Mostly Tigerproof » Mundane Personal Updates

On Holiday

Craig Timpany — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:28:53 +0000

Yay! Clone Wars is all finished up and I’m on holiday. I’m going to be visiting Italy later on, but until then I’ll be screwing around on personal projects.

I’ve been experimenting with web technologies and it’s a nice contrast to console games. I feel that the immense amount of labour and development time in console games has isolated developers from players. With Flash there’s far simpler technology and a culture of releasing early and releasing often. It’s an inspiration to see the Flash devs getting player feedback weekly rather than annually!

I hope to have some interesting prototypes to show off shortly.

time for a holiday

Craig Timpany — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 01:09:12 +0000

One of the symptoms of working as a coder for too long is that you get overly organised. My daily life is all too often a list of lists.

You spend your time at work going through the list of bugs assigned to you, following lists of steps to reproduce the bug, jotting down a timeline – a list of occurances. Then you get home and follow a TO-DO list or a shopping list.

Do that for a while and pretty soon you’ll feel like a human s-expression interpreter. I suspect that time management and spontaneity are natural enemies.

So – time for a holiday. At first I was thinking Hong Kong, because it’s like a concentrated portion China, except well run. Heading off into the 3rd world for a first overseas trip seemed a little daunting, so I figured I’d pick something fairly affluent and Western for starters.

I’m having second thoughts though. It’s starting to become apparent that after I’m finished up with the Jackass project, it’ll be Hong Kong’s hot and humid rainy season. Any recommendations folks?

Update! I’m gonna take a tour through Hong Kong and China.

No longer homeless

Craig Timpany — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 04:26:53 +0000

I have a flat. Just in time too, I start work tomorrow. Luckily it’s somewhat furnished: I have somewhere to sleep. I ran out of time, so it’s not a completely ideal pad (my sole flatmate is a heavy smoker, for one thing), but I’m pretty pleased nevertheless.

I’ve learnt my lesson, 4.5 days is not enough time to navigate an unfamiliar city, find a flat, and furnish the bedroom. Not enough time for me at least, I imagine a friendlier, less sullen, more car-owning person could probably do better.

Wellington weather

Craig Timpany — Sat, 10 Jun 2006 04:35:37 +0000

When I started mentioning the move to Wellington, a lot of Aucklanders pointed out that it was the middle of winter and said I’d need to buy wooly hats, gloves, etc.
Well, it’s been three days and I’m pretty much adjusted to the cold. I was expecting to be uncomfortable or something, but I guess the cold training I received from the bogan elders in the snowy wilderness of Invercargill has kicked in.

Wellington needs street signs

Craig Timpany — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:29:04 +0000

Is it me, or are only about half the streets in Wellington signposted? I’ve been attracting a lot of concerned stares from the other pedestrians from the way I’ve been staring intently into the scenery, looking for street signs. Where are they all? It’s not that they’ve been stolen by Massey students; the signposts just aren’t there. How on Earth do you folks drive in these conditions?

That’s not a flat, THIS is a flat…

Craig Timpany — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 04:15:05 +0000

Flathunting continues, without any tangible progress. I viewed a particularly strange flat on Blair St. It was just off Courtenay Pl. surrounded by bars. There was a small doorway leading to two flights of stairs. At the top there was a cavernous lounge and doors in every direction. The landlord told me it was a 16 bedroom place. Never in my pathetic sheltered existence have I seen a flat with even half as many bedrooms.

The room was nice enough, but obviously I didn’t get to meet all my 15 prospective flatmates. I asked one of the guys that was there whether any of the flatmates would have a say as to who moved in. He said it was pretty much a case of the first person to front up with the bond to the landlord. It’s kinda like a boarding house, or a hostel, but without a manager present and only one bathroom. What’s more, I don’t remember any locks on the bedroom doors.

Imagine one of your old high school classrooms, kick out one half of the pupils. Now imagine living with the remainder. It’d be a statistical near-impossibility for there not to be an asshole in the group. This place must have flatmate politics worthy of the Balkans. I didn’t see any UN peacekeepers so the international community might’ve already given up. The kitchen, well, it looked just how you’d imagine the kitchen of a 16 member student flat would look.

I really really have to find a flat soon, so I’d consider moving in, but I’ve got possessions I’d miss if they were stolen/drop kicked/buried/painted offensive colours.