Sweden - Assemble Your Own Furniture
I may or may not have been whisked off to an unnamed customer located in Sweden. Shhhhh it's a secret, don't tell anyone!
And although I didn't take photos of them, Sweden is just teeming with hordes of hot blonde girls on bicycles.
Labels: business trip, Sweden
Scandic Region - Denmark and Sweden
First I managed to catch a train going to the wrong city...
To rectify my destination woes (I was in Helsingor by mistake), I hopped on a ferry to cross into Sweden to arrive at Helsingborg.
One thing I noticed is that people here are on average much taller than a run of the mill Canadian.
Oh, and I met this eccentric/odd/tired old woman on the train who was searching for her family's lost estate. The "House of Vigor" or something, a large white castle/mansion that her grandfather defended from the Nazis. She is supposedly an heir to a royal family in Denmark. More on that later. But first: She had a very odd way of slipping the word "Dichotomy" into every third sentence.
Labels: business trip, Denmark, Sweden
All Your Snakes
Almost everyone knows about "All Your Base", and surely almost everyone knows about "Snakes on a Plane", but have you experienced "All Your Snakes"?
YouTube link here(For the uninitiated:
All Your Base - What is it?)
Nothing Re-pimped
A couple posts ago I
posted an entry for a "Pimp Elfwood Art" contest. Well, now they're having a re-pimping contest and my entry got pimped out by someone else.
Here's the re-pimped version:
I like it, it's cool to have inspired someone else!
Why I Game
At just a few xxx's shy of thirty, I’m lucky enough to have enjoyed the challenge and thrill of electronic gaming for twenty-something years. For those who haven’t played, or for those that haven’t thought about their own attraction to gaming, it is an intriguing question: Why do I game?
Sometimes I game for the promise of escape. I can focus on the artificial challenges at hand and temporarily suspend more complicated troubling thoughts brought about by the challenges of reality. Through gaming, I can experience worlds, choices, and abilities in a dynamic and interactive way that is not possible in other mediums.
Alternatively I game for the social interaction. When I was in school, playing multi-player games at a LAN party or huddled around a game console was a great bonding experience. We developed our own “house rules” for Street Fighter II, and learned each other’s gaming personalities. Having moved away from my hometown after University to pursue a career, I left behind friends and family with no more Super Smash Brothers battles to look forward to. However, thanks to the Internet I am able to continue to play, interact, and bond with my peers through online PC and DS games.
Ultimately I believe that gaming allows me to enjoy the satisfaction of mastery. From the time that I start studying the game manual and learning the basics of the game I enjoy learning and preparing for the challenge to come. As I make my way through the peaks and valleys of the learning curve my mind starts to imagine possible strategies and synthesize feedback from the game. Finally when the game neither presents further mysteries nor challenges, I can relax and bask in the feeling of accomplishment.
Update - The group musing from The Game Chair featuring my "Why I Game" article among others is now live.
Labels: The Game Chair
Bruce Peninsula - Tobermory
This weekend I went off to visit the Bruce Peninsula (
Tobermory to be specific - Google Map link here) with some of my Japanese friends and I had a great time.
It was a long drive up to Tobermory (about 6 hours) and I managed to miss a couple turn-offs but we made it in time to book a ferry ride to Flowerpot Island (famous for its pair of large flowerpot like rock formations - one pictured above) and hike a couple trails in the Bruce National Park.
Unfortunately being the long weekend, every single cottage, motel and hotel within 2 hours by car was booked solid. I managed to get a couple rooms at a motel in Walkerton called the "
Hillside Motel". The good news: the price was $60 / night. The bad news: the rooms were the dirtiest, nastiest, most pathetic excuse for accomodation that I have had the displeasure of experiencing. The sheets were caked in dirt/mud (at least that's what I hope it was), riddled with quarter sized holes, and housed a couple creepy-crawlies. I stuffed my pillow inside a t-shirt, threw the sheets off the bed, and tried to manage.
The next morning we headed back to Tobermory, took the ferry to the island, and hiked around. Made of fossilized coral beds the island has some very interesting rock formations, including caves, cliffs, and man-made rock statues (which I took some pleasure in taking part in).
After returning to Tobermory, we all tried the local whitefish, which was pretty good.
Getting back turned out to be the real killer. 7 hours of driving later, I was back in my own bed.
The Game Chair - SiN Episode 1 Final Play
I have
published my second and last progressive review on the computer game "SiN Episode 1: Emergence" over at
The Game Chair. It isn't as deep and compelling as Half Life 2, but it is a fun action game to waste some time in while blasting everything that moves.
Check out the review if you want to see what my final impressions of it were.
But what really rang my gong recently was
this preview (YouTube) for an insane (as in "Oh SHI~! Did I just divide by zero?!") game by Valve called "Portal".
Labels: The Game Chair
I may or may not have been whisked off to an unnamed customer located in Sweden. Shhhhh it's a secret, don't tell anyone!
And although I didn't take photos of them, Sweden is just teeming with hordes of hot blonde girls on bicycles.
First I managed to catch a train going to the wrong city...
Almost everyone knows about "All Your Base", and surely almost everyone knows about "Snakes on a Plane", but have you experienced "All Your Snakes"?
At just a few xxx's shy of thirty, I’m lucky enough to have enjoyed the challenge and thrill of electronic gaming for twenty-something years. For those who haven’t played, or for those that haven’t thought about their own attraction to gaming, it is an intriguing question: Why do I game?
This weekend I went off to visit the Bruce Peninsula (Tobermory to be specific - Google Map link here) with some of my Japanese friends and I had a great time.
It was a long drive up to Tobermory (about 6 hours) and I managed to miss a couple turn-offs but we made it in time to book a ferry ride to Flowerpot Island (famous for its pair of large flowerpot like rock formations - one pictured above) and hike a couple trails in the Bruce National Park.
The next morning we headed back to Tobermory, took the ferry to the island, and hiked around. Made of fossilized coral beds the island has some very interesting rock formations, including caves, cliffs, and man-made rock statues (which I took some pleasure in taking part in).
I have published my second and last progressive review on the computer game "SiN Episode 1: Emergence" over at The Game Chair. It isn't as deep and compelling as Half Life 2, but it is a fun action game to waste some time in while blasting everything that moves.
