Anotherblog

Motivational forces at work. Successories at 11:00pm

Strangely hard getting motivated at the moment - after having my four month holiday cruelly ripped away from under me, all I see between now and Christmas is work, work, work… yay. But I’m not doing weekends again, and I’m not working later than 6:00pm. Also, I’m going to ask about taking more leave without pay. What are they gonna do? Make me redundent?

Undercut
I’ve always enjoyed a good game of undercut - ask anyone - so I started coding up my own, extendable version in Java. Got the first iteration going this afternoon (yup, that’d be me motivated at work all right). All it does is have two players go at it with random choices until one dies, but it’s extendable - the matrix of choices is stored as a file, so the rules for the game can be made arbitrarily complicated, and the players have different skills (ie. they can “hit” with one number better than others) and strengths. Getting complicated. I’ll try and have an applet with a GUI up and going at some point so that I can demonstrate it. Getting the applet onto the web might be tricky, but we’ll see.

Only nine days to go until I get Mr. Power Mac!
I’m excited.

Unredundent

Apparently I’ve been made unredundent, as of this afternoon. Even yesterday it seemed like the redundency was a sure thing, but it turns out the product I’m working on is vital for something-or-other. So there you go. Kind of embarassing that the Redundency Party was held at my place, but I wasn’t to know. The job will last definitely until Christmas, but is uncertain after that - the interesting news is that if I keep the job until February, I’ll get pro-rata long service leave if I’m made redundent then. More news as I find it out.

Computer
I ordered the computer last night, transferred the money into my visa account. Should arrive in ten days or so. I’m so happy! And this way, working this bit longer, I’ll be able to afford it too. Bonus!

Slowing down

In principle I’m slowing down, waking up later and later in the mornings, and so on… well, it hasn’t been working out that way so far. The weekend was busy, busy, busy. Did lots of stuff with Claire and Anna, dinner with Jon & Kate & Jon’s parents (including a game of Kuhtoffel, one of my favorite card games), bike rides, Onamashi (sp) Warlords, which may not count I guess, and roleplaying - and at the end, racing around this morning to get a parcel from the post-office before Claire took off for Europe again, which we missed by about half an hour. So I’m tired.

Bye, Claire!
It has been great. Claire’s been out and about like the crazy social animal she is, constantly getting calls from boyfriends and ex-boyfriends and other friends, and going to lots of parties and making new friends… there’s no doubt, she gets the Party Fiend merit badge, a first for the Shellshear family. Now she’s off to continue the party in France. Sniff. It’s been surreal.

Job
…has got a whole lot more confusing. I still don’t have the official redundency thing yet, and there was some big news over the weekend - there will be some people in Dev who won’t get redundencies, even if they want them. Don’t think I’ll be one of these, but it has added hugely to the confusion. Apparently the Dev group isn’t quite as dead as we suspected. Anyway. More news as I find it out.

Computer
Right. I’ve thought about it and come to the conclusion that what I really need is a Power Mac G4, not the TiBook as I earlier suspected. The TiBook specs just aren’t there yet, as tempting as the new price discounts are - what I really need is a notebook with a 80Gb HD. Sure, I could have an external HD, but that adds a bunch more money, and isn’t as good a solution. I think I’ll wait for the next generation laptops and go for a desktop computer that can deliver the grunt needed to edit films without needing expansion later - yes, I know that’s what I tried to get with my current PC, but Adobe Premiere sucks so badly that I can’t stand using it, and that tends to slow down the old editing process.

So here’s the spec that I desire:
867MHz G4, 256M RAM, 2*80GB HD 7200rpm, 17″ flat-panel display, SuperDrive. Total: approx $9000AU.

Oh yeah - and Final Cut Pro 2.0. That’s cheap.

Walking to work this morning

Such a beautiful day… and I ignored it all by reading a book all the way to work. Lois McMaster Bujold’s new one, The Curse of Chalion, is predictably un-put-downable and I really didn’t want to stop when I got out of the train, so I kept on going. Walking over Pyrmont bridge, I found that the monorail track provides excellent protection from sun glare, and also serves as a guide for walking straight. Simple pleasures…

Redundent!
I’m choosing redundency, it’s official. My last day of work will probably be next week some time, those details are yet to be sorted out, but the redundency package was too good to pass up. Wednesday was, of course, the big day - I brought in my video camera in the morning, and we hung around playing pool until the meeting. We were told that all the developers’ jobs were at risk, and that we would have to reapply for a (smaller) set of jobs by Friday if we wanted to stay with Baltimore. I had considered staying on, but after looking at the kind of work that the new development group was going to be doing, decided to leave it for people who needed it more - I shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a job when I decide to start looking, in a month or two. So many friends are leaving, too… it would be sad to stay on.

So I started thinking about the kind of things I’ll be doing for the next couple of months. I’ve got an exciting itinerary, which I’m definitely throwing in the bin, but includes writing, editing, the PS2, rock-climbing, skiing, game writing, web-page work, and the purchase of a Ti-book (perhaps). And after that, finally, to start work somewhere new. There’s a big network of people leaving, so we’ve started up a web page - baltiless. Terrifyingly, Donncha got it up and going within a day of deciding to do so, which included registering the domain name! He’s good. Too good.

The Hangi
I was more concerned about the party on Wednesday, actually - I spend all of Tuesday night getting the meat and veg. ready - marinading the meat, peeling and wrapping the spuds, finishing off the pit, getting a boot-load of rocks, buying drinks and snacks, tidying up the house… it was about 1:30am by the time we finished, and I resolved to set up the fire first thing in the morning, as I hadn’t had time to do so. Come morning, I pried my eyelids open, wandered down to set up the fire - and it started raining. I grabbed all the tinder and paper, and got them indoors, and then I really had to leave for work. Fortunately, Anna was around all day, and Claire would be available after dealing with her visa stuff in the morning, so I prevailed on them to set up the fire, as well as tending it and putting in the food, which they’d already agreed to do. I went to work, and called them at about 12:00 to see if they were having troubles - Claire wasn’t back yet, and Anna was worried. We decided to wait for Claire to get back, and I called again at 1:00pm, at which point Anna was very worried indeed as she had never set up fires before. I started talking her through it - lay down the newspaper first, then the tinder, and so on - but fortunately, before we could get too stressed, Claire arrived back. She was a Brownie, a Guide and a Ranger Guide, so the fire was up and going in no time, and they got the food in by about 4:00pm. Phew!

So I got the news of the redundencies and headed home. Most of the other people at work hit the pubs straight after work, so I had a bit of time - still, because I caught the train home, Carey had already beaten me to the party. Anna and Claire had done a bang-up job getting the party started - tidying up some more, getting the snacks out, and so on - and we had an extra case of Coopers Ale and VB delivered, courtesy of John Palfreyman, the head of Baltimore’s APAC region (quick note: very cool guy - when we were a small company called Security Domain that eventually got bought by Baltimore, he used to deliver the Friday drinks himself - it was a bit of a surprise for new starters to turn around and find the head of the company offering them beer on a Friday afternoon - very cool indeed). People trickled in, and the mood became very merry indeed - many were already cheery from the pubs, and there was a real sense of release. Have you ever sat next to somebody on a bus or a plane, and not talked to them for the entire trip because you feared getting into a tedious conversation? And then, about an hour before arriving, the pressure off, you start talking, get along great, there was nothing to worry about and you separate the best of new friends - well, it was like that. People could say things they’d never say before, they could and did share thoughts and ideas that they’d never talk about otherwise… I caught some of the mood with my video camera, but I can say I’ve never seen a party so alive.

We were still worried about the Hangi though. Claire and Anna were concerned that the rocks and coals hadn’t been hot enough when they put in the food, and when we felt the dirt on top, it was only barely warm. To be safe, we waited until about 8:20 before opening it up, and as soon as we started digging, we knew - it was a success. The dirt was steaming as I carefully shovelled it aside, and the test-potato stuck on the top was cooked through and almost falling apart. We got the racks of vegetables and meat out - there was a leg of lamb, a side of pork, a host of chicken legs and thighs, a couple of fat steaks, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, and onions. And it was delicious. The meat was so tender, it really did fall apart as we tried to get it out of the foil, just as I had glibly predicted. I’ve not had meat cooked so nicely in a long, long time. Wahoo! And though we’d overcatered somewhat, people were scoffing it down so that by the end there was barely a plate of meat left (in reterospect, perhaps more potatoes). The party drifted on into the night, and more people arrived. We took the dining top off the table and started playing pool. Someone had brought along a bottle of vodka flavoured with Skittles, which was an enormous success, and people were staggering around so drunk that even reliably good pool players like Al were well out of their zone, and taking half an hour to play a game. I did some showings of the short films, and there were toasts, and singing, and quite a few people who fell over and couldn’t get up. One guy stayed overnight on the couch, dead drunk, and cleaned up the floor and did a lot of the dishes in the morning.

Wow.

Anyway, yesterday was a complete bust. I lazed around the house, finished the washing up and did a bit of cleaning, but ended up playing Gran Turismo 3 until about 3:00pm by which point I figured I should make a token appearance at work, which I dutifully did. Went home again, watched “X-Men” with Claire, did some more cooking with Claire and Anna - a silly amount of fried eggplant - and collapsed into bed early.

Not that today has been much more energetic, really - I’m at work but doing no work, of course, and we had a big lunch at the pub and played lots of pool… salad days. Just had the group photograph of all us developers.

And that’s my last three days!

Redundent Chairs

Looks like the party is going ahead - to reiterate, my place (email for details), this Wednesday, from about 7:00pm onwards. There will be a Hangi, something we’re just starting to work out how to do (1. Dig pit. 2. Add rocks. 3. Make bonfire. 4. Wait. 5. Add food. 6. Bury), and hopefully a lot of fun. Party games may include “Redundent Chairs”, “Pin the blame on the Bull Market”, and the singing of such songs as “All fired Up”, “Breaking Up is Hard to Do”, and “We can’t stop the Fired”.

By the way, it looks like quite a few people will be made redundent this time around - my bad taste filters are kicking in at the moment, and I’m seriously considering bringing my video camera into work, to record my own (and others, if they’ll let me) reaction to finding out who is canned. Also, interviews.

Lazy days
Deadlines are getting less and less important at the moment… all the dev group are having fun and playing pool and looking out the windows. There’s a sense of holiday, a lot of black humour. We’re having a chair race at the second floor tomorrow lunchtime - the second floor is an empty area, very large - almost 50 metres long, and completely unfurnished. We hope to re-enact Ben Hur. Maybe I should bring the video camera tomorrow as well…

Pool

I’ve been out of form in pool for a week or so - I suddenly realised this when I was playing against Richard Adamson a couple of days ago, and realised that I still had six balls on the table when he was on the black. I suspect that it may be because I haven’t been playing many games either, despite lots of practice - 26, 26, 22, 26. The last one of these was remarkable in that I potted three balls on the break, all stripes - and I’m pretty sure I’d racked the balls up properly too. But I wasn’t in good enough form to make something of it.

Can-can
I’ve been thinking of having a canning party at my place next Wednesday, when we find out at work who gets made redundent. People bring along cans of stuff for eating, and we cook stuff in a trench dug in the back yard (retrenchment), something like that. Or we could all dress up as our favorite losers. It could be a bunch of fun whether I get canned or not, but especially fun if I am. Current odds are about 65% of keeping it, though it fluctuates wildly.

Actually, hell with it, I will. If you’re reading this blog, you’re invited. Email me to get the address if you don’t know where it is. I’m having a canning party! Wahoo! Dress up as your favorite loser. Next Wednesday, 22 August. Start at 8:00pm - how late it goes, depends on the result. I might have to go to work the next day…

No news yet

It has been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been working hard, after a nice trip to Brisbane to visit Evan and various relatives, a trip that was quite delightful and ended with little sister Claire accompanying us home - she is staying with us until her visa to get back into France comes through - which at this rate, looks like another two weeks away. All very nice and good. Catching up with Ev was great, and we got to hear some more of his wonderful music making and started planning the next Spit album. Top-ho! Then showed off Anna to all the relatives, which was more fun than you’d think from the sound of it, then back to work on Wednesday. And what a lot of work to do… I’m running about three weeks behind schedule, and we’re due to finish in mid-September. For the last week I’ve been working late every night and a full day of work Saturday - still, it has been rewarding and the code is coming along nicely.

So you may regard the headline as rather misleading, but in fact it was intended to point out that there is no news regarding the layoffs at work yet, something that is deeply concerning all in the company. The tension is slowly building for this one, and I’m actually not all that confident of my chances. More news when it arrives - next Wednesday. Meanwhile, I must work like a blue heeler - regrettably I’ve not had time to work on Fork, or much else of any creative interest (though at a party on Saturday night - I attended two after the full day of work - I came up with a tropfest short film of quite astonishing scope, one that would require us to start working on it right now… so perhaps nothing will come of it, but I did convince Edwin, Ryan and Ben of its value, and they’re brainstorming on it too). My main hobby at the moment, embarassingly enough, is Tombmaster, at which my character Terry attained 11th level, the highest ranked of any character so far. Yay!

Just Unbelievable

I got probably one of the coolest presents I’ve ever received, this morning. There was a parcel sent by registered post that arrived yesterday, so I stayed back this morning and went to the post-office to grab it. And I’m really glad I didn’t wait until after coming back from Brisbane, because now I get to show it to everyone there.

Jennie, my sister-in-England (as opposed to CB, my sister-currently-in-Brisbane-but-often-in-France) made up an astonishingly high-quality hardback book of my short story “Greta”, illustrated with some of the pictures we’d used for the filming, basically pictures from our lives as children. It’s just remarkable. I’m still flabberghasted. The attention put into this thing puts me to shame, and rather makes me wish I’d written a better story to deserve it… actually, no, the story is fine, it’s just that now I have to think of a way to out-do Jennie. For the moment, I’m stumped.

Did I mention that I thought the present was rather fine?

Holiday
I’m going away to Brisbane to show Anna off to the relatives there, and to stay with good buddy Evan (incidental note: there’s a stereo in the kitchen at work, and I was playing the latest album from Brisbane band Even. Al walks in and asks what the music is. Even, I reply. Oh, Evan, says Alistair. No, I reply, Even. From Brisbane, right? Yes, I reply, from Brisbane. You, said Al, mean Evan. Don’t try and fool me. I’m not, I say, there really is a band in Brisbane called Even that has nothing to do with Evan. Long suspicious glance from Al. Alright.) Away ’till Tuesday, which will be a nice break, though I’m not sure if I can spend that long away from Tombmaster - I’ve got my ladder position to defend…