I feel so much better today. As many people have been blogging about lately, there’s something about November that makes us feel down and maybe on edge. I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and have had to come to terms (again) with who I am and the people I want to surround myself with. I know that good friends are invaluable and hard to come by, and my plan is to surround myself with people who I love, and people who love me. A couple interesting things that have come across my my path…

First off, for you Vancouver Canucks fans, there’s a film showing this Monday, November 10th at some Cineplex and Landmark theatres (not all, so make sure you check before going) called “Forever Faithful“. It profiles Canucks fans and their passion for the team. The trailer looks really good. Unfortunately I won’t be able to make it since I’ll be out of town in Tofino this weekend, but I’m definitely planning on picking up the DVD. You can read the Canucks press release here. Let me know what you think if you go see it!

Also in video game news, THQ is yet the next video game company to have significant layoffs. Their new “strategic” plan is to close down 5 studios, including Paradigm Entertainment (Stuntman, Pilotwings, Spy Hunter), Mass Media (Full Spectrum Warrior), Helixe (De Blob), Locomotive Games (Destroy All Humans!), and Sandblast Games. Wow. Not looking so rosy in both the publishing and development side of games right now. Basically, these cuts are going to eliminate about 250 jobs, which is 17 percent of all studio employees.

I finally managed to go through a few more of my photographs from my work trip to Japan. These ones are from a day trip that my boss and I did out to Kamakura. It’s really beautiful. We saw a number of different Buddhist and Shinto shrines, and climbed many hills and stairs, and walked across a long bridge to an island to climb up even more stairs… but it resulted in an incredible view.

Those aren’t Swastikas, they are religious symbols in Japan. Street signs on the way to Kamakura.

Beautiful pond

There were thousands of these statues everywhere. And the interesting/horrific part… each of these statues means there was an abortion or miscarriage. Japanese women would come here and place one of these statues as an offering or a prayer. The sheer number of statues in the temple made my stomach flip.

Bamboo at Kamakura Temple.

Flowers at the temple.

Praying Statues… very cute. I wonder how old these are. I wonder if “cuteness” is something that existed in Japan long before Hello Kitty and the like

Deep red Japanese umbrella…

Scariest spider ever! These guys were just hanging out everywhere. Made my skin crawl just trying to be close enough to it to take a good photo!

The largest Buddhish statue in Japan.

Flowers on bamboo. It was so neat to see so much bamboo everywhere.

The Bay at Shonan (view from the top). A long hike to get here, but it was worth it. We were also able to see a number of surfers in the bay. I already put up a photo of this in my previous post.

So there are surfers in Japan! My first hint that I wasn’t delusional to go surfing in Japan. These guys were surfing at Shonan, and I was planning on going out to the coast at Ichinomiya, but it was still rad to see all these older guys getting on their motorbikes and heading out to the surf.

And another Japanese surfer! It seems like the motorbikes/motorcycles/scooters are the preferred method of transportation for surfers in this area. I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable hitching my precious board to a bike!

Japanese surfing ad… neato!

Fancy eating octopus? These were being sold on sticks everywhere. The vendors would grill them for you

It’s a different way of life out here, than it is in Tokyo or Vancouver even…

Shinto shrine… so serene.

Each of these are prayers.. they are tied to the fence.

I felt like I was at the end of the world..

That’s it for now folks. I’m off to Tofino for the entire (extra long) weekend for some late season cold surfing, so I’ll be back on Tuesday. See you then.

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!