The New Job ...

So yeah, working up on the 4th floor now - pretty exciting concept, being embedded with the artists. But since I share a cubicle with Katie, we're kinda cut off from everyone else (as they are all cut off from each other) via the cubicle walls. There's this one guy who i pass by, and everytime i walk by, he's always doing some kind of character work in maya and it takes all the effort in me not to go up and be all like "Hey, i love your stuff. show me some tricks!"

There are these meetings every morning where the technical artists from every project get together and update each other what is going on and what they need to get done that day. I was thrown in without any knowledge of what was going on, but after 2 weeks of daily scrums, i've pretty much got the idea how its run and perhaps some ideas what I can contribute in the future, if its even my place.

The first week was spent mostly testing the online software development kit, or the website because there simply wasn't work being delivered to the artworks section. I got to know the guys sitting in octo pretty well. And i like them all. corbett gave me his opinion on the ihoq guys and there seemed to be alot of tension going on between development and contracted qa. I made a passing comment the next day to katie about what corbett said and she told me to just ignore him, which is the best i can do if i didn't want to get involved in any of the politics.

last friday the entire CTU team got together to play dodgeball, which was pretty fun. I don't know how many times they did that before i joined in on it, but this was my first time and i got nailed pretty bad in the face by Chris once, and another time by Craig. The jerk tossed a ball in the air to confuse me and nailed me with the other ones he had in his hands, while i was trying to figure out what was going on. But i realized as the ball struck ...

All in all, I have to say the CTU team is pretty fun to work on. Usually I work up in the artworks section with Katie, but every once in awhile, we'll get togetehr with the rest of the team, since we're scattered throughout the office building. Last week we went for sushi, and there's another dodgeball event planned this upcoming week.

New Job

Yeah, I didn't see it coming at all. In fact today started out like any other ordinary day with me waking up at the crack of dawn heavily considering calling in sick just so i can sleep in. I was so tired this morning that i canceled any overtime shifts i had scheduled for myself this week. At least i was working for the day - and i'm so glad i was. Where do i start ...

After 3:30 break, Alex was saying how HR was harassing him about transferring him to EAX but he didn't want to go because it was inconvenient for him. I wondered why they wanted to move him when he filled out our 6 person online team, otherwise we'd have to go find someone else to replace him. And he was adamant about not going so I offered to take his place at EAX on the repro team - that way i'd be working alongside the developers and me and jeff could go on smoke breaks together, lol.

From out of nowhere, I got an email from Matt York with the subject "Please come and see me". The email was blank, and I'm thinking shit, I'm in trouble. So I reluctantly walk over to his office and ask him whats up. At this point my mind is racing wondering what it was he had to tell me, was in trouble, what did I do ... So the first thing he said was

"It's looks like we're going to have to let you go on Monday." Swore i felt my heart break, but all I managed to do was nod and let him continue talking. And then he adds something about me getting the artworks job I applied for last week, the job that Stacey forwarded my name to. He briefly explained what the job was about - quality control stuff in the artworks department, how i'd be embedded with the developers. And the whole time, i couldn't stop smiling. My body was shaking and all I could say was thank you. He said how I mentioned to HR that i wanted this and this was my chance and not to fuck it up. And I'm said "no, i will do everything in my power not to fuck this one up!" I'm not sure if he knows how much this opportunity means to me.

I don't remember much after that. i was still shaking, mind was racing, remember Trish hugging me, hahaha, and Duane asking "Oh, so you are an artist?" So i go back to the team and tell them the news - first i told Alex i wouldn't be able to take his spot at EAX anymore and he says it doesn't matter to him because he was not coming into work tomorrow. Stacey had threatened to fire him. Then I explained what had happened to me which was a little awkward after hearing what Stacey had told him. So our cozy online team had been brought down from 6 to 4 in 5 minutes.

Then I got an email from Stacey to come to the office but by this point i pretty much knew what to expect. So both HR ladies congratulated me - even clapped, which had me blushing pretty bad - and I profusely thanked them both for what they did for me. So they dismissed me and i headed back to my desk, only to have Yavar come up some minutes later and fill me in on the details of this new job.

He explained that it was going to be a 3 week contract with VMC, with the possibility of being kept on for longer. But that would be up for my performance, and EA to decide, based on their needs. Freakin told everyone on MSN, Cody and gurn seemed pretty supportive ... so we'll see what happens next. I guess theh rest is up to me huh ...

RPD

i wasn't sure if i could ever look at another picture of the Raccoon City police department's main hall. It was probably 2 years ago around this time that i started working on one of my earliest 3D projects. I've gone back before to try and clean up the scene but cleaning it up was taking way longer than I expected, and it'd be faster to just start over a new one. I wanted to start over but decided that i'd had enough of looking at the reference pictures and just leave it be.

And now, two years later, I decided that i want to get back to it again. I've just started working on a new RPD today, which could also stand as a testament to my environment modeling abilities despite the fact i've stuck the character label on myself. And surprisingly, in four short hours, I've gotten the main shapes of hte station down pat. I jsut need to add the finer details like doors, props and railings (which I estimate are going to take awhile.) I love the fact that now i have a laptop, i can take my work around with me wherever I go. I can finally get started on all those projects I always wanted to work on but couldn't because i wasn't at home on my computer.

There's Shaniqua who still needs to be made as well, and i need to finish off the bust of Cranky's head - I'm not sure how much farter I want to take that piece actually, it might be better to just start over but i haven't decided yet.

New Laptop

Yeah, first post on my new laptop. Just bought it yesterday and I'm trying to get used to the controls. The keys are a little more flat and closer together than what I'm used to but as I'm writing this, I'm starting to get a good feel of just how to work this thing. Also there's no mouse yet but i plan on getting that fixed tomorrow when i go buy some accessories for this thing.

There's not much to update on the work front. managed to land another meeting with a lead artist but this time it's going to be focused on environment art. so hopefully if EA is looking for any prop artists, they will be looking to hire me. Or at the very least, consider me.

skate.2 is really eating up alot of time. working overtime 3-4 times a week (except this last week because of the whole laptop fiasco, cause the bank wouldn't let me purchase it because of my debit limit so i had to go back the next day, thus missing a second day of OT, and pick it up). Thursday night - the night i got the laptop, they decided to reward us at work with free beer and pizza with all the progress we've made in knocking out the QA issues with the game.

And then i had one more beer tonight when i went out for dinner with matt and nicole. the last time i saw them was just after i got hired at this job - sometime in april i think. we went to gleneagle after and watched 2 of dixons metfest plays, and i gotta say, it was definitely nice seeing dixon again even though i was apprehensive at first, because its been so long since i stepped foot onto the grounds of my old highschool.

Birthdayness

Wow its been awhile since I updated. I know, when I first started this, blog thing, I was honestly wondering how long I'd be able to keep it up. Turns out the answer to that is less than a year! There's a bunch of stuff to update this thing on and I'll try to hammer them out one by one.

1) Jade Empire. Yes, I downloaded the game just to see what it was all about. Cost a bit of money - my guess is 14 bucks or so, but I really don't know since Microsoft uses those stupid points that you have to buy to put towards a game. I thought initially those points was something you earned in game, not that you actually have to pay real money for it. Anyway, Jade Empire is awesome - an RPG similar to Mass Effect as far as building your character is concerned. The fight system is nothing I've seen before, letting the user chain attacks from different fighting styles into one combo.

2) Work - I've been transferred to work on Skate2 - a game that needs some help right about now. It's coming together, but with final submission in about 2 weeks, there's still a long way to go. And the team has been pulling 12 hour week days and 8 hour weekends for some time now. It's an ambitious game I will say, and the more ambitious the vision, the bigger the QA team. There's about 40ish people on the team right now, half online half single player mode. Each team is split up into minor teams taking care of individual parts of the game like challenges, modes, interface, etc. I'm for online interface (offline interface is someone else). I've been intending to save up for a laptop and working as much overtime as my body will allow and made some decent money as a result. Saved about half the money i need for my laptop sofar. But I'm starting to wonder whether i want one anymore considering I can't get XP for it.

Just got my contract extended last ... Thursday was it? Or last Friday, one of the two. Anyway, it got extended all the way till Apirl 14th. Talked to Ding about it and he checked the schedule for Wii Tennis and lo and behold, that was the end date for Wii Tennis as well. Which means I'm not sure if they're planning on firing me after that or what, but I hope to be able to climb the QA ladder, as a backup if in case I don't make it as an artist as I work on improving my artistic abilities.

Sara also got let go and this was our first week without her. Damn, I miss Sara and her sass already. And midway through the week, we find out that Jeff got moved over to the Vancouver location so there's hardly anybody left anymore. Trish is still trying to decide whether she moves back to Ontario or stays here since her contract was extended too.

I also told Nate I was gonna get some more logos done for him for his Tshirt business venture but I haven't yet as of this writing ... oops. As a reward for last time, he got me Army of Two , cause I chose it. Got home and played it a couple times but I've reached the conclusion now that it's really not that great of a game. Cody even msged me and told me it was bad just as I was getting into it. I'm not sure if its opinion that tainted mine of if it's legitimately bad game but as of right now, it's not my favourite. Mind you it's not that bad either. Still waiting for my free copy of Dead Space which comes in 2 weeks according to Yavar.

Yes, and that copy of Dead Space comes as a result of our work on FaceBreaker Wii which got a 1st time pass on 3 different levels of QA!! This is a big deal for me because a) it's my first QA project ever and b) I was one of two responsible for compliance issues on the core team which made it past Nintendo no problem and Nintendo is supposedly really anal about their compliance issues and c) this is a new title that EA was taking a real gamble on. So at least on the quality part, I did my job! So Mike Richardson (the lead QA guy of the entire place, i think that's his name anyway) threw a first time pass party for the team and everyone involved in the QA process was there from the QA label team, the core team, the Shared Services team who worked on the game, even Yavar, Mathieu, Sanaz and Stacey were there for hiring us in the first place, lol. They were making a pretty big happy deal out of it all. The champagne they brought, Mike said it was "non-alcoholic" but he seemed to have gotten it mixed up. Cause after a few small cups of champagne, I was starting to feel a bit woozy, and then realized after the bottle I gotten mine from said "12%" alcohol.

Also on Friday, to congratulate the skate2 team for finding x amount of bugs in the last 2 weeks, matt decided to throw a forget it friday event specifically for our team. Had like 2 beers and practically conked out for overtime that night. But I think I worked well drunk because first of all, I hid it quite well. Found about 4-5 bugs in 2 hours. But in the last hour of overtime i couldn't work anymore, too tired so I jsut sat there and free tested the game until it was time go to home.

3) Becoming a Professional Artist - Just last Friday i was browsing the forums at work and there was a posting that someone wanted a concept artist for some new IP they were working on, but they didn't say anything about whether it was for an in-company thing or a project on the side. They had posted the message about ten days before and I'm regretting not having replied until now. Not that I can be considered good enough for the job in the first place but i rather do it and say that i tried than not doing a thing about it at all. Emailed Brandon with my basketball player and bust models but he had pretty much the same thing to say "draw draw draw and learn the basics" so that's what I've been doing for the last little while, whenever work allows some time for it.

No More NFS ...

Starting to get the feeling the QA department at work is starting to wonder what to do with me. After testing basketball for 3 days, they moved me and the remaining members of the original facebreaker team over to a "fresh eyes" testing team for NFS HD. That would be fine and all normally ... except the NFS QA team is probably hands down the largest in all of EAQA existence and adding us to the mix won't really change much. Sofar we have't found many bugs, less than 10 between the 4 of us. And we've already been on the project for a week and 3 days as I write this.

The parents are renovating the basement, finally. They've been talking about it since before I graduated but now that I have, and gone out and gotten a quasi-job and the whole bit, they're actually acting on it. Which kind of sucks because that means the computer has to be moved upstairs and I'm not sure for how long, and the state that my room is right now, probably couldn't hold much more. So I decided to get a laptop instead. It'll be useful not only because it'll allow me to work on my personal projects while the renovations are going on, but I will also be able to work on them wherever I am instead of being chained to this desk all day at home. My only issue right now is I'm not sure as to the tech specs of the laptop I will need. Lots of friends to advise me on the matter though, so I'm not expecting it to be much of a problem.

To save up money for said laptop, I volunteered to do OT this weekend. At first I was tempted to do Saturday and Sunday, but then realizing I'd be doing 12 days of work straight, i turned sunday down but am still working on saturday. I'll see how i'm feeling then, and then decide on what's gonna happen on Sunday if its not already too late. Just gotta be careful not to go over 45 hours of work or the government will tax my sorry ass.

Maybe not getting fired?

Just a quick update since I have to get to bed real soon cause I've got work in the morning. So last wednesday they transferred us over to NCAA basketball to run through a list of scripts. I'm not sure what state the game is in an the moment, or what milestone, but we were just filling a work order sitting in the WWQA department for about 3 days. The first day, Wednesday, wasn't so bad although i'll admit the game was boring as shit though. We were just running through screens and testing controller pulls and the like.

Dave was pissing me off as usual and i was taking it out on donovan which made me feel bad - but come to think of it, he's also done a few things to get under my skin. doesn't matter though - i ended the day by pretty much flipping on dave and giving him a piece of my mind at the expense of looking like a bad worker to Jeff. Talked to Ding, turns out he doesn't like Dave much either, hehehe. So now that he's not my ATC, the real dirt comes out, love it.

Thursday i called in sick. the truth is I wasn't really sick - i was feeling under the weather, yes, but that's not really odd since this job is seriously robbing me of sleep. But I had a dentist appointment at 1130 but they called to make it earlier at 11. by the time i get out of the appointment it would've been too late to show up for decent hours at work anyway.

Friday i went back to work feeling a little sick for real, but decided to suck it up because it was payday! And as usual i forgot to pick up my paycheck at lunch so i went over to sanaz's office but interrupted them in the middle of deciding who to fire - which was awkward. Yavar sat us down and told me, donovan dave and rocky that we were going to be moved to NFS HD on monday as a "fresh eyes team", meaning we were to approach it as a group of end users judging the game for how it is, not tainted by any of the core team members' opinions. Too late for that, lol.

Nate also recommended me to a friend of his, the development manager for Wii tennis. I also have Ding helping to pull me into the project. If I get in on this project, that means I'm guaranteed to stay till at least summer of next year, which is quite a long time to get my nose farther into the EA art department. Here's hoping everything turns out well.

About to get fired

Or let go, i should say. The game's coming to an end. We're finalizing today. Although the contract is supposed to end in October (my guess is to make room for any errors and must-fixes), our game's been hitting its milestones on time and WWQA wasn't able to find anything that had to be fixed that we haven't already logged into the system. Jacob was able to find some compliance issues that slipped through me but I don't think they're anything too noticable.

So because everything is on time, hopefully the powers that be will see that our team is valuable to keep around, plus me since i have knowledge and experience in Nintendo compliance. However, even though that is what i'd like, I doubt they'll be keeping me on because projects are winding down. And if they do keep me on, it won't be for much longer.

It's okay though - i'm exciting to be able to dedicate lots of tome to working on my next character, complete with skin shader, YEAH! And I've made enough contacts I need over here at EAC who I plan on communicating with on a regular basis - doing those logos for nathan and updating my character progress with Brandon so hopefully if he sees enough promise in me, he'll ask me to come on as a co-op guy if the opportunity arises. Also i don't have much time left with Charina so i'll be jumping on every employment opportunity she throws at me. Dave tells me they're should be letting us know what happens to us today but i wouldn't count us that lucky.

In other news, I just got rockband 2 today - nate was nice enough to buy it for me using his discount even though i gave him my own money, lol. Can't wait to get home to play it. gonna be getting it for cody cause there's none at the EAX store.

I'll update this as soon as i find out what's going on. i have nothing better to do here at work anyway.

Updates

So I decided to start working on a new character - I started the weekend after meeting with Brandon, and I'm gonna be putting Tammy on the backburner for now. She was coming along nicely but to be frank, I'm quite sick of her. This new character isn't going to be anyone special, just your average 6 foot tall white guy with different clothes, most likely going to be a basketball player so I can apply to EA with something relevant.

Work's been more or less the same, with some interesteing twists this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday they had me working up in Phase II for a bit, doing compliance scripts there. I got to meet one of the programmers to test out the bird minigame - more specifically, testing the fixes that he made. And then there were some hair clipping isues with Romeo which was themost interesting bit.

Reg came up to me and told me they needed some help up at the artworks department which was pretty exciting because I get to actually walk into the artwork station! I didn't realize who i'd be talking to until they led me to a workstation and Tam was there. Then he introduced me to Colleen, who i've seen on the list of employees before and knew she was a modeler that way. But I didn't realize she was a character modeler. So some changes were made to teh build and while we were waiting for it to load, I figured it'd be a good time to ask Colleen some questions about character modeling but didn't want to come off as being too forward.

Then Tam stepped in and told me now was a great time to ask some questions and then that's what Colleen realized what was going on, so I started talking to her about modeling, meshflow, z brush and what not. the other guy who was there - the one was helping with the hair clipping issue started giving his own tips too. Said he was a teacher at BCIT, teaching Maya. Asked him to check out my website when he had the time and told me his name was Elliott - the art lead for the team. I couldn't believe my luck!

Elliott promised to check out my site and get back to me on it. He hasn't done so yet as of this writing but I hope he will soon. I also forwarded the same email to Colleen and she hasn't got back to me either. That's okay, while I'm waiting I'll be working on Frank - my new default basketball player, lol. Almost done modeling him, just got to get his clothes on there, ears, feet, and then I'm ready to UV. Hopefully I'll be done by early next week so I can start applying to EA.

Probably among the worst days of my life

Well this week was probably one of the more depressing ones. First off it poured pretty much all week - gray, cloudy and cold. Alex left on Thursday to go back to school for a few semesters. He's hoping to come back next year as a programmer and I wish him all the luck. He was a great ATC. Ding's gonna be taking over for Alex in managing our team. I notice he's a little bit more of a hardass but not enough to warrant me hating him. I'm actually quite partial to Ding, he's a nice guy.

I finally had the meeting with Brandon Jackson - an Asian guy, which was kind of surprising but not really important I guess. More important was what he had to say about my work. Pretty much told me i wasn't good enough to land a character artist job.

Funny that's the first thing I remember because he gave me a lot of compliments where he felt they were due. But for some reason, maybe it's in my nature, but I only remember the negative. But it's a pretty big blow when you have your dreams swiped right out from under you. Getting into the character artist field, I understand it is really competitive. And I realize that I have a lot to learn especially when I've only really been doing 3D for 2 and a half years when I've been drawing my whole life. He said I had a lot of things going right in my drawing but i'm keeping too much to my safe zone, not to be afraid to do more exploration. More importantly is to do more life drawing which I admit I haven't been doing enough of.

Looking back at my character models, they clearly aren't anywhere near the quality of professional realistic models. I shouldn't feel as disappointed as I do because everything makes sense, really. I just have to hunker down and get better. Practice, practice. It's easier said than done. But I have to really want it, and I do - and I can't get discouraged. Part of the desperation is to be independent and I guess i'm trying to get better for the wrong reasons as a result. But I feel i can do this. I look at the professional models and it's like ... I FEEL i can do it. But for some reason the work I pump out isn't reflecting that.

I have to prove it to myself first before I can hope to convince other people of what i can do. Maybe that's what's stopping me. there's alot to consider as to the reason of my short comings. Or maybe, I shouldn't even bother thinking about it. Just keep doing it and it will come to me naturally. After all that's what I've been doing my whole life, right?

Hmm ... i think i'm onto something here. That kind of reflects what Jackson was saying to me earlier about drawing. Just draw. Kind of like modeling, texturing and everything else I love doing. Don't think, just do. That's advice i can follow. I mean as it is, he says he sees potential. I may not see it myself, but the fact that someone that accomplished sees it, I can have faith in what they say. Believe in myself - at the risk of making this entry sound incredibly corny.

Sure I can do it now. But I can do it tomorrow. And if not that, then the day after that. It's like quitting smoking. I'll do it tomorrow, or the day after that, and if not, then the day after that. There's no reason I can't apply that to my artwork as well. YEAH.

Suddenly I'm starting to feel better. Not today, but tomorrow. Everyday is a new day, and a new chance to improve.

I'm going to be okay.

Yet another Dev meeting! WOOT!

Went in to talk to mr. chandler the other day, following reg's advice. Chandler told me to come back in september and I wasn't planning on another HR visit until then but reg said it'd be a good idea to stop by and see if he's heard anything new as to a character artist position. As aspected, he hadn't heard anything new and admitted to me he wouldn't know anything until the bodyshop decided they needed character artists. And even then he wouldn't know how many and other specifics until the head of the department contacted him. The positions on EA's website are currently open but they don't plan on filling them till around fall.

He suggested in contact someone named brandon jackson who is apparently some kind of lead artist in the bodyshop. so I said okay, and emailed brandon to see if he wanted to meet me so I had a chance to show him some of my work. Not expecting anything to come out of it, really. But then 2 days later I got an email back from him saying "it would be his pleasure" to go over my work. You know what this means - POTENTIAL job!! I'm pretty stoked about it.

That was the same day I got into a verbal showdown with dave. I can't even begin to describe the level of his ass kissing. He's got his nose so far up alex's ass, alex is coughing up dave's snot. dave decided to check up on the new guy, Adam asking if his regression was coming along okay, and adam said yes. Dave stayed and pressed him on his regression, making sure he was doing everything right, so I politely leaned over and told dave to get back to work. Adam is experienced in QA testing and didnt' need him hovering over his shoulder.

Dave took it as an attack against him and told me to stop talking and to get back to what i was doing. He was doing some kind of soak which left him with little else to do and that I should mind my own business. He turned around to get back to work but I wasn't quite finished with him yet.

So i turned to face him and said we didn't need him checking up on us and that alex was doing a fine job running the team by himself. "No thanks to you." he retorts back - which is the saddest comeback ever seeing has how i LET alex do his job.

Donovan told me afte that ALex talked to dave about it, and said it sounded like dave was the one who was pissed off and not me. Probably because alex saw in the truth in what i said but is just too damn nice to say anything about it to dave. whatever, like alex cares anyway. he's gone next thursday - going back to school.

This Last Week

2 overtime shifts this week, Wednesday and Thursday. Our team has grown from 4 to 7 with the introduction of Adam and Jesse from NBA which has recently shipped. Also, another Dave was introduced to the team, the ATC that will be replacing Alex when he leaves.

Adam caught me drawing during break and starting questions about what my plans were in the company. He told me he was using this QA as an opportunity into the company, hoping to be a character modeler or an animator. He asked to see my sketchbook and I wanted to say no since I just took it from a heap of unused books and realized i hadn't drawn in it since grade 12 and there were alot of old ugly drawings in there. But I let him take a look anyway with the forewarning, lol.

Wednesday OT was the first OT shift ever for our team. It was Alex, me, Dave and Jesse testing out one of the game modes. Nate and Kasey joined us too. AFter break, the two of them headed back upstairs leaving the rest of us to finish off the modes. Don was sick that morning with something nobody could pinpoint. He told us Thursday that the doctors couldn't figure it out either, but managed to relate it to something with his galbladder. He's supposed to stay away from fatty foods an alcohol. So we don't know what's wrong with him still, but he's probably gonna be fine.

During OT break, I gathered the nerve to show Alex my portfolio website, following Tams advice to keep talking to people and getting my name out there. Kasey and Nate also walked in on it and they seemed to really enjoy looking at my work. Kasey noted to keep writing up bugs showing my knowledge (he used the anatomy bug as an example) and Nate advised also to keep working hard at QA because QA support could "go a long way" as he put it.

For Thursday's OT, met up with the dev QA team for dinner, wanted to sit with Reggie, Nate and Kasey and talk to them about my plans. Unfortunately I wasn't expecting Donovan and Sarah to join us. Not that I don't like hanging out with them but I hadn't planned on them to join us. Regardless, I pursued anyway, and Reggie said he liked my work, gave me some advice on how to approach HR and just be chill about everything. Even though I want a character artist job pretty bad. But after the meeting, Donovan and Sarah told me I seemed pretty chill with them, not like an ass-kisser dave style, which makes me feel good.

OH, and today I found out something pretty interesting - Trish is friends with the one and only Mocha Only. Not that I've ever been a huge fan of his, but I'm familiar with some music he's done in the past and have some form of respect for him. Turns out she was in one of his videos. As of this writing, I haven't seen it yet, but Dave swears he saw her in it. The link was on her facebook but I went and wasn't able to find anything.

After work, headed to BPs as the usual Friday habit, with Donovan, Tricia and Mike. Naubert joined us shortly after and Geoff too. Mike and I left around 9 cause I was going to his house for him to show me some of his 3D models he's done. My personal opinion, his character modeling in Maya is a little on the weak side as far as mesh flow and proportions are concerned but his Z brush skills are way better than mine could probably ever hope to be.

More Developments at Work

So this week was spent mostly trying to secure a position for myself at EA. I think overall it went pretty well but I wouldn't say I'm guaranteed a position with the company since i still have over a month to go before my contract ends with VMC.

I emailed Trey sometime last week, asking if it was possible for me to sit down with an artist from the team and just talk about art related stuff, how to get into the industry. He responded and told me one of the artists Tam (whose name I've actually come across before) was willing to meet with me over lunch. We planned for our meeting to be last Wednesday but he had to postpone twice on me and ended up meeting on Friday. He felt bad and offered to buy him lunch, which I planned to turn down and just buy my own but stupid me, I forgot my debit card in my backpack and he ended up buying me lunch anyway.

Tam didn't really tell me anything new - don't give up, be persistant, it will happen. But coming from someone of his status at EA, I took it quite seriously. And I don't plan on giving up - not that it was ever in planned in the first place. He told me a bit about how he got in, what he went through and that it wasn't at all different than what I'm going through now. Just the biggest thing was to keep it honest, what my plans are in the company and keep talking to as many people as possible to try and promote myself. Shortly after the meeting when we got back to work, I wrote him and email and gave him the URL to my portfolio website. He said he'd take a look and get back to me on it. I've yet to receive his response, but we'll find out sooner or later.

Also, Adrian was fired from work this week. We just found out for sure on Wednesday at the weekly team meeting. Reg asked if we had any questions as the team was dead silent without anything to say. I'm pretty familiar with what Don and Dave's opinion of him, and I have my own too of course, but I never expected they'd actually fire him outright seeing as how he's been this way all along and has still managed to hold the job. I didn't have anything to say and just replied with a no-comment. But at the back of my mind, I couldn't shake the feeling that justice had been served. And even as I write this, I kind of feel guilty for admitting it. Reg also told us that he would be replaced by two people (and I think now that maybe one is meant to replace Adrian, and the other would replace Alex when he leaves at the end of the month).


And speaking of Reg, I also emailed him asking if he'd mind being a reference for me when I formally apply for the character artist position with EA in September. The HR guy told me that's around when the positions would be filled. I was nervous about the emailing Reg because I didn't know how appropriate it would be but thankfully he encouraged me to be more forward about these things and to not "beat around the bush." He also said (much to my relief) that he and the rest of the quality assurance team had been happy with my performance and he'd be pleased to be a personal reference for me.
So that's Tam and Reg who I've got rooting for me so far. I'm not sure if they're enough to secure me a position since Cody's led me to believe I'm up against Gurn who works with development. If Gurn gets the job over me, I won't mind because I think he has more knowledge of the kinds of games EA makes. If anyone deserves the job more than me, it'd be him. But still, I'm hoping I get it, lol.
And it looks like things have been shaking up at Blackbox. In our daily spam, Ken told us that Friday was his last day at Blackbox because the company wanted to cut down on employees. So I emailed Cody the next day and asked him if he was still with the company. He said yes, but he wasn't convinced they would be renewing the contract. Seems he was aware that the company was downsizing too. But knowing him, I wouldn't be surprised if he was just being pessimistic so that if they renewed his contract, he'd be happy. I still hope everything works out well for him though, whether or not they decide to keep him.

That's about all the noteworthy development things this week. Except I forgot to mention the Beijing Olympics started on Friday! Meh, nothing worth mentioning really, since I don't really care too much about the Olympics.

Long Weekend Update

While I'm waiting for my health to recharge (I'm playing Mass Effect right now), figured I'd update this thing. I'm starting to get real bad at doing that. Yeah I bought Mass Effect a couple days ago. At first i thought it wasn't going to be much - just wanting to buy it for the sake of it being an RPG and i like that genre of games - final fantasy anyone? Stuck at the Thorian right now, trying to kill that giant bug but that bitch Asari and her entourage of zombie freaks keep killing me with their too much power.

It was an interesting day at work today - got an email from ... I forgot that kid's name, but he's the POC for work orders (and Yavar sent a work order last week since Alex was away, for a mentorship about Ncheck.) and it was answered this week. This guy went to AI and graduated in the Spring of 07 which meant I was in ... Q4 at the time. I knew my mentorship would happen on the Tuesday after the long weekend but I guess I forgot. So I was pleasantly surprised which meant no mindless bug hunting for the rest of the day. As I type this, I just remembered that I was supposed to do a soak before leaving work today, dealing with an NMI. Whatever, I'm tired.

Anyway so after lunch today, i headed straight over to the world wide service section where they had set up a computer for me. turns out it was Shan's computer and up to that point, she had been spending all day moving her workstation over so I could sit there for the rest of the afternoon. I spent the afternoon going over the Ncheck scripts that Donovan and I couldn't finish last week. Fortunately the scripts were already done so we spent some time going over them and what I would do if I were running these scripts for real. And I took some good notes along the way, shared them with Donovan. For some reason, the mentorship didn't include him. My best guess is because he didn't approach Yavar to ask for one - this happened the day he went home sick from that cough.

Tam also emailed me today asking to get our lunch appointment changed to Thursday since he was going to spend wednesday relocating his office to Phase I. So I said yes - not like i had a choice in the matter anyway. I'm still glad an artist is willing to meet with me and give me some tips on getting in on the industry. Sounds like I'm going to need quite abit of luck.

I spent the long weekend finish off the UVs for Tammy. There was quite a bit of optimization to do on her but I really wanted to get onto the normal mapping process. After the UVs were completed, I upped the resolution on her mesh a little bit before taking her into Z brush. That's when I ran into some problems.

When I first tried sculpting a little in Z brush, i saved the Z brush document and not the tool, which was actually the 3D obj of Tammy. So I had to go back and start sculpting her again from scratch. But when I tried to generate a normal map from what I sculpted, it turned out her UVs were fucked. Somewhere along the way while I was sculpting, I must have hit the worng button by accident or something. I'm not sure and I can't even begin to guess what buttion I must have hit since the Z brush interface is probably the least user friendly interface I've ever had the misfortune of stumbling across - and yes, I think this might even beat Flash.

Trouble At Work

Yesterday was probably the most aggravating day I've ever had at work - which isn't too bad when I look back in hindsight, cause I've experienced much worse. Anyway point is, the morning was pretty uneventful - it was me, Don and Adrian since Dave and Alex were still away, and we weren't having much luck finding bugs. Reg emails us in the afternoon just before lunch wondering what's going on and why we weren't finding any bugs. Considering Don and I were doing compliance all morning and Adrian was working on his own hoarde of scripts, it shouldn't be too surprising that we weren't finding anything. But Reg said Montreal had submitted 16 bugs in the last 2 hours!

So we decided to do a little research and found out that Montreal was writing up the same bug for every character in the game. I'm not sure if Reg took the time to look at their bugs but if he did, I'm sure he would have noticed the kind of bugs they were submitting. So I took it upon myself to exact revenge and "sabotage" their bugs by elaborating upon what they had already written and linking it to my own bug.

I'm continuing to write this on Saturday, 5 days after what I've written above. It's finally the weekend - and a long weekend at that.

Sort Of Promotion

I actually meant to mention it sooner, but somehow kept on forgetting. My aunt was in town, arrived 2 weeks ago today but just left sometime this afternoon. It was good seeing her again after so long, and I was looking forward to a change of cooking with her being here. But as usual, her archaic values managed to stir a little resentment in me - pretty much everything I don't like about my dad (she's his sister) multiplied exponentially. But on the whole, I was glad she took the time to visit.

Last weekend was pretty much ruined by some douche on Youtube insisting on starting a flame war with me and we just went at each other's throats. I must say though, I'm proud of myself that I didn't turn it into name calling and character bashing ... sort of, lol. But I think we managed to smooth things over.

The key feature of the last few days though would have to be a mini promotion I've gotten at work - not really a promotion in the sense of pay, more like responsibilities. I am now considered compliance trained, meaning I test games for how well they comply with Wii guidelines set by Nintendo which Reggie (lead QA dude) stressed was "very important". If you ask me, if compliance testing as important as he says it is, why don't we have more people working on compliance scripts? There's 198 scripts to get through and only 2 people to do it all. Who knows if there are any more scripts that the shared services testers are doing for us? And not all of the scripts even apply to our game. So it's up to me and Donovan to sift through those scripts, determine which ones we can run, which are in valid, which to fail and which to pass. This, on top of regression, regular scripts and bug writing. They weren't lying when they said QA isn't a glamorous job.

Alex left an hour and a half early today to make it to Pemberton Fest, and Dave's gonna be following tonight. So tomorrow (they cancelled Forget-It-Fridays, dammit), it's just gonna be me, Don, and Adrian working on all the crap we have to get done. We didn't have enough people to begin with and since Alex is gone all next week and Dave will be gone on Monday, it'll be the three of us tomorrow and Monday. Logic would say our production would go down. But I'm determined to keep it the same at the very least. This is our moment to shine as far as I'm concerned, show that we are completely capable without supervision.

Sleep Schedule is fucked

Monday I had next to no hours of sleep, Tuesday night I slept for a good 7 hours and Wednesday night i got hom eat 10:30 and woke up at 4 in the morning. I tried to get a little more sleep since i'll be working overtime again tonight (worked overtime again yesterday too) and I'm not dreading it as much as I was yesterday.

That's cause yesterday was one of the most interesting experiences I've ever had even though in the grand scheme of things, it probably wasn't all that great. I got a chance to test NHL09 with the developers and actually see (what I believe) the offices where Gurn worked. Not that much nicer than my own office, lol. The controls were alot better than yesterday and I was able to move around with relative ease, and the night just flew by. I think it had something to do with the developers letting us go half an hour earlier than planned.

HHOD's just updated her RE fic of ff.net and I just finished reading the new chapter. More of the usual plot driven events, lots of talking. There's not much action at the moment but for some reason, the reader gets really absorbed into the story even though there's not much going on. I think her characterization is phenomenal. Even though these are original characters she's working with in an established universe, they seem so real, as if they belong in the series.

I'm thinking of starting a blog featuring my own original characters, who will update the blog regularly as if they were real people, just for fun.

First Overtime Shift!!

I wasn't able to sleep Sunday night for some reason - most likely because I woke up at 5 in the evening that day. So try as I might (and I didn't try very hard, if at all), I couldn't fall asleep. Instead I spent the night up modeling my new character that I wanted to base off the game I'm currently testing at work. Mike says the character is kind of like one of the existing characters in Facebreaker, but I flatly disagreed with him. I'd love to disclose what it is at this point but I think I'm bound by EA to keep it a secret until they release details on this character ... oh no wait, I think they already released it, lol. Nonetheless, rather not include any information here that they might not want out.

So I went to work not having any sleep the night before and it was surprisingly okay. I left home earlier than usual and got to the office at around 7:30 in the morning. Had a smoke, skipped breakfast cause I ate before leaving the house, but I had the sourest yogurt I've ever eaten but somehow managed to finish it. Oh, also played a few rounds of street fighter 3 in the arcade and made it all the way to Gill by switching between Akuma and Chun Li. Yeah, I died a couple times but at least I made it all the way to the end. Never quite managed to defeat Gill however, and the guy that tried after me (the same guy that kicked my ass in that game a couple of days ago) couldn't defeat him either, so I left him to his devices and went out for another smoke before work actually began.

We got more builds in and some of the longest scripts I'd ever seen in my life. Donovan told me today he counted about 17 scripts for himself but I never bothered counting mine. I assume it's around just as many though. Sometime between lunch and the late afternoon break, Yevar came to our team and started recruiting for overtime during the week. Due to my lack of sleep, I told him no at first, but the prospect of looking good in the team's eyes actually convinced me to say yes and I did - which was probably the worst decision I've ever made in my life cause I was in no shape to work overtime. Somehow I managed to pull it off.

After the normal work day ended, we were told to head straight for conference room C, where we usually pick up our paychecks and they told us we were basically going to be testing online capabilities for NHL 09. I didn't have to do anything but play the game. It was nice not having to worry about bugs and to just enjoy the game for what it was ... except that it was hockey ... ZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz. Yeah, pretty much wanted to shoot myself. If video games consisted of nothing but sports games, I wouldn't like playing games at all. Managed to squeeze a break out of the 3 hour working period and played some more NHL after that. To think I'll be doing the same thing tomorrow sends chills up my spine. I'd rather return to work at Chapters.

Today, Matt didn't show up to work for the ... I've lost count how many days in a row he's missed. I think it's safe to say he's been fired. We told him to buck up but he didn't listen to us, and Sara even went so far as to call him an idiot but everyone agrees with her even though we're too nice to say it.

Since I started working here, I've been part of the daily spam mail that Steve, Justin, Shiach, Eric and Loi send to each other, and I've even participated in a few of them. But most of the time, it's just me deleting all their spam mail. Anyway today we ended up getting into a small verbal fight, nothing huge but I ended it asking to be removed from the list. I did it out of anger but reflecting back, I don't regret it. It's not like we're no longer friends or anything, it was just your everyday banter but I'm glad I'm off their list though, so at least now my ATC won't catch me emailing when I'm not supposed to.

So that's been whats up the last couple days. See what'll happen next.

Week's Flown By

I remember waking up for work on Monday thinking "aw shit, this is gonna be another long week." and feeling like utter crap. But surprisingly, I'm already writing this on the Saturday after and wondering where all the time went. I'll try to recall the week best as I can.

Monday started out pretty shitty cause dad decided that on the way to work, he wanted to pick up some gas, which could ultimately make me miss by bus and be late (because I still needed to buy smokes as I was freshly out and I didn't want to do it in front of him). But the gas station had something going on with their pumps - I didn't catch all of it, something like "wrong labels on pumps" so my dad ended up driving us around the gas pumps for like 3 minutes trying to find a pump, dodging other cars. I thought he'd give up and drop me off at the bus stop before going to another gas station but no, he wanted to complain. Really pissed me off so I went and bought my smokes when the attendant was helping him fill up (seems like the labels were stuck on the night before but hadn't been taken off yet).

At work, Mat was telling us how tired he was - hadn't slept in a long time and later that night he was going drinking with some girl, and how his body wasn't going to be up to it. I told him it'd be best to have gone drinking the night before and it was stupid now he wanted to do it now especially when he was so tired, but he shrugged me off in Mat fashion.

The next day (this was either Tuesday or Wednesday, I honestly can't remember the week too well) was possibly the worst day of my life. I was in the worst mood at work cause I wasn't catching any bugs and the ones that I wanted to catch, I couldn't cause Adrian was borrowing my tape recorder. So I thought I'd just ad-hoc for awhile, try to repro a bug I found late into the game but I couldn't cause the computer was kicking my ass and I couldn't make it that far. That morning my bug count sat at NOTHING. Finally after lunch we received our first scripts of the week and some new builds with new front end music and everything. Mine was testing to make sure all the poses and facial damages were in there, and some weren't so I had some nice bugs to write up bringing my count to 2. Woot ...

George, Sara and I were discussing how Mat wasn't at work that day so we were wondering what's going on. We theorized that he got fired because the rate he's missing shifts is not cool, and the fact there was someone else sitting at his desk now. George tried calling him on his cell phone to figure out what was going on but it was off. The next day George said he probably got into a car accident, which made me feel bad cause I remember telling Mat on Monday he'd better watch out or he'd get into a car accident and laughed about it.

Thursday was ridiculously windy. Sitting outside the cafeteria during breaks, the wind was blowing tree bits into my coffee. There wasn't a cloud in the sky but hte wind made is so freaking cold. Talked outside with Tricia and Chad at lunch for awhile, trying to move in the the sunlight where it was slightly warmer and that's really the most I remember about Thursday.

And yesterday was Friday thank god - Week was over before I knew it, and I was still willing to work one more day in a row and I'd start getting overtime for it, hahaha. Oh yeah, sometime earlier in the week, we got offers to do overtime, so I offered to do overtime for NHL09 for PS3 but I never got called back for it. Dave did though, lucky jerk. And he supposedly did that overtime today which means more money for him. Next week and I have Wii guidelines training. Of our team, it's only me and Donovan getting that training. Why they chose us over everyone else to get it, I don't know but at least more than one person on the team will know it, even though it's something I think everyone should know.

That's about the most noteworthy things that's happened to me this week. You know I hate to say it but when I was jobless, it seemed by blog entries were alot more exciting even though it was possibly the worst period of my life. Right now, I'm doing a little better financially (getting 300 odd bucks a week isn't too bad) but there's till the bruised ego I have to attend to. I think that might be the main reason I'm still hurting even after I've gotten a job and am well on the way to success ...

Weekend Update

Whoa, been a couple of days since I've updated this thing but honestly, nothing much of interest has really happened. Canada Day was spent not doing anything except working on my portfolio. I would have liked to head down to Rocky Point to experience Golden Spike day. My past experiences with Golden Spike have been alot of fun. Last year, I went with Kim and Christine to try out some food and view the festivities - they really wanted to see Charlotte Diamond and we managed to take some pictures. But this year, both Christine and Andrew were out of town and they're really my only friends living in this area who give two shits about Golden Spike day. But yeah, I did manage to get some work done on the portfolio so it wasn't a totally wasted day.

Last weekend had some really nice weather, apparently the envy of all of Canada. But I found it a little hotter than I would have liked. Trent called and invited me to go up to Lion's Bay for the weekend but I wasn't in the mood - wanted to work on the portfolio since the weekend is really the only time i get to work on it. And with the 4 days off, I was hoping to get alot done. Phoned James up to ask him some lighting questions about Maya - didn't like the fact that my skybox for my western town was receiving and casting shadows on all the objects in my scene. Also just to check up and see how he's been doing this whole time.

On Monday, I tried phoning up Amanda from Blackbox to see if they had any job openings but she didn't pick up her phone. Then I remembered Cody and Alan getting a week off work that day. I'm not sure if that was just offered to the development team, but it seemed like it included everyone working at Blackbox too, cause Amanda wasn't answering her office phone after about three attempts. So I decided to try again later - or just write her an email, since that'll probably work better anyway.

Also, on the Friday prior, I went to the mall and got a new video game - Silent Hill origins. I know, I hate the Silent Hill series for the whole fog and darkness deal, not being able to see further than a few feet in front of you, but then I decided to ignore that and just enjoy the game for what it was. But once again, the inability to see has gotten the better of me and it's been a couple of days since I've touched that game. I hope I'll be able to get into it again. Not completely a waste of money though, since I got it for 30 bucks. Went back to the mall on Monday (or was it Tuesday?) and got some new clothes for work and a haircut. Wanted to go back to EB for Silent Hill 4. I remember that game didn't have so much visual impairment, and that was the main reason I was after it, because I love survival horror and it bugs me that I can't get into Silent Hill. Fatal Frame is a little scarier than I can handle, which explains why I haven't really gotten into that game ... I'm ashamed to say, lol. Anyway, turns out EB didn't have what I was looking for so too bad for that.

The work week proceeded as usual and I had a startling realization that week. I can't stand Dave. Sure he's a good guy, friendly and all but I can't believe how cut throat he is. Donovan, Adrian were sitting there testing out a game mode for Facebreaker and he noticed a bug. They both said they weren't going to write the bug up - I forgot what the reason was, and Dave just shrugged and said fine, one more bug for me. And on Friday, he revealed his bug count list - the guy actually writes it down! I know we were hired to catch bugs but on the job, there are certain things that take priority over bug hunting like regression and scripts, but to be so cutthroat about it, hoarding his bugs ... I don't know, I can't say I like the guy very much.

Loi said he was gonna sell his PSP to me for 25 bucks - all I had to get was my own memory stick to store the games, so I said cool, I'll come on Wednesday to give him the money and he can pass over his PSP. But when I actually did, he said he'd sell it to me on Monday. And I actually had the money in my hands and everything! I'm starting to wonder if I'll actually get it from him and not just buy a new unused one myself.

Went to Brentwood with Tito (I think that's his name), Mike (character artist) and that guy from my training group who offered to do the bug dance by himself because he "had no shame." We were discussing how there was a new anime shop at Brentwood and they came to EA to sell some stuff. So we went down, I specifically went looking for Resident Evil merchandise but they didn't have any. Then went to EB and I almost bought a PSP and Crisis Core with my paycheck but - I'm proud of myself - decided against it and actually walked out of EB for once without buying something. I'll try again on Monday to see if Loi really does want to sell his PSP to me. As much as I don't want to, it'll save me alot of money - much cheaper than buying a new one, that's for sure.

What I Love About Commuting

I've been commuting to and from work and school for the past couple of years and man, there is a whole list of people who make the commute that much more painful. It's as if people get dumber and dumber the more of them you add to the mix. Here are some of my favorite commuters ...

1) The Aisle Seat Passenger - The passenger who sits in the isle seat on a crowded bus and doesn't move over when the window seat is vacant. Usually middle-aged ethnic women or white guys in their teens to mid-twenties. I haven't yet figured out a method to deal with these people that isn't too confrontational.

2) The Aisle Clogger - These ones vary in sex, race, and age which leads me to believe everyone does this. All the seats are taken and the standing passengers form a line in the aisle. But for some reason, many people don't move all the way to the back of the bus, instead choosing to stay at the rear doors and never move further back. On especially crowded occassions, the driver will have to take matters into his own hands and order them to move to the back. If the driver doesn't do this, the best way to deal with these people is to rudely shove by them, and make it seem like you're having a really tough time getting by them, so they get the hint.

3) The Backpackers - These range from highschool to college age students who wear their backpacks while standing in the aisle without any regard for the seated passengers, whom they might accidentally hit if they so much as turn around. Not to mention the extra room they'd take up. The way to deal with the Backpacker is to wait until they position themselves with their backpack hovering over your shoulder (assuming you are a seated passenger). And then rise from your seat with full force, throwing them slightly off balance. Sure you'll get decked with their bag, but seeing the look of shock on their faces might help them think twice about boarding a bus with their backpack still on, instead of setting it on the floor as they should.

4) The Impatients - These are people who never look before boarding a bus, to see if there are any alighting passengers exiting from the front. Instead they barge right on, getting in the way of anyone who wants off. The most common culprits are east Asians of both sexes and all ages. The best way to deal with these is to verbalize your displeasure with an irritated "Excuse me." Or if you are in a bad enough mood, a nice body check will get your message across clearly and concisely.

5) The Turtles - Ethnic old ladies and students of all races and sexes are the main culprits of this offence. You've seen them before. The skytrain doors open, ready to receive a long lineup of passengers and these people are always the first in line. They enter the skytrain and remain positioned by the doors, forcing the people behind them to squeeze by them, taking up precious time for all the passengers to get in. Those unlucky enough to be farther back in the lineup sometimes don't make it in at all and will have to wait for the next train. The solution? YELL at them to move or shove them as you're trying to "squeeze" through, knocking them out of the way for your fellow commuters behind you who are also trying to get into the train.

At Work

I'm just starting to write this first paragraph at work so I want to make it snappy. Lol, just had to shut down the computer because Alex had a classifying issue with my last bug. I feel a little guilty typing this up at work but with only 5 minutes till lunch time, I don't feel so bad.

I started this entry at work but now it's 20 minutes to midnight and I can tell you it's been a long day. We actually made our bug count by about 2:30 yesterday. By the end of today we're between 7 and 8 hundred bugs, which has earned us our paid day off this Monday. Donovan doesn't get the day off because he joined our team but Pouyan does, so Donovan will be replacing him on the FIFA team that day.

Justin tried organizing a group of us to go to the Shark Club after work but nobody really wanted to go. I was in the mood for a beer so we just went, the two of us. Besides I think I still owe him for last time early in our final quarter when he bought me a jug of beer. We went to TD bank first to deposit our checks (payday today!) but I couldn't get mine cause apparently TD bank doesn't cash checks for people without an account with them. So I had to mooch more money off Justin, but it doesn't matter since I'll be paying him back on Wednesday when I get back to work.

It's Sunday morning, 4 in the morning as I'm writing this. Haven't gone to bed yet. Yesterday was a pretty eventful day though I didn't hang out with anyone. I woke up at 20 to 4 in the afternoon after being up all night last night. It was a really warm day today, to the point where it was even too warm for comfort in the house. After the parents got back from church, I headed down to the bank to deposit my check and then headed off to the mall to spend some money on something.

I knew the mall would be closed but I decided to head off to Future Shop to see what good deals on games I could find there. I thought about getting a PSP with Crisis Core. Been wanting to play that game. Heard it was bad, but as a FF freak, I figured I needed to buy it anyway. But after discovering the PSP itself was $170 bucks, decided against it. Sure, I technically have enough money but I don't feel comfortable shelling out that much money and another 40 bucks on top of that for Crisis Core, so I think I'll save up a little for it first. I ended up buying Silent Hill Origins for the PS2 instead. Just finished playing a round of that a couple minutes ago, and I'm enjoying it. I think I'll be getting Silent Hill 4 if it's as fun as this game is, maybe even 5. But the game I'm REALLY waiting for is Resident Evil 5. One of my reviewers on FF.net claims RE5 is coming out this Halloween though IGN says it'll be out December 09. It's got to be a mistake because I really can't wait that long. And one of the interviews with the developers of the game says it'll be out for March 09. I sure hope so because I don't think I can wait for over a year at this point! I've been waiting long enough!

The job hunt continues ...

Well all is not lost. It's not like I was fired from QA at EA or anything. In fact things couldn't be better (now that I reread this, things probably could be alot better in life, but they couldn't be better in QA, anyway). We lost Pouyan yesterday to the FIFA team so the Face Breaker Wii team is just me, Dave, Adrian, and the new kid Donovan. Today was his first day on the QA team and he looked a little nervous. I guess its a little intimidating on your first day and you're not on the same team with anyone you've trained with. At least me, Dave and Pouyan knew each other somewhat beforehand. The deal with us is if we get another hundred bugs by Friday - that would be the day after tomorrow - we get a paid day off on Monday, which means 4 day weekend!

Originally the offer wasn't extended to us newbies but then Dave made a good point on how it wasn't fair for us to help contribute to the goal and not reap the rewards after. The original plan was we'd get the day off, but it'd be unpaid, which would defeat the whole purpose of having us work hard to earn that day off in the first place. Anyway after making some noise, Alex told Dave that he'd try and figure things out for us on our behalf. And Pouyan went to talk to Sanaz about it, and I was the only one who remained quiet about the situation. Adrian didn't have to worry about it cause he is a member of the old team who got pulled back, and Donovan hadn't joined the team yet. Whatever talking Dave did to Alex and Pouyan to Sanaz, it worked and we're getting that day paid for and off work - IF we can get another hundred or so bugs in by this Friday when the game reaches Alpha, so here's hoping.

Anyway so I decided to continue job hunting anyway. Figured it takes companies a good few weeks to get back to shortlisted applicants so if I apply now, I might be pleasantly surprised down the road. Not like I'm expecting a callback from Piranha about the concept artist position. Eric told me he applied too, but he doesn't think he's gonna get it. I'm pretty doubtful I'll get it either because there are alot of talented artists out there. Speaking of which, there's this guy who emailed me today I wanna talk about. But I fit their required bill quite nicely - even have experience modeling in Maya and graphic design. So here's hoping they take my abilities and portfolio into consideration. But if they don't, it's no big deal. I'm still trying to work my way into an EA development position. Which reminds me, I have to email Dan Chandler, EAC's version of Black Box's Amanda Pugh, about what it'd take to get into an artist position with EAC. Just play up the whole "i just want advice" deal. Then WHAM, show him my website and capabilities and he just might forward me to the development team for Face Breaker II. Gotta weasel my way in there.

Anyway the guy who emailed me today is named Spug Williams ... if I can recall the name correctly. Says he's seen my work on the polycount forums although I don't really remember him - its hard to remember all the people who post on there. But we talked on msn for abit and he showed me his website. Seriously WOW. I can't believe this guy has to resort to doing freelance work for Mark at Wikiatlas. With that kind of skill, he deserves so much more. But at the same time, it seems with the game industry, its the people who have connections who get the jobs over the people with talent. And having both is ideal! That's pretty much what I'm doing in QA after all. Don't get me wrong, its the easiest job for the most pay I've ever had, but I've got my sights set on something a little more ambitious but completely attainable at the moment.

Also, another thing I just considered today is this - say I do get this concept artist job with Piranha (or any other job at any other company). That means I'd be leaving EA when my contract ends. And after having the EAC experience, I'm not sure I'd want to work anywhere else - except Capcom of course, lol. Well, I won't even consider that yet. Chances are I didn't get the concept artist job, or the environment job with Slant Six. Oh yeah, I applied there too. Well, nothing wrong with getting your name out there even if you are employed, I guess.

Life in EAQA

I've started eating regularly after 2 years of starving myself at AI, lol. As much as I sound like I'm joking, it's definitely weird feeling hungry and often. Every morning, I make a pit stop at EAt, which is the cafeteria at work. And I always have the same thing - two sausages, one hash brown, sometimes some bacon, and whatever the special of the day is. I still eat the lunch my mom packs for me and then when lunch time comes around, I go off and buy more food. And coffee ... having free Starbucks coffee in the office does NOTHING for my coffee consumption. Yeah, life in the office is definitely better than any other job I've had.

Training came to an end last Tuesday, and Wednesday was my first real day of work. I've got a workstation consisting of a TV, a computer monitor, a thin client server and a Nintendo Wii. The game I'm testing at work is FaceBreaker, a cartoony boxing game by EA but it's NOTHING like Fight Night. I can't discuss the details here due to the terms of my contract, but I will say it's a fun game. It's fun enough on the Wii, but graphically inferior when you compare it to the 360 and PS3 versions. If the controls are intuitive enough for fighting game fans on those versions, I just might consider getting that game. It's not due out until November so I've got some time to wait.

Our team testing the Wii edition of FaceBreaker seems to be newly formed. The previous team working on it was dispersed, sent off to work on other teams. So whatever work they did, we continued. And when I say we, I mean 5 of us including our assistant test coordinatior. Initially, 4 of us from our training group were assigned to the game but then one of them got transferred to another team, which left 3. Then we got a permanent replacement, which turned out to be another AI student who was supposed to graduate with me last quarter, but Jason failed him.

So there's the 5 of us now, including the ATC. Every morning after breakfast, I grab a vanilla flavored coffee from the in-house Starbucks and go outside for a smoke where I usually run into Sara, Matt, Tricia and George - the smoker crew of our training group, lol. I'd they the five of us have gotten to know each other relatively well ... better than the rest of the training group, anyway. Even after we've been split up into separate teams, we still meet outside during breaks.

First thing I do when work starts is sign out my copy of the game and start testing it. Any bugs I find, I'll submit it. This is besides the task list that's given to us - and the purpose of this task list as I understand it is to make sure everything is running fine. If there are any bugs found as a result of running those tasks, the bugs need to be linked to those tasks. During training, I found it really confusing at first, but now as I'm getting more practice, it's making more and more sense. When the first break comes, I meet up with the other smokers as usual and talk about nothing and everything at the same time. Break ends and I head back inside, make myself a coffee and get to work. And when lunch time comes around, I usually sit with whoever I can find. Sometimes its Mike (another character artist) and the smokers, and sometimes it's the usual AI crew (Shiach, Gray, Loi, Steve and Nearing). Then when its over, back to work. This repeats till the end of the day when I usually bus home with Sara - she lives in the Coquitlam/Port Moody area too.

Now that I'm recalling the past week, I'm realizing this is getting really routine, and there's really nothing much to talk about. Whatever bits of information I'm leaving out because of my contract isn't even really that exciting. I suppose I could go on about that too ... But knowing now that I've finally gotten my foot in the door at EA, I'm trying to decide what my options are for getting that artist job. They told us that EA hiring managers are more likely to look at Volt employees because they're familiar with the organization. But I haven't yet met anyone worth knowing who is directly employed by EA. My ATC is the one who writes up reports on my progress so he's the person I have to convince that I'm a good employee. Then if Sanaz is convinced I'm great, she'll forward me onto the EA hiring managers. That's a really long path *just* to get an interview. That's why I'm considering other options as well, which pretty much ends at going to whatever company meetings I'm allowed to show up to. Anyway, 3 days into my job, it's hard to say what I can do at this point. I'll have to get a feel of the job and the company a little more before I can decide what the next move should be. Till then, I'll be writing this blog up as usual.

Job Search is Over

It didn't work out for me at Blue Castle, since I guess my characters weren't up to the hiring manager's standards. I suspect they went with GavImage, cause I saw on the Polycount forums that he managed to get a job as a character artist there, so most likely I was actually up against him. In that case, there is no way I would've gotten the job over him since he is among the best I have ever seen.

On the other hand, I am feeling quite abit put off by that company. I was interviewing for a junior artist position. And yet I lost the job to someone experienced. A junior is someone who ISN'T experienced. Anyway, I don't really want to talk about Blue Castle anymore since it's starting to put me in a foul mood and right now I'm feeling anything but foul.

Andrew left early this morning for Winnipeg. Hung out with him last night even though I was exhausted from work (up since four in the morning). Went for Pho with Lee earlier that day. I was actually supposed to meet up with them around six, but forgot there was a presentation at AI by Microsoft Game Studios. Yes, I already have a job but it's not like I want to stay in QA forever, so I decided to check out the presentation and see what it's all about. MGS seems like a really great place to work. They don't seem to be very particular about skill sets when looking for a character artist - just things character artists should already know and they should be good at it. The thought of doing another character right now is making me sick, especially since I have a Wild West Town and a car on the go (and some more finishing touches on my previous projects. I can't say anything is 100% complete at this point).





I started training last Wednesday as a "WorldWide" QA member for EA's quality assurance team. I've been training and haven't actually gotten to see the labs or meet the team yet but that comes next week. I have to say it's quite disappointing to spend so long working hard as an artist and not getting an artist job because I'm not intermediate enough as a character artist ... even though I did it knowing full well this would happen. Nonetheless I still quite enjoy the fact I've actually got a job my foot in the door with EA and I have an opportunity to move up from there. I just have to work hard at bug testing, lol.

Having a regular daytime job is forcing me to sleep at regular times, which is something I could use since I've been sleeping at odd hours for a long time now, and I can actually appreciate the meaning of a weekend now. At the same time, having a full time job takes alot of time away from working on my portfolio. That is replaced by actually having an in with EA. So I guess it makes up for it. Well, I'd still like some time to do art since I'd be doing it if I was working in the industry or not.

June 5th & 6th, 2008: Weird Trip Down Memory Lane

I've always wanted to see Ava again. Before Andrew even came back, I had actually looked her phone number up in the phone book, dialed it, only to find it was disconnected. I was wondering what was going on, especially since the last I heard, things weren't going to good for them. And it wasn't like I could have just called up Matt to ask. Not that it was any business of mine to begin with, but I just wanted to know. I mean this was the lady who happily took us into her home when we were children and made food for us, for five odd years.

Anyway when me and Andrew were hanging out, I told him that I would have liked to see Ava again and to my surprise, the considered going all the way to their place to check it out. I thought it was great since I would've never bothered to go all the way out there not knowing whether she was home or not, but if Andrew was willing to drive, I thought it was worth a shot.

As we were driving there, he started having doubts. With good reason too. I could see how weird it would be if my son's two best friends suddenly showed up at my door years after not seeing them. But I legitimately wanted to know how she was doing and somehow managed to convince Andrew, even after all the doubts he was having, that it'd be fine.

We went around the back to try and figure out which house was theirs going by the car (I know, acting like stalkers) but we couldn't find their car in the driveway so we decided to see if there were any telltale props at the front of the house to be able to tell which one was theirs. Then we found the house with a tin boat and that was the telltale prop for me.

It was nerve racking as we stepped up to the door and I rang the doorbell. I wasn't sure if ti was the right house, what if she no longer lived there, what if she didn't recognize us, what if she did and thought we were stalkers for showingup at her door after so long? She didn't come to the door at first so I reached out and rang the doorbell again and behind me, I could tell Andrew was silently praying that she wasn't home. But then the door opened and Ava pokes her head through. I was the first to say something.

"Ava." I say happily. And she just had this look of "who the hell are you" on her face.

So I had to tell her my name and Andrew told her his and we both said "Matt's friends" and suddenly she knew. And christ, the woman seemed incredibly happy to see us. Opened up the door and told us to come in. She took us upstairs to where their living room was and couldn't stop talking, made us coffee, updated us on her life (after we did the same) and that of all the family members.

Apparently grandpa had a heart attack but managed to survive. But as a result this year he won't be taking his yearly 6 month trips to Croatia by himself (Ava theorizes it's to get away from Nona who was the one responsible for giving him the heart attack in the first place, lol). Lino is working in Richmond, Maggie is working in the medical department at UBC and going to school there while Matt is living on his own with housemates. He's engaged to Nicole Wright, of all peopple (where the hell did she pop out of after all these years?!). Ava also gave us Matt's number and encouraged us to call him. After me and Andrew said our goodbyes to her, we had another smoke outside the house by the elementary school, and Andrew did the craziest thing.

He called Matt. After 4 years of not seeing him, after deciding that he wasn't a friend of ours, Andrew decides to pick up the phone and call him anyway just to see how he's doing cause he's feeling "nostalgic" after that meeting with Ava. I thought Andrew was crazy. There was no way Matt would receive us warmly years after we'd written him off. But surprisingly, they managed to organize a dinner for us the next day. Andrew said he was feeling pretty good about it and it would be nice to see Matt again. I still thought he was crazy.

The next day we left at around 5, got a quick coffee and Starbucks before going downtown to grab Matt. We were kind of apprehensive at this point, not sure what to expect. But everything turned out pretty good. Went to Matt's house, met his room mates - and he introduced us as being his best friends from elementary school which was more or less accurate. And here we were visting him more than ten years after the fact. We went to a nearby bar with Nicole and the four of us sat around for dinner and a couple beers talking about all the times (good and bad) we went through at Heritage Mountain Elementary. Matt explained to us the full story behind Ava which I won't repeat here, but the situation was pretty bad. Found out that in the few years we hadn't seen Nicole, she went to photography school and is currently studying computer programming. We talked abit about photoshop technicalities and typographic basics while Andrew and Matt talked about saving the world through the medical field and environmental preservation. Now that I reflect, years ago we probably would've been talking about irrelevent stupid high school shit which is amazing considering what growing up does.

The night ended well, dropped Matt and Nicole off at his house and I went with Andrew to Starbucks. It was good seeing them both again after so long.

日本語で

僕は日本語をよく使わないんだから、練習するために今度使っています。 十四歳時、中学の一年に初めて勉強してた。 その前、八年で中国語を勉強してた。毎週、土曜日の朝早く起きなければならなかった。授業は九時から十二時半までだった。だから僕は子供時に毎週六日に学校
に行かないとだめだった。高学(この漢字は正しいかわからない)に受けてすぐに中国語の勉強をやめた。

でもお母さんは僕がどんなのアジア語を勉強するのがほしかった。あの時まで日本語のこと全然知らなかった。僕の日本語の勉強は十四歳から十八歳まで。六年前、日本の文化と言語をべんきょうに大阪へ行った。四週間で坂ファミリーと泊まってた。その家族に五人がいた。お父さん(直樹)、 お母さん(伸子)、 お兄さん(広樹、十九歳)、 お姉さん(直美、 二十一歳)、 妹 (佳美、十四歳)。皆僕に心切にしてくれた。週末に野球ゲームとUSJと奈良に遊びに行った。それとも映画を見に行って、いろんなレストランで食べに行った。毎週の月曜日から金曜日まで授業があった。毎週二回藤本さんは皆を特別な所へもってくれた (文法はここにめっちゃ違うかもしれない)。

これまでは「桃山大学プダグラスカレージ留学生プログラム」って言う。その次は「京都外国語大学留学生プログラム」と言う。このプログラムは一週間でホスオファミリー家で泊まって、そして二週間でアパートで泊まる。私のホストファミリーは高畑家族だった。その時にお父さん(彼の名前も直樹だけど書き方が俺は分からない) が働いてたから会えなかったんだ。お母さんの名前を忘れてしまったけど本当に料理できました。お姉さんは私一緒学校の学生麻姫と言う。弟は私と同じ年俊介君と呼ばれた。その一週間後、アパートで泊まった。食べ物とか飲物とか買えるため、皆は学校に二万円を送らせた。

About to head into work

I've been working for Mark for about 2 months now. At first I thought getting paid 14 an hour US for making tiling textures was easy money and I shouldn't have a problem doing it. But turns out, I actually hate what I'm doing. The rate I procrastinate is crazy and I could really get those textures into him alot sooner than I actually do. But repeating textures is just dead boring work, nevermind that I never see them applied to any live models. I don't know what the software is exactly that he's working on, but my guess is it's a simulation software since he talks about what the "user" is able to do. My work ethic with this project absolutely sucks and it makes me feel more guilty that he appreciates me enough to want to extend the contract.

Jacob from Volt called last Wednesday but I was out meeting Garrett. He wants to launch an add campaign for Innovative called "No More Paper" and consulted with my about some marketing ideas. I have no qualms with the suggestions he's made but coming up with a whole advertising campaign is bigger than anything I've ever done, graphic design wise. I understand what he wants to say, I know what he wants to do to spread the word but as for HOW we get the message out there, I can't think of anything. And as a matter of fact, Garrett was throwing out more ideas than I was. I'm tempted to let him do all the creative work while I just sit back and slap the marketing pieces together but clearly that's not why he brought me on board. At the end of the day, I forwarded the notes I wrote down during our previous phone conversation and he told me he'd talk over the ideas we generated with Aita. Haven't heard back from him yet.

So I didn't end up getting the phone call Jacob meant for me.The next morning sometime I called Vaughn (Jacob had left on vacation) who told me I was scheduled to start the following Wednesday. I'm relieved to finally have found a job that'll help in my career and not get me falling back in on graphic design. Sure it's QA, but at least it's within the games industry and I'll be working directly with EA employees. I look at it as a 3 month interview with EA as opposed to a 20 minute sit down interview. I keep repeating this to myself since I'm still sore over the fact that I've yet to land an artist job. I realize none of it is my fault and that character art is far rarer and more competitive of a field to get into than environment art, that and combined with the fact I don't have an environment reel ... anyway I'm not gonna delve into that. Important thing is I'm doing what I can in my job search, and simultaneously working on multiple environment pieces to throw on the website. I just have to keep this up and my portfolio will be that much bigger by the time I'm finished with Volt.

All in all, I'm pretty relieved to have something within the games industry. Doesn't even have to be an artist position (I realize I'd even be happy as a graphic designer in the marketing department for EA or another design studio). It might be the longer route, but it's better than taking the wrong turn altogether.

Racism in Singapore

I'm probably not the first person to say it, but racism has got to stop. I realize it's more than just wishing it away - a goal as ambitious as that requires action, and alot of it. And alot of sacrifices have to be made along the way. Unfortunately, not everyone will agree with what I think have to be sacrificed. But first, some first hand, racially based incidences I have encountered while visiting family overseas in Singapore.

One of my earliest memories of racial biases in my family occured circa 1996. I was sitting with my grandmother and aunt, and the topic of conversation was my brother's then girlfriend. My grandmother asked me if there was anyone I was interested in. At the time, it was Kristy Stefanucci, gorgeous girl I had a crush on in grade 5. They noted that it was a non-Chinese name and asked me if she was white, and I said yes. She proceeded to advise me to stay away from white people and that they were "nothing but trouble." Okay to be friends with, but not to get into relationships with. Yes, I understand that divorce rates tend to be higher in North America, but I personally attribute that to women having a less traditional mindset, and the more liberal culture in general. Not because white people are trouble. Especially since interracial relationships are rampant around where I grew up.

A more severe incident occured around 2001. I had lost some American money I kept in my wallet in case I ran out of the local currency and American dollars were gladly accepted at the time. My aunt asked if I had absent-mindedly handed it off to someone which downright enraged me since she was suggesting I was THAT stupid. So I told her she was paranoid and that would never happen. Unfortunately, said aunt took it as an attack on her, which shouldn't happen especially coming from her nephew. Later, she came over to my grandmother's house where I was staying and they both launched an attack on me, saying that since I lived in Canada, my rude behaviour could only be attributed to the negative impact of living in a predominantly white society which was responsible for instilling white values into me. The white friends I chose to hang out with had erased years of my Chinese culture and values.

Yes, I wanted to yell. I wanted to tell them how ignorant they were (ethnic minorities in Vancouver make up just under half of the population in Vancouver). I wanted to point out the "degeneration" (as they would call it) of youth in Asia as well. But yelling and showing more disrespect would only support their point. So I just raised my hands and said "I don't have to take this," and walked out of the room.

A conversation with one of my cousins turned into a heated debate. She told me that she wouldn't stand near a person of east Indian descent if she could help it cause statistically, they were the minority group most likely to pickpocket or rob someone. Another time, we went to Mustafa's, a 24-hour shopping mall ran and patronized mostly by East Indians. When we got home, she said she'd developed a rash and her brother said it was probably we'd be shopping at Mustafa's but yet, I was fine.

I would never consider my immediate family outright racist in values, but there are more discriminatory attitudes than I would like to admit. Living in a diverse community where I am considered the minority, I have been on both ends of racist treatment and no good has come out of either. Incidences like these have solidified my stance against racism - and culture, even - and discrimination of any kind.

In my opinion, even recognizing the skin colour, sex, religion of another is grounds for discrimination. In high school, there were Persian groups, Korean groups, for example. Sure, things were peaceful between the two groups but the fact that there were groups at all ripened the soil for discrimination to spring forth. And guess what, years later, it did. Stories of the groups clashing, gang fights at the school, all in the name of pride.

People will argue that recognizing and having pride in your ethnic background, your sex, your sexuality, etc is a good thing. I beg to differ. What this ends up doing is creating a "us and them" type of thinking. "I am white and proud of it." "I am Asian and proud of it." How hard is it to turn those statements around to say "I am this, therefore I am better than you." Hell, even among a single group of friends, it's not uncommon for one of them, if they are an ethnic minority, or a girl, or gay, to make a point of it. Superficial lines are drawn even within groups of friends. And it is along these lines that a friendship could potentially crumble should a disagreement occur.

I was having a conversation with my brother on Mother's Day, who told me that as a Chinese person, it bothered him that he didn't know much about what it meant to be Chinese. He felt that he should because ethnic identity is a part of who we are. On the other hand, I've spent a lifetime battling assumptions people make about me because of what I look like. Experience has taught me that ethnic identity only speaks for WHAT I am a male of Chinese descent. Who I am is made up of things that are under my control - the choices I make. If I saw a lady getting robbed by a thug, whether I choose to comfort the lady or pursue the thug is determined by the choices I make; in other words, WHO I am. I won't make that choice thinking "As a Chinese male, I would ..."

So to eradicate racism - or limit it at the very least, I suggest forgetting all about pride. This is what I meant by some sacrifices have to be made. Because we are human before we are American, European, African or Asian. An effort as to be made to recognize the humanity in people before we recognize cultural differences and skin colour.

Even slightly better ...

This week, I had planned on calling Charina back to see what she was able to find out from Amanda over at Black Box. I didn't want to call her right away to avoid sounding over-eager, so I decided to wait. Monday, I went out to Sui Sha Ya for all you can eat sushi with Rosemary. After dinner we went to Chapters - she had to return a book, and I had to wait for my bus to take me home, so I checked my schedule.

Sarah had taken me off the schedule. My last day of work at Chapters will be on May 23rd. I'm a little sad, abit nervous about moving on, but I guess we all have to do it sometime. And I'll forever be thankful for the support that the management over at Chapters has given me in my endeavors to start my career.

Oh, I also ran into Shelley who introduced me to her brother. I haven't seen her for a long time. She updated me on some of the people she still keeps in touch with from highschool. Apparently Matt's getting married to Nicole Wright, which is something I'd never have seen coming. I don't know if Shelley was joking, but she didn't look like it. Maybe she was misinformed? Whatever the case, we planned for coffee on Wednesday.

Tuesday I went for lunch with Naubert, Eric and Joseph. We went to Boston Pizza for pasta tuesdays and were supposed to meet at 3:30 but as I had expected, everyone showed up a little late. I organized the meeting just to see how the other character artists were moving on with their job search. Sofar all the environment artists who I associate with have gotten jobs. Character artist wise, nobody has gotten anything so I don't feel so alone in this. Also applied for more jobs at the EA website and notified Gord in hopes that he would get back to me but sofar that hasn't happened.

Wednesday I went to coffee with Shelley. Sat around at Starbucks for about 2 hours and just caught up on old times. She drove me home after, showed her around my house for abit. She hasn't been here since grade 10. It's been almost ten years.

Thusday was the day some magic happened. I phoned Amanda after talking with Charina just the day before, who said it would be a good idea to touch base with her and see what was going on at Black Box for me. I explained to her about the situation with Volt and she recommended to me that I apply with Volt and work the 400 hours they require before EA can hire me. She also said it didn't look likely that Black Box would have an opening for me within the next 400 working hours anyway. But I thought to hold off a little in case Gord could work some magic for me. After all, he managed to get Alan and Cody a position with EA already. But since he hasn't gotten back to me yet, my plan was to go see him in Saturday and talk with him in person. Until Blue Castle called.

Rachel surprised me with a call and told me that a position opened up at Blue Castle calling for a character artist for one of their sports titles. This is a junior character artist position that doesn't require any experience. Rachel said they were just looking for artistic talent and passion, both of which I believe I have, not to make too fine a point of it. We scheduled a phone interview for this Wednesday at 11:30 in the morning. Here's hoping everything will turn out well.

Things are looking SLIGHTLY better

I'm getting somewhat of a break. Things could be better, but I'm not complaining.

First and foremost, my visit to EA Black Box. I was invited by one of their talent sourcers who contacted me, saying someone I knew at EA gave her my contact information which was why she was extending the open house invite to me. I thought that was pretty cool but couldn't help wondering who it was exactly that forwarded my information to her. Turns out it was Gord, which is a pretty big surprise. I just thought he didn't think enough of me to seriously help me out. Then Cody goes off and tells me Gord is referring me and him to his EA buddies and all of a sudden I feel like a jackass for not keeping in touch with him since graduation.

I also applied to the User Interface position at EA Black Box. I'm not sure if I'll even land an interview and frankly I'm not surprised if I don't, which was why I asked Gord to help me out. He wrote back saying he'll forward my information and put in a good word for me so we'll see what happens with that. I appreciate the time he's taking to make sure we get jobs - never expected that out of him.

Oh right, the visit to EA Black Box! So after an afternoon spent arguing with Loi over why Final Fantasy VII sucked and why Final Fantasy VIII was cool, haha, I rushed to get ready cause Ian was gonna come get me at 2:45. The open house was downtown and started at 4. So we get down there about half an hour early, went to Blenz while waiting for the event to start and were one of the first people there. EA spares no expense at customizing the floors of the buildings they take up. The elevators had artwork from their various games painted all over them, fancy glowing lights, a view of downtown Vancouver and the seabus harbour. They checked us in, gave us stickers, led us to the lounge where there was FREE gourmet appetizers. Battered shrimp, sashimi on some kind of biscuit, mini scrambled egg-looking things with sour cream, vietnamese springs rolls, and FREE BEER. They had a PS3 in the corner with Rockband hooked up, 2 foosball tables, a pretty lax atmosphere overall.


The first guy who came over to talk to us was some kind of project manager on Need for Speed - everyone there who mingled with us was on the Need for Speed team. He gave me Amanda's card and I gave him mine. Talked to me and Ian abit about the company, his background, what it was like at EA, nice guy over all. Then we met ... her name slips me right now, but she was a producer. A software engineer from the UK, an Asian guy with a nasty cut on his lip - don't remember what he did, another producer, so many faces and names to remember, I'm likely forgetting one or two people as I write this.

Anyway the girl whose name still slips my mind - she took us and 8 other people on a tour around the offices. During the tour i heard someone call my name, turned around and it turned out to be Ken! He's working there as a designer which is pretty surprising but good. I always thought getting a job as a designer was hard. Maybe he just got lucky, who knows. Couldn't really talk much to him because the lady was still giving us a tour and I didn't want to talk over her.

We left at around 7:30, half an hour before the event was over. I met Amanda in person and she was already familiar with me, which was awesome. She told me Gord gave her my demo reel to look over and she would try to find a fit for me. Again, I've heard that before so I'm not expecting much. Upon leaving they invited us to choose what free game we wanted! By the time we got there, the only Xbox360 game left was skate and I already had it so I chose to go with a PC version of an earlier Need for Speed.

Ian drove me home after the event. I was kinda tipsay after two beers, haha (but hey, they were FREE!). After getting home, found out from Shiach that there was going to be a problem with getting EA to hire me if I signed the contract with Volt the next morning. Apparently if I were to sign that contract, EA, as a client of Volt, would not be able to hire be for 6 straight months. Had a discussion with the parents about that, and Shiach via msn at the same time. Dad said it was expected as Volt didn't want EA hiring people through them since Volt was the one doing all the hiring for their company in order to get the QA duties done for their client (EA). So if EA were to take Volt employees, Volt would have to find replacements which would take up more valuable time that could be spent QA testing for EA. I went to bed that night not knowing what to do. My best option was to buy as much time as I could with Volt.

The next morning I woke up earlier than originally planned so I had enough time to go down to AI and discuss with Charina what my options were. She said my situation was a sticky one and agreed that the best option for me would be to buy more time with Volt beore handing in the contract, so I decided that's what I'd do after the orientation later that day.

After heading out of career services, I still had an hour left to kill before I was due at EA headquarters, so decided to kill some time by having a smoke and then walking all the way from AI to EA. And even then I was about 20 minutes early, so I played Bantaumi and Space Invaders for a few minutes while killing time. At about 20 past 11, headed over to the security desk who told me to wait by the couches for Sanaz, who would be my orientation leader that day. The couches were filled with about 20-30 other people waiting for the same orientation. As we were heading into the conference room, I ran into Shan who I haven't seen since she dropped out of our GPW. After talking with her for the entire duration of our orientation, I still have little respect for her work ethic.

The orientation went longer than the hour it was expected to last, and it was spent filling out ALOT of paper work. At the end of the day, I didn't end up handing it in becuase I pulled Sanaz aside and told her about my situation with EA and how there was a chance they might be contacting me. Charina said she was going to contact Amanda Pugh, the sourcer at EA Black Box and see what was going on over there. Meanwhile, Sanaz suggested I wait until it was clearer what was going to happen between me and Black Box before handing in the signed contracts (upon signing the contracts, it would be slightly more difficult for EA to hire me, since I'd be with Volt at that point.) I was surprised with how accomodating Sanaz was but I guess this must happen with them all the time. Another guy was in the same boat as I was. Sanaz told me to take as much time as I needed, up to a month which was pretty generous. So I told her okay and I'll probaby give it 3 weeks maximum to hear back from Black Box. If not, I'll hand in my signed contract to Volt.

That's my situation at this point. I hope something comes out of it. I read my horoscope yesterday and it said good things would happen from Monday to Wednesday. I'm not the superstitious type but I'm hoping the horoscope is right this time for my sake.