I didn’t do much this weekend except play ultimate I think. There was great weather and we had a good turnout, so it was a lot of fun. I’m kind of sore still… I think I gave myself some minor shin splints again. =)

For some reason I was reflecting on one of my past work experiences. During one of my rotations at Freescale, I spent a few months at Metrowerks. Back in the day, they were known for CodeWarrior and dominated the Mac development scene before Apple started to release their own tools for free. At the time I was there, they provided the development tools for Nintendo and Sony (maybe still do… not sure) and even had a development Wii at the time (this was before the Wii was out). I got to play with a pre-release Wiimote by moving a bunch of dots and lines on the screen. How exciting! ;)

Anyways, I ended up not getting an offer to stay full time from the group primarily because I didn’t put in a lot of effort into meshing with the team there. I basically did my own thing siloed away and though I completed my project with positive reactions, the team ultimately decided that they’d hold off on the full time offer because they wanted me to integrate into the team more. Although they did a lot of cool things there, I wasn’t exactly convinced it was the right fit for me, so I wasn’t too disappointed with the outcome of that experience. However, I did learn the lesson that I need to engage at a level other than just delivering what’s asked of me to be successful in certain environments. I’m glad I didn’t get the job offer as I’m not sure I would be where I am today if I had. I look back at my rotation there positively, influencing me for the better, and helping me to be successful at BV.

So, here’s to you, Metrowerks. RIP.

I spent the end of tonight watching 80’s music videos. Man, that was pretty awesome. Here’re a few:

I’m pretty much over the majority of my cold now, but I still have a lingering cough. I’ve found that when I’m sick, I seem to have a weird “internal smell” that’s akin to burnt electronics. It’s a bit strange and not very pleasant to say the least. I hope I don’t actually smell that way…

I was also sent this video of Sam, which I find pretty hilarious.

I believe that night, I had to drive downtown at almost 2AM to pick his drunk butt up.

“And now you’ve given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams,
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heeeaaaaart…” - Johnny Hates Jazz

Having about ten years of blog history is pretty awesome. Since I’m out of commission for ultimate, I’m just sitting at home reading through past February blog posts to avoid being super bored. Here’re my summaries:

• 2009 - I closed on my house! It’s been a year!


• 2008 - Looks like I had a lull in my blogging during this time period… but roughly around this time, we completed the endless setlist in the first Rock Band


• 2007 - My first start to finish Bazaarvoice client, Toshiba, launched with Ratings & Reviews


• 2006 - I swapped out an image of Pikachu that people were hotlinking for a picture of Viraj


• 2005 - I made a post about chicken, and apparently hit level 47 in WoW


• 2004 - I was complaining about Chinese being a lot of work


• 2003 - I don’t even know what to say here… I was really nerdy. A bad joke about a girl and/or Perl? Oh my…


• 2002 - I apparently had quite a few other people than myself posting on OliverWEB… but other than that, looks like I was working on MrTechHappy.com


• 2001 - I posted the “All your base are belong to us” animated gif


• 2000 - I did nothing for a few months other than upload some pics

Whew. =p

Elyse posted this and I thought it was pretty cool (I don’t care if you like or dislike the pop of 2009 =p). It actually makes me feel nostalgic a bit.

My littlest sister turns 18 this weekend, which is a bit crazy. I still make fun of her by asking her if she knows how to read yet, but here she is writing all kinds of stuff. I remember when I was 18… boy, was I hot stuff. ;p I liked to make weird faces (oh, I still do).

Hmmm… I guess I don’t really look that different, haha…

Alright, so here’s my review of Avatar. First, I’ll start by saying my expectations for this movie were high. Really high. I wanted epic. I wanted to be awed and I thought there was a good chance of that. Maybe that’s where I went wrong, but I thought (contrary to what seems like popular opinion on the internet) that it was a good movie. It wasn’t great.

I think the CG was really good and impressive. However, regardless of how good the CG was and how far ahead it was from any other CG flick, we’re (in my opinion) still not at the point where you can quite capture the emotion that a human can convey through pure CG. To me, Avatar was a display of the “uncanny valley“ in respect to emotion. I’ve seen comparisons between Zoe Saldana’s performance in Star Trek vs Avatar and I’d take the emotion she conveyed in the scene with Spock in the elevator over any scene with her in Avatar.

There were two things that ultimately led me to feel disappointed with Avatar. Character development and not quite nailing it when characters were supposed to be emoting. For a movie that was over 2.5 hours long, I would have liked to know and feel the characters more. Death scenes in Avatar? They were okay. Compare them to the death scenes in a Lord of the Rings. LoTR hands down.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. I thought it was good. But, it wasn’t great and if it ends up “disrupting the movie industry,” I hope it doesn’t send the message that all people want is eye candy. I see movies primarily for a good story and a great one does that by establishing great characters. I think that’s where Avatar fell short and here’s my vote for more money/time spend on characters and story versus eye candy.

I saw Avatar at the Drafthouse. If you can, I would recommend making the most of its eye candy and seeing it in IMAX. I’ll probably try to catch it in IMAX at some point and see how well I enjoy it then. On a “regular size” digital 3D screen, I didn’t feel as immersed as I was led to believe I would. Again, that’s just me. =)

I am not a fan of the “organic burgers” craze especially when bacon becomes the scape-goat in the latest “hip eateries” that are “healthy burgers.” Tonight, I went to Elevation Burgers which seemed to overly emphasize healthy aspects of, let’s not kid anyone here, unhealthy food. Do I eat a burger to be healthy? No.

Okay, maybe I’m just upset they didn’t have bacon (P.Terry’s, here’s looking at you, too), but Elevation Burgers even emphasized that they had organic butter. People! It’s still freakin’ butter.

I made a new poster for EB that I think they can use in the future if they want to make people think they can lose weight and be healthy by eating burgers.

I love how in the following Windows 7 Launch Party video:

… there is an old white lady, a middle aged one, a white nerdy guy, and then a black guy. And they’re having nice party snacks and installing Windows 7. That’s just lovely.

Sometimes I get in the mood of watching a sad movie or something to make myself feel. Maybe it’s due to living in a fast-paced world, sometimes I want to just chill for a bit and take in life and have some deeper emotions that a rushed one doesn’t allow. I’m glad I do have the luxury to do that, but I find it interesting being introspective and thinking about all the various aspects of myself that need to “recharge” every so often. I like having time to just take in life and how things are going because even though some things aren’t perfect, some things are really frustrating, or some things just aren’t going the way I’d want, life is pretty good overall and I’ve been blessed with more than I deserve.

If someone calls me emo, I will shoot them.

“You part the shadows,
Light of the World.
Destroy the blindness
Peace Eternal.

Take this broken heart,
if it brings You praise,
Take this beaten soul,
shivering hands I will raise.” - Brave Saint Saturn

I’ve always been immensely amused at how horrendous the lyrics are to Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend. Well, Chad played the Mandarin version tonight (I’ve probably heard it before, just didn’t realize it) and I found out that there are a ton of different versions of it in different languages. That’s so horrific it’s awesome.

Now that your brain is blown away in English, bask in the glory of Girlfriend in:

• Spanish


• Mandarin


• French


• Japanese


• German


• Portuguese


• Italian

“Hey hey you you
我不喜欢你女朋友 [wǒ bù xǐ huān nǐ nǚ péng yǒu]
No way no way
你需要一个新的 [nǐ xū yào yī gè xīn de]

…

Because…

She’s like so whatever
You can do so much better
I think we should get together now
And that’s what everyone’s talking about” -Avril Lavigne

I’ve had this discussion with a couple friends before, and although perhaps a bit disturbing, it’s a fun thought. The basic premise is “if you’re really old, like 105, and you’re about to die, how would you take yourself out?” I believe Viraj’s answer was he wanted to rent a Lamborghini and drive off a cliff at like 100something MPH. Mine? I want to blow up on top of the Round Rock round rock, taking it out with me. I find it immensely humorous to become infamous by taking out a small town landmark/namesake. Anyways, it’s just a make-believe scenario… please don’t have me arrested. =p