Although that’s big news for me, it’s not actually the point of this post. As it happened, I ended up having a bit of time off between when I left my old job and when I start the new job. It wasn’t enough time to go anywhere, so I thought I’d park myself on the couch (or in my chair) and play through a game from start to finish in a few epic marathon sessions. It’s not something I’ve been able to do in… a decade or two?

So, my first task was to find a game I actually wanted to play. This was no small feat in and of itself. Honestly, most games these days are regurgitated garbage, and amount to little more than Doom clones, or a clone of some other high popular game from a time when people were actually creative.

As an aside, I should say, this is partly why I like the casual game scene so much these days, especially on the iPhone. People are doing a lot of inventive things in that space, but the problem is very few of the casual titles have the gameplay depth (or length) that you find from a AAA release. I wanted something much heftier… plus staring at an iPhone screen for more than a few hours bugs my eyes out.

So, I tried everything I could think of. I looked at all the current new releases, I resubscribed to Eve Online, I picked up the Humble Indie Bundle, I looked through countless old game lists. I kind of wanted to pick up a new MMO, but honestly, as much as I love the idea of an MMO, I simply have yet to find one with the depth of gameplay of any of its non-MMO counterparts. Yes Eve Online is ridiculously deep and complex, but when it comes down to it, it’s still largely a grindfest, where you’re repeating the same tasks over and over again to accomplish some menial feat. Regardless of how complex the game rules are, the act of playing the game is really no different than any other MMO: go kill X of Y, travel from A to B to A, rinse, repeat.

Oddly enough, I’m actually a fan of loot whoring games, and grindfests that are the Diablo and rogue-like type games, so I often wonder what makes me enjoy those games but not MMOs. There’s a subtle distinction but in rogue-likes, the grind is not the purpose, nor a requirement. You’re simply exploring and the beasties you encounter are obstacles, the loot is a secondary (but important) reward. The push to keep going, for me, comes from discovering new and unique environments, and from some overarching goal such as killing a massively evil monster and saving the world.

After contemplating this stuff for a while, I decided it was time to go back to some old-school dungeon crawling, and ended up picking up a copy of Torchlight. It’s a shameless Diablo clone, but it is a fresh take on the genre. I won’t go into a review of it, since plenty of others have done that already, but I will say that it’s a great game. It’s got a unique graphical style, great level design, well thought out skill progression, is extremely mod-friendly, and addresses all of my complaints that I had with the Diablo series (mainly convenience issues).

Again though, this isn’t exactly the point of my post. After finding a game I wanted to play, I decided to see if I could get it work under Linux using Wine. The game has been given a “platinum” rating on Wine’s app database, which means it supposedly runs nearly perfectly. However, this simply isn’t the case. The game crashes on startup, and only works if it’s run in safe mode with a lot of the graphical niceties (like fragment shaders) turned off. Ultimate I ended up having to reboot into Windows to play it — a huge inconvenience .

So, to come full circle: I suppose the point of my post was related to my new job after all. The state of gaming on alternate platforms like Linux and Macintosh is definitely improving, but it’s simply not where it could and should be. I am really excited to be working for a company that’s working toward being a part of the solution.

Amsterdam is definitely a very cool and unique city! I’m extremely glad we were able to find Jess a last minute flight, and that the hotel didn’t mind her staying in my room (which was booked as a single). We had lots of fun exploring Amsterdam, taking in as much of its culture as we could (and were willing to). Amsterdam is definitely a place where whatever you want, is pretty much what you get, and we quickly learned that there’s lots of things Amsterdam has to offer that we weren’t that interested in .

That being said, those elements are part of what makes Amsterdam such a cool place, and I for one applaud them for their forward thinking on many subjects. I’ve personally never felt so safe amongst so many people, at all times of the day / night.

We checked out nearly every major area of the city, and although the hotel was right next to the insane touristy areas we quickly gravitated toward the quieter more local areas of Amsterdam. We tried to find as many local places to eat as we could, and mostly just soak in the atmosphere. It was neat to see some of the [in]famous parts of the city like all the coffee shops, and the red-light district, but I found once we left those areas I got a much greater sense for the city, and I began to understand why people would live there.

I didn’t take many photos, since Jess was along, and hopefully she’ll post some of hers soon, but for now you can check out some of the photos I snapped with my phone if you’d like:

As for the conference — I really enjoyed presenting, and got some good questions from people afterward which was great. My paper is now published in Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds Volume 20 Issue 2-3 (June 2009) by Wiley InterScience.

I enjoyed the research, and the whole process of grad school, but I’m also glad it’s all finally over and done with! The trip and conference was a perfect way to say good-bye to that part of life.

It’s also a nice bit of closure on the years spent head deep in fluid simulation stuff. I really enjoyed doing it, and I’m glad I decided to do a Master’s at Dalhousie, but I’m also happy that soon it’ll be done and over with. It’s an awesome way to end that period of research, and although I don’t know exactly how yet, I’m sure it’ll spark the beginning of something new too.

As excited as I am to present my research to others I must admit that I’m also looking forward to checking out Amsterdam and the Netherlands (and maybe even a surrounding country or two if there’s time). I’ve never been to anywhere in Europe before, so I’m planning to make the most out of my free time while I’m there! I don’t know how well connected Amsterdam is yet, but hopefully if there’s WiFi abound I should be able to update on the go!

They x-ray’ed me twice, did three malaria screens on different samples of my blood, ultrasounded my liver, spleen, and for some reason the underside of my freakin’ spine. Seriously, when pregnant women get ultrasounds of their babies done, does it feel like the doctor is trying to forge the ultrasound wand into the sub-atomic particles inside the molecules on the back of your skin?

Anyway… so yeah, after all that, a bunch more blood tests (at least 10 vials worth), 3 urine samples, plus the fainting episode, and a trip to the hospital in an ambulance, they were able to give me the diagnosis that I am perfectly healthy!

I’m actually pretty stoked about it. Plus who knew that your liver and spleen were so cute. Well at least mine are. My internal organs are so much cuter than everyone else’s, and it’s not just because they’re mine! They were way cuter than any of those blotchy fetus ultrasound photos I’ve seen.

So my liver and spleen didn’t have hands or arms or legs, or a head. Nor did they look remotely different from each other in any way. They were smooth, and oblong, and completely uniform in colour. That’s what I’m talking about.

Alright I have no idea what I’m talking about.

The whole experience was a bit mad, but I’m thankful it’s over, and I suppose in a way I’m glad it all happened the way it did. Next time I feel weak from 4 nights of fevers though, I’m staying in bed!

As for the fainting… maybe I just think about things too much or something but it was not a fun experience. I felt powerless, like, I knew it was going to happen and there was nothing I could do about it. Maybe that’s not true but at the time that’s how it felt.

Plus, waking up on the floor, seeing your wife’s terrified face… never fun.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a speedy recovery!

I’ll update again tomorrow after I’ve had my spleen ultrasounded!

The first four months of the new job were spent working full time and finishing my thesis at night and on weekends. Every spare moment was devoted to writing, proof reading, or preparing for the defense — nights, weekends, even on the commute to and from work, so I didn’t have much time for the website, or anything else for that matter.

After finally making it through that I was feeling a bit fried, and I also had a growing backlog of things I needed to catch up on, so the last month has been spent on the backlog and pretty much reveling in the awesomeness of free time . I’ve been getting a good number of hours with the new Fallout, been doing some reading, I even got out on my bike a couple times — I’m finally starting to feel a bit decompressed.

Which, I’m hoping, should leave time for something I’ve really missed: writing (of the non-thesis kind). I’ve been planning a few things for the website for a couple of months now, but I just haven’t had the time to make it happen.

Until now!

If all goes well there should be a fairly regular stream of posts coming.