It's finally MAY!

Yes, the month when so many things happen. Exams, E3, Ottawa, Nortel, internship, marks. I feel like I'm coming up with tags. Anyways, I can't believe I didn't make a blog post for an entire.. 5 months! Holy cow. I know that I didn't make a post for a long time, but I didn't know it was almost half a year. Hopefully that won't happen again. I do want to this blog to be a big part of who I am.

Electronic Entertainment Expo
Pre-E3 accouncements: Nintendo Wii .. Mmm.. OK, even as a Nintendo fanboy, I can definately say that I like Nintendo REVOLUTION a lot better, especially with those official logos Nintendo presented during E3 2005. I liked it, but I suppose a codename is just a codename and Nintendo does have to give it a real name for marketting and branding purposes. The more I think about it, the name Wii has really sunk in. Nintendo Wii. Although I WAS intrigued when the name REVOLUTIoN was first announced in E3 2005 with the little o representing Gamecube minidvd games..

Nintendo:
Like IGN's Matt Casamassina said, Sony and Microsoft are going to be coming to E3 with guns loaded and Nintendo better be prepared. As with every E3, everyone comes with big announcements and games to show. Watching people play the Wii was pretty neat, especially when there are 5 hour lineups for playing 5 minutes of Wii. Sure, Sony was the one with the biggest announcements by announcing price and launch date, Microsoft is the one showing off a lot of games, but Nintendo is the one that came to E3 with DIFFERENT and QUALITY games. Microsoft boasted a spectacular launch lineup for Xbox 360 but the games shown at E3 for the Wii tops it, by far, not that they'll all be ready for launch day, but from the looks of it, they'll be released during the launch "window" period. The games that I absolutely must play on the Wii are: Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Smash Brothers: Brawl.

Sony:
.......OMG... common Sony, first you copy the rumble pack and analog stick from N64, now you're gonna take motion sensing. You guys obviously can't innovate. Sure, there are those who say that Sony DIDN'T copy Nintendo since Sony has been working on motion sensing technologies in controllers for more than 2 years, but it doesn't change the fact that you included motion sensing this generation just because Nintendo did. Your campaign for better graphics, more multimedia capabilities and faster processor is going to break your bank. $600 USD for a gaming machine.....? That's like.... an entire paycheque or 2 for the average hardcore gamer who wouldn't have high paying jobs for you to take money from. What else, "rumble was last generation, movement is this generation." ~ Phil Harrison. WTF? Are you guys retarded? PS3s aren't going to include rumble feature and you're trying to convince us that we don't actually need it? We all know you're not including rumble in controllers because you lost a lawsuit that almost got PS2s pulled from shelves. I can't stress this enough, but PS3 is going to spell disaster for Sony, and for the video games industry.

Microsoft:
Games games games, with just better graphics with a very robust online gaming platform: Xbox live, but you're forgetting that some people are still not willing to pay to play online, especially if/when Nintendo's going to build an online platform and let people play on it for Frii. It's good that PC games can be easily ported to Xbox 360 and that dev environment and dev tools for developping games are advanced and easy to use, but..... you're still losing money. =/ The entire Xbox division has NEVER made money for Microsoft, so eventually, you're gonna have to think of a way to start making money or start scaling back on your push into the gaming market. Sure, you've gained a 1 year head start ahead of Sony and Microsoft, but you can only take so much market share from Sony especially when there are distractions like Nintendo Wii and the entire 'motion sensing in games' idea..

Nortel Internship in Ottawa
OK, the internship. In the comp-sci program I'm in at UofT, there's something called PEY (Professional Experience Year) where you spend one year after 2nd or 3rd year (preferably 3rd) of your studies to start applying your developed skills, your passion and the things you learned in school so you aren't lost once you graduate and come out to look for a job. There were multiple rounds, the 1st round is where a large number of people get placed and when tensions are high because you're competing against EVERYONE (even engineers, for the placements that I truly wished I got back then [ATI]) for a placement. I had 2 ATI interviews in 1st round and I was so nervous. I screwed up the 1st one since I didn't have my r?sum? with me, assuming that they would have it. The interviewer tells me that he forgot to print it or something and there's no WiFi so he can't go online to view it.. Great.. Well, at least most of the questions were technical. I answered the large majority of them correctly but with not-so-great presentation. Then the 2nd ATI interview.. I made the mistake of letting him know that I'm really into graphic acceleration but I don't actually own an ATI card but rather an nVidia card.... oops, that must have pissed them off. Well, then came the day when the placements would be posted online, kind of like those high school "DID YOU MAKE THE TEAM?!?!!1" environments, where a frantic kid runs up to the bulliten board to look for his name, but doesn't see it and then proceeds to sink into depression. Ya, that's what happened.

There was a little break, about two weeks, before the continuous round job postings were listed. I was so withdrawn. I needed to know why I only had 2 interview in 1st round yet I applied to so many. I spent, literally, HOURS every night taking a look at my r?sum? and making changes, some big, some small. Over those weeks, I separately saved my new r?sum?s, giving them revision numbers. At the rate I was saving revisions, I would have had more revisions than there are Final Fantasies. Now that I look back, there are definately HUGE leaps in improvement.

I got a call on my cell one day in late-ish March while I was at home studying. I thought it was the most bizzare thing, I know it's not my gf cause we just talked earlier and she knows that she needs to give me time to study. I picked up the phone and it was someone named Ken McCarthy from Nortel. [ =D !!!!! ] Wow I can't believe they called.. Ok stay calm, what does he want..? A phone interview! I'm always good at that.. I always do better in phone interviews than in-person interviews

Now that I look back at the positions I've been interviews for:
====================================
Verifications Engineer@ATI
Technical Writer@IBM
QA Specialist@Net Integration Technologies
Intern Developer@Clariy Systems
QA Specialist@InSystems
====================================
I can't be happier than I am now to be offered the placement of being a Software Tools Developer@Nortel. Surely, being a software tools developer for 16 months beats doing 16 months of testing slave work at ATI or the smaller firms such as NIT and InSystems (Verifications Engineer and QA Specialist are just fancy names for TESTER). Hmm.. IBM.. well, surely it's a highly well known tech company with a lot of history and reputation behind it, but technical writing.. at first I was a bit interested. I can do technical writing. With practice, I can do quality documentation. I love writing, not essays though, but documentation is good. I even brought 2 piece of references with me: 1 2 and he even tells me that I'm his top choice unless his last interviewee turns out to be a superstar. The next day, I find out that indeed, his last person to interview turns out to be a superstar.. I guess my 2 pieces of references didn't impress him much.. I was a little down about that, but now that I look back, being a technical writing definately doesn't directly relate to what I'm looking for. Surely, being place with Nortel is the best case scenario. I'm not even going to comment about Clarity Systems.. I got an interview the day I submitted my interview, got interviewed the next day, and then received a rejection e-mail the next day. It went so fast I don't even remember much of it.

Exams and marks
==========================================
CSC263 - Data Structures and Analysis
CSC336 - Numerical Methods
CSC343 - Introduction to Databases
CSC318 - Design of Interactive Computational Media
==========================================
Well, all my marks are finally in. I can surely say that marks don't matter as much to me anymore. Definately not as much as they did since high school days when getting high marks was easy. Let's see.. ouu...! I passed CSC336 and CSC263!!! Horray. I thought I might have failed 336, considering how insane that exam was.. Now I know why the autofail borderline is at 30%.. I.. seroiusly think that that course needs to be re-structured. The assignments do not reflect what's expected in the midterm and exam and there is too much material presented, much of it is .. well, boring and is never applied. The beginning unit of the course was interesting. It's much like CSC258 material except it's less technical and more mathy. What really threw everyone off is the fact that.. Tom Fairgrieve would take 20 minutes talking about super complex concepts related to errors and how math relates to it and such, where no one understands anything he's saying but are just blindly writing whatever he writes on the board and are scared to death because they don't understand the material and then he'll move onto spending 20 minutes explaining every single little detail to the algorithm of matrix multiplication.......... very strange... and scary.. Hmm.. CSC263.. I expected more out of this, but it turns out it's my lowest mark this term. Oh well, I learned a lot. I especially learned that surrendering your marks using the "I don't know" rule helps, and it's just not worth the time and effort to blindly elaborate on what your partially know. This has to be my most enjoyed course this semester. Sam Toueg is, well, from Princeton, that's pretty much all that needs to be said... but I'll elaborate: Toueg is a prof who can teach CSC263. He is so enthusiastic when he's up and lecturing, it draws you in. Long before taking the course, I was told that CSC263 was one of the hardest courses in comp sci, however, there is a prof who is very amazing at teaching it. Unfortunately, he would only teach it in the 2nd semester in the 2005/2006 school year. I was a bit behind in our courses and no one would want to wait that long for a course that should have been taken in 2nd year. I knew that taking a hard course on my own not knowing anyone would be hard, but I also knew deep inside that it was the right thing to do. I would wait for Sam Toueg and do 263 on my own. I've already decided that I'll be taking 5th year anyways, so there is no rush. On top of that, the fact that Michelle Craig is teaching in the 1st semester really makes me sick.. I'm a bit shocked.. only 2 people have rated Sam Toueg on ratemyprofessors.com.. How can this be? He is one of the best in the comp sci department. Shame on you all who have taken 263 with Sam and haven't rated him. So that's CSC263.. I passed.. I really enjoyed that course.. CSC343.. At first, the lectures were really easy to understand...... too easy.. so easy to understand that I would fall asleep because Ramona Truta would speak so softly and then blame it on the acoustics of the room .. -_- .. The assignments SEEMED hard, but they really weren't. The lectures were quite (I don't want to say it, but) useless.. yes.. I didn't understand most of the things she said.. Most of the time, I would just refer to the lecture notes for reference. Learning SQL was cool though and SQC (embedded SQL in C) too.. pretty neat stuff.. but I doubt I would be applying that stuff anytime soon. CSC318.. at first I thought it was the course where you learn OpenGL, graphics and such.. but I guess not, it turns out to be a course with a lot of courseload, but in general, quite easy, but just a LOT of material to cover, a LOT of work that needs to be put into it, but still a breeze course compared to what I still need to go through in CS.

Internet Naming
OK, so SCUMBAGS took my nickname DeepBlade for eBay and Skype many years ago, but I'll have the last laugh! I got to register
deepblade@gmail.com
http://deepblade.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deepblade
http://del.icio.us/deepblade

"I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle"

It's here! It finally arrived!! Terminator 2: Extreme Edition DVD. I got it for $7.50 USD + $4.00 USD shipping = $11.50 USD = $13.67 CND from ebay, brand new, still wrapped, delivered to my mail box. It was -3 degrees celcius with a light drizzle when I opened my mail box to see a package with the words DVD on it. When I got home, I ripped open the bubble wrap. The limited edition metal DVD case was ice cold.. just the way I like it >=D

When I started taking the DVD case out of the metal case, I immediately understood what they were aiming to do.. I hope you do too.. although it's sometimes hard to notice just from pictures. 1 2 3 4


Let me tell you why I love this movie. I watched James Cameron's 1991 Terminator 2: Judgement Day when i was 7 years old.. (even though I probably wasn't supposed to..). My grandparents brought a bootlegged VHS copy of Terminator 2 to Canada with them when they came over from Hong Kong. I must have played that VHS tape and watched the whole movie from beginning to end.. over 10 times since I had little to do as a child. I even remember looking through a calendar, looking for the day when Judgement Day will come.


A few weeks ago, after reading IGN's Top 25 Action Movies of All-Time and noticing that T2 came in to be #4, I decided it's time I own a legit copy of it. I should, at the very least, catch up with technology, to own the DVD so I can add to my collection of DVDs, to pay my respects to (in my opinion), the greatest movie of all time. So I did some research. There's something called the Ultimate Edition DVD and then there's also the Extreme Edition DVD. The Ultimate Edition DVD came out first, and it has a lot of extras. A little while later, they came out with the Extreme Edition DVD.. which is digitally mastered from a brand-new 1080p high-definition digital telecine transfer, which simply means.. it has even greater video quality than the Ultimate Edition DVD, with new extras. None of the Extras overlap, so the Extreme Edition DVD doesn't really replace the Ultimate Edition DVD.


Although I didn't understand 'everything' when I watched it as a child, the story made enough sense for me to understand what was going on. The action was what really got me pumped. What's 'not' to understand when a liquid-metal shape shifting robot from the future is targetting you for termination..? Everything was blowing up so fast, and the special effects were (and still are) impressive. There are so many action scenes, all of which are just spectacular, and it's not all about the graphics/action. For example, John Conor made The Terminator swear not to kill anyone even though The Terminator didn't understand why since the only thing on his mind was to protect John and he'd do anything to accomplish that, even if it means killing people. In the scene where police cars surround the building they're in, The Terminator takes his minigun and grenade launcher and shoots at the police and the cars they're hiding behind, for a good few minutes.. When he's done, his scanner shows: Human Casualties: 0.0

I can't say I have a favourite action scene, they're all my favourite. This movie is DEEP. As I got older, I understood more of the concepts and the story.


Here's a quote by Sarah Conor (John Conor's mother) to show you what I mean:

"Watching John with the machine, it was suddenly so clear. The terminator would never stop -- it would never leave him, and it would never hurt him, never shout at him or get drunk and hit him, or say it was too busy to spend time with him. It would always be there, and it would die to protect him."

Even by today's standards, there's some real great acting in this movie. This is the movie that everyone refers to when they talk about Arnold Schwarzenegger as an actor. There are countless memorable quotes by him from this movie. The fact that he plays a 'less-say, more-killing' robot makes this shine even more. Linda Hamilton (Sarah Conor) acts like a psychopath like she should be and Edward Furlong (John Conor) plays a perfectly wild and adventurous child who teaches the Terminator a few lessons about life. The more I watch it, the more I admired everything about it. Beware, the ending.. can be quite emotional. All good movies have great endings to them, and T2 is no exception. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to take aim at T-1000's head while he's still frozen in liquid nitrogen. Astalavista, baby.

CSC300: Computers and Society

Hm.. ok, so this term (1st term of 3rd year CS), I'm taking a course called CSC300: Computers and Society. It's taught by Professor Emeritus Calvin Gotlieb. He's really old, but he's been called the "father of computing" in Canada. He knows and has seen a lot related to society and computers.

The course focuses on how computers have changed society in the past, how it is affecting society today and what computers may offer to society in the future. The tutorials are extremely social, like a mini forum, with about 10 or less people and you get to talk about anything computer related. 10% of your grade goes towards 'Internet Postings' which is just creating a thread in a forum and replying to those who reply to your topic. Here's mine, hope you like it: The Paperless Office. 15% of your grade goes towards a debate. Our topic was "Be It Resolved That: The Digital Divide is Temporary". Let's not talk about that since I lost.. =( [Even I was convinced I was wrong.. that's how bad I lost] The main assignment is a 3000+ word essay worth 30%. I'm not good at writing essays, but I tried my best and I generally had a lot to say. My topic was: Internet Vulnerability: A disaster waiting to happen. This essay was really rushed so.. don't be too harsh criticizing it... Hope you like it: Internet Vulnerability: A disaster waiting to happen.

I talk a lot about piracy in my essay.. which reminds me, I just saw this video on anti-piracy. You can view the video 'here'. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan are on a mission to stop piracy. If it was a movie, they could have taken on the bad guys themselves. But this is the real world, they need your help! When you buy pirated movies and music, you support CRIMINALS! Now these criminals are counterfeiting other things like electronics and medicines. Take Action. Demand the real thing. Help them stop piracy. Let's TERMINATE it!

CNAnime 2005

So I missed CNAnime 2004 last year because I couldn't afford missing 3 days of work. I wanted to skip CNAnime this year too, for the same reason, but all work and no play is very unhealthy. I needed a mini-vacation from the drudgery of work. Especially when your girlfriend wants to go with you.. It wasn't a "maybe" or "kinda", it was a definite "YESH! Let's go to CNAnime!!"

From that point on, it was decided: CNAnime, here we come!
It wasn't just an anime convention, more precisely, it's called The Canadian National Expo, which includes the comic book, science fiction, horror and gaming expos. The more, the merrier =)

CELEBRITIES
It's not an expo without all the famous people. The most famous person there would have been Elijah Wood. However, it costs $80 just for a ticket to see him and to get his autograph. Sold out tickets only tells you that A LOT of people love Elijah Wood. Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) was there too. I took a picture of my gf standing beside her hunk. (Then I tore up that life sized cardboard cutout of Kevin Sorbo after it tried to flirt with her). Ok, so it's not the real Hercules, that would have cost $25 >=(. My idols at the convention would be the Red vs Blue crew. Here they are, holding a little Q/A conference before showing episode 58. You sure as hell can't miss the giant walking Pikachu, so we took a picture with him too. PIKACHU! I CHOOSE YOU!

COSPLAY
As with all anime/gaming/comic book/sci fi/horror conventions, a lot of people dress up as characters. I would never dress up as anyone, although people have noted that I look like Keitaro Urashima from Love Hina such that I don't even have to dress up. Here's my friend Kevin, dressed up as a Jedi Knight, may the force be with you.. As in, good luck, cause I think this other Jedi is about to kick your ass. Sub Zero and Kitana from Mortal Kombat were at the convention too, picking some fights. Scorpion, however, trying to pick up some girls. There was even someone who dressed up as a Listerine bottle!! He looks ready to kick badbreath's ass. My favorite would be the Metal Gear Solid Guard. He was carrying a stick with two signs on his back, one with the an ! (exclaimation mark) alerting everyone that he sees Solid Snake, and the other with a "ZZZzzzz..." sign, signifying that he really needs his sleep, even in the middle of an anime convention.

MONEY SPENT WELL
The dealer's room at CNAnime is the whole second floor. Anime North can never compete with the Metro Toronto Convention Centre's massive space. Let's see, first off, I bought a few plush toys to add to my collection of sleeping pals (ok that sounded very girlish and kiddish, but they're really cool, like Kakashi Hatake). I also bought a Naruto wallscroll, it's so colourful!! And for the dark side of me, I bought a bunch of figruines (they were really heavy). A complete set of spawn figurines (the Spawn variants and the villans), Glitch Bob and Megabyte (from Reboot), and Revolver Ocelot. To support Red vs Blue, I bought all 3 seasons DVDs, they signed them for free too =).

SATURDAY NIGHT
Saturday is the day two of the biggest attractions are shown: the music video contest and the masquerade. My two favourite music videos would be: Mood Rings / Mood Rings V2 (Award for Best Comedy) and A Hunter's Requiem (WARNING: very dark and graphic, you may get nightmares from watching it). If you want to watch them but too lazy to sign up for an account, just ask me to send them to you, (you lazy bastard). Every year, the Masquerade never fails to entertain. It was 3 hours long yet I only took a few pictures. Here's one of the Rayment twins from The Matrix: Reloaded. There were 3 Joker and Harlequin couples. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of the first couple, but here's the second, and the third couple, who did a little dance together before he proposed to her on stage. Teminator and T1000 from Terminator 2 were battling on stage.. you can already guess who won (just watch the movie if you haven't already). Solid Snake is pictured here, planting a porn magazine to distract guards as he walks around them in his little box, but his instincts take over and he goes back for the magazines.

THE END
At the end of the last day, everything was taken down, everyone packed their bags and said goodbye. Within an hour after the end of the expo, the dealer's room became nothing but a big empty room with forklifts carrying stuff away. Everything disappeared like a ghostly image, kind of like this picture of Keitaro and Su as they're leaving the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. CNAnime was so cool, we had lots of fun and spent lots of money. Never again will I spend so much in the span of 3 days... Until next year =)

With a great summer job, comes great toys

Time sure flies by fast... It feels like only yesterday when I was playing cops and robbers as a ten-year-old. Now, 2nd year has finished and I'm at the half-way mark (well, not exactly, but almost). Half way done university, that sure feels good. I hope I'll survive 3rd and 4th year.. and possibly grad school?

Along with the completion of a year of university, comes a summer of hard work and money earning. This summer, I've decided that I'll be doing another season of Wonderland. Wonderland provides long shifts, and with long shifts come big money. Working at Wonderland has reminded me that money is really hard to find... [but easy at times ;) ] Because I'm a rehire this year, I won't be getting as many short shifts as I did last year. I don't think I'll ever work as much as many hours as I did for 2 weeks ever again: 110 hours (59:27 + 50:10 [You can do the math]). Anyone dare to challenge my record? I've already started treating myself to some very nice things: GBA DEEP SILVER EDITION (/limited edition Kingdom Hearts) 1 2 3 4, HP iPAQ RX3115 1 2 3 4 and Logitech X-230 sound system (pictures won't help you appreciate how amazing these speakers are.....). However, I think that the most expensive toy that I've played with (and ever will) would be Cliffhanger. It has an extra water button, a joystick and it occasionally causes the sky to rain toonies for some reason. Need I say more?

I must admit that one very big reason why I came back to Wonderland was because of the crew. It's a shame to see it split in half (literally) along with promotions and transfers. We held such great pride last year as a crew and as ride ops at Wonderland, but things happen that don't always go the way you'd want it to and people decide to go their own ways. So I suppose all that matters is that you're happy where you are. Take Care ex-Dragons...

2 seconds left eBay snipes

If you haven't heard of ebay yet, you've probably been living in a cave for the past 10 years.. For those that don't know ebay, it's basically a place where you can buy retail things, at non-retail prices~! WOW! Just like how we originally said 'normal people' don't use computers, and today, it's not uncommon to have 2 computers in a household: If you don't already have an ebay account, whether it be you simply haven't tried it yet, or your lack of trust of giving out your credit card number online: like my friend, who originally said he doesn't trust ebay... and now, he has bought $287.73 worth of merchandise in a matter of 2 weeks, your views on buying from ebay will change pretty soon.

Anyways, each item is a timed auction, and you can already guess what that means.. people bid at the very last SECONDs, screwing the current winning bidder, and winning by $1 or any similar small incremental figure. There is actually software that can 'snipe' for you if you are not near a computer when an auction ends: Auction Sniper, Bidnapper, SnipeSwipe, AuctionInsights, BidSlayer, Auction Sentry (Yes, very creative names).

Of course, you can easily protect yourself by bidding high. That way, if someone tries to snipe you, your armour will deflect their snipes, and they'll look like idiots. I was bidding on this 'rare' game on behalf of my cousin: Spikeout for XBOX, only 3500 copies made. On a side note: it seems that the demand for this game is actually very high.. It's somehow already sold out at Electronic Boutique stores 13 days before it's even released. I've already seen 2 auctions for it, in which the current high bids were $150 USD and $130 USD. I don't see how a Final Fight type game in 3D can be worth $150 USD, even if it is limited, but a quote from my cousin will give you a peak at what's in the minds of hardcore gamers who are willing to shell out money for this game:

I've waited for this game since Dreamcast... I've waited for 5 years...and the first reason I bought XBOX was because of this game... and now SEGA is making it a limited release...

Anyways, back on topic, some idiot tries to snipe me, with 2 seconds remaining and he gets served in the face. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? BIATCH.

It's quite amusing when you get sniped though. Last week, I was bidding on a complete set of Tintin hardcover books (very rare) on behalf of a friend. The auction ends at 18:27:56, we snipe at 18:27:41 (15 seconds remaining), then this guy named alexteri flies out of nowhere and snipes at 18:27:54 (2 seconds remaining), and so we lost by $1. The winner bidder was the one who showed no sign of presence for the 7 days of auction. PWNED I say.

Peace to thebroken crew, you are 1337!

"the broken", in short, is a "computer show" where a bunch of friends get together and show us the way of the h4x0r.

the broken crew consists of:
the two hosts: Kevin "d_tip" Rose and Dan "double_d" Huard
cameraman: Keith "switcherman" Harrison
hacker tip giver: Ramzi

They demonstrate everything from game console modding to play backups, social engineering to get free pizza for life, Windows password cracking, wireless WEP cracking and of course, we can't forget Ramzi's hacker tips: how to download warez, protecting your laptop's sensative data, and how to create a door buster for only $20. They also interview the greatest hacker of all time, Kevin Mitnick!

The first and only 3 episodes are finally up again. What are you waiting for? Go download them-> the broken dot organization