Now I have to admit to a certain amount of hubris.  Nathan came on stronger than I anticipated, leading for much of the game.  I had expected him to do the worst out of everyone since he really has little interest in television or most of the popular cultural facts that make up a good game of Trivial Pursuit.  Nathan got all his pie pieces and so had as good a chance as anyone to win the game.

In fact everyone had their game pieces loaded with pies before I managed to put them out of their misery.  Now granted Ryan had help from his girlfriend Ashley during a part of the game, coincidently the spell of the game that he did best during, but I won't call that cheating though I will point out that if the game had been a Provincial Final Exam he'd have soooo been kicked out.

Sorry Mr. President

Found this floating on the internet. If you've ever played the original Super Mario Brothers you should recognize the screen shot.

Your 8-bit world

I have, I will admit, never really been into visual art.  The saying, "I don't know art but I know what I like!" fits me though it's generally said by the sort of people who vote for the Bush family.  But there is some computer art that I enjoy, and I do like the work of Roy Liechtenstein.

I've also liked some of the stuff that Wired has featured in the past.  Today they put up an article on an art installation featuring art based around old 8-bit Nintendo games.  The old school from the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  My particular favorite was this picutre called Duck Hunter S. Thompson.  Now this is the sort of thing I'd want to hang on my wall.  It also seems like the greatest idea for a video game ever.

What is the difference between a millipede and a centipede? Why size silly, size.

I have been trying to play World of Warcraft for the past few days since I just reached level 40 and got my free horse for my paladin character Kentra. I also joined a new guild after my first one went tits up because of internal politics and a few jerks proving the rule of the internet that it's easier to be a dickwad online than in real life. These attempts to be a hardcore online gamer has been thwarted by server problems at Blizzard (the makers of Warcraft).

So instead I watched Walking Tall the movie where the Rock is a war hero who returns home to find the old mill has closed down and become a drug lab and now everyone is a stripper in the casino on the outskirts of town. The Rock's answer to this problem is to hit people with a giant piece of wood. So yes it's sort of like a porno but it's actually real wood as opposed to metaphorical wood.

The movie itself if fairly bad, but apparently my former co-worker Levi apparently was an extra in one of the strip club casino scenes. Rock is actually much better than this movie. I like him, despite the fact that I generally hate professional wrestling. He's got the same sort of screen presence as Wil Smith, sort of a likable guy who has do totally unbelievable things but still makes it seem somewhat possible. Whether or not he ends up having the same sort career as Wil Smith depends on what sort of roles he takes. Right now he's been taking fairly bad ones, and if he keeps that up he'll end up in as the answer to "Who else other than Hulk Hogan failed at making the jump from the WWF to movies?"

Ah Hulk Hogan.

Getting into bed I was attacked by a bug similar to the one to the right here. Was it a centipede or a millipede? I don't know. What's the difference? Size my friend, size.

New game and new Soapbox

I worked today, the theory being that the last Sunday before Christmas would be a big day for sales. It was alright, I sold enough stuff to pay for my having been there but not enough for us to make Sunday a regular shift.

The shift did give me time to work on my latest, and possibly last Soapbox style article for the Phoenix. I was prompted by a submission to the A&E section that is basically a Soapbox article written by two girls. The difference is that they've decided self deprecation is for the dogs. Sample line, "I had been shot down for FRIENDSHIP by a guy I didn’t even think was sexy". Which begs the questions, umm... okay and is your caps lock key stuck?

Anyway there's actually a few instances where if they were to become rich and famous off the article I'd have a good plagiarism lawsuit. Such as their idea for name-tags to let people know who is single, dating, gay, straight and so on, which seems similar to an article I wrote about people wearing buttons to let people know who is single, dating, gay, straight and so on.

After work I went and bought Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II for XBox. I played for about 7 hours and then the game froze. Now the disc won't load, though the XBox can handle other games fine. So I'll go into Future Shop tomorrow to get a new disc.

The greatest night ever

No I didn't have sex, or make out.  Unless you call making out discovering that the long talked about (if you're me) hockey manager game is not only out but the demo is availble for download.  Further it'll be on a dual formatt disc so it'll be playable on both a Mac and a PC.  This is from SI Games who make the game I have spent more time playing than any other, Championship Manager.

The game called NHL Eastside Hockey Manager, is basically the Championship Manager software with hockey grafted on to it.  It's quite good so far, and while playing the demo last night I guided the Oilers to a pre-season tie with the Might Ducks and crushing wins over the New York Islanders and Minnisota.  I'm trying to order it, because I don't know where in Kelowna it'll be sold, but it looks like hockey managing goodness. 

Delme cancel your life, it's time to take the Canucks to the top.

Championship Manager is a football (soccer) management program where you run a football team.  I've taken Arsenal to the top of the table, and have managed probably close to a century of seasons in various versions of the game. 

Due to some legal thing the name Championship Manager is owned by another company, however SI Games is the company behind the code and the player database.  So this year they'll be calling it Football Manager, however after playing a bit of the demo last night it's the real deal.  It'll also be coming out on a dual formatt Mac/PC disc.

fuck you you're drunk, and acting tough. you know you're not the only one who wants a cannon on Western Europe right now

It was actually really nice, getting a bunch of old high school friends together for a game of Risk. Justin, Chad, Ryan Pears, Doug, Chris and I probably haven't been all together somewhere since the summer after graduation. So that would have been 1997.