... to Rhys' and Ryan's post, with pictures which I saved from Kelvin's page last year. Fun times at bahen:



I'm looking forward to last year of uni as well! :)

Went through some old scripts this weekend, trying to rebuild some tables which were lost in what I now dub my "black september" :D

Finally got some of the pictures up as well ... which leads me to answer the pressing question that people probably have when viewing my site:

Why aren't there any pictures of people in your gallery?

And the only answer that I can come up with right now is that I like my pictures just like I like my music, just like I like my food. Plain. No, wait, more like Natural.

There are obvious exceptions, but for the most part, I like looking at pictures which tell their own stories, I like listening to music without having lyrics which tell me how to feel, and I like my food to be palatable without overloading one's senses (bread comes to mind). In a simple analogy, I'd much rather be the guy in the back, making sure that everything fits together in a show, than the actor out front. Of course, this has it's benefits and losses, but I think it fits well with the outlook I have on life, and my personality.

Again, it's not that I have anything against people.
It's just that I value simplicity and people are about as complex as it gets :)

Wow. Just got back from a special developer's pre-screening of Disney's first solo in-house 3D animation film - Chicken Little (all previous works were from Pixar). And I can say that it was a very fun (and funny!) film with lots of laugh-out-loud moments and a nice simple storyline that even adults appreciate. Before they showed the movie, we got a lengthy presentation on how Disney made their transition from classical 2D animation to 3D including the differences and similarities. That shows, because graphically, the movie is very clean (graitous use of hair and particle effects aside), with a very good sense of art direction that is apparent in previous Disney classics. They also mentioned aboutthe use of Maya almost predominantly in almost all parts of theirproduction pipeline, which is a testament to Maya's pervasivenessin the film industry. The presentation itself was worth waking up at 7:00AM for. The Paramount theater downtown was equally amazing, the place is huge, and seats were plenty roomy (though a little stiff), and they have a replica of Enterprise-E, and a Warbird (?) from the last Trek movie in the lobby - how cool is that?

T'was a nice start to an otherwise busy day. Very lucky that I was invited, considering I didn't wasn't even here when they started using Maya on Chicken Little (even more lucky considering that pre-screenings are few and far between; last one was back in 2003!). It's a funny movie (not too short, not too long)! Go and see it if you have a chance!

Haha finally online after what appears to be a breakdown in the adsl modem (not confirmed yet), thanks to my brother who was able to borrow another modem from a friend. Anyways, on with this week's "blog" post.

+ Today is thanksgiving (personally have lots to be thankful for this year), so no work today. Since I was pretty much down with "seasonal allergies" (according to my MD - which was a good excuse to catch up on queued up tv hehehe), I decided to get out for a bit. Since I was down by the harbourfront for lunch last week without a camera, I decided to go back today and snap some pics along the way. Lucky for me that it didn't rain as was forecasted!


Lucky pics (like the one to the right) will be uploaded when I have the chance.

+ Video of the week again goes to another wacky trailer remake: Titanic: Alternative Trailer (QuickTime movie) which, though not as good as The Shining from last week, still pretty much sums up why one should never go see a movie based on assumptions made in the trailer. Good job to whoever keeps coming up with these things.

+ Link of the week goes to the people who make replica cameras out of LEGO. The crazy thing is that the cameras actually work, and can take images which easily rival my own ;) (more of a testament to truly how unfamiliar I am with photography in general). Anyways, links come with pseudo-instructions for those who want to give it a try. Last time I played with LEGO was in highschool where me and a friend used the LEGO mindstorm pieces to create a small robot which could "avoid" obstacles. (By avoid, I mean that it walks forward until the sensors hit something, it turns right, and continues walking, etc. ... why yes we were easily amused/amazed back then). Good Stuff.

~ 4 8 15 16 23 42

:)

No really, Wow.

Just got back from a all-hands (company wide meeting) at the Jane Mallet Theater (St. Lawrence center), where big news was announced. Turns out that a tentative agreement was just signed for the acquisition of Alias by Autodesk Systems for just over 180 million dollars (all figures in USD).

What does this mean? With their well known CAD software, along with their acquisition of Kinetix (makes of 3D Studio Max) back in the 90's, the purchase of Alias means that Autodesk has a very, very tight grip on the 3D content creation market. Pending approval by the government, Alias software might soon be marketed under discreet (the Autodesk media/entertainment division). Along with Lustre, Flame, 3DS Max, etc. Autodesk will probably aim to provide "complete" workflow solutions for customers. I personally was a little surprised to hear that the deal went through, even though Alias made a record 30% jump in revenue over the last fiscal year (to ~80 million). The president of Alias also mentioned that we would not be able to reach such a critical market without the help of Autodesk, though I'm not too sure exactly why this goal is unachievable. Never-the-less, as a company, Autodesk has revenues of over 1.3 billion a year, and it is clear that this will be a big step for Alias; Autodesk has access to over 6 million customers, and have field offices in 33 different countries.

What does this mean for me? Not much, I'll probably be back in school when they start integrating the two companies. To me, it sounds like any other progression in software business. Autodesk is one of the 10 largest software development companies in the world, and for Alias to even be considered for purchased, means that Alias has exceeded market expectations and will have the potential to continue to do so. It's kind of like the difference between Shell and Mohawk. Everyone knows that Mohawk has better gas (as far as I know), but you can find a Shell gas station anywhere in the world (not literally). Anyways, what do I know? I'm just a measly intern :)

For those who were wondering, Alias is a local software developer (in Toronto), and was bought out by SGI (yes, that SGI) along with Wavefront, and a number of other companies back in the early 90's. SGI then created Maya itself, which is a conglomerate of no less than 5 different applications. Over the years, Maya has become one of the most widely used 3D software packages available (Maya ~ Max, Lightwave, XSI (in order of decreasing user base)). I'm sure everything will turn out OK in the end for A l i a s . (as long as they aren't dumb enough to lay off the great people here :)

Also had a chance to stop by St. Lawrence Market today. Took me nearly half an hour to tour the shops on the first floor. First thing that I noticed when I walked in? There was lllloooooootttttttsssss of cheese, and llllllooooooootttttttssssss of food. Makes a great place to pick up lunch, but still, nothing beats the fruit cups from rabba's.

:)

To keep the number of random posts down, I've decided to keep all my blog-like notes in a semi-scheduled post like the one you are reading now.

+ Anyways, I was chatting with a few other co-workers who were former Waterloo students about their previous co-op experiences. Turns out that the horrible rumors about the working conditions EA were completely founded ... depending on what department, and what part of the cycle one joins EA under. One of them worked on NBA 200x, and she mentioned that it was a crazy death-march for the short 4 months that she was there. Going in to work every Saturday, and sometimes even on Sunday; with managers constantly pressuring them to work harder and longer! Yikes! Lucky for me that I didn't land the EA pey; if this is how they treat interns, then God knows how badly they treat full time employees! They also mentioned how EA makes use of the large number of newly graduated, naive university grads for low-cost labour. Which all-in-all, makes EA a pretty evil company. I'd rather work at home and start something myself than slave under those conditions! On the otherhand, this is completely opposite to the work environment at Alias, so I'll take in what I can while I still can ;)

+ (Getting this out of the way first) Video of the week goes to: The Shining: Alternative Trailer (QuickTime movie) for bringing an old classic alive in ways that I would never have imagined. Truly funny for those who've seen Kubrick's masterpiece.

+ Now, for a mesopixel.com exclusive (hehehe), I propose that we take a step into the past ... roughly 6 years into the past ... into my first year at Queen Elizabeth Jr./Sr. High School ... in Communications and Design class with Rob.

« A step into the past »

Thats right! Was cleaning up my harddrive (for formating) a couple weeks ago, and I found the first website that I ever wrote. Even though I've been around computers for forever, I originally had a greater attraction towards gaming than development (my, how things have changed) hence the abysmal layout, and horrendous choice of bg images. Anyways, this website was an assignment for my comm/design class in grade 10 and took more than 2 weeks to make at the time. It basically talks about the "future" of technology/entertainment, things like: anime, the internet, irc (was an op in some channels back then), icq (used it toooooonnnnnnns at the time), winamp, video games, and 3d stuff. (If the Warcraft III pictures threw you off, these were the prereleased ones that were floating around the net (with the Duke Nukem Forever (Quake2 engine) screenshots) long before the game was released)

So what's changed since then? Well, for starters, I'm less into anime, hardly ever go on irc, icq, or msn, and I have a lot less time for video games. Otherwise, I'm still here on the internet, and still use winamp (5), and I still love the "3d stuff". I'm also on adsl now, which - contrary to the article - does not cost $600, and my current site looks much, much better ;)

It's always fun to look back at how far things have progressed, and poke fun at yourself once in a while :)

+ Also, finally got a Mac at work for testing; will finally get a chance to see if OSX is as good as everyone says it is ;). Also a good chance to run this site under it, and catch any problems that I'm still unaware of. Oh Goody.

~ Last but not least, I hate to end on a sad note, but I recently found out about the death of my grade 12 English teacher - Mr. (Taco) Albrecht, to which these few words are dedicated.

To say the least, you and your unconventional approach to teaching is truly an inspiration to students such as myself. You taught us that actions were stronger than words, and that it takes more than ideas to succeed in life. From the three wise men in the back - RIP old man, and thank you again for everything.

Finally, my pictures have a "home" somewhere on the site. Some old, some new, but I finally got around to getting half of the Gallery code up. Other half doesn't work too well yet, so I'll improve it as I go along.

If you have any problems viewing the gallery, feel free to let me know!
Other than that, not much else as I'm just about to get ready to sleep (long day, short night as usual).

     Z
-.-z

Back from a little break ... ok, quite a long break actually;
To be honest, I was feeling kinda down after losing all my previous posts, so I left the site for a while to concentrate on other things like work, command and conquer - red alert (yup the one from '97 - so many stories so little time), and catching up on shows like Battlestar Galactica. As people sometimes say, the hardest part of falling down is getting back up!

But all that said, I have some free time now, and am looking forward to building up the site again. So, to pick up from last post, I'll start with my summer's end trip to Ottawa -> Montreal -> Quebec City -> Kingston trip with the family!

This was actually a pretty fun trip since I've never really been out and around Toronto, so it was great to see the sights and sounds of what I refer to as 'Canada-east'. The trip itself wasn't perfect though; there was a bus load of people, which started late on the first day (hence Kingston on the return trip), and busted a tire within hours of the trip to Ottawa. Although it was a long ride, the tour guide was quite funny, and mostly entertaining in the long stretches. The first stop in Ottawa took most of the first day, which was spent touring the Capitol - Parliament Hill, and the Canadian War Museum. Now, I know what you're thinking "War Museum?! that's so boring!", to which I would have agreed ... before I actually went through it. The museum is very, very large, and surprisingly well laid out (hence the enormous co$t of building it). Inside was incredibly high tech with large lcds and projects everywhere displaying info about Canada's war history. Lots of neat-o things to touch and see, like a 1:1 replica torpedo, Hitler's Rolls Royce, tanks, aircraft, and much more. So much in fact, that we had to cut the tour short (right around we go around to the peace-keeping era) to keep on schedule. And so everyone loaded back onto the bus for the drive to Montreal where we stayed the night.

One would usually think of vacations as relaxing and free, but not so when you're on a guided tour! Had to wake up at 7:00 in Montreal, both to maximize the day out, but also to account for the overhead of getting 40+ people around. In retrospect, Montreal itself was much like Toronto (downtown at least), only with less people out and about, and more greenspace. That morning, we got a chance to visit the Montreal Olympic Stadium built for the monumental failure which was the '76 Olympics (tour guided didn't hesitate to mention this, haha). As well as the fact that Quebec'ers were still paying for it, through things like license plates, and property taxes (hence the large number of residential buildings with staircases on the outside of the building :). From the top of the stadium/tower thing, it was apparent that Montreal was certainly more "greener", with a much more active harbour front. Also noticable were the hints of the strong French culture in Quebec (things like large Quebec flags, etc.) Overall, I liked Montreal; it was nice looking, not as crowded, and not nearly as bland as Ottawa. And in the afternoon, we yet again boarded the bus, heading to Quebec City for the night.

Now, this is the point where the trip gets really interesting. From a tourist's point of view, Quebec City has to be one of the nicest, most lively cities I've ever been to (kinda like the occasional trip to Banff if you live out west). The place (Old Quebec City) was littered with colorful, iquely architected buildings, and the general populous was out and about on a great Sunday morning. Being Sunday and all, we got a chance to visit Quebec's largest Church, which is a monstrous castle-like mansion sitting on some hill-top. After that was pretty much free roaming of Old Quebec City's plethora of shops and sidewalk stands. Lots of pretty art, lots of culture, and lots of pro-Quebec sentiment (ie. Canadian flags on Federal Government buildings only). Luckily, most of the tourist spots spoke both English and French. To top the day off, we all went to try out some "authentic" French cuisine. Good stuff!

At this point in the trip, I was pretty worn out from riding the bus for 3 days (hours on end), so there was really no better way to end the trip than a cruise out at the 1000 Islands on Lake Ontario. What is the 1000 Islands you ask? Well, it's basically a getaway for wealthy people, un-interrupted by the rest of Canada, without having to actually leaving the country. (Not to mention being literally a stone's throw away from the US border (they own some of the islands apparently)). Super-expensive to live there, as all the basic essentials (gas, electricity, water) are routed underwater. That said, having your island to fall back on, would be a great way to get away from the occasional madness that is Toronto! ;)

So there you have it; four short days, one short glimpse of pseudo-eastern Canada. Maybe next year will be a trip to east-east-Canada :) Who knows.

Anyways, fast-forward to today, I am sitting at my desk at this moment and there are two things which I am currently looking forward to with great interest:

1. Final Fantasy 7 - Advent
   Children
   Final Fantasy 7 - Advent Children: I knew there was a good reason I spent 4 years on and off trying the finish the game; and this is most definitely it. Mind-blowing CG effects (done in Maya apparently) + Nobuo Uematsu's orchestrated magic + the whole FF7 debacle = A really interesting movie. Needless to say, I expect this one to be much, much better than The Spirits Within.
2. Battlestar Galactica: This along with Lost has to be two of my most favourite shows of all time. The new BSG is a great mix of sci-fi with touches of humanity (the raw human emotion kind), and drama. I'm not too thrilled with the whole religious aspect of the second season (though it does parallel certain views of our own world), but I absolutely love their attention to detail. Great acting + provocative issues + A real storyline (unlike other sci-fis which are more often than not, episode based) = a definite classic. Thank the gods indeed.

In other news, Rhys is doing his co-op in Japan this year, so if you want to take a look into what life in Japan is like check out theysoar.com for a lot of pretty pictures (like the one of the horse he ate - haha). I don't think he's played the lobster catching game yet, but I'll get him to bring one back if he does ;)

Next update will be Real Soon Now^™, and will most likely be based on what I'm up to currently (アリアス まや 8.0 as some people in the office call it). Either that or the gallery code I've been meaning to throw up (hence the small thumbnails currently visible - bigger pictures to come once I get rolling).

;)