Ambleside Beach (East-West).

Buildings on Burrard St.

The Media @Santa Claus Parade.

Santa Claus Parade | November 24th 2004 | Davies St-Burrard St-Hastings St, Downtown Vancouver.

Geez, I'm extremely behind on my blogging, thanks to my laptop connection not working. I would post the images behind links, but they'd be far too large to see properly. I'll get to it as soon as I possible can. Highlights include last weeks Santa Claus parade on Davis/Burrard/Hastings street.

I got the opportunity, via a friend of a friend, to visit the Burnaby, BC EA Games building. It's the original HQ of one of the smaller businesses that was swallowed up by the company before it was called what it's currently called. It's also where the actual company name originates from. Burnaby, as I've mentioned before, is like a big ol' industrial place, but with lots of trees and nice looking buildings. Not some run of the mill concrete complex. It's also in the middle of physical expansion right now : demolition has taken away a huge amount of old features and they are building a soccer pitch and extending the cafeteria (which has the best looking cake in the world) amidst other things.

Contrary to Slashdot grumblings (most justified but taken a little out of context) the atmosphere around EA Games is a lot more comfortable than most office based workplaces. There are arcade games scattered about for employee use, sections of the building are rather interestingly titled : disgruntled at being shoved down in the basement, the IT department renamed their corridor "Demolition Alley". Bless them. The lady that runs the cafeteria (which looks more like a gourmet delicatessan) is there at 6am, cooks a wide variety of fresh food, from sushi to cake to salads. There's a library crammed full of rival titles for comparison, films and every recent gaming/tech magazine you could ever imagine, and of course a whole section of consoles. They even had a Dreamcast. Email seemed to be the main method of communication - the lady on the desk emailed to let the friend-of-a-friend know that we had arrived, and employees can email the library to reserve and send for different titles. No one was crammed into a tiny space with an uncomfortable chair for hours upon end - although obviously, the higher you are in the food chain, the bigger the cube you get (in fact, the branding department had this whole "Pimp my Cube" thing going on, which involved someone getting cash to pimp their cube for a week. Slightly random, but very funny).

Walking through a testing area, I spotted one girl (I'd later go on to meet another girl who told me that girl game testers now comprise of 5% of the total population - there were also a lot of Asian and British testers walking around) close by, testing the next FIFA title, which apparently, goes out in the next few days. Thanksgiving is the time that EA gets the highest turnover, being a holiday and preceeding Christmas, this seems to be when Americans (the largest target audience for EA) spend their money. So I was literally walking through crunch time. Much like when I walk into a computer store and feel intimidated, not by the products, but the testosterone running the place; I wasn't exactly initially comfortable. I only got a few odd looks though, but they were probably down to the fact that I was a visitor. Overall, they seemed to be pretty focused on weeding out bugs.

I was told that one of the main reasons for expansion in the game production area right now, is because of the wide variety of consoles. Because they need a tester for each platform (PC, Gamecube, Playstation, X-box, GameBoy Advance/Nintendo DS and now the PSP) they now need at least 5 times as many testers than they used to. Anyone else remember the days when a game would be special if it was available on two rival consoles? Yeh, me too.

After the testing area, I saw a whole bunch of sexy servers (and an XP logo, oddly enough), a recording studio and lots and lots of techie based small rooms with stuff in them that I didn't really understand. I just noted that the recording studio had OS-X and Pro-Tools and that Snoop Dogg had been in there a month before. That would have been cool. EA are making a lot of games right now that are based around celebrities - actors are even calling them to get onto them. I don't really like that concept. It's great when celebs make an appearance - like in The Sims : Superstar, but like with film-based games, it tends to turn me off that particular title. However, it's known by the big bosses that hip-hop is the new alternative music, thanks to a game tester who had the balls to email them and ask them to make a hip-hop wrestling title. Good for that dude. I hope they got paid for it.

So it's a pretty interesting place. I like the atmosphere. I also asked the right questions and received a lot of information about employment within the company, and at least one contact. On the way out, I somehow managed to get a copy of The Urbz for the Game Boy Advance in my possession (does this happen to Gabe and Tycho a lot, I wonder?) for $20. Leaving so soon however was a little dumb, as the very nice man from Birmingham that I met in the lobby had gathered together a box of magazines for me. A box. Hopefully I'll somehow get them at a later date. Doh. Don't you hate it when that happens.

So EA Games. Great place. It's done a lot for my thinking in terms of career options.

First snow hits the UK.

This happened last time too. Bah. I miss everything.

The rain stopped!

Please could you stop the noise, I'm trying to get some rest
From all the unborn chicken voices in my head
What's there...? (I may be paranoid, but not an android)
What's there...? (I may be paranoid, but not an android)

When I am king, you will be first against the wall
(with) your opinion which is of no consequence at all
What's there...? (I may be paranoid, but no android)
What's there...? (I may be paranoid, but no android)

Ambition makes you look pretty ugly
Kicking and squealing gucci little piggy
You don't remember
You don't remember
Why don't you remember my name?
Off with his head, man
Off with his head, man
Why don't you remember my name? I guess he does...

Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height... height...
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me
From a great height
From a great height... height...
Rain down, rain down
Come on rain down on me

Whats this sir?
You're leaving
The crackle of pigskin
The dust and the screaming
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit
The panic, the vomit
God loves his children, God loves his children, yeah!

~ Radiohead, "Paranoid Android"

It's rainingrainingraining down on Vancouver, rendering me lazy and sleepy and bored.

This Morning