So after a wonderful 8 hour drive with Bryce (and Vaughan, for half the trip), I finally have my car in Wellington. The weather was sunny with a bit of cloud as we made our way down State Highway 1. At one stage, a bird flew right in front of the car and it HIT the bonnet and bounced off my windscreen >_> Survival of the fittest, eh?

This week has also been quite busy in my social calendar. James, one of our game designers, left for Canadialand today, but I caught up with him at Monsoon Poon on Monday for all-you-can-eat Firecracker Chicken (YUM!) and the Blood Drive launch party yesterday.

Blood Drive?

Blood Drive is the action-packed zombie killing game with "motorized death steeds of steel" (according to Activision's marketing team). Having been on the iPhone team for the past year, I didn't actually contribute to the game at all, but despite its idiosyncracies and the fact I don't really play driving games, I think the game looks nice and there's no doubt that the team worked incredibly hard on it. Last night was for them to celebrate its completion and to have a good time.

It was an optional-costume party, so it was entertaining to see the many zombie and zombie-hunter costumes around. I myself went as a zombie tourist (a tourist who takes pictures of zombies, not an undead tourist). Pictures in the gallery!

Today, it was Andrew's birthday so he shouted us a lunch at Leuven. Surprisingly, no one ordered mussels, but instead our meals ranged from steak and lamb rump to the fish of the day and some gigantic lamb pie in a bowl that actually looked quite impressive.

This weekend, there's Guy Fawke's on Friday, badminton and a barbeque at Charles' on Saturday, music on Sunday and all-round relaxing!

Alcohol is weird. I've heard it tends to amplify whatever emotions you're feeling, which might be true to some effect and certainly I've noticed this. But what I find weird is that my overall mood depends on the crowd I'm with. Last night, I was feeling pretty snarky (this could also be attributed to the stupid girls at the table next to us who were dressed like Lady Gaga clones and sounded like vuvuzelas at higher, screechier frequencies) and everything seemed to annoy me. If I had gone out for drinks with my workmates, I think I would have been a lot more jovial and social.

Anyway, it's been pretty busy for me. In among the Starcraft II achievement gathering I've been doing, I've also been writing tools for the impending Black and White release sometime next week, as well as working hard on PikPok's latest game for the iPad. It should be done soon, so uh..watch this space! ¯\(º_o)/¯

Last weekend was all about the Japanese. Friday night was the first Friday of the month, so it is customary we hang around with the other iPhone developers of Wellington at Hashigo Zake. Sunday was the Japanese Cultural Festival, which amused me greatly because I recognised so many elements just from watching Anime. There were mandalas, mochi, taiko drumming, tea ceremony demonstrations, lots of food and lots of people. Photos in the gallery whenever I can be bothered.

On Monday, being the first Monday of the month, Monsoon Poon have a deal where they serve unlimited plates of Firecracker Chicken (at least, until they run out. They ran out of 40kg of chicken in under two hours) as well as naan bread, white rice and a beer. Firecracker Chicken is a delicious dish of crispy, juicy chicken smothered with a tantalising spicy sauce. So good!