What the france?

"I’ll try to make more effort from now on"
Wow. So, that didn't quite turn out as planned.

Okay, so, some stuff has happened since the last time I wrote. The reason I didn't write was because I decided to move to Canada and it was (obviously) a big event but I didn't want to write about it here before my friends and employer knew about it... so I basically wrote nothing.

But yes, I had my girlfriend stay with me for 6 weeks which was an amazing time. So much so that I had to move out to be with her, and now we're living together in Edmonton; a city that hits minus forty celius in the winter... so that'll be fun. But I'm jumping ahead of myself.

I went to San Francisco. It was okay. Taxi drivers weren't.

Searched around for work in Canada, got quite far with a few places but was very keen on one place, a really well respected company that was making games I wanted to be a part of. Had to do a million phone interviews, some test work and finally got flown out for a week long trip for the interview. The company even payed for my girlfriend to fly out too and they put us up in a nice hotel and pretty much paid for everything for the week. Of course when I returned I couldn't tell anyone about any of this because I hadn't been offered the job and I didn't know how long I was going to be in visa limbo for.

When I finally did get offered the job I was told it could take six months to move, so I went out for a celebratory drink at midnight with a friend who I couldn't tell. Infact, the first thing he talked about was how he hated it when people left, so I shut up and just smiled a lot for 'no reason'.

It ended up taking about four months or so, and in that time I did a lot of stuff which now escapes me. Lots of hiking up mountains, beach volleyball, rock climbing and plenty of drinking. My Spanish improved although I was never fluent, but my final journey to the airport was spent chatting away in spanish to the taxi driver, which was nice.

Speaking of which, my last day in Spain was by far the most stressful thing I've ever experienced. I was hyperventilating and screeching a lot.

So now we're in the temporary accomodation provided by my employer and yesterday we got a new car and a new house. Very exciting time.

I really wanted to write a new blog about my experience in canada but I've either been too busy or just enjoying my time with the girlfriend. It's a shame because a lot has happened here that I would like to document for the future and I am so glad I did this one, it's been great to look back and read this junk.

Anyway, I'm terribly hungover so my writing skills are letting me down.

Goodbye

I must: XMUST!

Well, apparently it's Christmas in a few hours. But I'm old so I wouldn't really appreciate that. I kept thinking that Christmas was getting less and less magical and more and more commercial, but in reality I guess that's just a reflection of my life that I'm blaming on the poor innocent bystander of Xmas. Or Xmust as I've been calling it for the last few years with no reason whatsoever.

My good friend Simon came visiting for a long weekend and, whilst I repeatedly warned him about the cavelike conditions in my abode he'd presumed I was over-exaggerating, as I usually do, and was somewhat surprised when he had 'the worst nights sleep of my life'. The funniest thing (for me) was walking into a spare bedroom to see him sleeping, fully clothed, complete with thermals, big jacket and a wacky hat I'd bought from a street market a few days ago.

The funny thing being that the rim of the hat was obviously made for small dogs or babies or something as it was so tight it had dug into his skull over night and left a half centimetre indentation all around his forehead like a lobotomy conducted with a butter knife. I have a photo but it would be too cruel to post it.

I then got ill for a few days. Luckily I'd finally got my internet installed, accompanied by a load of crappy free cable tv channels. So at least I could watch Jason and the Argonauts in Spanish while I lay around coughing up bits of slime.

Got a Ryan Air flight back to Stanstead for 90 euros which all went pretty smoothly, despite being staffed by children who kept swapping clothes throughout the journey, which they seemed to find immensely funny. Arrived and was told that I needed a credit card to hire the car I'd booked, which I don't have as I hate the concept of spending money that isn't mine. So had a mini panic and then got a coach with all the Polish people.

I don’t really have much to say because I’m still ill and tired, but Happy Christmas and etc. I’ll try to make more effort from now on. Been a bit lazy recently.

R

A word to the wise

Just a quick one.

Thought I'd share this wonderful bit of PR work on behalf of humanity. Just in case you need reminding about it... someone thought it would be a good idea to, you know, put it out there... in case you'd forgotten about it.

Just a heads up.

R

People like big food

I write this in a state of slight fear. For behind me there is a carcass.

Yesterday I went to the Christmas party. A rather strange evening which terminated with a mass panic as the crazed mob descended on the large arrangement of boxes at the back of the room. It was a really funny scene actually as all these people walk out of the building carrying boxes that look like those voilin cases that gangsters apparently carry around. Ours didn't contain guns, but large animal limbs. Why on earth gangsters hide guns in vionlin cases I really don't know, it's not exactly very consistant with their image. But I'm kind of jumping ahead of myself really, but I only mention it now because the scary thing is sat behind me right now and I'm not exactly sure what I'm to do with the heavy bastard. Am I supposed to carry it home on my bike? It weighs an absolute tonne.

Actually, I was going to write a massive report about it all, but I can't really be arsed to be honest. I've had to walk all the way out to work to pick up my bike (and use the internet as my laptop is broken still) and I'm now starving. I was going to say 'I don't have any food at home as well'... but I guess I can always gnaw on my pig leg.

But briefly... the party was 'interesting'. I think a lot of people weren't really 'into it' for various reasons. It was really cold and was in this strange derelict building with a distinct 'industrial' vibe with bare walls and concrete slabs everywhere... not exactly the personification of Christmas. But there was a tree that I ignored all evening. The paella was, as I'd be informed beforehand, large. Very large. We were debating the logistics of transporting the slab of metal they cooked it on. 'Strap it to the roof of a car' was the agreed upon method. The musical duo were moderately hilarious being two guys in white suits like I used to wear as a joke singing songs from before I was born. There was a lot of spinning going on on that stage, most of which was unnecesary. Work gave out 10 trips on a cruise to lucky employees, I was just thankful not to get one given how (allegedly) everyone from the parent company hates the game development people, probably because they do 'real' work like lifting things and stuff like that. Went to a house party after the xmust party and had a wicked time. I think. You can never be sure with these things as I'm always so wasted at house parties I never know what's going on. But I met some nice people and laughed a lot, as usual.

Had a weird revelation on the bloody pleasant walk in today. I was walking through a neighbourhood and read a sign... didn't think anything of it and moved on. After a few scuffled steps I realised that I'd just read spanish and hadn't even thought about it. How odd. So I tried it again, saw another sign, 'only for use by the fire department', brilliant. And another. And another. I stopped in the street and shouted "HOLY SHIT, I CAN SPEAK SPANISH!". It was a bit like the infamous 'I know kung-fu' line from The Matrix but with Keanu Reaves replaced with me and with a spaceship replaced with an uninteresting spanish backstreet. To be honest though, and that's not to say that I'm rarely honest, I think it was a massive overexaggeration to say 'I can speak spanish'. But I can certainly read a lot now and as I found last night, I can kind of get my point across now, even if it be on a much unusal manner in doing it. If you get me.

I keep seeing this ice cream truck drive past with this horrible advert of it of a woman idolising an ice cream. I don't know who holds a corenetto like that, but I think this woman likes her ice cream a bit too much. To make matters worse she bares a striking resemblance to Micheal Jackson. Be warned kids.

Can't remember what else has been going 'down' so I'll leave it there and lug my machine gun back to my abode.

Adios

R


Here's some photo randomness:

Cat head

I'm still recovering from jet lag at the moment so apologies for being a bit dopey.

If I write that does it sound like I'm sort of eighties 'go getter'? Because the reality is that I was working until 6am on Sunday like a massive loser and am still recovering. It's not exactly rock and roll, and I certainly didn't 'get' any 'go'... but it's nice to be in the excite-zone again. I'm not sure exactly how much I'm allowed to divulge on a public page, but I had a lot of sound design work to do for a project that's after a rather substantial amount of money... so it had to sound pretty good. And the big Lord Of The Rings rip-off style monster sounded pretty fucking impressive given the amount of time I had to work on it.

But I wont bore you with those details. I WILL bore you with the fact that it's our Christmas party on Saturday, where they're apparently cooking a massive paella (it's like pi-ella but pronounced correctly) and giving us all lots of presents. Apparently, amoungst other things, I get this masssive dry-cured pig's leg that's literally the size of a pig. Well... a pig's fat leg. But you get the idea. According to the legends it takes about forty minutes to shave off a poxy piece of meat, it comes covered in a green/blue mould and costs an absolute fortune. I think I would just prefer the money... but maybe I should wait until I see the multicoloured slab of carcass in all it's mouldy glory.

In response to the weekend, as a goodwill gesture, we get a couple of days off this week, and in addition to the random national holiday on Thursday that means I get to spend the rest of the week shopping in Palma for all the crap I should have bought months ago. Lovely.

Someone tried to headhunt me the other day. In the 'TAKE OUR JOB' way, not the 'attempted murder' way. I told them to bugger off, but it's nice to feel wanted. I've been waiting years for that to happen.

The weather's been beautiful the last few days. I went out at about nine this evening and it was still warm, no need for a jacket or anything. Although, for some reason I think it's actually COLDER in my stupid flat than it is outside. This place is seriously turning into a cave. Adding 'heater' to my nonexistant shopping list...

So in the unlikely event that anyone I know is actually READING this thing, I am coming back to the UK for nearly two weeks over Xmust and New Years Weave. I imagine I'll be heading to Bournemouth, London and Leamington for a 'shed-ule' consisting of family, friends and partying... with any luck.

I saw a cat with so much fur on it the other day that I actually stood there and laughed at it for a good while. Maybe I'm just secretly jelous though. If I can catch the furry little bastard (and I imagine it'll be pretty easy as it must weigh a tonne) I'd like to shave it's hair off and superglue it to my head. The hair, not the cat. I miss my hair. Especially out here where the only people that have hair like me are the English chavs that pass through Palma on their way to Magaluf for a spot of puking and fighting. Thankfully the city is totally devoid of tourists now. I'm looking forward to the summer when I can start scowling at the holiday makers like the rest of the locals, it makes you feel important without actually doing anything.

I really should post some photos as I haven't in a while... but the only photo I've taken in a while is of my friend wearing her moderately hilarious airport uniform... and you don't want to see that.

So I'm going to bed.

R

It's my birthday and I'll ignore if i want to

It was my birthday yesterday. I always find them deeply depressing for some reason. And not for what you're thinking... I don't care about getting older. I mean, it's not as if you didn't KNOW age was going to happen, you were walking down the street minding your own business and BAM, 'age' smacks you round the chops and you're a pensioner. To me, the passage of time has always gone quite slowly and I always try to remind myself that I'm a year old than I actually am. Therefore it's quite a relief when i realise on my birthday that I've just turned the age I thought I already was.

Wow, what a load of nonsense THAT paragraph was. Anywho, yeah, there's just something a bit 'murr' about the whole birthday thing. I think it's because it's a natural time for reflection and therefore pining over things that are not the same or around at all. I found it harder this year as I hadn't told anyone in Palma and so I was sent a load of messages and emails from friends back home but no-one here even mentioned it... But I'm glad it's over now and I can concentrate on the TOTAL SLOG that is 'work' at the moment. I've just got in and it's 11PM... and I felt guilty for leaving 'early' whilst others stayed on (I was just hanging around really). I've got to go in for the whole weekend too. Doesn't exactly inspire confidence when a company gets itself in a position where everyone has to work massive amounts of overtime (it's completely self-inflicted)... but that's a topic for a different blog I think (where I moan about the nature of the games industry).

Anyway, I just thought I'd write something on here about a report that's been done saying that Palma is one of the safest cities in the whole of Europe. I always got a feeling that it was intensely safe, I'm not sure how you get to be INTENSELY safe... but there it is. Maybe you have to lay all the roads in felt and cover all the stop signs in bubble wrap to avoid people walking into them (the irony of walking into a stop sign hit extra hard to someone I know once... when we had to spend the rest of the night in a Barcelona Hospital and I hung out with a tramp for a long time).

What I thought was funny about this report was that the perception of people on the street is (allegedly) still really bad. Especially amoungst the older generation who are apparently statistically much less likely to be the victim of crime... funnily it's a total vice versa (not the crap eighties film) for the younger people. It just shows you how public opinion on things like crime is utter nonsense. I always got that feeling in Britain too. The problem I think stems from the fact that the newspapers sell newspapers via fear ("THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH MURDERERS, READ HERE TO FIND OUT!") and the opposition politicians are trying to discredit the current government ("THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH MURDERERS. IT'S ALL THE GOVERNMENTS FAULT!").

Jeepers (a word I'm using a lot at the moment for some reason unknown to me), this post seems to have turned into somewhat of a crabfest. But to be honest, I'm just trying to kill time while my washing machine goes through the motions. I've got to entertain myself until it's finished otherwise I run the risk of having to wear dirty clothes tomorrow... again. I don't think turning your socks inside out TWICE counts as clean. But in my defence, it's only because I'm getting home so late... As Simply Red once sung 'Money's too tight to mention'... but replace the word 'money' with 'time' and replace Simply Red with someone less crap.

I'm supposed to be going to a nice meal at an Argentinian girl's house near the town of Inca tomorrow... it's not going to happen, I can just feel it. Well... I say 'nice meal' when I infact know nothing about it. All i know about Argentinian food is that it consists of big slabs of meat, and not much else. I tend to prefer meat that doesn't look like it's actually come from an animal. If you can shape it to look like a mini sized dinsaur and dust it in bread crumbs then I'm a happy man... actually give me a slice of a cow's butt and I'll give you my confused eyebrow, and no-one wants that over the dinner table.

R

The horror (now with video)

I'm sat here in my freezing cold flat trying to watch a badly dubbed version of 'Love Actually' to improve my Spanish skills. It's a pretty sad scene... but what makes it all the more sad is the APALLING family themed band busting out some classic shovelware musak trash outside my apartment. It's past eleven PM on a Sunday, the day I thought Spain was supposed to be asleep.

It appears though that these two middle aged irritants didn't get that memo and have set up shop, a very large and loud shop, in the small square opposite my building. There's about four children running around while their parents dance on the spot.

I really don't understand the whole thing, but most of all I don't understand the loudness. All my windows and doors are firmly shut, but it's still louder than the aforementioned cheese cluster of a film. Significantly louder. It's all ammunition to my understanding of the spanish lack of respect for personal auditory space.

Annoyingly, I am in the perfect sniper position but don't have the equipment to carry out the job. No-one would know it was me, there's buildings everywhere... and I have a clear shot.

ARGHHH, it's starting to get REALLY annoying now. The man keeps shouting "OLAY!". It's also sped up too, making it all the more intense.

I went to a nightclub on Friday night. It may have been a gay club. I only say that because the place wasn't exactly crawling with girls. I remember there was one who looked like a Russian prostitute who was stood on something, grabbing a speaker by the 'ears' and dancing to it's 'mouth' (the loud bit).

He just said 'OLAY!' again.

I also celebrated Thanks Giving for the first time, which was nice. Got invited to a meal in an American house and had some Guamain food, really nice. We all had to do a mini speech to say what we were 'thankful' for... now, i'm not terribly good at...

OOOOH, THEY'VE STOPPED!!!

anyway, yes, I'm not terribly good at outpourings of...

Urgh, no they haven't, they're off again...


...outpourings of honest emotion with no cynicism or sarcasm, so it was tough, but i AM thankful for a lot of things at the moment so it was pretty easy.

Work's still going good. I got some seriously needed time with a Nintendo DS dev kit and the whole mix of my game is really coming together well now... apart from the videos, which frankly sound like crap, but that's mostly down to us using a cheap and nasty video codec.

I ate some gammon the other day. It's been so long since I ate any, my taste in carcass must have changed over the years because I really liked it.

Spanish advertisements: there's a woman with massive breasts, wearing only a bra, underwear and a top hat... and a TIGER on her shoulders. She would be quite attractive if she didn't look so
rediculous.

Tomorrow I am going to another board game party... which despite the name is actually a lot of fun. That's immediately after my spanish lesson, which due to last weeks being a really good one will mean that it'll be a really slog. They seem to take it in turns.

Apologies for the dodgy formatting as usual. If you don't like it, complain to blogger. It's not my fault they suck.

Here's a video from my window of the horror. Bare in mind that the walls and windows of this building are about as useful as paper for keeping in sound (and heat)...



R