Archive for November, 2007
Statue
Nov 19th
Alright, I took a break last week from posting photos because I needed some time to work on my photo collection a bit and get it more organized. That, and I had a bunch of other things on my plate. So I’m back to posting photos from my backlog of photos.
This one I took on the night that I proposed to Diane. We walked around Louise McKinney park for a little while after dinner and I had my camera out to take some photos. There was a few good shots that came out including this one.
Super Mario Galaxy
Nov 17th
Wow. This game is awesome. I’ve been spending every chance I get working my way through the latest Nintendo masterpiece. It isn’t often I have trouble putting a game down, but this is one of those times. The game is fantastic!
I never really played super mario 64, though I may have to at some point since there’s a lot of people who say that it was really well done. I did get super mario sunshine, but I really didn’t enjoy it. The controls were all wonky and I really didn’t like the whole water backpack mechanism. So Super Mario Galaxy is my first real 3d mario title. Before this, my only experience with mario titles has been through Super Mario 1,2,3, and World — all of which are excellent games (I played 3 the most out of all of them).
Galaxy is incredible. The worlds are varied and rich and full of an inventiveness in level design I haven’t seen in a long time. The controls, while a little hard to get used to at times (especially in swimming levels) don’t get in the way of enjoying the fun. There’s a lot of levels, and all of them are simply beautiful!
Besides the main levels, there’s also a bunch of challenge levels and mini games that are a lot of fun. The inventiveness continues throughout all of these games.
One of the things I’ve noticed early on as well is the music is wonderful. I am quite enjoying the whole experience, and this is probably one of those games that I finish way too fast because I play through it too quickly! Oh well, it’ll be fun!
Heraldk
Maddening Oilers
Nov 16th
Man, I just can’t shake the feeling that the Oilers have some chance to go on a stretch of wins. They’ve got so much talent – they just can’t seem to put it together. Of course, the crazy number of injuries isn’t helping. If the Oilers started getting healthy all of a sudden, I think we’d be looking at a particularly good team.
The game last night against Vancouver was a lot of fun to watch. It was also a nail-biter, and every time Vancouver got some pressure on us I got nervous. But Mathieu Garon managed to put on A SHOW and stopped everything that Vancouver sent his way – including three shootout attempts! The Oil looked dangerous for parts of the game, but they seem to have this bad habit of giving the puck away in the neutral zone (or worse, in their own end). I don’t know how to get them to do this, but they need to be able to maintain control of the puck for longer parts of the game or we’re going to continue having trouble maintaining any pressure.
Tonight’s game was worse for that score. We just couldn’t keep constant pressure on the puck and it seemed like every second shift we’d give the puck away several times. Ewww. Hockey like that is maddening to watch for the fan. Glad to see Jarret Stoll get a couple goals though. They were a bit ugly, but I’m glad to see him snap his goal drought. Let’s hope he continues to recover last year’s form!
Maybe their play tonight was due to the back-to-back schedule. I sure hope they can start building some consistency into their game … if they do, and start to get healthy … I seriously think we’ve got a playoff bound team. Until then though, we’re in some trouble.
Heraldk
Reorganization
Nov 16th
Every so often I feel the sudden urge to reorganize the furniture in my room. Today was one of those days. I don’t know what it is – maybe it’s a fresh perspective on something I see everyday, maybe it’s a chance to try something else … but it seems that whenever I do it, I am almost always completely satisfied with the result. This time is no different. Several of the elements in my room were moved around and the room feels like a totally different place – and the organization is altogether better (in my mind at least).
I completed the furniture move before the hockey game (that’s another post), and then sorted out a bunch of crap that had accumulated. I’m going to be spending some time in the near future sorting through paper that I’ve accumulated and trying to discard as much as possible. It seems pretty unlikely I’ll need my high school financial management course work, don’t you think? (Oh yeah, I kept a lot of crap). Something tells me I’m going to need a couple of boxes to take all the paper I’m going to discard to the recycling bin.
I love it. I find a reorganized room refreshing and different – and yet familiar in the same way. So it is nice to be able to get that feeling here.
Heraldk
Catchup
Nov 13th
Okay, it seems these catchup posts are getting to be the norm. I hope they aren’t though – so I’m gonna try and get caught up here and start getting myself back in the habit of posting here.
First up, the big thing lately has been my return to poker. I started playing a few weeks ago to catchup on some PSO promos that they’ve been adding with remarkable regularity. I started with Carbon Poker where I jumped right in at 100nl and did quite well and banked a $500 profit plus my $120 PSO bonus. Next was Action poker, which I didn’t do quite as well at. Even with the $100 deposit bonus, I was only able to claw my way back up to even a little after finishing off the $120 PSO bonus. I didn’t really like Action poker – there wasn’t enough tables, and I never really felt comfortable. So I was quick to move on. My next promo though was Cake Poker, and it feels much better. Being up $500 plus the $90 PSO bonus doesn’t hurt in that respect … but I’m also rather enjoying the fast bonus clearing rate. So I think I’m going to stick around at Cake for awhile before I move on to my next PSO bonus.
Work is going well. I just moved offices, and have started to get familiar with the code that produced the bots that played in the man-machine match this past summer. I’m super excited to work on the next iteration of these bots … and even more excited to pit them against the world’s best players. At the moment we’re trying to lock down some money to challenge some players with. Any ideas where we could get that money? We’d ideally like something on the order of $50K or more to use as prize money. I don’t have many ins with people, but if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.
Diane and I are doing well. We’re currently in the midst of wedding plans which are going pretty smoothly I think. We’ve got several months to go, but we’ve got a lot of the important things locked up and several others in progress. Hopefully we can have invitations out in a month or so. We’ve been pretty busy with social stuff too – attending quite a few fun events over the past month. Too many to really recount in a short space here, but the latest was a Chili cook-off. We made some pretty awesome bison chili (if I do say so myself) along with some skillet cornbread, apple crisp, and cookies. Mmm – it was quite a cooking day! We had a lot of fun in the kitchen, and it’s making me want to force myself to spend more time cooking on a regular basis. I’d certainly eat better (and healthier) if I did.
The Oilers are maddening to watch at times. The most recent game against the flames was sweet to watch though – now if only we could put together an effort like that on a more consistent basis. I see a lot of potential on our club. If we get a few key members back and contributing, we could have a contender on our hands. I realize it’s a lot of ifs, but what else do we have? In particular, I’m really impressed with Robert Nillsson’s play. He’s been fast, creative, and strong with the puck – I’m starting to get excited every time I see him get the puck. One last thing: what the hell is with the hit on Hemsky? That should’ve got a suspension for sure! He could’ve been badly hurt on a play like that!!!!
Not bad for an update post huh? If you’ve got questions, let me know – I’m feeling a bit lonely in blog land!
Heraldk
Merge
Nov 13th
Times have been a little rocky for this blog. I’m trying to get it all under control, but it’s taking me some time, and time is in high demand these days.
A lot of the changes have been made to merge the two blogs, but I haven’t had time to complete all the changes. As you can plainly see, my blog design needs a bunch of work, but that will come with time. In the interim, I hope to start posting regularly again about whatever comes to mind. Hopefully my blog can make a speedy recovery!
Please let me know if you see odd things happening with the blog – it’d help me out tremendously.
Heraldk
Butterdome
Nov 9th
I’ve caught up with the last of my recent pictures, but I’ve got a huge backlog of photos to work through to add photos to flickr. I’m sure I’m missing a lot of pretty decent shots.
This is the University of Alberta Pavilion – or Butterdome as it is called around here. It’s a very yellow building, which makes it stand out very well.
Mmmmmm Beer
Nov 8th
Right time, right place, I guess. I went out for some beer with one of the new grad students, and when the beer arrived there was just a bit of sun left before it dived below a cloud. That night we watched an exciting hockey game between the Minnesota Wild and my Edmonton Oilers. The oilers pulled out a shootout victory. It was interesting because the guy I was with was from Minnesota – so we had a bit of a rivalry going at our table. It sure was fun!
Through the Glass
Nov 7th
The halloween party had some pretty odd lighting. This is some clear blocks that were placed in the wall between the bathroom and the rest of the basement. Here, the orange and red lights that were on in the house make the blocks look really kinda neat.
Dog Express
Nov 6th
Even the dog was dressed up at the party. He had a little bear attached to his back … pretty darn cute I’d say. Unfortunately, the dog wasn’t too kind to it’s transportee. Later on in the evening the bear was knocked off from it’s perch when the dog ran under the foosball table!
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