Monthly Blog
Friday June 26, 2009
I should probably stop apologising for the lack of updates. But to be perfectly honest, it's been pretty much the same old things happening week in, week out. I've been doing a bit of overtime lately as we lead up to our beta submission next Friday.
Last Saturday we had a farewell lunch for Jane, who's leaving to study journalism overseas. There was also a large booze up at Matt, Pete and Owen's where I proceeded to get totally plastered off my face, which was very red and then very pale as I started feeling sick. Never again. Anyway, in accordance with the bet I have going, I made it to six standard drinks so Owen had to ramp it up to a "Hot" Tom Yum Laksa from Cinta last Thursday. I think I suffered more than he did :(
Ness and Sabrina are in Wellington for a few days, so I met up with them for drinks at Momo's on Tuesday night after work, then again today for STRAWBERRY FARE where we proceeded to stuff ourselves silly with high-sugar desserts. I'll spend more time with them tomorrow (hopefully not too much shopping) before they head back to Auckland.
We got free tickets to go and see Transformers 2 on Wednesday night, courtesy of the social club at work. It was so cringe-worthy. I mean, it had lots of good action and destruction and so on, but the novelty of the first movie had worn off and the second one just had so much cheese and corn, it was really difficult in some places to watch the screen. Rob, who was sitting next to me, can tell you how many times I facepalmed throughout the movie, because it was just that bad. Average at best, but don't expect too much. Best Transformers: Devastator and Bumblebee. Worst Transformers: Starscream, the Twins.
Today's news was just swamped firstly with Farrah Fawcett's death, then with Michael Jackson's heart attack. It was pretty shocking, I heard it through the chats first, then watched as news sites across the world began updating with reports of his hospitalisation, then finally his death. Some of the radio stations here just played several of his songs over and over again. What a day :s
Posted by Jeremy at 9:44am on Friday June 26, 2009 :: 0 comments :: 
Moving On Up
Sunday May 24, 2009
We've moved up in the world and upgraded from the Fortress... to the Villa.
Yes that's right, we are now residing in what we have nicknamed the Villa, which is an apartment block 50 metres down the road from the fortress. We pay $30 more each week but in return we get a nice modern apartment, definitely feeling the warmth, and it comes with a dishwasher, fridge, dryer, carpark, and free access to a heated indoor lap pool and a gym. So awesome. We spent all of yesterday shifting our belongings in the cold, wet, windy Wellington weather, but with much help from Jono's family friend who had a Hilux, we were able to spare ourselves total freezing by piling all the big stuff into the boot and carting it over.
All's well that ends well.
And certainly it ended well with a night at Strawberry Fare! I met up with my home group at 8pm, I was totally starving after not eating since lunchtime, and I greedily ordered a garlic bread for myself while the waitress took our dessert order. Turns out she didn't give our order to the kitchen until about 30 minutes later, and she was so apologetic about it and felt really bad, so she gave us a round of FREE HOT CHOCOLATE, YAY!! And on TOP of that, we had an entertainment card worth 25% discount, so a garlic bread, hot chocolate and a lemon chocolate cheesecake came out to $11.75 for that night.
On Friday night we celebrated Sidhe's 12th birthday with an open bar tab at Red Square. And I got totally hammered, I had something pretty bad and got a headache around 10pm, incapacitating me for the rest of the night. So damn embarrassing. When the bar tab ran out, we relocated to the Terrace for yet more drinking. That's two weeks in a row! >_>
This week coming up is our last week before Alpha, so it's going to be pretty full on. At the end of it, I can enjoy a nice three day weekend in Auckland over Queen's Birthday.
Posted by Jeremy at 7:42am on Sunday May 24, 2009 :: 3 comments ::
Shatter
Saturday May 16, 2009
Announcing... a revolutionary title for the Playstation3: Sidhe Interactive proudly brings you the next generation in Breakout - Shatter!
A polished, well-presented and addictive game that I've contributed to in a very small capacity. I still get my name on the credits! So you have to download it, it's definitely something you'll want to play.
Posted by Jeremy at 4:17am on Saturday May 16, 2009 :: 0 comments ::
Winter's Arrival
Sunday May 10, 2009
Winter has pretty much arrived in Wellington, with some epic hail and thunderstorms to start off the season. On Wednesday morning around 6am, the four of us in the flat were woken by a heavy hailstorm, followed by some brilliant thunderclaps that were lagging behind the lightning by only about half a second, so the storm was pretty much overhead. We opened the door to find the following sights:
And when I left the house at 8am to go to work, this is what was left:
Upon arriving home after a long day on Wednesday, I was mortified to find my computer refused to boot. Later diagnosis by my awesome workmates revealed that the BIOS had screwed up somehow and a simple reset by taking out the internal battery fixed it all and now it's working fine again, just in time for the latest Psypoke project...
Flash and code done by me! Go and vote for your favourite Pokemon!
In other news, I spent Saturday afternoon lazing in the sun at a friend's place in Wadestown instead of going to Karori Sanctuary, had dinner at Siem Reap again, overtime is scheduled for the coming week and it's also Mother's Day today. So I'm waiting for our cordless phone to charge so I can make a call.
Posted by Jeremy at 8:31am on Sunday May 10, 2009 :: 0 comments ::
May
Friday May 1, 2009
Time sure flies by when you're doing overtime two or three days a week. There's a lot of work to do at work, and on Monday we'll be officially four weeks to Alpha. Following that, another four weeks to Beta and another four to Gold Master, so there isn't a lot of time at all before the game ships. No I can't tell you what it is yet. But on the brightside, things are settling down, we've got a very clear indication of exactly what needs to be done, it's just that in our time frame, things are going to be quite hard pressed.
Anyway, that doesn't meant I've been at home all the time, I've been out socialising. Tuesday nights have become our drinks night, so we pick a pub and hang out for a couple of hours there. Two Fridays ago, in celebration of Dave and Andy's birthdays we went to the Southern Cross for dinner (although Jono and I went to HK BBQ to supplement our meals) and the next day, to Castle Point for a one night camping trip.
Castle Point's a small community about 2.5 hours northeast of Wellington. It's on the east coast just out from Masterton, and boasts some magnificent scenery, some interesting rock structures and a working lighthouse! The best parts about the camping trip were firstly, the drive up where we just sang along to epic Disney songs, and secondly, the weather was fantastic (as opposed to the cold and the rain south of the Rimutakas). Lots of fun, and of course there are photos on the way.
Posted by Jeremy at 11:27pm on Friday May 1, 2009 :: 0 comments ::