Holy Mother of Ikea!

Hey readers and listeners, my sincere apologies for letting my updates totally slide. Firstly, I've taken up a part time gig helping a friend finish up some decking and fencing work he has here in the city while I'm gainfully unemployed. This is keeping my days pretty busy but I still am trying to keep up with the blogging and podcasting. Some of you more astute readers might have noticed that the twitter feed is back (the the right hand side). I'm trying to use twitter (and the power of the iPhone) to keep a mini feed updated, both on the blog status and just my life in general. It's working so far so feel free to follow me if you have twitter yourself. I have recorded, for the third time, podcast episode 4. I lost the first one due to computer failure, and the second one had to be redone as more topics came up. So episode 4 is in the can and should be up this weekend. Show notes will go on right after it's been uploaded so look forward to that. On the work front, I've committed to going back to my old company in two weeks time so that may see a bit of a slow time for the blog as well while I'm trying to get back into the groove. Fear not, as twitter is your friend and I'll be certain to update the blog via email as well. What did we ever do before all this interwebs?? Oh that's right, we played chess through the mail. Cheers and see you on the other side of the mic.

Tuesday Update

Yeah, I know. I'm late again. Trust me, it's not all been fun and games this last week. There was a bit of personal stuff I had to deal with right away so the blog has be slightly neglected. But it's sort of back on track now so here's a quick update. I've played through the Too Human demo on XBL this past weekend. Took me about 45 minutes but I was taking my time, customizing my character, etc. I played as a Champion, which likes to fly around the screen and jump a lot. It was pretty fun, I would imagine it as a dumbed down Diablo clone (if that's even possible to dumb D down any further *read: SOJ, Dual Leech). I think I will give the game a chance when it comes out, I won't be putting down $60 for it since it's definitely not worth that but it's worth a few hours of my attention. The other major gaming event in my life is that I've started to dual-box for my World of Warcraft account. If you guys are up with WoW, you will know that the latest Refer a Friend has some pretty sweet incentives but since all my friends already play WoW and those that don't are simply not interested, I decided to refer myself and reap all the benefits. So far, it's been pretty good. I leveled from 1-15 on 2 character in a mere 2.5 hours. That's a personal record considering that's on 2 characters at the same time. I'm excited in seeing if I can bring this dual character up to 60 ASAP (or at least before I'm going back to work). Speaking of work, I'm looking to head back to my old job mid September. Hopefully they will have me, otherwise you will be able to visit the Ikeagamer at your local Wal-Mart soon! Podcast will be up tomorrow, and you can take that one to the bank!

Monday Update

Hello Superfans! This Monday update is going to be short and sweet. I'm going to be covering a lot of topics on this upcoming podcast and its corresponding show notes will have lots of the info I wanted to talk about as well. So for the short and sweet, here it is. I'm still unemployeed. I'm thinking things over still and have almost decided to go back to my old job. There's going to be complications and there's still a chance that when I'm ready to go back, they may not take me. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Currently, I'm trying to catch up on house work, yard work, and of course, games and TV that have been neglected for far too long. I just recently caught up on Burn Notice and that's one awesome show! From someone who still remembers Remington Steele, Magnum P.I., and those other detective shows, this is a major throw back to that era of television. If you haven't seen it, I suggest renting the first season on DVD or buy it if you're employed :) Look for the next podcast to be up by Wednesday night! Cheers and happy gaming!

And Here We Go Again

A new job has started for me. This is the second day and it's going pretty well so far. There are some surprises but mostly what I was expecting. The biggest change for me has to be the drive into work. As discussed earlier and during the first episode of the podcast, I am driving 40 KM each way. It's a lot to drive but I'm grateful that the car isn't a piece of junk. It's a bit early to tell if I am going to love it here or how long this time will be but I am truly hoping that it will be a while. I'm tired of moving around so much! As for any real updates, E3 is in full swing, and this year looks to be a better organized event than last. Microsoft has come and delivered their press conference with some mixed results. The new dashboard is interesting but my stake in that is really limited to whether it will brick my modded machine (/evil). The additions of 360 avatars is pretty stupid, but if they can make it into a social network similar to Facebook for the 360 then that would be something unique. And the availability of Netflix on the 360 is huge for XBL. I haven't watched the whole conference yet but if this service is available to Canada, I may just end up joining Netflix! At the basic subscription, it's cheaper than getting movie channels for your TV. More to come and look for a new episode of the podcast this weekend (Sunday/Monday) where I'll recap some of the E3 announcements and share my thoughts and opinion on the more important ones. Cheers!

Ikeagamer: Episode 1 The Phantom Business

Ok, podcast episode 1 is live. You can subscribe to it over on the right or you can play it in the embedded player. iTunes will have this podcast up in the next few days. As promised, here is the link to that Mazda 3 crash test in which it received a 4 star rating. MGS4 bundle with the 80GB PS3 will be unboxed this week and I'll post up some impressions of MGS4 as well. I'm going to try and play through MGS2 before jumping to 4 and probably will be skipping 3 all together. As for what the BWM 128i is, you can visit the official BMW site to take a look and I'll post some pictures of the new car this week as well. Thanks everyone for visiting and if you have any suggestions for the podcast, please email to:

How To Lose a Job in 10 Days

Okay, I didn't lose my job. But there have been two co-workers that have been "let go" in the past three weeks. I'm currently working on a high profile project, one that is surely a "lifetime" building. This mean that I will probably never in my career see another project of this size/scale/type again. This also means that there are lots of people involved and everyone is required to pull their weight. Which is also a part of the difficulty in understanding these firings. If we are so strapped for people, why were these workers let go and yet other that were even less productive are allowed to stay? I didn't know these two people very well so I can't satisfy my curiosity. However, it does put things into perspective for me. It doesn't really matter how hard you work for your employer, because when push comes to shove and they need your spot for someone better, you can bet that you will be asked to leave. Sure, you can put in your hours and be as productive as you possibly can be, but once they see that you aren't living up to their expectations of you, they will can your butt rather than see where you may be needing help or guidance. There's a saying in Chinese and I think it sums up how I've decided to deal with this situation. The saying was told to me again by a friend and I think it fits quite well. It goes, "If you have your hands and feet, you have nothing to worry about." Which is very true of most of the Chinese culture. We are usually very hardworking and dedicated to our jobs. The exceptions seem to only apply to the Chinese workers in my office which I find extremely odd and annoying. But in general, we work without much complaint. However, the western culture doesn't foster hardworking individuals, instead it punishes them by giving them more work and higher demands. I've ranted on this subject before so I won't dwell on it. But it's just becoming more and more apparent to me. With that bit of background information about my week. You know I am going to need this weekend. I'm hoping to get at least a few hours of solid gaming in somewhere in the next two days. I've started to swim everyday at lunch to try and get back into shape so that should boost my energy level a little bit. For the mean time, I'm still hooked on Lost and I can't seem to stop watching Season 3 even though it seriously lacks the tension and suspense of the previous two seasons. Lets see how Season 4 will turn out. Oh, and I'm still looking for a Macbook Pro. With the latest refresh being not that substantial, I'm probably going to wait until June or right before September to see what else Steve will bring to the table. Peace.