This Halloween for work, I decided to dress up as Trevor Linden, campaigning to be Mayor. Trevor Linden has always been my favourite Canucks player. Check my previous post on the Canucks, for a picture of when I met Trevor I have a great “Linden for Mayor” t-shirt that I was holding up all day at work today but unfortunately I forgot to bring it home with me.

I didn’t have a lot of time to put together a costume this year since I just came back from my trip, so I kinda went for the lazy costume. However, it is my own jersey and all my own hockey gear, so I think that counts for something, right? It wasn’t this revealing for work; I was wearing opaque leggings

In past years, I’ve gone as Cortana from the video game Halo (I painted it on myself, and made the Guilty Spark too!), and some other typical ones like the schoolgirl and angel costumes. Fortunately, those cliché Halloween costume times are past and I’m hoping to do more creative and interesting video game costumes in the future.

Tonight, it’ll be off to a house party and I’ll see if I can’t modify my costume to be a little more “party” friendly. I’ll update this post later with pictures.

Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djking/64249598/

Now that I’ve got the Halloween stuff out of the way, let’s talk about the tech/video game industry and the Vancouver/world economy. Things aren’t looking so great these days, it seems the high tech industry is a little spooked (har har) this Halloween too. You can read more in my previous post on the Vancouver video game industry. And to clear up all the rumours… no, I don’t work at EA — and I never have.

It looks like Electronic Arts (EA) is going to layoff 400 to 500 employees over the next little while. Ouch. That’s a LOT of people. It’s not looking so great for the folks over at EA’s Burnaby campus, which makes up about a third of the company. In its last quarter, EA reported a loss of $310 Million. And the EA stock tanked today after that news, down almost 5% last time I checked.

And the makers of Just Cause (Avalanche Studios) are going to layoff about half their studio in Sweden after losing a couple contracts.

Retailers everywhere are projecting lower holiday sales and less shoppers/traffic in general, so it’s not looking good for many “boxed” video game sales. I’m sure we will see this affect other Vancouver video game companies and high tech companies soon, even though video game sales do traditionally quite well in economic slowdowns.

Where’s the opportunity though? Microtransactions and free-to-play games. Web and casual games. Companies who take advantage of this market may be better positioned for today’s and tomorrow’s economy.

Silicon Valley isn’t doing great either. It’s also been suspected that Yahoo! is going to layoff a ton of employees, perhaps as many as 3,000. But that’s not concrete and many expect it not to be that drastic. And Sun Microsystems posted a much bigger loss than expected. They are planning layoffs as well.

And the economy is also finally affecting the ridiculous Vancouver condo boom. Many Vancouver condos and housing developments are being stalled, including Concord Pacific’s West Georgia Cosmo, and Onni’s V6A condo development, that still has its sales office open and is selling to unsuspecting buyers. Oh man. Onni is doing some seriously criminal stuff.

That’s it for today!

I hope everyone had a good weekend!

Today was a crazy day on Wall Street. It’s no secret that the economy is in some troubled times. After the House of Representatives shot down the Bailout plan, the stock markets got hammered pretty much everywhere in the world. The Dow dropped about 780 points, which is its largest in its history. Yes, it’s the American economy mostly being affected, but ours is tied to theirs, and so is the rest of the world in some ways. It is a scary time if you’re thinking about retiring, but if you’re young and just getting going like me, then there’s a lot of opportunity. History seems to suggest that the greatest economic booms are made after a recession or a slow-down, so if you can stay employed and ride it out… you’ll likely be in a good spot. I’ll be keeping an eye on the economic news and crisis over the coming months.

In other news, while we wait for the housing prices to come down a bit, Allan and I have been trying to make our little place a bit more livable. We’ve sold all our furniture and more on Craigslist and are currently sitting on the floor while we wait for some of it to be delivered. Hopefully I’ll have some photos soon of the place when it is redone.

I’m also getting geared up for a busy October. First, it’s off to Tofino again for the Thanksgiving long weekend. I can’t wait. I love the coast and Tofino is one of my favourite places in the whole world. Usually we go there at least once a month in the off season (a few times a month in the summer). I hear there will be a good swell rolling in for the next couple weeks so I’m excited. Pretty much right when I get back from Tofino, it’ll be straight to the airport where we go to LA, then Japan and Korea for work in 2 weeks. Sometimes when you work in the video game industry you have to travel, and it can be tiring! I’ll be sure to post photos while on the “road” though.

This weekend, I also tried out a new recipe I’ve been dying to try out. When I was in LA a couple weeks ago, I hit up Koi Restaurant with a few friends and had a delicious dish called “Miso Glazed Cod”. It was amazing. I’ve tried to replicate it here at home, and I think I did pretty good! If you get a chance to make it, let me know what you think. It’s got a sweet and sour, flavour similar to teriyaki or soy.

Miso Glazed Cod (Makes enough for 2 people)

Ingredients

2 fillets of Black Cod (I like to get mine from Granville Island)
saké
125 mL mirin
1 cup white miso paste (I like the organic kind, it’s a little lumpier but I think it tastes better)
1/2 cup of organic cane sugar (you can use regular sugar though)

Cooking Steps
1. Pour the saké and the mirin into a saucepan and bring it to a boil for 30 seconds to boil off the alcohol in the saké.
2. Add the miso paste and bring your heat to low and mix well. Try to get all the lumps out as much as possible. Once it has been mixed, bring the heat up to high and add sugar. Make sure you keep stirring and keep going at it until the sugar is clear and liquid like.
3. Let it cool for a while.
4. Marinate cod over night in the mixture or for 2 days. Set a little bit aside, separate from the cod.
(See optional side dish preparation)
5. Preheat oven to 400°F and put the fish on a baking pan or grill/broiler inside the oven. Broil for 5 minutes to brown the fish and then bake for another 15 minutes or so. The fish should be flaky and separate easily.
6. Arrange the fish with the side dishes and serve with a VERY small amount of sauce on the side (don’t use as much as I did in the picture).

Optional side dish preparation — Mashed Potatoes with Shallots, and Steamed Vegetables:

1. Roast some garlic in the oven (let me know if you don’t know how to do this).
2. Sauté the garlic and a few chopped in shallots in 2 tablespoons of butter for about 20 minutes just before you cook the fish.
3. While keeping an eye on the shallots, boil some quartered Yukon gold potatoes.
4. Steam some broccolini and baby carrots (bunch carrots) over the potatoes while they are boiling!
5. Scoop the potatoes out and let the vegetables keep on steaming (don’t let them overcook though). I like to add a little bit of extra virgin olive oil to the water so the vegetables get some flavour.
6. Stir the potatoes around in the shallots until the potatoes dry out a bit. Add a little milk if you have it, and some butter, and then mash the potatoes until they are creamy, or however you like them. Personally I like them a little more textures so I leave the potatoes a bit more whole.
7. Serve the vegetables and the potatoes! I used a cup to make the potato shape but that’s not necessary

Enjoy!