September 2011
1 post
ellebannana asked: Who eats all those cupcakes you make??
June 2011
4 posts
Anonymous asked: Why did you leave Bungie?
1 tag
Banoffee Cupcakes
Toffee
I don’t know if you ever have made toffee before, but here’s how I do it.
Get cans of Eagle brand (or similar) sweetened condensed milk.
Place unopened, unpunctured cans in a LARGE pan of boiling water on the stove, and cover. The water must go over the top of the cans.
It is important that the cans remain covered with water at all times, or the risk of explosion...
My Microsoft E3 2011 Opinions
Modern Warfare 3: Looks pretty, still don’t like their gameplay.
Tomb Raider: Looks awesome, please come with 12” “distressed” Lara Croft action figure.
Mass Effect 3: Looks awesome, and I hope it recognises my accent.
Gears 3: Looks solid.
Fable Journey: I’m done with this franchise.
Halo CE Anniversary: Uninspiring but I’ll probably get it just to play...
Look up. What do you see?
I see a blue sky turning purple with the sunset, crossed with airplane trails and wispy clouds that fade out over the distant ocean, bordered by trees that smell more amazing than they look like they should. I love it here.
Time Keeping
I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting old, because I recently had a child, because of my relocation to California, or just because I’m an irresponsible asshole, but I’ve found that I care increasingly less about time keeping. There are obvious exceptions - I wouldn’t want to miss the start of a movie, or miss a flight - but on the whole I could not care less...
May 2011
17 posts
2 tags
I am Invincible
I’ve found that being a father quickly makes you invincible. In the past 24 hours I have been:
Kicked in the balls at least four times.
Headbutted on the nose twice.
Kicked in the face while sleeping.
Bitten numerous times
If the assailant wasn’t a 20 month old little girl, I’d be pressing charges.
Deppenapostroph
I had a discussion with a random German on the Internet last night about the misuse of apostrophes, spurred by my iPhone assuming that whenever I type “its” I mean “it’s”. I don’t, for what it’s worth.
I apologised for my misspelling and explained that I was embarrassed at my use of a “greengrocer’s apostrophe”, and he went on to tell me...
2 tags
“We could cuddle, if you like. Just don’t freak out if I look a little...”
– Jessica, on daytime cuddling. True Blood 2x07.
1 tag
3 tags
Etymology of a Console
I read a couple of days ago about the final Xbox “founding father” quitting Microsoft. In the article it mentions that the origin of the Xbox was the idea to create a console based on DirectX technology, dubbed the “DirectX Box”. I think it’s clear how this morphed into the console’s final name.
But I wondered why DirectX was so named, and Wikipedia jumped to...
1 tag
Anonymous asked: Is it pronounced "Both are I" or "Bother-y?"
1 tag
tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR EARLIEST HUMAN MEMORY?
1 tag
“Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you...”
– Unknown
3 tags
True Blood
Since HBO Go came to the iPad, I’ve started watching True Blood. People will tell you that True Blood is a TV show about vampires, but that’s like saying The Lord of the Rings is about a ring. It’s technically accurate, but fails to mention the supporting cast.
I like the way they’ve handled the whole vampire thing. Instead of “holy shit, vampires!”, they are...
2 tags
California Smells
I’ve been in California for six months now, and the most striking thing I have noticed is that it smells. When I’m driving I like to have the windows down, taking advantage of the new found sunshine, and over the last six months I’ve been subjected to a myriad of smells unlike anything I’ve experienced in the great outdoors before.
Eucalyptus. It’s everywhere. It...
1 tag
2 tags
Mexican Hot Chocolate Cupcakes
This week I decided to make some Mexican hot chocolate cupcakes. I used this as the base of the recipe, although I made a couple of modifications worth mentioning.
Instead of using “high quality caramel ice cream topping” as the dulce de leche filling, I used a can of my trusty toffee that I have lying around. See my previous post to learn how to make your own toffee.
I added a...
1 tag
Make Your Own Toffee →
I love banoffee pie, and one of the key ingredients is toffee. See here for the original banoffee pie recipe, including instructions on how to make toffee at home.
1 tag
“Chicken fried steak. It’s like if chicken and steak got together and made a...”
– Hoyt, True Blood 2x03
January 2010
5 posts
Deception Pass →
We go to Deception Pass to check out a scary bridge, and try out some new lenses.
New Lens →
A load of pictures taken with my lovely new lens.
1 tag
End of the Decade
It’s been a pretty crazy year, and an even crazier decade. Thinking back to this time in 1999, my life was very different. I was a fresh faced first year at York University, taking courses which at the time seemed completely pointless, and now a decade later I am thankful for setting me up for a great career. Hilariously, I probably was having dreams of working at Bungie, although being in a...
December 2009
50 posts
Cameron, December 2009 →
A load of pictures taken with my new 50mm prime lense, including Cameron’s first solid food eating experience!
1 tag
New Camera Lens
My wonderful wife bought me a new camera lense for my Christmas present. We got our new camera about four months ago and have been valiantly trying to document our every action for family perusal, and for the history books. Annoyingly, we keep running up against problems with shooting in low light. I’m becoming a bit of a photography fanatic, so I’m going to try and educate you all on...
Cameron's First Solid Food →
On Boxing Day 2009 we decided to see if our baby girl wanted some sweet potatoes, mushed up into something appropriate. And lo, she did eat.
Christmas 2009 Photos →
Gingerbread men, trees, pandas and prime rib. Notice the last half of the images are taken with my fancy new lense, Christina’s present to me. Thanks honey!
1 tag
Christmas Presents
Once again, Christmas has snuck up on me. I always appear to approach holidays in the same way as a plane landing in the fog: OH GOD, THERE’S THE RUNWAY.
And so comes the question of buying Christmas presents. I realise that we shouldn’t “conform to the consumerist expectations of our modern society” and give in to making it one of the busiest shopping months of the year,...
1 tag
Haunting Music
Baby Cameron recently started sleeping in her crib, in the nursery, on her own. She actually handles it really well; she has started to like having the lights off when she sleeps, and it means we all disturb each other a lot less during the night, resulting in more sleep all round.
She has all manner of things in her nursery to help her sleep; a nice nest which props her up a little, a quilt to...
1 tag
The Pianist
Following our trend of watching movies in which Adrien Brody’s weight fluctuates wildly, we watched The Pianist on Netflix the other night, by Christina’s suggestion. After a few minutes I realised it wasn’t The Piano, but I was determined not to be disappointed.
And disappointed I was not. The autobiographical story of the famed Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman, it followed...
“Imagination, not intelligence, made us human.”
– Terry Pratchett
The Three Laws
We decided that AI programming needed some laws to guide engineers. The Guild came up with the following:
Make it fun.
Make it not-stupid, so long as it doesn’t break #1.
Make mistakes, so long as it doesn’t break #1 and #2.
Later, we had to add:
Make sure it doesn’t become Skynet.