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Warren Shea

Archive for September, 2013

Wii U – Zelda: Wind Waker HD!

Monday, September 23rd, 2013 at 1:34 am

Got my Wii U – Zelda: Wind Waker HD Bundle. Playing Super Mario Bros. Wii U on it at the moment. It’s pretty fun, playing the support character :)

I think I wanna buy GTA V though because…that just seems like it’d be a lot of fun :)





Sorry for the smudge prints and distorted thumb – that controller’s pretty heavy for one hand and I had to grip it rather tightly.

Look how nice that Zelda logo looks!

With Wind Waker, I can now start my whole Wind Waker + Phantom Hourglass + Spirit Tracks saga.
Though I’ll have a Zelda: A Link Between Worlds in November…
And I still have to play/beat Majora’s Mask and Twilight Princess. So basically, I’ve missed a lot of games.

The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
A Link to the Past
Link’s Awakening
Ocarina of Time
Majora’s Mask
Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons
The Wind Waker
Four Swords
Four Swords Adventures
The Minish Cap
Twilight Princess
Phantom Hourglass
Spirit Tracks
Skyward Sword

.
.
.

But if you take out the Game Boy games, it’s
The Legend of Zelda
Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
A Link to the Past
Ocarina of Time
Majora’s Mask
The Wind Waker
Twilight Princess
Phantom Hourglass
Spirit Tracks
Skyward Sword

I think I’ll try Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on my 3DS (with some helpful STATE (Save/load) playing – cuz that game is hard).
And I’ll play Wind Waker when it comes out so that afterwards, I can continue with my 3DS/DS games. And then, y’know, Major’s Mask and Twilight Princess afterwards. So many games. So little time.

Things I like/dislike about my travelling to the US

Monday, September 23rd, 2013 at 12:52 am

LIKE

  • The credit card machines are much faster and generally don’t require a pin – you swipe and you’re done asap.
  • If you’re in the left turn lane, there’s a traffic light on the corner…see the picture!

    So basically, if I’m the second car, at the bottom, behind a truck…I can’t see anything in the red area. So I can’t see the traffic light: when it’s red/green, whatever. So they put a traffic light on the corner, within the line of sight. It’s so smart!!
  • Cheaper everything – cheaper food, gas, clothes, dvds. Not only is the price lower than usual, there’s also a smaller sales tax (6-7%?) instead of our 13%
  • Wifi – a lot more wifi everywhere. They have Internet/Wifi in the subway! That’s awesome!
  • Deep Dish Pizza :)

DISLIKE

  • When you pay by credit card, a lot of places don’t bring a machine to you – you have to go up to the front to use the credit card. Get with the times, Chicago!
  • RE: Driving – People accelerate faster and jam the breaks harder, in general. They also don’t signal that often. And they’re more rude, in general (and more prone to road rage). One of the things that I noticed is that many of the drivers are on their cell phones a lot. Like…I glance around and EVERYONE is on their cellphone, driving on the highway. Not only that…they don’t have like, bluetooth or a headset or anything, they do the classic “phone between shoulder and face” thingy…it’s crazy!! SO DANGEROUS!!
  • Dangerous neighourhoods/abandoned homes. There was a recent shooting in Chicago (Thursday Night) – Cornell Square Park – 3 killed, 23 wounded. It’s a 15 minute drive from where I was, Friday Morning (Midway Airport). Not saying “that could have been me” but the area is definitely dangerous.
  • Cicadas. Lots of them…..making a lot of noise!

Chicago Part 2

Sunday, September 22nd, 2013 at 11:57 am

….there’s no Part 1.

I just went on my second trip (hence, Part 2) to Chicago – this time, solo! As you may/may not know, I’m not much of a traveller. I find the idea of going out of my comfort zone….uhh, uncomfortable. I also dislike the idea of going anywhere…uhh less safe. And the US scares the crap out of me. The fact that anyone, in theory, could have a gun – wtf is up with that?!

I must say, it’s pretty crazy travelling for work. I’ve got 3 developers on my team, 1 in Chicago and 2 in Milwaukee. That’s 3 people of my 15 person team. As such, I’m required to travel to the US roughly once a month.

With 4 nights stay at a hotel, car rental, round trip to Chicago and back, gas, plus food expenses ($45~/day allowance), the trip is like, $1500 total. I know it’s for work but I honestly feel pretty guilty, getting a ‘free’ trip and 4.5 days of food, expensed. And all I have to do is…well…work in a different office. I guess it’s cuz I’m still on a high of travelling – I’m sure it gets old – fast. But right now, I don’t mind at all.

I mean, I don’t have kids right now and I’m pretty much good and comfortable as long as I have an internet connection lol. So it’s not really such a huge personal burden on me. That’s probably why it’s okay…

I also really really like staying in a hotel :) The idea of…a nicely made king sized bed, unwrapping fresh, unused soap, seeing what shampoos are offered…the option of US channel TVs. It’s such a nice treat :D

I didn’t go out at night at all during the trip – I was home before it got dark each of the 4 nights (Mon-Thurs). Some of my co-workers totally scared me with ‘how things are in the US, after dark’. For example, I was saying I needed to drive to Chicago Friday morning and I might have to drive at like, 5am. They were like ‘do not get out of the car, for any reason – if a lady comes up to you saying her baby needs help or someone says their house is on fire, just drive away. They may as well be dead to you. I remember one time getting gas and I’m literally sliding a credit card through a pane a tiny crack of bullet proof glass’

When I was in Milwaukee downtown, it’s so eerily empty. Like, imagine the zombie apocalypse occurred, Milwaukee is like the deserted downtown. Seriously, I’m in the core of downtown, looking down in the street and I see like, 3 people walking around. Maybe 12 cars in my field of view. 12 cars! I would compare the amount of people of 9pm Milwaukee downtown with 5am Toronto suburb. If the zombie apocalypse were ever to occur, I’d go to Milwaukee. I imagine I’d be able to handle the zombie volume of that area.

I bought 2 T-Shirts from Hot Topic, a black shirt with a mini arc reactor on the chest. And a spider-man shirt.

I also bought 2 Blu Rays – Star Trek: Into Darkness and Good Will Hunting. Now that I go to the US, and can spend $800, I’m going to start buying all my Blu Rays there – there’s a mere 6-7% sales tax there (1/2 of Ontario) and the cases don’t have that French translation on the boxes, allowing for maximum design and…beauty!

My next trip to Chicago is Oct 21 – Oct 25. During that time, I plan to get a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tab (2014) :D Maybe 2.

As I finish writing this on the airplane as it’s about to land, I shall sign off.

Upon landing, I’m going to go home and then go hunting for a Zelda: Wind Waker HD Wii U!

Sunday I have family stuff but I want my Saturday to be just for me – whether it be web development or photography or maybe even work!

EDIT: Sept 22, 3PM – Added pics


My Rented Car – Chevy Sonic
An automatic (haven’t driven an automatic in a year!)



My hotel room at the Hyatt – pretty nice!

Braised Short Ribs
Smoked cheddar mashed potatoes, coilard greens, wild mushroom jus

Maple Pork Chop
Butternut squash risotto, caramelized apples, port cherry jus

warrenshea.com…needs an overhaul.

Monday, September 9th, 2013 at 2:26 am

I did this site a 1.25 years ago (! time flies !) and haven’t really touched it since.

While it’s good and the pinnacle of my development skill at the time, I’ve still grown (as a developer) since then.

I think my next project may be to update it. And not just update it, also design something that’s modern (and/or timeless) whilst also improving the code (MVC/modular/JSON/JSONP…whatever that is) and CSS. I’d also like to add to the portfolio section – not just the stuff I’ve done in the last 1.25 years, but also maybe add everything somehow. Even the non-relevant stuff – like art. But I’ll try to add it in a discreet and unobtrusive way. Also, I’d like to add my new job responsibilities. It never hurts to give the resume a good ol’ update.

In August, I had 5+ LinkedIner’s contacting me. And my LinkedIn profiles haven’t been updated in a while too. I’d really like to see what would happen if I really get out there.

I feel that I’m past my young prime. I feel like I’m at the start of the second phase of my career. If the first phase were called “Executor”, the second phase would be call “Strategist”.
Going from Junior Designer to Junior Design/Developer Hybird to Junior Developer to Intermediate Front-End Developer to Senior Front-End Developer to Development Lead.
And while Development Lead also sounds like an executor, I think the title Development Manager also applies, which is a strategist/management.

Anyways, I think it’s time for a warrenshea.com redesign/redevelopment. Also, it’d be good to learn something new and keep my skills from rusting. I still debug throughout the day but I haven’t developed something from scratch in a while.

Very excited about this.

And yes, my motivation came from another co-worker upgrading his site. “You won’t upgrade your site without me!” I cry, as I shake my fist in the air! RAWR!

Should I resurrect The Secret Project KB?

Sunday, September 1st, 2013 at 11:39 pm

When I left my Secret Project KB a few months ago, it wasn’t doing that well…some traffic, but overall nothing much.
I’ve started noticing more traffic to it lately….


(April 2012 to August 2013)

It’s not a huge spike but it’s pretty good overall.

One thing I did notice is that a few months ago, when googling “Kotobukiya Bishoujo”, my site wouldn’t come up for pages. Like, til page 3 or 5 or something I think.

Right now, that google phrase makes it come up #4. #4 !
It’s currently:
Kotobukiya USA
ebay.com
Facebook.com/kotobukiya
My site!
Amazon.com

…..my site is currently beating Amazon for this phrase!

I’m wondering, given that people are going to it more often, that maybe I should resurrect it.

I haven’t had much time for anything – my personal life has been kinda sh!tty lately (not cuz of problems, I mean cuz I don’t have time for anything lately) – but I’d like to go back and revisit my web projects.

Anyways, just some thoughts…. :)