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New Arrival: The UNO Synth

Just a Gwai Lo - Thu, 10/11/2018 - 21:13

Toronto held a synthesizer expo in August of this year, and it coincided with a pager duty shift. That meant I was able to visit, but I couldn't hang around it long. The purpose of my attendance was to gather information, and to see if Teenage Engineering would have a booth. They did not. I talked to the Roland folks, and mentioned that I was new to synths, and told them I was looking at the Pocket Operator series.

Published by Richard on October 11th, 2018

How I Use OmniFocus Notes

Just a Gwai Lo - Wed, 10/10/2018 - 11:38

I use OmniFocus to keep track of what needs to be done on an individual level. All sorts of projects, from buying and framing art to starting hobbies to making notes about things to look up later get jotted down in OF. If I was ever lacking in things to do, that is no longer the case, with almost 900 open actions in 117 projects.

Published by Richard on October 10th, 2018

Ward 10 (Spadina-Fort York) All-Candidates' Meeting

Just a Gwai Lo - Tue, 10/09/2018 - 23:25

Spadina-Fort York is a federal riding, a provincial riding, and a Toronto ward, and the boundaries are identical. Being from British Columbia, and having spent most of my adulthood in Vancouver (which does not have a ward system), the riding boundaries do not match at all. The recent changes to the wards in Toronto (from 44 to a proposed 47 to an eventual 25) set the wards to match the provincial (and therefore federal) ridings.

Published by Richard on October 9th, 2018

I Own a SodaStream

Just a Gwai Lo - Mon, 10/08/2018 - 20:19

For years (really, years and years), I was and still am a loyal Coca-Cola drinker. At every job, it would take about a week for colleagues to realize just how often I drank it. There haven't been many days that have gone by where I haven't had a Coke, which I alternate between thinking of as a mark of shame and shrugging off as an aspect of my personality. I'm not saying I can tell the difference in a blind taste test, but Pepsi cola lacks the zing that Coca-Cola has.

Published by Richard on October 8th, 2018

My Sunday Routine

Just a Gwai Lo - Sun, 10/07/2018 - 19:14

Back when I thought I wanted to be a sysadmin, I read Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas A. Limoncelli. The sections that appealed to me the most were about routines. The routine of his that I always remember is that he gasses up his car on Sundays. Despite being a believer in the cashless society, the thing I always do now on Sundays is get cash. That way I don't have to think about it for another week.

Published by Richard on October 7th, 2018

Flowers

Just a Gwai Lo - Sat, 10/06/2018 - 14:02

The Toronto Flower Market takes place a few times during the summer, and I try to buy something there each time to brighten up my apartment.

Published by Richard on October 6th, 2018

Three Years at Acquia

Just a Gwai Lo - Fri, 10/05/2018 - 19:07

Today marks my third anniversary of working at Acquia. This job has been more stressful than I imagined it but also with more laughs, learning and love than I imagined. Today was a good example, where an issue affected multiple customers and I ended up being the communications lead for the problem, but through teamwork and empathy we each played our part and kept things as light as possible while we figured out what was wrong.

Published by Richard on October 5th, 2018

It’s Relatively Cheap to Get Started With Making New Sounds

Just a Gwai Lo - Thu, 10/04/2018 - 21:37

I’m not really sure what I was doing at Drone:Klub:21 beyond listening to synthesized music coming at me from all directions. It was pretty cool seeing men (let’s face it) agree on a key and a tempo and make new sounds from electrons, but I’m one of three “audience members” in four chairs provided. There were three times as many performers as listeners.

Published by Richard on October 4th, 2018

Another Year as Director at Large for the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto

Just a Gwai Lo - Wed, 10/03/2018 - 13:39

I will server for another year on the board of the Icelandic Canadian Club of Toronto.

Published by Richard on October 3rd, 2018

FaceTime

Just a Gwai Lo - Tue, 10/02/2018 - 17:47

Despite being somewhat socially isolated in Toronto, I've felt connected to my friends in Vancouver through video chat.

Published by Richard on October 2nd, 2018

What Went Well/What Didn't Go Well

Just a Gwai Lo - Tue, 10/02/2018 - 00:20

I write post-mortems for significant events so that the next time will go slightly better.

Published by Richard on October 1st, 2018

Assumptions About Rocket League’s Progression and Clubs Update

The Gaming Years - Wed, 08/29/2018 - 12:50
Progression

Rocket League is set to release changes to their progression tabulation. There will be rewards for levelling up, no upper limit on the level, and a new XP system. Players will earn extra XP for finishing a game, so that should discourage demands to forfeit (‘ff’ in the parlance of chat). That should also discourage teammates from leaving a ranked game, which meant those who stayed were shorthanded. For unranked games, if you join a game and stay till the end, you’ll have an incentive to stay even if it’s a blowout or your teammate is frustrating.

Maybe some unwritten rules (that only I seem to abide by) might be strengthened. Since there’s an incentive to finish a game out no matter how many goals you’re ahead or behind, I’m thinking of the unwritten rule against running up the score (which wastes time for both parties, since goals have replays and a face-off). Maybe if the score is a blow-out, we’d institute a rule for the rest of the game, my favourite being to turn around and play backwards.

Clubs

The limitations on clubs seem low. I don’t think the club I have in mind for work will exceed 20 players, but what if it did? And I can think of some people who wouldn’t be able to join that club, so being a member of only one club seems like a limitation that will be lifted at some point. I plan on being a leader of the one club I can join, and members of others if they’ll have me (assuming that restriction no longer exists).

Assumptions About Rocket League’s Progression and Clubs Update was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Location-Based Reminders, As They Are Now, Aren’t Very Useful.

Just a Gwai Lo - Wed, 07/04/2018 - 14:34

A delay, not to mention more contextual awareness, will improve the current crop of apps that send you reminders based on your physical location.

Published by Richard on July 4th, 2018

Rocket League Season 5 and Season 6

The Gaming Years - Thu, 02/08/2018 - 16:18

Season 6 has just come to a close. I didn’t realize that I could get a silver badge for my efforts in Season 4’s competitive matches. In online play, there are bronze, silver and gold levels, with levels within each. Win a game, and you’re likely to advance a tier. Lose a game, and you’re likely to be relegated a single tier. (And cry a single tear.) I didn’t take Season 4 seriously, but I did gain a bronze badge. In Season 5, I won enough games at the silver tiers to get that reward at the end of the season.

Photo by Leximphoto on Unsplash

Season 6 introduced Haunted Hallows, a time-limited event where players are awarded candy corn which they can redeem for Hallowe’en-themed items. I got all the items save for a 3rd crate, so I’m pretty happy. At the beginning of the event, my opponents would forfeit as soon as they got a certain amount of in-game points (a goal is 100 points, and points would help determine whether you were the MVP of that game, assuming it was more than 2-on-2 or higher). They would even forfeit right when they themselves scored first, which wasn’t fun at all. A few days later, forfeits ceased. The best I could tell is that someone gamed the candy corn system and Psyonix caught on (or responded to complaints) and adjusted the rewards so that it incentivized complete games.

Photo by Simon Matzinger on Unsplash

At the end of the year, the game introduced Frosty Fest. I left my apartment for 3 weeks, and very seriously considered taking my PS4™with me across the country to get all the items. I settled for the thing I wanted the most, which was the sweater banner, which shows to the other player after I score a goal in any mode.

I lost interest in trying to grind for to get a gold-level season. It was frustrating, during one-on-one competitive play, to have players say “easy” to me if they started winning, or “No problem” if the score was slightly in my favour. I ignored it for the most part, but I don’t consider it very friendly to tell me you’re going to wipe the floor with me. Let me lose with some dignity!

My favourite altercation is when an opponent called me a “pussy” during a match when I was down by a significant margin, a game I would go on to win. Always stay till the end, I say.

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It also bugs me that players will run up the score even when the game is essentially over. There seem to be few unwritten rules in Rocket League, but this is something I’ll never, ever do. If I’m up by 3 goals and it looks like I’m going to win, I take my foot off the pedal and decide to play defence exclusively. Goalkeeping is a shortcoming of mine, so it’s a chance for me to practice, and, I hope, for my oppponent to gain some experience. This game is fun, OK? Fun goddammit.

Rocket League Season 5 and Season 6 was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My Recommitment to Gaming for 2018

The Gaming Years - Wed, 01/03/2018 - 19:02

I’m in for another year of gaming. MLB 17: The Show, which I purchased, as usual, late in the year at half price, sits in my suitcase. I made a commitment to buy a keyboard extension to my PS4™ controller so I can ask Rocket League opponents why they feel the need to run up the score on me. Based on the reviews, the Bluetooth connection between the keyboard and the console dies after a minute of non-use, which sounds like a very short amount of time. A similarly short amount of time elapses between the “second screen” iOS app, which Sony had the wisdom to make a separate app, and it disconnecting. Standing in the Best Buy, with a week between my reunion with my gaming platform of choice, I decided to buy the Chatpad or Chatboost online, and ordered closer to when I get back so it will be waiting for me at the door (or at least arrive shortly thereafter).

I have gone 2 weeks without gaming, for the bulk of Rocket League’s Winter Event, now over. My time with the event was long enough to get the banner, which is all I wanted in terms of items. 2018 will bring season 7, coming soon, and who knows what kind of special event that I’ll almost certainly be traveling for half of. I still like Rocket League enough to want to be better than just good at it, somewhere between good and great, or at least just good enough that my teammate in 2-on-2 doesn’t express their frustration with me. That might involve coaching beyond the lessons that are inside the game, which I have opinions about.

This single-year blog turned into a multi-year effort, hence the renaming in August of the site to The Gaming Years. I registered a Twitter account for the site if following that is more your bag. As long as there’s time to kill, I’ll keep gaming, and as long as I’m gaming, I’ll keep writing about it.

My Recommitment to Gaming for 2018 was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Random Run: David Balfour Park to Mt. Pleasant Cemetery

Just a Gwai Lo - Thu, 12/07/2017 - 21:11

After two years of living in Toronto, this city is still new to me, so I took the opportunity to pick a random point and make a randomly generated route that I could run.

Published by Richard on December 7th, 2017

Rocket League Season 4

The Gaming Years - Wed, 08/09/2017 - 16:05

I got distracted from Rocket League by the current political situation in the United States and by playing MLB 16 The Show (which I buy at the end of the season for half price). The only notable thing that happened in Season 4 is that I plateaued in my skills and had to hide my level (determined exclusively by amount of experience) because my “teammates” couldn’t believe I was that level and that bad. Now that they don’t know my level, they can believe I’m bad for whatever reason they like. I went without playing RL for long enough to lose my ranking in competitive play sometime during the season.

Players have, for a while now, been able to add training sequences, so practicing is a lot easier and can be done in the privacy of my own arena. An example of my progress: I can now do arial hits from the wall with more regularity, and I spend more time in casual mode to warm up.

Season 5 has started and the arenas are refined. Neo Tokyo lost its ramps but still feels like the old arena, just easier to play. I continue to dislike Wasteland as being too big. Chats can now be exclusively private, so that teammates don’t have to be frustrated with me in public. The best experience of the latest patch so far has been playing with an obviously more-skilled player who would continuously want to play again after we were done. I got better as we went along, and wished the player goodnight when they outlasted me. I wish more players were like that.

Rocket League Season 4 was originally published in The Gaming Years on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cycling Again

Just a Gwai Lo - Mon, 06/26/2017 - 18:34

I'm commuting between work by bike again. I signed up in 2016 as a member of the Toronto Bike Share, and renewed again this month. Their call centre operation is weird, with a call center that presents options for English and Spanish. This being the country where English and French are the official languages, I have an idea of what that means. I haven't had a problem with their support when needed, at least.

Published by Richard on June 26th, 2017

Picnic

Just a Gwai Lo - Thu, 06/22/2017 - 17:50

I show off my picnic basket and blanket.

Published by Richard on June 22nd, 2017

I Missed Tom Hawthorne’s Book Launch

Just a Gwai Lo - Thu, 05/25/2017 - 10:18

I would have gotten him to sign my Kindle.

Published by Richard on May 25th, 2017

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