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Warren Shea

Archive for the ‘My Life’ Category

Singing Contest

Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 at 9:46 pm

I recently tweeted:

No1 at the office means I can sing aloud w/o fear of sounding terrible, which I most certainly do. If the monitors could shatter, they would

I love to sing. But I’m also quite bad at it. Not terribad, but bad.

Anyways, my friends in highschool and I used to have an N’CHYNK group (…like N’SYNC…but chinese). Like, it wasn’t an “official” group, we never officially preformed, but there were 6 or 7 guys who enjoyed singing occasionally.

Anyways, I lived with 3 of them in UWaterloo first or second year. One time, we had our old highschool friends come visit from Toronto and we were kinda bored and trash talking each other, and decided to have a singing contest.

It was best of 3 songs, me VS my friend. I chose a song, he chose a song, and the judges chose a song…I lost 1-2 and while I don’t remember what songs I lost to, the one I won to was:

Don’t Wanna Lose You Now – Backstreet Boys

As I’m singing to myself, quietly, I was just reminded of this moment and thought I’d write about it.

On another note, the song above has always been a favorite of mine. It’s probably my favorite non-single from the good ol’ pop days.

/back to work but might write more tonight and this wasn’t my intended post for today…

Accomplishments #5.5 – Mid March 2011 Edition

Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 11:59 pm

Shows / Movies
127 Hours – Done
ReBoot (entire series) – In Progress
Clannad (entire series) – In Progress
King’s Speech – To Watch
The Kids Are All Right – To Watch
The Fighter – To Watch
True Grit – To Watch
Winter’s Bone – To Watch

Books & Manga
Wicked (Novel) – To Read
Son of a Watch (Novel) – To Read

warrenshea.com
Finish my Social Network post – To Do

Gaming
Finish Super Mario Bros. (Wii) – Complete!
Finish Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) – slowly in progress

Web Development and Design
Start ASP.NET (4.0!) book – To Do
Start my HTML5 book maybe? – To Do

Other
Learn my Mac OS – in progress

Notes
Hmmmmmmmmmm………what have I been doing all month other than Mario? I guess I played that from the 5th to the 12th…so that’s 8/15 days.
I played a little DCUOnline, a little WoW (very very casually….like, 3 hours in the last 2 weeks), not much DOTA….I put stickers on Predaking one night…
Well. Honestly. I can’t think of anything. The last 2 weeks have been 1/2 games, 1/2 ????

End of month is looking rough, I think the next 2 weeks are the busiest work weeks I’ve had in like, 6 months. So while I want to say I’ll accomplish a lot, I don’t know if I will. On the plus side, I’m learning some new web things at work. I’m been thinking about my epic site database and how I want to do things…but I don’t know if I’ll start coding in April….even though I said I would…it doesn’t look like I’ll be ready enough.

I got a high contrast ultrasound done today as my original ultrasound and MRI proved inconclusive tests. The doctor poked me with a needle to inject contrast stuff into my blood…but couldn’t get a vein, so he had to take it out. It hurt. And there was a lot of blood. Good times. :S And then he tried again, in the same spot..and it worked….but I still wasn’t happy. I think they figured out, finally, what I have and it looks….non-harmful. Which is good, very good news. I see a specialist in early April so I’ll see what that guy says and confirm. Also, I got my (original) MRI appointment, the one I would have gotten if not for the other, rush, 6 day one. My MRI appointment is June 22, 2011. Sweet, only 4 months later! That really woulda come in handy /sarcasm.

Also, I have a DVD with my MRI on it. It freaks me out. There is no way that the inside of me looks so much like Space, the Final Frontier. Seriously tho, I looked at the MRI for a bit but after a while, I just couldn’t look at it anymore. It’s like looking at myself….if I had X-Ray vision. But not the X-Ray vision that can be used in the perverted way, it’s the X-Ray vision used in the disturbing “I wanna see your insidesssss” way. *shudder*

I thought of a lot of things to do and write about today, while I was working into the night…but alas, my post for the 15th is taken already. And I don’t think I’ll blog right after this as I have more work to do. Q_Q

Super Mario Bros. Wii – Review(?)

Sunday, March 13th, 2011 at 12:59 am

I started playing Super Mario Bros. Wii, by myself and seriously, on Saturday March 5. I started from the beginning and went through all the levels, but most importantly, getting all the 3 special coins per level. Some were pretty tricky. Anyways, originally I was only going to play a little by little…but I kept making such good progress, I figure why stagger myself. Rather get it completed and move on to something else (Zelda). Anyways, here’s a run down of what I accomplished each day:

Sunday: Worlds 1 & 2
Monday: World 3
Tuesday: World 4
Wednesday: World 5
Thursday: World 6
Friday: None
Saturday: World 7, 8, and 9

All in all, it’s a pretty easy game. Easier, imo, than Super Mario World (SNES) in terms of getting everything. For example, in Super Mario World, getting everything would be doing all x96 levels. Just the same, in this game, there are 9 worlds that must be completed but to get everything, you need the 3 special coins per level. But the levels are easier. I still think Super Mario World’s Tubular and Super Mario World’s Awesome are still harder almost than every level in Super Mario Bros. Wii….with the possible exception of 9-7, in which I literally spent more than an hour on (for 1 level!!! >:( ). I could have finished World 1 in the time it took me to do 9-7. Even then, to get all 3 special coins, I had to use 2 players to kind of hack the last coin. Oh well, after an hour, I just wanted to get it done (as I was 4-special coins away from having all of them). In terms of actual levels, Mario 3 was probably harder than this….

I can’t say much about Mario 64 or the GameCube Marios (like Mario: Water Gun Fun Time). Though Mario 64 would compare more to Mario Galaxy than Super Mario Bros Wii.

Anyways, this is what the final game looked like.


5 Stars = Everything.
I had accumulated around 99 lives at the beginning of World 3 and never dipped below 90 from that point on. Though to be fair, after I beat World 8 and unlocked World 9 (and could save at any time), if I’d ever lose too many lives, I’d just restart the game w/o saving, restoring me to a good save.

Playing Super Mario Bros. Wii was a lot like the (spectacular!) iPhone game: Cut the Rope, in which….it was easy to pass the level…but to really beat everything, you needed 3 stars to each level. Occasionally with Cut the Rope, I’d skip a level that was hard, only to come back to it. With Mario though, I never went to the next level without getting 3-coins…mostly just for organizational and course familiarity purposes.

Anyways, that game is DONE. I don’t plan on touching it again! It’s nice to complete a game :D In such a short time too.

Now – Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I noticed that they will be releasing a Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 3DS. I may purchase the 3DS for that game…so I can see how it will play with better visuals and possibly better sound/music. Also, it’s quite frustrating playing Zelda: OoT on a Wii Classic controller, knowing that it’s meant for the N64. It’ll be nice to play the game on 3DS and play it on a console/handheld that it was meant to be played on. I’m interested to see how they handle swapping weapons and using them.

But yeah, my goal now is to finish Zelda: OoT on the Wii BEFORE the 3DS version comes out. So now, I’ve given myself a bit of a hard due date. I doubt it’s needed though…I’m playing the Wii a lot lately so it’s not just collecting dust anymore. I just need to keep that up :D

Bier Market and Emily’s Birthday

Saturday, March 12th, 2011 at 4:13 am

As I’m still awake and don’t really feel like sleep nor playing terrible Mario in the Super Mario Bros. Wii game. I feel compelled to write. Write my ass off.

Let’s see, a year ago, my limit was 1 or 2 beers. It was low. It was laughable. Z’s parents actually did laugh at me at one point. How embarrassing. I’ve been improving myself…I can have a number of Coronas or Stellas or Canadians….but I find, especially after today, that my problem is not with the alcohol, but with the beer itself. Specifically the taste.

I used to get a Smirnoff Ice frequently but I find that has far greater negative alcohol affects than regular beer.

So let’s see. I had 2 glasses of Wine before going to the Bier Market. While at the Bier Market, I had a Stella, a Grasshopper, another Stella, and 2 Strawberry drinks. Girly, yes. But sweet and oh so good. So that’s 7 drinks. It’s strange though, a year ago, I would have felt the affect of drinking on my mind far more quickly than the effects I would feel on my body. In a year though, much has changed.

I noticed tonight that I always felt my mind completely in control, coherent, not affected at all. Sure, alcohol allows my personality to be a bit looser, but mentally, I’m still there. This blog post is proof of that. (but as I write this, I’m probably just writing: “duhhh….iam da king of universessses….”). Well, that’s what I imagine what I’m writing comes out as. But as the night went on, and after I’d had 7 drinks, I found that my mind was still completely sober. I did have terrible balance after 5 though….almost falling in the toilet stall as I lifted my foot to hit the flush…but able to keep my balance against the walls. My mind was fine, my body wasn’t. Which is disappointing, I’d rather be the opposite: my mind is drunk and….memory failing rather than body physically failing. Anyways, even that wasn’t terrible…I was able to talk to people I don’t generally talk to, be more open with people I’m usually shy around…it was great. And best of all, it was still me…but with an excuse not to be me, if that makes sense.

Also, while I didn’t refund any of my drinks (read: puke), I probably would have if my 6th and 7th drinks were beers. After a while, I just hate the taste of beer. But I could do with those strawberry drinks quite well, they went down easy. So…I’m proud I didn’t puke at all.

At around 1:30, my really good friend, who had drank a lot, and also hit on a couple girls only to be rejected (*sniff, we tried*) was smashed and forced to leave by the bouncer. Ironically, between drunk-o there and Z, who also had a lot to drink (but less than me), I was the most sober and clearly the “adult”. Which could possibly make sense as I also weigh the most and therefore, it’s more difficult for the alcohol to affect me. Anyways, I didn’t Ralph, like some people. We went to eat Pho’s at like, 2-2:30 am….I went back with drunk-o and made sure he got to his place okay, before heading home. All in all, the night cost more than $120. With paying for Z’s drinks, and the…4 cab rides throughout the night, it was pretty pricey. But I had a blast and it was all worth it.

So….I accomplished a more than usual alcohol tolerance/ingestion…with minimal side affects. Everyone noticed how much I drank, and how well I was able to handle it. It was quite….pleasing, knowing I had accomplished an impossible feat for one such as myself, in just a short time.

I had a truly memorable night, I can’t wait to see some photos that were taken of us.

All in all, it’s 4am right now, I’m tired, I fell asleep twice proof-reading this post….I think I’m at my mental limit, not because of the rates/excel sheets, moreso reading the conference registrations.

HOLY SH!T. That last sentence didn’t make sense at all. I wrote that all…on an empty dream filled head. I was seriously half asleep as I wrote that. You can tell as it’s not relevant to anything (except work). Ah…I should sleep before I cause brain damage…I could use a weekend of sleeping until infinity. I think I’ll start now….

Can your dreams outsmart you?

Saturday, March 12th, 2011 at 3:37 am

Let me just re-iterate various tweets I had today, which were in direct relation to the dream I had last night.

1. I’m pretty sure the characters in my dreams are much smarter than I am. I don’t know what they’re thinking and they always seem to outwit me
2. Last night, I had a dream that Amazon went to recruit me for a job. They offered be $120,000 and 7 weeks vacation. I tried to counter with 8
3. I then discovered that Dream Warren is greedy, much like his IRL counterpart.

I’m not one to often talk about my dreams…as they’re generally only interesting to the person that’s had them. I’ll make an exception for this post…as it’s not the dream that’s important, but the psychological importance of the dream mind and dream world.

It’s a pretty linear dream…I basically start off with some Amazon guys who have flown in from the US to recruit me as a developer. They offer me $120,000 to work there, and 7 weeks vacation. But I figure that it’s not enough…I try to counter-offer for 8. This explains tweet 2 and 3. Anyways, fast forward, and I’m working there but I don’t know what they want me to do.

This lady is explaining my job, and she’s using all these technical terms and acronyms that I don’t know.
“We develop in CVH here and render graphics with SVG1 codecs, cross-platform syncing, and texture manipulation throughout the vertices and axises on all objects in the geographical centralization”. That’s what it was like.
Now, I can’t understand a word she’s saying despite (and ironically enough) coming from my head.

I manage to pick out key words: Texture manipulation. All objects. Geographical centralization.

From that (or because of it?), I was able to determine that my job was to develop a way for textures to be automatically added to a 3D object using the points of the object. Say, you want a car to have a sandstone texture (I don’t know why, but this was actual imagery from my dream)…how do you develop that?

Anyways, that’s not the point. The point was that she was able to say all this really complicated stuff and I was only able to grasp parts of it.
I found key words she used to deduce my job, despite the fact that she said many things that I didn’t understand.
Was it all nonsensicalness garbage? Bogus words and keywords? Was it an unconscious mind with actual, practical knowledge that simply surpassed my own conscious mind?

Side Story: YEARS ago, between 5 and 10 year, I had a dream regarding a card with a robot on it, from my childhood. Now, this card was in my dream, but it had a word in it that I didn’t know.
“Incubus” it said.
I woke up and remembered the word, not knowing what it was or meant. As soon as I woke up, I went to Google to check. What is “Incubus”.
Incubus:
– An evil spirit supposed to descend upon and have sexual intercourse with women as they sleep.
– A nightmare.
– An oppressive or nightmarish burden.
Let’s ignore the perverted evil spirit sex stuff, as when I read the definition a few years ago, that didn’t exist. What I googled was that “Incubus” meant “A nightmare”. How…ironic or coincidentally that I would dream about a word, that represented a dream. I swear to God that I didn’t know what Incubus meant or where I’d heard it. I only remember seeing it on a card, and waking up and Googling the word to find out what it meant.

Anyways, the side story, as well as my stuff before that, was to signify just how…odd it is that my conscious mind wouldn’t be aware of things that my unconscious mind would seem to know.

In the past, rather recently in fact, I’ve had a conversation in my dream where this occured:
Me: I would say you’re in your late 20s.
Girl A: I’m actually only 23.
Me: Well, I was close. You look mature for your age! (that’s me trying to cover up the faux pas)

Now. This girl exists inside by head, but outside my knowledge. Is it possible to have completely separate thoughts when you’re unconscious? Can these characters and their thoughts exist outside of the control of the one that created them? Or am I God of the dream world, everything controlled by my unconscious, including the mind of my dream self which is enough to fool my dream self into remembering only what my awake self can remember?

Yes, it’s confusing. And as I write this, at 3:30am, with 7 beers/drinks behind me, I totally didn’t understand what I wrote above (pre-drinking)

I’m just wondering….can a dream be smarter than me?
Can it have more knowledge in the unconscious mind than my conscious mind?
Am I smarter than I’m aware of?

I tried to Google this question but came up with disappointing results. Apparently maybe this just happens to me.

I just find it odd that while I sleep, I control my mind, but also the rest of the world, relative to that dream self. Am I God of that world? Is my unconscious the real God while my conscious is just a mere mind among many (in the dream/unconscious world)?

Maybe I’ll explore this tomorrow…and right now, I’m clearly not in my top blog game. Which leads me to my next, and final post of tonight.