Caximus Maximus Pageus

As of 4th of August I start my 6 month contract with Realtime Worlds, working as a QA tester on APB. Awwwwwww Yeah!
This means I am 2 weeks shy of having worked a whole year at SubWay.
It feels great being at the bottom of this ladder of childhood dreamery rather than half-way up the ketchup stained ladder of SubWay.

In other news:
Im going home to Ireland in a week to play guitar, with my bro, in front of the entire family. Aunts, Uncles, and cousins attending.
I'm moving into a new flat much close to the city centre, just across the road from Borders.

Stolen from Nomi

You are Chekov

Chekov		60%
An Expendable Character (Redshirt)		55%
Uhura		50%
James T. Kirk (Captain)		45%
Jean-Luc Picard		40%
Geordi LaForge		40%
Deanna Troi		40%
Spock		35%
Data		34%
Mr. Scott		30%
Beverly Crusher		30%
Will Riker		30%
Worf		25%
Leonard McCoy (Bones)		5%
Mr. Sulu		0%

Brash, rash and hasty,
but everyone loves you.


Surprisingly close to the 'An Expendable Character (Redshirt)'

First of all, let this brighten your day (If your day needs brightening, that is).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8017391.stm

Secondly Im working on an art test for Ruffian Games who are new to Dundee and I'll show you a pic of what I got so far.



The base model is finished, I'm on the wonderful UV unwrapping stage. Bliss.

When I am speaking about a career related to what we done on the course I have come to call it an Industry Job. I have been applying to Industry jobs on and off recently and have come across a recruitment forum that some off you might be interested in. It has companies from Dundee posting on it so have a gander...

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/hiring-industry-contracted-work/

I'm usually not one for dick measurements, BUT WHEN YOU PWN LIKE THIS ON CALL OF DUTY YOU KNOW I'VE JUST SLAPPED 7 OTHER PEOPLE WITH MY 'PURPLE-HELMETED NAZI OF LOVE'!!!!...



click to enlarge (PUN INTENDED)

I've been with SubWay for almost 8 months now and for as long as I can remember, we have been getting one particular regular customer who we call the "Coffee/Cookie" guy. We used to have an offer on were you could get a free cookie with any coffee you bought in the morning, and this little old man would come in and take advantage of the offer daily. However, he began to arrive in the evening when the offer was long gone for the day, but because of his regular custom we decided to serve the man his usual, no sandwich or salad for this guy, just the coffee and a free cookie.

Like most special offers in SubWay, it came to an end completely... yet the little old man still came, and we still gave him the free cookie. He has been a customer for so long now that everyone who works there knows him and know exactly what he wants.

Recently 'Marble Slab Creamery' (or the Ice Cream Place we call it at SubWay) opened across from us, and on its first day of business as I was sat eating my lunch, Halil, a Turkish employee, came running around to me holding six tubs or Ice cream while shouting "Look what my friend bought us, man." After I inquired who exactly I discovered he meant the old man who comes in and gets a free cookie. That stuff is NOT cheap.
I was pretty grateful like.

Only yesterday I noticed that the old man was talking to Halil and Peng and I went over to see what was going on, and he was tellin a joke to Peng:

"A man walks into a chinese resturant and asks for the menu. He notices a dish called 'Chow Mein Ping' and asks the waiter what exactly it was and the waiter reply's 'Well, Chow Mein is just your normal Chow Mein dish. Ping is the noise the microwave makes when its ready."

Peng loved it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w88KqzYLHrM

http://forums.handloads.com/uploads/bentbarrel/C1EE1_microsoft_word_write_letterz_n_.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDZICsAmb1A&NR=1

Im sure all you nintendo nuts would appreciate this... as would I

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php?t=27519

This is the year that saw a global credit crunch, the American's elect a black President and a Swiss thingy known as the Large Hadron Collider activate without killing everyone. As it draws to a close I feel the need to share some of my favourite things as best as I can remember. Not everything was released this year, these are just the things that I got most enjoyment from.

In order of bestness:

Games
    1 World of Warcraft
    2 Trackmaina Nations
    3 Bioshock
    4 Team Fortress 2
    5 Left 4 Dead

    Also: Mario Kart Wii, Halo 3, Pharoah, Eets

Movies
    1 Lars and the Real Girl
    2 Cloverfield
    3 Madagascar 2
    4 Wall-e
    5 The Day the Earth stood still

    Also: Son of Rambow, Be kind Rewind, Batman:The Dark Knight, Click

Albums
    1 Mic City Sons - Heatmiser
    2 Deja Entendu - Brand New
    3 Oh, Inverted World - The Shins
    4 Train of Thought - Dream Theatre
    5 Watershed - Opeth

    Also: Pait the Sky with Stars - Enya, Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs, Songs for the Deaf - QOTSA. Hand Built by Robots - Newton Faulkner


NOTE TO SELF: For 2009, start a list now and add to it as the year passes!

Nothing has changed.

I'm a training supervisor for SubWay.

Although...

A friend from home and myself have decided to try and get some work put up in an exhibition back home. I've even done a brief for it.
Will I remove thumb from hole to do something... all revealed next update.

I have also let my WoW account expire to help pay attention to more important things in life, mainly Left 4 Dead, Trackmania and Team Fortress.


Everyone else seems to be doing well, good good.

GAMES
Ah not much to tell, 'cept that I've been playing WoW. Though, not the expansion, just leveling some older characters.
Next pay-day I'm getting Left 4 Dead on the PC, dunno if that means I won't be able to join you Xbox nuts but still, I know its gonna be a good game.

WORK
Works been great, although our manager has left us again leaving two supervisors in charge, and as such they feel the need to start me on some supervisor training for when things start to really go tits up. Not expecting a pay rise though.

PORTFOLIO
:S

Oh oh oh, Album Of The Month : Deja Entendu by Brand New, dunno why but it's just been a delight lately.

Oh how I laughed as I read my previous post...
"Hopefully I will be seeing you's online in a week"
It was a month before I found a flat. And that flatmate I was supposed to hear back from... nothing. She just left me in the deep end.
It's not a bad thing since what I have now is fucking amazing and things could not have worked out better.

I live around the corner from Colin (should really get down to see you) and my flatmate is a friend of mine called Bixie.

Been at SubWay for almost three months now and it's great. In a fortnight I start training for a supervisor position. Although should really start working on a porfolio...

I was talking about religion with a friend recently and it's gave me a lot to think about, I've been writing stuff down and what not and I'm basically trying to discover where I stand on the whole thing, so if someone was to ask me "What do you believe?" then I can answer them easily instead of stumbling over something I've briefly thought about.

Anyhow, I have to head to work pretty soon, I'll catch up with everyones postings soon.

Hope all is well with y'all.

In five minutes I'll be switching the computer off and packing it away. Then it will be taken and stored in a friends house. This week will be spent in different flats in dundee while I wait for my current flatmate to hear back from an estate agency about a new flat. Hopfully we will be able to move in before September.

Untill then, I'm homeless... and bald.

Hopefully I will be seeing you's online in a week

So the landlord was like "Yeah, you can stay in another flat of mine funtil the end of September until you get paid"

That was a few weeks ago.

Yesterday... "Okay, you have to be outta here by 25th August, and I can't set you up anywhere else"

Shit.

I dont get paid till the end of the month.
With the pay I recieve, it still wont be enough for a depsoit and first months rent.

Shit.

I need to find me a CHEAP flat..

So I just got back from my induction to Subway which happened to be a 9am - 3pm shift, which felt like it flew by. We probably should have been there for an extra two hours but the manger had his mothers 60th to get ready for so the five new members of staff got out early.

It began with us five sitting down together and filling out forms with our bank details AND GET THIS: If I do not stay with Subway for three months they take £60 off my pay for training purposes and if you stay the for at least three months its free. The uniform is also £20 but you get it back once you quit and return it in good condition. These are the only negative things I say at this stage, everything else is quite joyful!

The other four newbies were Christi a Latvian girl and her friend whose name I can't spell, pronouce or remember. They both are about to begin a Business and Administration course at Abertay.
Alex a tall, young fella from Dundee
And a guy from Douglas called... something...

I've been assigned to the Overgate Subway which is meant to be busier and I begin there at 11 on Sunday.

Compared to McDonalds this is a much better place to work. The people are faaaaaaaar more laid back, it's busy but not taxing and I'm getting paid more. I'm having more fun!

DISCLAIMER: This is not a review of Wall-e, instead it is something I have been thinking about since watching it. I don't reveal any Story plot, but if you are like me and avoid ALL material related to a new movie then you might not want to read on.

On Friday there I went to see 'Wall-e' in the cinema, its Pixar, it's compulsory. However, upon leaving I was a tad unsettled. I felt that as a person who has just left a Computer Arts course that I should have been astounded yet again by the visual brilliance that Pixar bring with each new movie... I was not.

Don't get me wrong, I did like the perfect-as-always animation, the various robotic characters and all the subtle ideas that I know I will only pick up on the fourth viewing; it is a good movie. My problem is with the visual style.

Previous Pixar movies have been 3D cartoons. 'The Incredibles' was stylised to fit that superhero theme, with their over and under proportioned body parts (look at the size of their feet!).

It appeared that with Wall-e, Pixar had wanted to make it less like a cartoon and actually quite real, and in this they succeeded gracefully, but its something I was not expecting at all.

I mean, if you took Nemo and placed him in a tank with other fish in real life you'd be like "Shit, whats wrong with that fish! It's a mutant or something!". If you placed Remy in with other rats in a cage you would think some kid had dropped thier fluffy toy rat in amongst them. What I'm saying is a 3D model from previous Pixar movies would look out of place in real life, but if you seen Wall-e or EVE down the street it would look like someone had actually built them right there with real material from real life. Or even if you walked into Wall-e's little home you would not think "Fuck, I'm in a cartoon".

When I watch a Pixar movie I want to think "Fuck, I'm in a cartoon".

Even had Fred Willard in it, like live action. It was a cool touch, but wasn't 'Pixar'.

On saying all that... it was beautiful. Maybe its just something that I need to get used to. If Nintendo suddenly came out with a realistic looking game I'm sure that it would be as good as any Mario, Zelda or Metroid outting.

PS. The short that precedes the movie, 'Presto', is one of my favourite cinema moments and that alone was worth the £6 cinema ticket.

After a few months of looking for an industry job with no success, I started looking for jobs in shops around Dundee. I was looking for retail only but had to give in to the food market and I applied to Subway. Got an interview the same day and just found out today that I got the Job.

Finally... some sort of steady income.

I begin Friday 1st August, as a Sandwich Artist. Get in.