Month: August 2007

I’ve been very busy at work recently (with an internal deadline looming). It’s been rewarding, but I’ve had less time to browse the web, read e-mails, and post to my blog.

While at work I don’t use the internet for anything unrelated to work, and when I get home… well, I don’t really want to look at a computer most of the time… for a little while at least! 😛 How does everyone else feel about internet use while at work?

Anyhow, since work is pretty full-on all week (if I’m not at work, I’m probably thinking about it), I’ve been trying concentrated recreation on weekends. Recently, this has manifested itself in playing God of War 2 with Tone.

Since it’s a single-player game, we’ve been taking it life-or-level; meaning that you hand over the controller when your character dies or when you complete a level. It’s been awesome actually… it reminds me of playing SNES or Genesis games over at friends’ houses when I was in middle school. 🙂

We just finished the game and are looking for something else to play in a few weeks time. Any suggestions?

Image from Wikipedia.

I went to see OK Go last night… um… this is sounding familiar. Anyhow… given that you are obviously on The Internet, you probably know OK Go as the treadmill dance band or possibly even the backyard dance band.

Either way, you probably already know that they exude awesome… at least at choreographed dancing to their own music. What you may not know is that they totally kick ass live… even without treadmills (they were playing at Capitol which has a pretty tight stage).

Aside from being very talented musicians, they are very personable showmen. The entire show was more than just a band on a stage playing music. From a production angle, they had synchronised video including live feeds from cameras embedded around the stage and on the lead microphone.

In regards to the performance, they kept the audience engaged with conversation and encouraging participation. Damian (lead vocals) came out into the crowd a few times (which isn’t too out of the ordinary for a band), but I was surprised when most of the band came down into the crowd!

Around half-way through the show, Damian, Tim, and Andy (all band members except for Dan, the drummer) set up in the middle of the crowd and performed a few acoustic songs. They asked people standing nearby to sit down so that everyone could see. It was great!

One of the songs they played while in the crowd was A Million Ways, and someone in the audience started doing the associated dance. When OK Go realised, they stopped playing and asked for his name (“Dave” I think it was). He was really chuffed. It was cool.

At the end of the evening, they lined up and took a bow. It was fitting because they’re real performers. I wish that I had flowers to throw.

Conclusion: Superb! Best show I’ve been to in a long time.

I didn’t have my camera with me on the night, but I’ll try to get some photos from Minh or Tone (who used their fancy camera phones). In the meantime, I’ve embedded a few of the famous YouTube videos (of the band; not of this particular gig) after the jump.

Continue reading “OK Go”

I went to see The Cure last night, and joked that I would have to blog about the concert using the title “En-Cure” because they played an insane 3 encores for a total concert time of over 3 hours. Ultimately that blog title was too lame… even for me.

Here are some photos. We had great seats, but my camera is pretty ordinary:

The concert was pretty different to the last time they were here. The most noticeable difference was that they didn’t have to cut the concert short because of a midnight curfew (like that imposed when they played at the Entertainment Centre). Other differences were the instruments used (no keyboard this time, just guitars and drums) and the visuals (better lights and projected video this time).

Overall, it was a good night out.

Update: Some of their new stuff is pretty good; classic Cure but with a bit more of a rock/pop feel. Embedded videos after the jump.

Continue reading “The Cure”

Note: This post is pretty much only of interest (and will only make sense) to programmers.

I’ve been using Python a lot for around 6 months now, and just yesterday I run into an apparently common gotcha. I’ve boiled it down to a very basic example.

First, let’s define a simple function with a default argument:

def f( a = [] ):
    a.append(1)
    print a

Now, let’s call it twice and see what happens:

> f()
[1]
> f()
[1, 1]

Probably not what you expected? From the POV of a C programmer, this just means that Python default arguments map to something like:

    static int a[] = {};

rather than:

    int a[] = {};

at the start of a function. (For those whom may not know; yes, C allows for static variables nested within functions.)

My Sunday started with the sounds of trucks doing bog laps around Langley Park.

I peered outside and as the trucks started stopping (and blocking Riverside Drive), I assumed that it was some sort of protest. Turns out it was “Truckies for a Cure [to Cancer]” or something like that. That would explain why there were so many kids I guess.

I went out to have a look. Here are some photos: