Sans Hussein

It’s been a day since Saddam “Big Papi” Hussein was hanged, and as I’ve written before, I don’t agree with the way he was brought to trial (not to mention the punishment). It’s not that he wasn’t a tyrant or that he didn’t do terrible things. That’s clear as day. But why Big Daddy Saddy wasn’t put on trial in The Hague confuses me and lends a lot of illegitimacy to the whole thing. Somehow we’re supposed to believe a trial in Iraq was the best idea, and proponents of the Iraq war like to say it’s a step towards democracy. If that’s not hypocritical enough (the death penalty has no place in a democracy), Iraq doesn’t have a legitimate government in the first place. It has elected officials but the country is operated under martial law. It’s lawless. For me to believe that the government in Iraq has laws to uphold in this one case, while the rest of the country self-destructs, is hard. So it’s not that I’m sad to see Ol’ Mister Hussein die, I just dislike the fact the circumstances that led to his death. It’s a weird feeling, though, to have lived through an event that is part of such a turbulent time in the world. The war in Iraq, and the slow death of the American empire, is tragic.

I Got a Rock.

Actually, I didn’t get a rock. This year’s Christmas holiday was pretty good; the lady friend, myself, and the dog drove to Kamloops to visit mother for a few days, which was the lady friend’s first “Eurostyle” Christmas of opening gifts on Christmas Eve rather than Morning. We watched some movies, played some Scrabble, ate turkey, and had a very relaxed time. I was very happy to have a white Christmas, too, as for the first time in years there was snow on the ground. Loot collected consisted mostly of gift cards, which is just fine, since that’s mostly what I had asked for. In the near future I shall be using them to buy new clothes, electronics, music, booze, and dinner. Thankfully the amounts of chocolate received was low compared to past years.

Movies watched during the past month and their one-word reviews: The Devil Wears Prada (fluff), Art School Confidential (amusing), Thumbsucker (good), Match Point (dull), The Weather Man (couldabeenbetter), Constantine (Keanuesque).

To follow up on last week’s post, new music has been found. Over the past week we’ve found albums by Brazilian Girls and Beck, along with Holly Golightly and some classic rap from Maestro and the Wu-Tang clan to keep my toes tapping. That’s right, I tap my toes to rap. I’m so hip it hurts.

So what’s on tap for the remainder of the holiday break? Not much. A trip into downtown Vancouver tomorrow, probably some sleeping in and a little more apartment-cleaning, and potentially a party on New Years Eve. Then it’s back to work, I suppose, to have my soul drained by the “greige” colour scheme (I credit Tony with that colour’s name), flourescent lighting, and generally muddified hierarchical operations. Glee!

Anyhow, for the four of you who are still reading this, I hope you had an enjoyable holiday too. A New Years resolution will be to blog more often and include photos on the site as well. Last year my New Years resolution was to become a zombie with prescient powers and the ability to fly, so don’t hold your breath in seeing this year’s come true.

EDIT: today’s Google Ads included links to “James Bond DVD”, “Vancouver Police”, and “Gay Vancouver”. Fascinating.

TWIG Notes, Volume II

Another seven days without a post means it’s time for a recap! This Week In Garrett Notes:

- this is the least excited I’ve been about Christmas in a long time. I think it’s a combination of many things but on the whole I just don’t find myself in a merry mood. I’m just generally glum lately.

- I’m still not sure if I’m actually prepared to buy an HDTV this Boxing Day. It’s so frivoluous, and expensive, but I’ve wanted one for so long. I may just buy a few Wii games instead, and keep saving my money for that car. By the way, this month’s dream car is the Suzuki SX4.

- There’s a chance that, within the next week, I may post the first photographic evidence of myself on this site. This would be a lot more meaningful if the people who read this blog didn’t already know what I look like.

- I really need to find myself some new music. The iPod has lay dormant for more than a month due to having approximately one new song downloaded in that span of time. Methinks the latter part of Christmas break will be spent browsing through iTunes and Pandora.

Party All The Time

Yesterday was the EA company Christmas party (I can’t call it a Christmas party as there was nary a Christmas tree or Santa in sight). The last two years, the company has held its party at the Vancouver Convention Centre due to the fact that there’s nowhere else in Vancouver that can house 2000+ people for dinner, dancing, and dessert. This year EA scaled back and held the bash at the new studio in Burnaby, where I currently work. Their theme was “EAir Canada” (oh, clever) and had different areas of the studio with distinct international flavours: India, New Orleans, New York, and … well, whatever part of the world is renowned for cheese, crackers, and baron of beef. Despite “celebrating” at an office that I’m at 5 days a week, it was still mostly fun. I had about five drinks, which unfortunately didn’t seem to get me anywhere near drunk. My lady friend and I lined up for an hour to have a clairvoyant read tarot cards and tell us really inaccurate and mostly false things about our relationship. She opened by asking what irritates us about each other, which wasn’t used at all in telling us our fortune. I’m sure other couples would walk away thinking “how could he/she say something like that? Am I really that irritating?” but thankfully neither of us slept on the sofa that night. Oh wait — both of us slept on sofas. Hmm.

We also ventured into Metrotown this afternoon and lasted about thirty minutes before getting in the car and going home to eat pizza. Good lord, Christmas brings out the worst in consumers.

Double Oh Kyle

Last night I met up with my old friend Bryce, who with his special lady friend and another guest, went to see Casino Royale with me. As I’ve written before, I’ve been looking forward to this Bond movie for quite a while. It’s had a lot of good press, and my colleagues have had positive reviews of it, so the hype factor was high. I was doubting that it could satisfy me. And oh boy, this James Bond was more than satisfying. It far surpasses anything from the Brosnan era, with an absence of silly gadgets, secret space lasers, and bionic bad guys. Daniel Craig was as hot as I’d imagined him, the Bond girl Vesper Lynd (played by Eva Green) was smart and classy. Overall the movie felt so removed from Hollywood, which was a trap the Bond franchise had fallen into years ago. In general, this Bond movie was so different than any that have come before it, that by leaving out the cliched storybuilding, it became a story that was actually interesting and human. A lot of people compared it to Batman Begins, which was not a bad movie at all, but is unfair to Casino Royale as this movie did the “story before the story” so much better.

Today at work was bittersweet, except there really wasn’t much sweet about it. One of the longer-serving designers on my team, Kyle, has moved to the downtown EA studio to entertain and enlighten the lives of those on another design team. As another coworker put it, this leaves our team with a gaping void for the position of tall, funny, hipster that Kyle filled so well. Thus begins a new era in our group, one that has seen the departure of 3 of my favourite designers and colleagues: Jesus, Margaret, and Kyle. If Mister Tony Lee leaves, then there really will be no joy in Mudville.

The “sweet” part of the bittersweet should have been represented by the 3rd year anniversary of my employment as a designer. I was hired along with Matt, who moonlights as a Jude Law impersonator, three years ago today to join a fledgling group of developers at EA tasked with creating games for the Playstation Portable. Back then, the only fact we had about the PSP was the size of the screen; everything else was a mystery. As of today, our business unit (which has grown tenfold in terms of employees) has published roughly 15 PSP titles. We’ve come a long way, but other than still having a job, there wasn’t much to celebrate. It’s not like we received a gold watch or something.

On the bright side, I’ve kept my job longer than Joe Clark kept his job as Prime Minister.

Time to spend money

It’s the first weekend of December and soon I’m off to start buying Christmas gifts. It seems harder and harder to find gifts for people as they get older, and the prospect of people receiving gift cards has increased significantly. Not that I’m complaining — my “wish list” consists of 90% gift cards too. For the first time, perhaps ever, I actually bought a gift for my Dad before anyone else. Father is by far the hardest to shop for. Going to the mall to shop is also an excuse to look at big screen televisions. I did that earlier in the week and couldn’t quite avoid the salesperson who I know wanted me to buy something. Nuts to that! I asked him about upscaling DVD players then left the store.

This blog post has no proper ending. I can’t think of anything to add that would finish it off in style.