Housewarming Party #2: ILM Edition

Last night was my Housewarming Party #2: ILM Edition!! It was awesome!! It was really fun and about 20 people showed up which was great. I learned some pretty useful stuff at the last housewarming party like the need for ice, a plastic bucket for drinks, soft drinks and bread. The party was a lot better organized than my first party, people brought lots of wine and Cary brought me a plant for my apartment!! Awesome. We had lots of different kinds of cheese here and some more tasty food. It was a great time and at the end of the night, almost everyone was gone and then Frank stayed here for a couple more hours so we could chill and watch Indiana Jones. Good times!!


The late night grocery shopping


Trying to move all my stuff into the closet


Nice clean main apartment room


Beer and wine


Cheese!! Gruyere, Cheese Ball, Brie, Smoked Gouda, Muenster


Limes and drinks


Clementines, grapes, crackers, carrots, cookies, chips, sourdough bread, baguettes, and cheese


Mmm... cheese


Gattobet!!!!!


Matt and Ian


Matt workin' the Jutan-style pose


Rachel, Yisheng and Jianmin


Haha great picture


Stephane, Katherine, Jess and Josh


Matt and Ian


Workin' it


Some heavy political conversation?! :)


The "main room" crew


Me and the famed Mr. Matthew Atabet Parrott


The smart people chillin' around the food table


Vivek, and I think that's John back there


Jacob making "Bananas Foster", this fancy butter, sugar, banana, rum mix that you light on fire?!!!


Matt, Jianmin and Cary banana fostering


Cary (and the house plant in the background!)


Jacob and Kat enjoying the fruits of Jacob's cooking effort


Sweet unhealthy tastiness

Zazengo - a Social Action profile

This is really cool. Yesterday I had coffee with Vicki Saunders, who I worked for about 11 years ago at KidsNRG/The NRG Group in Toronto! Pretty awesome stuff!! So Vicki and Richard now live in Santa Cruz, California and Vicki was up in San Francisco at a conference so she came by my area to visit. It was great to chat with her and catch up after quite some time, and it was really fun to tell her about my work history since she knew me when I had a plan for my University and where I wanted to work, but well before I even got into Waterloo. Good times!!

So Vicki is now CEO of a new startup called Zazengo. It's really cool, a sort of Social Action profile for yourself to track your effect on the community. Great idea and the Beta site looks great already. Check it out! http://www.zazengo.com

Late night grocery shopping

So it's 11:10pm, but I need to grocery shop for my party tomorrow night and I need a car since I'm buying a ton of heavy stuff like cans and bottles of drinks and so on. So... hook up the ZipCar action. Thankfully it's also ridiculously cheap after 12 so it's like $4 an hour. It's gonna cost about $9 to rent the car for an hour and a half like right now. Awesome.

I just got home, but off I go again for a bit of the 'ol late night grocery shopping. Thank goodness for 24 hour grocery stores. :)

Lots of fun old stuff

Tonight was great, spend hours sorting out some more boxes and old childhood stuff in my apartment. I am having some friends over from work this weekend and so I want to make the place decent before they get here. That means sorting out at least the boxes that are still on my floor. :)

Anyway, found some great stuff. High school newspapers, hilarious excited notes from when I met my first girlfriend when I lived in Oxford, England... haha, so funny. It was great to sort though all this stuff and I threw out a ton of stuff but it's nice to just keep the stuff that is still meaningful (and not every movie ticket to every movie I went to in 1994) :)

I even found the movie ticket to the movie I went to on my first real date ever with Monica Owens in 1994... to (wait for it)... the BRADY BUNCH MOVIE. Haha! I remember I wanted to be all macho and take her to see the Will Smith movie "Bad Boys" but you had to be over 14 to go to it in England, and we were both 12. Haha, how funny. I also found a note in some diary talking about that, saying it was my first date ever and "it was great - movie was crap". Well said, 12-year-old Jutan.


Central Secondary School Jazz Band hats


Hilarious Saxophone-related puns


A "Raider" choclate bar wrapper from Norway... like a Norwegian Twix!


Ohhhhhhhh man this stuff was good, Milk Chocolate from Norway


Prices at McDonalds in Norway... in 1997 (listed in Norwegian Kroner)


Some take 1 board from a cheese company


Ontario Science Centre make your own paper


Random cool tickets from Broadway shows in London, England


The movie stub from my first date ever


Beavers Canada pencil


Tickets from Conan O'Brien in New York City and Broadway shows we went to on a school trip


Playbills from the shows I went to in New York City


AMAZING!!!!!!! Sherwood Forest Public School Canadian dollar and "House Points"


Random picture of me in a Hummer??


And another random picture of me in a Hummer?!?!


Star Wars Episode 1 ticket stubs


The progress so far

GDC 2008

Today I went to the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. It was awesome!! I started off the morning pretty early, heading down to the Moscone Center around 8, and I got there just before 9am. I headed to a lecture that I could attend on my Expo Pass, but it was canceled so they told us we could go to anything. I ended up going to a lecture called "Master Metrics: The science behind the art of game design."

Master Metrics: The Science behind the Art of Game Design
Speaker: Chris Swain (Professor, University of Southern California), E. Daniel Arey (Chief Creative Officer, VisionArey Entertainment)
Date/Time: Wednesday (February 20, 2008) 9:00am — 10:00am
Location (room): Room 2001, West Hall
Track: Game Design
Experience Level: All

Session Description
With the dramatic increase in game complexity, production costs, and team size in recent years, teams and team leaders are more than ever in need of valuable and repeatable development processes, tools, and metrics to create, define, manage, and measure the vast number of play elements that make up a hit game title. But up until now, many of the development processes used by some of the best game developers have been either obscure, unknown, or undefined as an unknowable soft science behind the "creative process." We believe these processes can in fact be defined and learned, and that there are patterns and approaches to game development that dramatically increase the chances of a game's success. This talk is designed to compile and share with the audience the "best practices" of some of the industry's best practitioners. Under the auspices of the University of Southern California, School of Cinematic Arts, Interactive Media Division, we have asked some of the top Game Designers and Producers across the game business to share their techniques on how they define and measure that elusive thing called "play" and how others can benefit from their approaches and tools to make better games. Compiling these best practices to game development, and by defining how they can positively impact game production, we will present these tools and techniques to the audience and GDC body. We at USC feel this type of cross-pollenization is vital for the whole industry to grow and mature, and to reduce the wasteful process of reinventing of the wheel, as top developers share and raise the state-of-the-art for everyone.

Idea Takeaway
Audience members will receive and be instructed on between 10-15 valuable and repeatable techniques and tools as used by top game designers to develop their games, covering a wide variety of development stages, from concept inception to final play test. Each process and approach will be defined with examples to shown how they were applied to the game they were used on, and how they can be used for future development. Audience members should at the end of this talk be able to use and share these techniques and practices with their own teams, games, and companies to help them in their own development pipeline.

Intended Audience
This talk is designed for game designers and producers at all levels of ability and experience.

It was a reaaaaaaaaaally interesting and cool talk. They showed some really cool ideas like a heat map method of demonstrating which part of a game level caused most difficulty for the person playing the game. They talked about the evolution of the game controller, and a bunch of other really interesting ideas. Rachel from work randomly showed up and sat down almost right beside me!! It was really funny in a room of like 2000 people to see Rachel walk in, haha. So after that we took off to the Expo Floor and I chatted with a bunch of Autodesk people, John Yee was there, Jason Walter and a few other familiar faces. Good times!! I got a bunch of free shirts (good stuff), saw a THX 7.1 Game Surround Sound demo, saw a cool 3D scanner from Wacom and some guy modeling in Autodesk Mudbox with a Wacom tablet, pretty cool stuff. So after a bunch of walking around, it was time for a sandwich, and then time to head into work for the day. :)


Conference room


Hey, it's Rachel!!


Sony booth


Rachel and I bustin' a move on the Expo Floor


Hip hop flava meets Autodesk


Sweet Autodesk booth


This awesome 3D desk scanner from Wacom


A guy tweaking the scanned model in Autodesk Mudbox


Hey, it's the THX guy!! This used to be a costume!!


Crazy car seat controllers


This was cool, a Nintendo Wii Yoga game pad. Someone was using this controller for a Wii Sports ski jumping game too!!


Some live action mocap translated onto the screen


Blizzard booth


LucasArts booth


Sweeeeeeeeeet Maya shirt I got last night


Cool "gameplan.ca" shirt, a company pushing for more game companies on Prince Eduard Island in Canada


Sweeeeeet Playstation shirt


Flashing THX buttons and a reaaaaaaally cool Force Unleashed Lightsaber bottle opener. :)

Autodesk GDC Party

Last night was the Autodesk GDC party and it was craaaaaaaazy!!!!!!!

It was an awesome time, I saw Cory there!!!!!! He is awesome. It was a really fun time, there were tooons of people from the Autodesk Montreal office there, some of them I think I met just after Alias bought Kaydara and all the Kaydara Engineers came to visit the Alias office in Toronto. So a few people looked familiar but mostly just a couple of people I recognized from Alias and that was about it. I met the head of development for MotionBuilder which was cool, and chatted to a few people who were interested in my opinions on Maya and how we use it (or could be using it) in the pipeline at ILM.

Lots of free food and drinks, and it was really good. Julien from work showed up after a bit and that was fantastic, we had a bunch of drinks and food. There were some reaaaally good BBQ beef small sandwiches, chicken skewers and a cheese plate.

It was great to see Cory, and to chill with Julien and some other people we met there. Good times!

New duvet/bedding combo

Sweeeeeet deal. This looks totally slick and supppppppper comfortable. The duvet is gonna be awesome and the new sheets go well with my old ones. Booyah. Again, I love Macy's. And also when they have the most ridiculous sales ever.


Sweet duvet action


Duvet and the cover, sweeet

Apartment, GDC pass, Macys roooocks

Lots of fun and excitingly awesome stuff going on this weekend. Chilled with Matt Saturday night and watched a DMB concert on DVD which was aweessome. Sunday I spent pretty much all day on my apartment, and unpacked and sorted through about 3 huge boxes which is awesome. Lots of work but it went really well and it was fun to see lots of cool old stuff from high school.

Today I had the day off since it's President's Day here in the US. I've just been downtown taking care of some necessary stuff, so that is groovy. I was on my way to the TimBuk2 store, the place that made my Lucasfilm shoulder bag to go get some specially made TimBuk2 reflector strips that attach to the bottom of the bag for when you are bike riding at night. Turns out I had an extra pocket in my bag, I checked in there, and I already had 2 of them!! Haha so that saved me a trip to the store and I went right downtown.

I headed to the Moscone Center to get my GDC pass for this week, that's the annual Game Developers Conference, and it should be awesome. Then off to the new Blue Bottle Cafe for a Cappuccino on a non-Saturday Ferry Building market kind of situation. That is SO awesome that it's downtown now, so I can get my Blue Bottle Coffee fix even when it's not a Saturday. Fantastic.

Then I headed to Macy's for their massive President's Day sale. I've been meaning to buy a Duvet since December since my Mom gave me money for my Chanukkah present specifically to get a Duvet. I managed to get a REALLY nice one. Regular price was $400 and I got it on sale, plus 10% off, plus another 15% off with my Macy's Card?!?! So it ended up being more like about $150. Crazy. I also picked up a new Hotel Collection towel since my other towel seems to have gotten bleached somehow. While I was there they also had the "Best Sale of the Year" on their bedding which was perfect, I got a duvet cover and a (this is hilarious) "bed skirt" hahaha. Basically it's a thing you put on your box spring so guests don't have to look at my bed frame all the time, it just generally makes it look a bit fancier, and since my bed is in my living room, it's better if it looks decent since my guests and friends are always sitting on it. :) Good times!!

Tonight I am going to get my duvet and stuff sorted out and put lots more effort into this organization of the boxes and unpacking and cleaning up.


Sweet reflectors on my shoulder bag


Good stuff


GDC Pass!!!! What up, Autodesk as a major sponsor!!


New duvet, sheets and towel


Apartment cleanup and organization time

Pizza tracking?!?!

This is totally amazing. Hehe, only in America. :)

I just felt like ordering a Pizza, haven't done that ever to my new apartment here in San Francisco and I thought it would be fun. So I ordered online with Dominos... you select what you want, there are online coupons and everything, it's really well organized. You make a username, you select what you want, extra sauces, if you want toppings just on 1/2 of the pizza and so on, amazing.

Then you order it, pay for it with a credit card... and... there is a PIZZA TRACKER?!??!!!!

It tells you the person's name who is making your pizza, when they are making it, when it's been put into the oven... when it's being boxed up and when it's out for delivery. Now that... is amazing.


Pizza tracking?? I am so impressed.

"Be Kind Rewind" looks soooooooooo good

Michel Gondry, the mastermind of creativity behind "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and a bunch of other awesome films and music videos has a new movie coming out next week and I reaaaaaally want to see it. It's about some guys who work in a video rental store and they magnetize their video tapes and to stay in business they re-make all the movies themselves.

So this looks soooo good, but what's even crazier is that Michel Gondry re-made the TRAILER for the movie, with himself as the actor... in a way paying homage to what his characters do in the movie. Pure genius.


Original trailer


The Director's remake of the trailer

Bike is fixed, at least for this week

My bike has recently been giving me some problems, specifically the angle of the seat and the general style of my biking is being altered somewhat by the angle of the post at the front of my bike. It's a racing style post, angled at only 10 degrees which is way too short. My seat is too far back and so I'm leaning forwards a lot more than I should be for a bike that is being used mostly for commuting. Today I took it in and fixed the seat, oiled the chain and generally determined that I probably still have to get some more work done on it. But at least it's back to a reasonable state now.

After that I took the bike for a spin in Golden Gate park, jumping around and biking past the lakes, it was totally sweet. There were some people there with model remote control boats and they were racing them on one of the lakes... cool stuff! Then I went to a cafe and an older man sat down at my table outside and we chatted for about 2 hours, haha! So I guess I can make friends anywhere!! :) We chatted a lot about politics and universal health care. He said if asked John McCain what socialism was, he'd say it was the same as communism. :) Also it was really interesting to hear from someone who is on social security in the USA and living in San Francisco. He said after paying rent he only has an extra $400 per month. That's pretty nuts and I can imagine that being pretty hard to live on in a city when rent is this much. It was a really interesting conversation, and he said he really wants to move to Denmark (he's been there a few times.) Interesting chat and I spent a few hours at the coffee shop and then biked around a bit more.

This afternoon I've been getting some stuff together and now I'm cleaning my kitchen and then I think Matt Parrott is coming over for a bit. Looking forward to another couple days of sorting out stuff in my apartment.

I have Cable TV!!

Wahoo! So finally after having a TV since the end of October, I have Cable TV!! The dude from Comcast came today and it was really crazy, he was here for an hour and couldn't get the TV to display the channels for some reason. Finally I figured out you could display all the channels in a 3x3 matrix of squares, each with a different channel on it. But if you tried to "zoom in" to any of these, they were fuzzy and didn't work!! Crazy!!!!!!

So eventually the dude left since he had technically "hooked up my cable", we just couldn't figure out how to get the TV to show the channels right. After he left I had a quick thought of genius and decided I should probably try re-routing the cable through the VCR and then out to the TV through RCA cables. The DVD player has been working fine, and so the RCA inputs on the TV are obviously working just fine, it's just the Coaxial input is all messed up for some reason. So I connected the cable through the VCR and out to the TV, plugged it in... and it worked right away. Awesome! Then I managed to figure out how to program the VCR to skip channels and, more importantly, I got the TV remote to work for the VCR so I don't have to use the annoying VCR remote. Fantastic. So now I can turn on everything from one remote, and flip channels on the VCR with the same remote too. So, with 1 week to go until the very important awesome Oscar Ceremony that I obviously have to watch, I have TV finally!!! Sweeeeeeeeeet.

"Why Jews support Obama" By Mel Levine

I just found this article and it's really well-written and has some really good, solid points about why Barack Obama stands as the best political candidate from a (North) American Jewish perspective.

2008-02-01
Why Jews support Obama
By Mel Levine

You wouldn't know it from the flood of hysterical emails we have all seen, or from a fair amount of the commentary, but there is a groundswell of Jewish American support for Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign. That should hardly be surprising, for it is a reflection of the nature of our community. When he speaks with eloquence, unmistakable authenticity, and passion for the values we hold most dear, he renews our hope for America in these difficult times.

As a state legislator, a Congressman, and a private citizen, I have been politically active in Jewish causes, including pro-Israel causes, for over forty years, and have observed many presidential candidates. But Barack Obama is the first to so thoroughly capture the imagination of Jewish Americans.

The reason, in my view, is that American politics for far too long has been dominated by partisanship, hate-mongering, and influence-peddling. The results are everywhere to see a country where divisiveness thrives, whether it is between races, religions, or the haves and have-nots. (The top 2% of Americans earn 50% of America's income now -- and decent health care and a quality education are beyond the reach of many Americans.) Now, into this polarized nation comes Barack Obama with a strikingly different message, and a history of bridging divides and crossing frontiers, through his twenty-five years of political activism.

As a community organizer and leader in Chicago and New York, and throughout his twelve years in public office, he has epitomized the notion of Tikkun Olam ("repairing the world"). Barack Obama understands that we can only surmount our greatest challenges by finding common ground and nurturing an inclusive style of politics in a radical break from the polarization which plagues our polity. More than most, Jewish Americans have benefited from progressive ideas and inclusive politics, and no candidate better represents that tradition than Barack Obama.

In fact, there is something essentially Jewish about Obama's political philosophy. As Rabbi Harold Shulweis of Valley Beth Shalom observed last year in his Yom Kippur sermon about "Jewish universalism":

Jewish belief does not think "either/or." The ideal of Jewish monotheism is "both/and." Hear O Israel, the Lord is 'Echad.' ONE. "One" means overcoming your split thinking. "One" is the golden thread that runs throughout Jewish thought and belief . . . Oneness is a Jewish frame of mind.

Barack Obama rejects the politics of "either/or." He rejects the "politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart that puts up walls between us." He understands that we are one. As he said during his remarkable convention speech in 2004:

It's that fundamental belief -- I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper -- that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

Thus, Obama's vision of unity makes him a natural ally to the Jewish community. Likewise, he has been a strong ally to Israel. Some, including in these pages, have raised questions about whether Barack Obama is truly committed to maintaining the United States' support for Israel. In his speeches and public statements, his legislation and his voting record, he has proven himself to be a stalwart friend of Israel, committed to helping Israel in its search for peace with its neighbors, while standing strong with Israel against those who do not share this vision.

"I start with the premise that Israel is a stalwart ally of ours and their security cannot be compromised," Senator Obama pledged last year to an AIPAC audience in a widely-praised speech that described his travels in Israel, confirmed his unwavering commitment to the Jewish state and laid out his vision for protecting American interests in the Middle East. He understands the threats Israel faces, especially from terrorism and Islamist radicalism. "Our job is to never forget that the threat of violence is real," he told AIPAC.

In addition to burgeoning grassroots support, many Jewish leaders and pro-Israel activists are also joining the Obama campaign. "I am proud to say that he is unyielding in defending Israel's security," said longtime Jewish leader and philanthropist Lester Crown, "(Obama's) conviction holds fast whether the threat comes from Gaza or Tehran."

In the United States Senate, Barack Obama has led the charge to tighten sanctions against Iran and make it easier for state and local governments to divest from companies that do business with the radical regime in Tehran a high priority of the pro-Israel community in all 50 states. Consistently before non-Jewish audiences as well as Jewish--Senator Obama insists that Israel must remain a Jewish state and strongly condemns anti-Semitism and anti-Semites.

Barack Obama has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Jewish community in raising the alarm about genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. "We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense," Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs, including cases of genocide and mass atrocities. Unlike our current leaders, Barack Obama will confront the destabilizing and debilitating impact of America's reliance on imported oil.

Closer to home, Jewish Americans support Senator Obama because of his dedication to other bedrock causes in our community: promoting strong families and women's rights, including advancement in the workplace, protecting a woman's right to choose, and maintaining the separation of church and state. "I don't think that people of any faith background should be prohibited from debating in the public square," Obama said in a recent presidential debate, "But I am a strong believer in the separation of church and state. By the way, I support it not just for the state but also for the church, because that maintains our religious independence and that's why we have such a thriving religious life."

Barack Obama is a rare combination of an uncommon intellect, extraordinary decency, and proven leadership. Jewish Americans are understandably anxious about the direction in which our country is headed both at home and abroad and are eager for change.

Barack Obama's unifying message, experience and life story promise to lead America toward a new and better future, renewing our community's faith in government and restoring our nation's standing on the world stage.

Mel Levine is a former Member of Congress from California and a former member of the board of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

An evening of sorting out virtual stuff

Tonight was good for sorting out my "virtual" stuff, like files and directories on my computer, finally transferring stuff of my old hard drive to the new one, answering a bunch of emails and Facebook messages and so on. Good stuff.

My old hard drive was making noise and I was pretty worried about losing data so I am glad I got the new one. It is really nice, it seems really fast and it is working well already. Also it turns on and off automatically with my computer, which is fantastic!! That is great because the other one was pretty annoying with having to turn the power button on and off all the time. Now I can just leave the new one plugged in all the time and it's like I just have a 2nd hard drive that happens to be 500 GB!! Awesome.

Alrighty what else. I just bought Barack Obama's "The Audacity of Hope" and Michael Chabon's "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" and I am really excited to read those.

Tonight got some Visa stuff organized too which is always useful and good to sort out. Looks like there are some super cool parties at GDC next week, so I signed up for some of those and that should be totally awesome.

It's a long weekend this weekend which is really good. I am getting Cable TV on Saturday which is sweet, and then hopefully I can take my bike into the shop to get the seat adjusted and the handlebars fixed, I want them to tune it up a bit and hopefully they can do that. Since it's a long weekend I really need to spend it at home doing housework and finally getting my place sorted out. There is still so much stuff packed here from 6 months ago, and it's pretty hardcore ridiculous that I haven't unpacked it yet. It's really out of hand and so I want to take care of it. If I spend almost all weekend on it, I can probably do most of it, and that would be awwwesome. I'd finally have space in my dining room to put more stuff, and I can then spend some time getting my guitars cleaned and then getting back into some recording which would be really fun. Looking forward to getting this place a bit more organized this weekend.

New Indiana Jones Trailer!!!!!!

This is soooooooooooo freakin' awesome.

AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards

Pretty awesome articles here from the AMPAS Scientific and Technical Awards, also known as the "Technical Oscars" - pretty ammaaaaaaaazing stuff.

Both Autodesk and ILM were honoured this year with the highest achievement in special effects - the technical academy award.

Check out some articles here:

• In praise of special effects
• Alba Wows Geeks at Oscars' Tech Fest
• And the Oscar for Best Fake Bruise Goes to...

Congrats to the winners who are a massive inspiration to me and to this industry.

Congrats to VES Award Winners

Last night in Hollywood, the VES (Visual Effects Society) Awards were presented and some of my friends from Pixar WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is AMAAAAAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They must be so excited... congrats Jon and Jaime!!!!!!

Pretty amazing, and lots of people from ILM and Pixar won for work on Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean and Ratatouille.

Check out some articles here:

• 'Transformers,' ILM light up VES
• 'Transformers' tops VES nods
• Transformers and Ratatouille Grab Top VES Prizes

That is sooooooooooo cool.

Specifically props to Jaime for this:
Outstanding Animated Character in an Animated Motion Picture
RATATOUILLE - Colette (Janeane Garofalo, Jaime Landes, Sonoko Konishi, Paul Aichele)

and props to Jon for this:
Outstanding Effects in an Animated Motion Picture
RATATOUILLE - Food (Jon Reisch, Jason Johnston, Eric Froemling, Tolga Goktekin)

How absolutely amazing. You guys roooooooooooooooooooock!!!!!!!