So I've started to eat poutine on a regular basis. What was something I ate maybe every couple months has turned into a once a week snack for me. A delicious but oh so unhealthy snack. It all started a few weeks back when we all went out for Tyson's farewell bash. The evening started out well with dinner but as far as drinking binges go, it was a pretty tame night. At 2am, with everyone way more sober than was reasonable, someone had the fabulous idea to go to Fritz's European Fry House.
I gotta tell you, that place makes the most kick ass poutine. I sampled some of their wares and it was awesome. If it weren't so far away, I'd go there for lunch on a regular basis. Wait, maybe I can take the bus! Well, anyways, since then I've been trying out poutine from a few different places.
Take it from me, do not get the poutine from New York Fries. It may seem logical that a place named New York Fries is incapable of making a dish from Quebec but I had to find out the hard way. Plus, is it just me or does 100% of people who buy from New York Fries are teenage girls? Fries in general are bad for you and should only be purchased when feeding a temporary craving.
Anyways, keeping that in mind, I've discovered a happy medium in the poutine from A&W. The gravy is tasty, maybe a tad too salty but that is a very minor complaint. I also like the cheese curds they use as well. They also don't skimp on the gravy which is one of the reasons why NY Fries gets a thumbs down.
I am hoping this thing I have for poutine will soon pass because it's not a very healthy thing to be doing. There's 26g of fat in a small A&W poutine alone. Four grams of that is the bad trans fat! I think I'll go to Fritz's this weekend and get it this poutine thing out of my system. Get it??!?! Out of my system?!?! That's a POOP joke!
And I'm going to go drink some non-caffeinated Coke.
I was supposed to write about the PNE tonight, maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I spent the last few minutes on The Generator Blog. It's a pretty sweet blog. It lists links to various sites that allow to make silly signs or pictures that are all customized to your liking. I made a custom seal that you see above.
They also have things like a cassette tape generator and an A-Team episode generator. The acronym generator told me that Erwin stands for "Enhanced Random Wide Input Network". Well, that's nice to know.
I was going to write about the PNE tonight but maybe I'll do that tomorrow. So I'm into my second real week of work at EA. There are a lot of differences between my old job and my new one but there is one thing that stands out. Most of the people on my team, the software engineers especially, are very experienced, senior people.
When I told some people that I was going to be working at the downtown studio, one person said that was surprising since they had heard they only hired SE II and above for that location. When I accepted the position, I signed on as an SE I.
It's clear to me now that there is some truth to the seniority thing. Most of the engineers on my team have at least three or more years of experience in making games, most of that with EA. I'd say the average is probably closer to five years of experience. They've written a lot of code and done a lot of things that make they very valuable to the company.
The one thing that strikes me is that the engineers have an almost casual attitude of solving really hard problems on a daily basis. It's not that they don't care but that they don't get to worked up about things because in the end, they know they'll find some solution. I work with some extremely intelligent people.
I can only confirm that there's just one other SE I on the team other than myself. That guy just finished university. We were talking one day and none of us could figure out if there was anyone else at our level. This is a bit of a departure for me since at my last job, there were predominantly junior people on my team, from engineering, to art, and to production. There was this "we're all in this together" type of attitude. Now, I got a dozen people I could learn a million things from each day.
And finally, in other news, a truck full of Tang overturned in Queens, NY. Not sure why I reported that, I just probably wanted to type out my last name.
Ever popular funny man Conan O'Brien hosted the 2006 Emmys award show on Sunday night. The awards were to be different this year with new rules in place that were supposed to give shows a better chance at winning.
Conan did a great job at hosting and it was one of the least stuffy award shows I've seen in years. His opening monologue after the intro sequence can be viewed here. Also, YouTube is filled with clips featuring Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart from the show. Oh if the Internet were a country, those two would be co-Presidents or co-Prime Ministers.
I got paid on Friday for the first time at my new job. Three weeks or so of pay on my first cheque. It was an actual cheque too. Despite bringing a voided cheque to orientation on my first day of work, EA decided cut me a cheque. Weird. The HR assistant was puzzled too and told me to bring another voided cheque so this doesn't happen again.
So now I'm thinking of what to do with my first paycheque. The responsible things to do would probably be save it or invest it. I could put it into my ING Direct account, you know like those commercials ask you to. Or I could invest it in a number of different ways. There are RRSPs, mutual funds, and some other funds that my financial advisor keeps telling me about.
While those are responsible things, they seem rather boring as well. On the fun side, I'm thinking of buying a Palm T|X. I've owned only one other PDA in my life and I barely used it. It was more of a novelty than anything else. Despite being a tool to "organize" my life, I still kept everyone's phone numbers on scraps of paper. The T|X will be different though. I know I won't use it to store phone numbers or addresses. It can display photos, play videos, play music, and connect to the Internet. It will make my somewhat short bus ride seem even shorter. Plus, it will be my first foray into the world of wifi.
I'm also thinking of buying an Xbox 360 but I don't think I'm very serious about that. I don't even have a decent TV to hook it up to, so that's gonna cost a lot more.
