Monday, March 29, 2010

PAX East

Well a nice read up can be found here.

Nice that it'll be finding a larger home for the next couple of years. The Hynes Convention was cool, but way to small, massive over crowding, huge queues and virtually impossible to get into any of the talks unless you wanted to spend hours queuing.

Highlights of the event, seeing the indies, a lot of local ones, but also from all over the country. MIT with their Gambit Lab helped having a large stand that local indies could be a part of which was great.

Also loved the classic arcade section, reliving childhood games, even playing the original Pong, that was awesome.

Plenty of new games being displayed, even Atomic Games, with their change in design from the dropped controversial game were there trying to drum up interest for their now download game.

Lots of surveys to be had, lots of prize raffles of gear to be had, plenty of swag, but most of it was pretty boring, nice t-shirts, but would have been fun to see some more original stuff.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Autodesk

Just a random post on Autodesk.

Video highlight of Max 2011 - http://area.autodesk.com/3dsmax2011#

Naughty Dog - Character and Animation, basic work flow video of the GDC talk - http://area.autodesk.com/gdc/ondemand12

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Lunch Out With the Little One

Just had lunch at a couple of places over the last few days, where I've not eaten before.


First was at Chick-Fil-A which was in a mall. The food wasn't what impressed me, because it was pretty meh, fried chicken and the kids meal was really limited to chicken nuggets and you had to pay extra to substitute the waffle fries for a fruit cup.

What was really good, especially for a place in a mall food court, the service. They offered to have someone take your food to a table if you had your hands full with a pushchair, never had that happen before and certainly makes up for the food. The waffle fries are awesome though!

The second place I tried, The Border Cafe. This was great, the kids menu had a good selection of meals from the usual grilled sandwich to chicken tacos with a decent serving of the string fries, salad, soft drink and a choice of chocolate or a packet of sweats for desert, all for $3.

Only down side seemed to be the fairly open plan of the place, which could have been the location I was at rather than the other restaurants. They had plenty of high chairs, but they were still a little low for the high tables and the lack of booths meant it did get quite nosy during lunch as it was very busy. The service was great, the food was out very quickly, all lovely and well priced with good portions and the fresh tortillas and salsa make for a great free snack while your waiting for your food. Loved it.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Zhu Zhu Pets are evil?

Quite the fad at the moment, Zhu Zhu Pets!

They're furry little toy hamsters that have little wheels so they can zoom around the floor and through their own little hamster track.

What makes them evil? Kids are kids, and though there is a tiny sticker underneath them saying not to put them anywhere near hair, kids will eventually put on on their or someone else's head. When that happens, the wheels which go like the clappers will tangle and snag the hair and the only way to get out of the tangled mess is by cutting the hair down to the scalp, either that or your kid freaks out and rips a chunk of hair off.

Seems to be quite a common theme, there's thousands of posts of this type of incidence happening all over the interweb.

Definitely not a toy for little kids, even though it does say over 4 year olds, I'd be sceptical about anyone younger than a teen playing with one of these and even then...