Critters' last day

For the last 5 months or so--pretty much since the weather turned warm again--the house has seen (or, more appropriately, not seen) a bunch of bugs crawling to and fro, usually to a couple of the occupants all snug in their beds and fro the same couple of occupants after taking a bite out of them. Don't worry, visitors to the House of Style, they only come out at night.

After much stress, sleepless nights, maddening itchiness, and growing anger at the circumstances which allowed this problem to remain unresolved for so long, we finally got in touch with an exterminator who should be arriving at the house in about nine hours. Hey ninja, I hear you say into your futuristic speech-to-text virtual reality cybermodule implanted in your brain, if the exterminator's going to be there soon, why aren't you asleep? That's a good question, future man. For the last couple of days (nights, really), I've been going through my bedroom to clean it up all nice and clear-like for the exterminators to get into as many nooks, crannies, holes, gaps, and crevices they can so that they can Take 10 (at least) on their Exterminate Bug skill check.

I really wish I could have cleaned the room enough for them to Take 20, but I severely underestimated just how much junk accumulates in a house full of geeks over the years, not to mention how infrequently I look in my closet. Like with spring cleaning, I looked over pretty much every single thing in my room to decide whether or not I could toss it. If I didn't realize I had it, or if I didn't even miss it, into the trash it went. If I felt some kind of nostalgia for it, it stayed, but in a much more efficient storage space. I did pretty well, I think. Four large trash bags full of trash that will no longer be cluttering up my room. So our rooms are mostly cleared now, except for one room which is totally cleared as it's the bugs' suspected spawn point, and any space that's not going to be fully exterminated, like the kitchen, is where we're keeping all the stuff. Unfortunately, we can't clear off every shelf because we've got no place to put their contents, and we can't move every piece of furniture away from the wall because we'd have no place to walk. I just hope it's enough to allow me a full night's sleep again, and a full week without my arms and legs looking like a mouse has been mining for gold there with a tiny, adorable pickax.

It's been especially maddening because last weekend, I had an allergic reaction to an overdose of anti-itch lotion. Yeah, the irony of that wasn't pleasing at all. So I haven't been using my anti-itch lotion at all, which means I've been itching. And that means I'm being bitten.

So here's to a successful fumigation and a critter-free house. I hope.

Back up

Not only has my knee gotten much better in the last week, I've also exhausted my major time commitments for the time being. Apocalypse Kow is done except for a wedding gig and the Fringe, but that's a couple months away. I'll be able to sleep again now that I'm less stressed and, hopefully, our bug problem is finally on the wane. And aside from some kerfuffle with the family, life is back on track. I don't remember summer being this busy and stressful.

Oh yeah, and I've got some vacation time coming up. Nothing special, but I hope it'll be enough to get by on until I can take the rest of my sabbatical time (25 days) and vacation (40 days).

And you know what a less stressed ninja means? That's right, more updates! Coming up: BioWare's successful showing at the Electronics Entertainment Expo, game updates, and more Apocalypse Kow.

Down for another weekend

One would think that it would be difficult to be down for two consecutive weekends, especially with the gimpiness. Sadly, not so. After a weekend of relative mobility--albeit slow, painful, and cane-filled--yesterday's knees were filled with bad. And it didn't seem to matter whether I had my tensor on, my giant steam-powered clockwork knee brace, or no support at all, I still had trouble putting any kind of pressure on it. Even gravity was punching the knee in the junk, it seemed.

It all came to a head last night, with the wailing and gnashing of teeth and taking entire minutes to come to a sitting position that didn't require me to cry for a medic. Also sadly, no medics in the house. The Dorklord may be well versed in first aid, but a) this isn't really first-aid-related, and b) he's housesitting for the Tartan Avengers for a couple of weeks.

So this is the week that will, if not kill me, make me wish I were a robot.I've got the slideshow to take care of, the guilt of making the Jago take care of not only me but outside stuff that needs taking care of, a very important concert to put on, and a wedding to attend. Oh yeah, and let's not forget all that work I have to catch up on if and when I can actually go in and this knee thing to deal with in the meantime.

Let's get the important stuff out of the way first. The Apoocalypse Kow 10th Anniversary Concert (and Slideshow) will be held othis Saturday, June 20, at the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre at 7:30pm. Tickets are $18/$15 and are available at the door or from your favourite member of Apocalypse Kow. Local a cappella group Epsilon are our special guests.

Down for the weekend

The last couple of weeks have been really rough on me. The stress of work, planning a concert, and worrying about October has been a bit more than my tiny brain can handle. It's affected my sleep. Despite the interesting dreams, having my sleep interrupted at five in the morning makes for a sleepy ninja at work.

I've been feeling a little overwhelmed at the job. The way I figure it, between department and section goals, the reassignment of the tester I was working under, and Marketing wanting to use me as a demo monkey at some summer conventions, I won't be able to take a real, non-working vacation until November. That's not including my Fringe "vacation" in August. I've got five weeks left on my sabbatical that I was supposed to take last year, and more than two months' worth of actual vacation accrued. Don't get me wrong. Yay generous vacation package, but if I can't take that time, I'm going to go nuts. Normally, my two weeks of Fringe time is enough: one week of Fringe, one week of recovery. But last year, my recovery week was taken up by rehearsals for Penny Arcade Expo and then the actual Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle. Fun, but no vacation.

As much as I love my singing group, Apocalypse Kow's 10th anniversary concert is slow going. Like the other guys, I have no real experience planning a concert. But unlike the other guys, I have taken it upon myself to take care of things that need doing. Not that the other guys don't help out, but dealing with the opening act, keeping the fan base interested while trying to market it up the wazoo, and learning Open Office's Impress application is going to keep me occupied for much of the next two weeks. We want the concert to have multimedia presentations of the group from the last 10 years, so pictures and video it is. If you want to check it out, it's Saturday, June 20 at the Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre (formerly the Cosmopolitan Music Society). I'll put up a real notice later.

October is, of course, the Pure SPeculation Festival. This year is our milestone fifth annual festival. I'm so very glad that we've lasted this long and attracted so many great guests, speakers, and attendees. But it's a lot of work and our communication channels aren't exactly buzzing with activity between ourt monthly meetings. I'm in charge of the schedule, and that's always a tough job. I've got the basics of a schedule right now, but filling it will require information exchanges with several other organizers, not to mention going out to find guests, speakers, and panellists myself.

The result of all this? Last week, I could feel the tendonitis creeping in. It hurt more when I was at home, but my hikers offer such great heel support I could weather the pain and discomfort at work. But it all came to a head on THursday night. Coming home from wing night was really difficult, even with the shoes, and Friday morning was a monster. I took the day off work and spent much of the weekend indoors not doing much of anything at all. Hopefully, by tomorrow (Monday) morning, I'll be well enough to return to work. It's kind of a catch-22 that this infirmity was caused in part by the stress at work, but if I don't return to work, I'll fall farther behind, which will stress me out even more.

Let's hope for the best. THe up side of all this is that last week was the Electronics Entertainment Expo, and BioWare did very well. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow, as I've got to get back to you faithful readers (both of you). It feels good to talk to all y'all, and I love reading the comments, so keep it up. thanks.

BioWare's looking for term testers this summer

Hey, folks, I just got the word that BioWare's looking for a bunch of term testers to help us out this summer, starting in early June. So anyone who's been wanting a chance at the big time, get your stuff together and let me know and I can give you more information.

Violence in Dragon Age

As many of you know, I've been working on Dragon Age (now Dragon Age: Origins, with a pretty new logo) for a long time. In that time, I've watched the game go from prototype levels in the NWN engine to a fully-functional game, from plain green boxes to props, placeables and levels, and from grey formless humanoids to detailed character models with personality. I've heard the dialogue voiced by a robot, local actors, and well-known actors and I've seen entire levels and plots come and go.

So nothing makes me prouder than to know that the game is really close to being done and that the game is being left in really good testing hands since they moved me to a different project (Mass Effect 2, actually). The term testers I mentored for months in my office are now capable of working on their own and, in fact, are mentoring new batches of term testers who are assigned to that office. Dragon Age is now being marketed heavily with gameplay footage, cinematics, interviews, and demos around the world. Soon we'll be seeing previews of the game in videogame magazines, videogame websites, and, likely, news articles on the more controversial and mature elements in the game. And holy bejeebers, are there controversial and mature elements in the game.

In fact, the controversy has already kinda started. Last week, we released a new trailer for the game that sparked what is now a 73-page discussion on our message boards. Surprisingly, it wasn't the content of the trailer that sparked the discussion, not entirely, anyway. Blood and guts and violence and sex have long been used to sell games, and Dragon Age Origins is no different. We've never shied away from the violence and sex in our story, and I'm pretty sure that, once the ESRB gets a a hold of it, they will assign an appropriate rating. I also describe Dragon Age: Origins as a Baldur's Gate that has grown up with you and your tastes and tolerances. But back to the controversy. No, the violence and sex didn't bother people... the music did. See if you can guess why?



That's right. There's a section of our community who didn't like the use of a Marilyn Manson song, or a song with bad words in it, or that particular Marilyn Manson song. A bunch of people really liked it, and a few folks who wouldn't normally be into a game like Dragon Age became interested in the game. In short, the trailer worked! But to each his own. One forum member suggested, as an alternative, playing the Hawaii Five-O theme over the Violence trailer, and that became a very popular alternative. Someone even put them together and put it on YouTube:



Whichever version of the Violence trailer you prefer, I hope you videogamers out there in Ninja-land give Dragon Age: Origins a try when it comes out later this year.

Dorklord changes tack, underpants

Just made a change to the blogroll. Looks like the Dorklord's blog is no more, but fear not, geeks and geekalinas, he's back in the mid-season replacement blog, Renaissance Geek. If you're a big geek and want to read writing that's better than mine--and really, why wouldn't you?--check him out. He's got his finger on the pulse of geek society and is pronouncing it fit to stand trial.

Renaissance Geek. Go! Go now!

New Trek is new

Warning: Contains spoilers

I'll be the first to admit it: I had lots of reservations about the Star Trek movie / franchise reboot / thingy. I've always been concerned that, between needing to please the die-hard fans and attracting new viewers, the developers of franchise reboots have so many different people to please. This also goes for film adaptations of books, comics and television shows. The longer-running or more well-known the property, the harder it will be to make a quality product worthy of it.

So it is that I dreaded the potential ass-ness of the new Star Trek film. Star Trek for me has always been about how an enlightened society deals with a galaxy that is not so enlightened. The original series dealt with the political climate of the 1960s, racism, sexism, war, tolerance, self-control, and just how much work it would take for mankind to realize that we're all really just the same inside. Next Generation was better able to paint mankind (and the United Federation of Planets) with the nobility brush, with its sleek design and flashy visual effects. Deep Space Nine opened up new frontiers of conflict and violence with the Jem'Hadar / Federation / Bajor / Cardassian wars. And Voyager taught us what it meant to be lost and alone in the galaxy. Enterprise... well, I never watched Enterprise enough to learn what it had to say, but I'm sure Scott Bakula said it beautifully.

The feature films ranged in quality from terrible to awesome, and for the longest time, fans of Star Trek could count on the curse of the odd-numbered film. This lasted until Nemesis the 10th film in the series, which was terrible. The latest film from J.J. Abrams, is the 11th in the series, but the curse has been broken so it's free to be an awesome film.

Which it is.

As the movie ended, I told the Dorklord, who was seeing the film for the second time, that I take back all the negative things I said about it. Watching the trailer, how could I have known that I would come to accept everything it had to say and actually feel good about flashy effects, young Kirk driving a car, orbital skydiving, and Spock getting medieval on someone's ass? But I did and I'll tell you why.

J.J. Abrams has done everything in his power to make this franchise reboot fresh and exciting for new viewers while remaining true to its characters and stories. Despite the new actors, the new story, and the updated Enterprise, the show feels like Star Trek. Sure, the film explores different parts of the world and the characters than the original series did, but that's to be expected. And not to mention that J.J. Abrams provides a metric truckload of fan service to longtime original Trek fans.

The Good
First and foremost, the casting for the crew was inspired. Each of the bridge crew brought youth and energy to their respective roles without changing the characters Trek fans know and love. Chris Pine brought a lot of Shatner to the role of Kirk by the end of the film, Zachary Quinto was surprisingly sympathetic as Spock, and Karl Urban may as well have been DeForest Kelley's illegitimate son.

Many film adaptations of television shows feel like extended, high-budget episodes, but Star Trek was also a damn good film in addition to being an awesome extended, high-budget television episode. I agree with the Dorklord, who said that this cast could very easily be plunked into the network schedule for a regular series and kick a whole lot of ass. What's not to like? There was so much fan service that it felt like the characters had never left a movie or television screen. Familiar catch phrases or character traits were sprinkled liberally throughout the film, and many lines made reference to events and attitudes in the original series.

The Bad
No film is going to please everyone, and I had a couple of problems with this film. Surprisingly, my issues were technical in nature, as I had only one real problem with the story. Perhaps it's because I was sitting near the front of the theatre, but I felt there was too much shaky-cam and lens flares going on. I'll have to sit farther back for my next viewing to see if it really is a problem, but from up close it was very distracting. Story-wise, I think the only part of hte film I could have done without was the big animal / bigger animal sequence on Delta Vega, where Kirk is pursued by a big animal only to be saved by an even bigger animal which subeqeuntly pursues him.

And that's it. Those are really the only things I didn't like about the film. Pretty good, eh?

The Old
When I first heard that the story of the film revolved around either time travel or alternate dimensions, I was wary. Aside from holodeck malfunctions, time travel is about the weakest and laziest plot device any Star Trek story can have. It's too bad Enterprise decided it would not only make for a good story premise, it would make for a good series premise. But in the film, it worked out rather well. Its effects were minor and it was used to tell a great story that could not have been told any other way. They didn't discuss any of the scientific or technical aspects of time travel, touched on paradox only in passing, and made it seem like a really, really difficult thing to do.

As I mentioned before, characters were unsullied by the passage of time and the new hotness. Kirk is still cognizant of his own awesomeness (and his success with the green ladies), Bones and Spock develop what can only be described as the start of a beautiful enmity, Chekov still has an accent that seems too exaggerated to be natural, and Sulu is still top-notch with a sword. The Enterprise has retained its familiar shape, Starfleet Command still looks pristine and green, and Vulcans still have that darned nerve pinch and mind-meld.

The New
What's new? Well, the Romulans are, for one. While they've retained their close genetic relationship with the Vulcans, the new Romulans are more akin to tattooed space pirates than anything. And it works. They're still just as mean as I remember Romulans being, and their ship designers are still fond of the industrial angular motif.

Being a franchise reboot / thingy, the filmmakers were free to explore different aspects of characters and story, and it was all for the good. While the film also explores the duality of Spock's heritage, it leans more towards his human side as opposed to the original series, which kept Spock mostly Vulcan-y. Another change for Spock? His dad had an enormous jaw and his mom was Winona Ryder! Oh yeah, and he was getting down and dirty with Uhura.

* * *

Yeah, lots of awesome in the new film. I hope it does become a successful film franchise. The world needs more Trek, and I'm cheering for Klingons in the next film. A film full of Klingons with one, single scene depicting a hand-to-hand fight with the Gorn, who are never seen again. Oh yeah, and it has to have the famous fight music. So much potential...

So if you haven't seen it yet, there's really nothing to wait for, no hesitation needed. Just get out there and show Paramount that yes, Trek isn't dead and yes, we want more of it.

Snow?: A Midnight Story

What. The. Monkey?

Midnight and I have been riding together for a week now--okay, technically a week. Or not a week, depending on how you look at it--and the weather was looking up. Tonight there was snow! Come on! After everything I went through to get Midnight back, now there's snow?

okay, from the beginning: So, a couple of weeks ago happened and the nice day was just breezing through the neighbourhood like an amnesiac hooker and I felt something akin to a requirement for velocity. I decided that, since it had been nice all week, I was going to the scooter place to get my precious Midnight out of storage. Simple desires, right?

It seemed everyone else had the same idea. The place was jumping and had undergone many changes since I'd seen it last. For one, one quarter of the main floor had been turned into a coffee bar. For another, I think I recognized one staff member out of the four that were working. I headed to the back service area (hehe, "back service area") and waited while the tech there alternated between not knowing how to help me and dealing with phone calls and finishing up paperwork for another service order. Really nice guy, but really new and not really sure of how things worked around there. He seemed sincerely apologetic whenever he ran past me for information, a part, or to help someone else, though, so I waited. I didn't have anywhere else to go.

Midnight wasn't ready yet, so they booked her in for a Tuesday tune-up and I could pick her up that night. Well, it snowed Monday night so Tuesday morning was full of snow. By day's end the snow had melted, but my carpool was going grocery shopping so I joined in the fun. I headed to the scooter place after work on Wednesday instead. Nope, not done, but for sure Thursday, they said. I stayed around to chat with one of the managers, which was cool, but unfortunately, the new cute tiny redhead was nowhere to be seen.Oh, and I also bought way too many new things for my Midnight.

So it was that I went to work last Thursday very excited for my impending reunion. That afternoon, I got a phone call from the scooter place. It seems that they have to recharge the battery but, because it was dead, they couldn't open the storage compartment under which it sat. The same tech I'd been dealing with sounded stressed out, and the cool Asian mechanic I'd seen earlier apparently wasn't nearly as awesome as he seemed. I was rather annoyed that, after one missed appointment and one day of nothing, they waited until two hours before the pickup time to call me. Maybe the annoyance carried through to my voice because the tech told me he'd call me back. A minute later, he called back to tell me they were charging the battery and would it be possible to delay my pickup until seven o'clock? Sure, one hour won't kill me.

At seven, I headed on down. Midnight was all ready to go. The tech even encouraged me to go for a spin while he sorted out the paperwork. She handled fine and it felt wonderful to be riding again after a rather long, uneventful winter. After another wait while the tech searched for a part for another customer, I finally got to thelast bit before taking Midnight home: the paying. I paid by credit card, but apparently they overcharged me. Great, another delay. That was fixed lickety-split and off I went, happy to be back with my blue baby again!

The next morning, I was all ready for work. I broke out the new helmet and headed to the parking lot, turned the key and... a whole lotta nothing. Some impotent grinding, maybe a sputter, but otherwise nothing. Well, I was all too familiar with this predicament. Dead battery. I opened her up, removed the battery as I'd had to do several times before, and plugged it into the trickle charger I purchased for just such a purpose. Then I called a cab to get to work. I called the scooter place and they were apologetic. Sure, maybe I needed a new battery anyway, so I told them to order one for me. Fine.

Saturday, I rode out to Happy Harbor Comics' "Movie with the Shepherd" night, where we watched My Name is Bruce and Repo: The Genetic Opera. Awesome night, y'all should come to the next one. On the way home, the left side bar that holds the side mirror came loose. Fantastic. I made it home safely, since the mirror didn't fall off or impede my riding in anyway, and harrumphed, irked at yet another deficiency in the scooter place's service. The next morning as I was warming her up, I checked the bar and it was just loose. I could just tighten the bolt and push the bar back into place. Simple dimple, and just like that, all of Midnight's problems were remedied. Well, most of them. She still had that shard of plastic gouged out of her side and the cracked back of the footboard, but Midnight and I have weathered those problems before. After that, she ran beautifully. We've been over bridges, through downtown and Whyte, grocery shopping, everywhere we used to go except the Whitemud and West Ed. But there's plenty of time for all that.

And now snow. I'm confident it'll all be gone by morning, but even if it isn't, as long as Midnight starts--she had a lot of trouble this morning--she'll do fine. Despite all the problems, I'd still consider this a successful start to the riding season. I'm starting to get commetns at work again, motorcyclists are nodding to me, and my new helmet looks like Master Chief from Halo. That was one of the new things I bought for Midnight. The other was a top case so I have extra storage when I go grocery shopping. I also would have gone with side cases but the scooter place didn't have any pictures of them. They're looking into it. Let's hope those new guys get it together. And let's also hope that I get to see the cute tiny redhead again. Rawr!

Last home game: Roughnecks 14, Rush 13

So the Rush finished their home game season with a very close 14-13 loss to the Calgary Roughnecks. Now, lest you think that this is a terrible thing, I'll remind y'all that the lasat time we faced the 'Necks, we were beaten with small children and had puppies thrown at us. THat's what a 22-10 loss feels like. The Rush were feeling mighty fine this evening, however, and there must have been some sort of pinky-swear that the events of March 13, 2009 would not repeat itself. And so they haven't.

We played an excellent game, and the parts of the team everyone's been complaining about all year were nowhere to be found. Our defence managed to hold off the most insistent of the Calgary offence (and they have a very insistent offence indeed), and our offence held its own in a back-and-forth game that was a knuckle-biter right up until the end. An errant giveaway late in the fourth quarter put us two goals behind. We pulled Levis, who'd been stellar all night, and even managed to score a goal while keeping at bay that insult-to-injury empty net goal that most goalie-less teams have to deal with. But it was too late. Even with our exceptional effort in those last 20 seconds, we weren't able to tie up the game.

Even with a couple of questionable calls against us, we held our own against the best team in the league and made them fight for every goal. We found ways around their immovable object and we blunted their irresistible force. You can't ask for much more than that from our boys in silver and black. Everyone had a great time and now, they're all going to be glued to their interwebs to see if we can pull off some very important wins over the next couple of weeks. We've got three games left and fighting the Colorado Mammoth and Minnesota Swarm for that last playoff spot in the west division.

Speaking of which, the Rush play in Minnesota tomorrow night. Let's go, Rush!