Author Archives: Dorian

6 Weeks Away and Everything Changes

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I go away for 6 weeks and everything here changes. Its a strange feeling. When you live in a place for so long, that everything seems in stasis but its not. Maybe I am just noticing something everyone knows about.

So while I was away, my best friend Dmitri and his girlfriend Sarah got engaged. Now they have been dating for a few years. But the news of their engagement… Wow! Congratulations!

All the other news pales in comparison. When in Italy, I met and hung around with a girl named Laura. To make a long story short, Laura and I are unofficially in a girlfriend-boyfriend long distance relationship. Now I will definitely admit that I don’t have too much confidence in long distance relationships normally but… I guess I am kinda in love with Laura.

Also Carmen Hung, one of my friends from university finished her undergraduate studies. And she started blogging too. Congratulations and welcome to the blogosphere Carmen! You can read up Carmen’s blog here: http://carmenhung.blogspot.com/

Finally in less interesting news, I joined the Steam Community Beta. Unfortunately I don’t have too much time to play nowadays. But I might be online sometime in the evenings. Beside I am saving up my gaming time for when Half-Life 2 Episode 2 comes out.

I think that about covers most of the news from my side now. I will keep you updated as the situation progress.

Home Again, Home Again…

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Back in sunny, and fortunately not scorching-hot Toronto. Actually, I flew in on Wednesday but I need about two days to unpack, clean up and readjust. Everything around the house is still in various levels of disorganization, disaster and chaos. So nothing much changed since I left, at least around here.

Anyways, currently I am employed at home cleaning up. Hopefully in the evening I will start my job hunt. A slightly daunting task to say the least, but I need to get off my lazy bum and start earning some money. After all the 8 hours transatlantic flight allowed me to come with a shopping list of things I need… and want. The vacation gave me many things to think about. But I do not feel comfortable listing out all my personal thoughts here. I already posted too much information about myself thats floating around the web.

One thing that I want to start up again, are all the open source projects I left off. Also I need to start writing again, but this time for actual publication. There is so much I want to do. Sigh. Where should I start? Maybe a round of UT2004, and then I will take it from there.

Chilling in Umbria

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Okay. I admit it: I have been too lazy to write updates in a while. Instead I am enjoying the “high” life in Terni, Italy. Mostly just learning Italian (Mia italiano e povero, perche sono canadese e non sono italiano.) via translation from Polish (yes, its doable), travelling and chilling. Travelling certainly expands one’s perspective of the world. I learned how a subtropical climate looks and feels. I learned why siesta is a great idea and a great excuse for sleeping in the middle of the day. I learned how difficult it is to learn a new language. I even may have experienced how its feels to be desired. Apparently my profile resembles that of Tom Cruise’s. w00t!

Anyways, I could not describe all the things I experienced in this past week. Or I could of just grown truly too lazy to exert myself. The hot, dry Mediterrean sun has that kind of effect on a person. Or I might be enjoying Terni and its welcoming people too much. Its funny, how my Northern European attitude towards at least some form of organization, is seen as workaholism by Italians. Seriously, guys wanting to clean up after my own mess and me being lazy are not mutally exclusive.

Its getting late. Maybe I will write more tomorrow. Maybe.

In Reverse Chronology

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Yesterday, I turned 24. Or 109 in dog years. I feel old when I think about it that way. But then again, reflecting back these past 24 years have been eventful. Thanks to everyone who helped, guided and positively influenced me over the course of those years. I just hope that the next 24 years will be just as fascinating, exciting and important as the past 24.

Monday, I officially received my diploma. Tired from lack of sleep, and a dentist appointment in the morning, I showed up just in time for my celebration. Now I have a real degree in my hands. I heard that someone cheered my name when my turn to shake the chancellor’s hand. That day I realized that I could achieve a dream. Further more, I was not just another name. I was a someone, at least for someone other than my own family. And again when I met up with my friends after the ceremony. Thanks Rob, Dan, Albert, Arnold, Konrad, Adwoa, Scott and Miranda for all the happy university memories, for making me feel special and for graduating together with me. Congratulations!

Today, I paid off my university loan. And the preparation for my adventure in Europe begins!

Travel-o-mania

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Okay today was catch up day. Too tired to write much. Too much planning of the trip, and getting the front yard done. More stuff tomorrow, promise. Maybe.

At least I finished editing the Style Guide for the justCheckers project. Also played a bit of World of Padman and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., both are quite fun and impressive in their own right. But I will not write a review of World of Padman, until I have the time to play around with it more. Whenever that will happen.

Goodnight.

Too Much Trip Planning

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Its late, but I feel obligated to post at least a short blog post. I wanted to write the article today, but time did not permit. Hopefully, I will have more time tomorrow.

Anyways, I started the day with the hope of completing a good chunk of the “landscaping” project. But I started late in the day. And then we got a call from Ewa from Poland. The rest of the day shaped out into a long day of buying airline tickets. So its official, I leave for Poland and Italy, late June. No going back now.

Tomorrow, I will try to accomplish all the work I was supposed to today. Too sleepy to think or continue now. Night.

New Feature: Feature Articles

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Starting with hopefully tomorrow, I want to introduce a new feature to this blog. I would like present a few articles about the game development, the open source/free culture world, and computing in general. Hopefully, I can share with you some ideas I notice as a person who lives and breathes in these three, often quite different universes. The plan is to present an article a week. How well this will go we will see.

Also I plan on releasing posts on a regular, daily basis. Again since I am subject to the laws of space, time and entropy, I will admit that I might be too busy or unable to post. However, I will try to conform to both the universe and offer a consistent interesting reading material for my readers.

Finally, as a favour I again ask anyone who reads this blog, and is brave to post a comment. I tried using Technorati, and other tools… but I find it impossible to track my audience. Are you guys silently lurking in the shadows or are you?

When Things Fall (Part 2)

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I wanted to write and post the second part yesterday. But having scraped my fingers whilst gardening, any finger intensive activity like blogging or gaming had to be postponed. Now my fingers seem better, so I will continue where I left off…

(Monday) …having arrived late into the night from Niagara Falls, I was not too keen on waking up in the morning. When I did, I realized I missed out on a full day of work. Actually, I pondered whether or not yesterday’s trip was not a waste of time. Not that I did not enjoy the company. But I think everyone going hiking would of been more fun. Then again I am not sure Rob, Tangay or Echo would of enjoyed hiking. But I could of done so much work… As you can tell, I am a bit of a workaholic, and think about doing something productive even on a national holiday. Its sad, I know.

After some progress in landscaping our frontyard, I hoped to catch up on some old work for a client. However, my client told me that the project I was supposed to work on finished already. And so thanks to my inconsistency and overambition, I did not uphold my end of the bargain. And I got rightfully burned. I was overambitious while still in university, and took up a job I could not finish. Now I am no longer certain of my abilities. I hoped that at least that I could get ahead in my professional life. But I failed. The rest of the day, I devoted on chores to ignore this haunting thought.

(Tuesday-Thursday) Everyday started like many others. Chores, gardening, a lot of ego-surfing and more gardening. Oh and I kept on busting my fingers. Not because I do self-masochism. I am just clumsy, and too unhappy to be more cautious. I read some more of McKenzie Wark’s Gamer Theory. On the subject of games, I should be resurrecting the justCheckers project. This means I should invite the developers back into active coding again. But considering what happened recently, I worry if I can truly lead the project still. Tomorrow I will see if I can work up the courage to continue to the next step. Much like the lyrics in Rachel Loy‘s Big Sky song: My life’s not over, just twisted out of place.