I discovered that enterprising individuals may opt to customize Left 4 Dead in a variety of ways. One of the simplest “mods” that one can make is to change the texture maps/skins of the characters/props, and so I decided to take a stab at that (as you can see by the image to the right) before making any more involved explorations into the world of modding. Making a level seems tempting, but man… this game was not set-up to allow for straightforward editing. I’m not sure what the rules are for naming convention… but it seems that you may randomly add characters to some file names… but not to others… same with reducing the number of characters in a file name. There also appear to be multiple instances of texture calls per character… how these calls are actually used? Dunno… all I found was that attempting to edit the second call causes Left 4 Dead not to start. At any rate, I’ve created a “new” skin for Zoey (which was mostly just an edit of the default one in Photoshop). No more “me time” though until I finish some shading stuff.

Update: I decided that I’m not going to do any additional work on the Zoey skin, so I’ve uploaded it in case anyone else wants to use it. You can download the skin here. You’ll want to enlarge the image to your right and make sure that the pak01_dir.vpk file has lines that have been edited to look as they do in the image. If you’re not familiar with how to edit skins in Left 4 Dead, you’ll want to look through this page.

I’m sure the news has spread to some of you already, but for those who haven’t been kept up-to-date: I recently decided that it was time to take a different step with my career and leave Side Effects Software Inc. It was a great stay with the folks over there, and without question I learned more there than I would have thought. But it seemed like it was the right time to get into production, and so I am now working as a visual effects artist at Starz on Gnomeo and Juliet (notice another SESI alumni, Calin Casain in the image on the site with Sir. Elton John). In short, it is both sad to leave a place that I really liked and exciting to get into production. Also note that the above image was not created by me. I found it. On Google.

In other news, I’ve had some time to watch some movies, listen to some music, and play some games recently. Here’s the list with some brief thoughts list:

Games:

• Left 4 Dead – Fanstastic. Look me up on Steam (Allegro) if you’re interested in having a game when I happen to have a chance
• Metal Gear Solid 4 – Superb. It’s a great movie, with a tiny bit of really good game play. I wish there were more game play though. I picked this up at Future Shop when I had only intended on picking up Left 4 Dead. But for some reason, the special edition was back in stock and selling for $30… regular edition is $60… so, it was a no-brainer to pick this up.
• Mirror’s Edge – Awesome. Haven’t had a chance to get very far yet, but it’s probably the first game I’ve played where I died in the training level.
• Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon – Captivating. I really like strategy rpg’s, and this series is pretty great as deaths are permanent.
• Bionic Commando Re:Armed – WICKED! A remake of the original Bionic Commando for the NES, this game is damned good. Also got to play some multiplayer with Tristan when he was down for the wedding. Kicks Ass.
• Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection – Drool Inducing. A collection of totally rad genesis games. So far haven’t played much of it, but almost all of the titles are awesome. If you’re into RPG’s it’s totally worth it for the Shining Force / Phantasy Star series. Don’t snub the Golden Axe or Streets of Rage either.
• Dragon Quest V – Will make you grin like a school kid. This one was never released in North America back in the day, but is part of the Zenethian trilogy (of which part IV was the first). Dragon Quest/Warrior IV is perhaps my favorite RPG evah, and this one so far seems to be making as good of an impression.

Film:

• Up – Good. I’m not certain why this film has the amazing scores that it does on Rotten Tomatoes… but it is a good film. Too many things that made me go “wait a second…” though to like it as much as either Nemo or Incredibles.
• Terminator Salvation – Bearable. This one does deserve the Rotten Tomatoes score. It’s got some nice eye candy… but if you’re looking for a compelling story… look elsewhere.
• Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete – Very Nice. If only they had included Last Order in this release it would have been perfect. Still, the animated short included was stunning, and this version of the film actually made some sense.
• Vertigo – Damned Good. Never watched an entire Hitchcock film before. I will have to catch up.

Music:

• Dream Theater: Black Clouds and Silver Linings – Radical. The third disc is… extraneous since all they did was strip out the vocal tracks. I’m as disappointed with this disc as I was with the bonus disc from Nightwish’s Dark Passion Play. I don’t count an “instrumental” version as one that simply isn’t a complete mix. The first two discs however are pretty good. A little less melody that I hope to hear when listening to LaBrie… but good nonetheless.
• Chickenfoot: Chickenfoot – Great. A really solid rock cd. Somewhere between Van Halen and Joe Satriani. Glad I picked this one up, and looking forward to seeing them in August.

I’ve also started to sell off some stuff on Ebay. So far, I’ve managed to sell off one broken Playstation 2, and a fishing game for the original playstation. Current items I’m attempting to relenquish include:

Megaman 2 and Megaman 3
Mega Man X5
Civilization II
RPG Maker

Monday, the 25th
Monday was our last full day in Orlando, and we decided to take it easy. We slept in, and used up the last of our groceries to eat a salad for lunch in one of the gazebos at the resort. For those of you now familiar with Florida: Geckos are about as common in Orlando as pigeons are in Toronto. This means the little jerks are everywhere. While we were eating, we saw this one gecko who started to just kind of bob up and down like crazy. I whipped out the camera, hoping for a video of his odd behaviour… and he stopped moving. After about five minutes, I was about to give up on him when a second gecko appeared and set gecko numero uno into territory protection mode all over again. Dude wasn’t going to take no lip from no one.

In the evening, we made our way to Downtown Disney. Unfortunately it’s not as cool as we had hoped. The clubs that were on Pleasure Island have closed, the Virgin Music store has closed, and you had to pay an exorbitant amount to get into the arcade. We settled for wandering and sight seeing. There’s not that many other places one can go to get infrackinsane candy apples, ore see Lego sea serpents. We also grabbed dinner at the Rainforest Cafe. We made it under the protection of their gigantic mushroom roof seconds before the day’s thunder storm began dumping down on the area. Happily enough, by the time our meal was done, the rain had stopped.

After dinner, we decided to walk around some of the shops a bit. I drooled over some more candy in Goofy’s Candy Company (I’m actually surprised at just how little junk I consumed on this trip in comparison to how much was flaunted before my eyes). After we left there we explored some of the other shops including the Disney store, Tren-D, the Lego Store, and Ghirardelli. I broke down at Ghirardelli and bought some drinking chocolate which, I must say, is damned good. It’s literally chocolate that is melted into your drink. By the time we got some last minute gifts, it was getting late, getting thundery, and it was time to go. We got in the rental *just* as the rain came back down. Two close calls for the newly weds.

Tuesday, the 26th
And so arrives the final day of the honeymoon. Really there wasn’t much to this day. We got up, and had our traditional free breakfast buffet from the resort, ensured that all of our stuff was packed, checked out, and got on the freeway back to the airport. In the top left image you see Andrea scoping out the monorail that takes passengers from the security area of the airport to where the planes are. The top right is a capture of the piña colada chocolate that I bought in the airport. The bottom left is our wedding/engagement rings, and the bottom right is, what appears to be, the sunny state of Florida. We got back into Toronto at a pretty reasonable time and were able to just sit and relax before getting back to the grind.

It was a good honeymoon.

Saturday, the 23rd
We had found out through the interblag that in Orlando… Church Steet was the happening place to be. It was so awesome, that the whole reason Downtown Disney came into existence was to thwart the Church Street area. We decided to scope it out for ourselves. Make a day out of it, y’know? Well… here’s what we learned.

Church Street is a ghost town during the day. As is 90% of the surrounding area. There were about 5 small cafés open in the area, and a chocolate shop. We had a gentleman approach us who was hoping that we could spare “just two cents”. Which of course turned into “just a dollar”. We ended up giving him a $5 Canadian bill. He then prayed for us. I’m ambivalent as to the corelation between the currency and the prayers… but my point was: Downtown Orlando *looks* nice. There’s some cool statues, like the above ones that are in the area… an old train… some wicked architecture. But I think that there was some sort of a calamity that has the locals thinking that 2pm on a Saturday is a bad time to be open.

In the evening, we had hoped to make it to Disney’s Polynesian Resort for Disney’s Spirit of Aloha Dinner Show, but we were a little late in coming up with that idea, and by this point all of the reservations were booked until the day after we would be flying back home. Instead, we made reservations for the Kona Café which was also at said resort. As you may be able to tell from the pictures, it was a super nice looking resort, that half made me wish that we weren’t staying at the Marriott. There was tons of lush greenery, and fountains with a really cozy decor. The plate that you see in the middle of the above image, was a free desert that we were served after our meal to congratulate us on our successful marriage. The Lilo and Stitch were etched onto the plate with chocolate! There were lots of other cool things at the Kona. I’d definitely recommend this place to anyone in the neighbourhood.

After dinner, we made a circulation of the guest shop, and found some cool items that needed to be procured. Some post-cards, some Mickey and Minnie mugs for Andrea’s parents, and a photo album/scrapbook which seemed perfect for us to put items in to remember the honeymoon in a non-digital format. We were actually intending on continuing on into Epcot to do some shopping, however it started to pour once we got on the monorails. We decided to just make the monorail a round trip, and headed back to our car at the Polynesian. I snagged some photos back at the Polynesian entrance… where you can see that it is highly reminiscent of Jurassic Park.

Sunday, the 24th

Atlantis Lands.

Sunday saw us sleeping in, watching a space shuttle landing live on tv and then getting breaklunch at TGI Friday’s. It was the most affordable meal we had eaten out at the whole time we were in Orlando. Plus we got crayons. After that we went to ye ole Disney again. This time, it was Disney’s Hollywood Studios. This place used to be MGM Studios, but I guess that Disney finally caved a few years back and decided to rename. This park was pretty cool and seemed much more entertainer driven. By that I mean, that it was celebrating the creators of film and music more so than the mouse. Though… they never stop advertising the mouse. They also had lots of old cars around.

One of the cool things… at least from our perspective… was the Animation showcase at DHS. The actual presentation that involved Mushu… well… sucked, but after suffering through that we got to see some amazing ass art. In the image here you’ll see some of the concept art from Up, a promotional image from the insanely long under production Rapunzel Unbraided, and a painting from… something I don’t recognize 🙁 it reminds me of a Bill Waterson painting though. We also had our picture taken with Mr. Incredible. It was incredible.

After we came out of the Animation showcase, we waited in line briefly for some ice cream before heading off to see the Beauty and the Beast Musical Show. The leftmost image on the left is of the Tower of Terror ride and was taken while we were in line for said ice cream. After we saw the musical performance, we hopped into line for the Aerosmith Rock ‘N Rollercoaster. That’s when the rightmost image on the left was taken. This was at around 4P
M. The afternoon. All signs pointed to rain.

We waited in line for the Aerosmith roller coaster for close to an hour. Thunder was starting just as we made it in doors. By the time we were ready to get onto the coaster… there was some sort of an emergency. The coaster was shut down, sirens were sounding. After a few minutes, we were all evacuated out of the building and given tickets to allow us to skip the line-up when the ride was running again. We were evacuated into a thunderstorm. My feet submerged in water, we ran to the most logical place we could think of for shelter. The tower of terror! Oddly enough, there was no line-up at all! We went on the ride, which I must say: is awesome. It was probably that much more intense what with the real thunder and lightning going on outside. Probably wasn’t the smartest thing to be on with such bad weather… but by the time we were done with the ride we were ready to head back to Epcot to do some shopping. You’ll notice that in the bottom left, there were some girls walking on the sidewalk. This was a good half hour or so after it stopped raining, and was the sidewalk leading to the Epcot entrance. We continued on our way to Japan, trying not to vomit on the Canadian pavilion.

We did some heavy weight binge shopping at Japan, and then found ourselves caught between furiously hungry and wanting to get out of the park. We decided to stop in at the Moroccan pavilion for some dinner and then tried to split. Again, we were distracted by the closing ceremony. Epcot does a pretty heavy duty fireworks show called IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth.

And so back in the luxurious comfort of our honeymoon suite, we sat back to reflect on that which was purchased. For Andrea’s brother, we bought some wine. For Andrea, some sandals and socks. For me: Candy. The most important thing that I have discovered on the honeymoon… is that Japan makes good candy.

Friday, the 22nd
Tickets in hand, Friday had us jetting back to Disney World; this time to the Magic Kingdom. No sooner than we stepped off the monorail than we were forced to take cover and dig out the vinyl. As you may be able to tell from the photo to the right, the poncho is perhaps the most stylin’ article of outer wear that can be purchased this side of Milan. With it’s translucent sheen and (in)toxic(ating) scent, the poncho is designed for rockin’ out. Also in this picture, you may note that Disney’s favorite customer is the kind who cannot support their own weight eats like a behemoth. With so many people to beef up, there were turkey leg vendors all over the park (I guess it belonged in the American pavilion at Epcot afterall) and a conveniently located Confectionery shop right at the entrance.

It took very little persuasion to take shelter from the rain by stepping into the candy store. They had chocolate and fudge, coffee and tea, cotton candy, M&Ms, cookies, brownies, Rice Krispie treats, candy apples, carmel apples, and apples covered in everything under the rainbow. They had sugar in a straw, gummy candies, hard candies, taffy, and popcorn; they had people making candy right before your eyes. The smell alone would have sent Wilford Brimley into a coma. I managed to escape without a single purchase, thanks in part to the fact that many of the stores are interconnected, meaning I didn’t have to go into the rain to leave candy. Next door over were some various sculptures for sale, and then… the exit to the rain.

We eventually gave up on the rain ending, and made our way out to Tomorrow Land, where we went on the Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin: a ride where the participants have control over which way their seats are facing, and get to shoot lasers at other people’s eyes targets along the way. At the end of the ride, we were sent into some pretty torrential rain. I’m talking flash flood material, that was so windy that your umbrella would get broken if you relied on it. We attempted to make our way toward Space Mountain, not realizing that it was out of commission and eventually sought refuge in one of the stores.

Andrea decides to get some of the water out of her sneakers.

Once the rain died down a bit, and we got bored of standing in a corner in Andrea’s puddle, we headed over to take a gander at Fantasyland. In the picture to the right, you see Cinderella’s Fountain, which is just outside of the castle itself. Then we have Andrea attempting to pull the sword from the stone, which is just outside Cinderella’s Golden Carousel. Apparently part of living happily ever after includes having a carousel in your back yard. Needless to say, said carousel is also a nice shelter from the rain.

The rain was still going at it as we left the carousel. We grabbed a fastpass for Peter Pan’s Flight. Before we had come to the Magic Kingdom, I had done a little bit of research online in the morning not only to find out about handy things like the fastpass, but to discover a little more about the history of the park. In the process, I learned about Hidden Mickeys. I had done a rather foul job of finding any of them, but before we went to the Haunted Mansion, I mentioned them to Andrea as I knew there was supposed to be one somewhere on the ride. The ride was pretty cool, despite that it got stuck when we were part way through it and we actually ended up with a third guest on the ride with us (pardon the poor photo… it was a *looooong* exposure). We managed to spot the Mickey on this ride, but in the end I think that the only hidden Mickey’s we happened to see at the Magic Kingdom were on this ride, and another one that was the Frontier Trading Post in Frontierland. On a side note, we did spot a hidden Stitch in the trading post as well.

With the rain preventing most the rides from operating, we wandered around Frontierland a little bit more. The one that we discovered… one of the secrets about Frontierland, is that it is actually owned and operated by a posse of Great Egrets. These bad boys were everywhere. And when the rain was coming down, there were definitely more of them to be seen then humans. It was pretty cool, as there was one that landed nearby and paid pretty much no attention to us at all. The one in the bottom left image must have not been even three feet away from me, and just sat there voguing for the camera like nobody’s business. If I had have looked at him sideways, I bet he would have pecked my eye out faster than you can say “We’re going to Disney World!”. Lucky for us, this was also around the point when the rain stopped. We made our way over to the Thunder Mountain Railroad as it started to open back up, and the wait time was pretty minimal. Probably only around 15 minutes, and some of that time includes walking all the way through the area where the line would be on a busy day. I’d forgotten how fun roller coasters are, but having next to no wait time makes them that much better!

It’s impossible to get through Disney World without discussing princesses. After riding Thunder Mountain Railroad, and Splash Mountain, we started making our way back to Fantasyland. Part of the reason was our fasttrack for Peter Pan, but the real reason was so that I could buy Andrea a crown. Along the way we found an… unofficial hidden Mickey, got hungry, and also took a closer look in Cinderella’s Castle where, having opened up after the rain, you could now see the beautiful mosaic work that that the Disney imagineers constructed. The mosaics told the story of Cinderella, and were really awesome. They are part of the inspiration for the mosaic I made.

We were debating heading straight over to Tomorrow land to go on another ride there, when we realized that if we waited in line, we’d have the chance of a lifetime to have our photos taken with the Ariel. Who could pass up an opportunity like that? Certainly not these two animators. Wait we did. For far more time than is reasonable for two adults who have already lived to see the passing of a quarter of a century forty five minutes. At the end of that time… Ariel went on a break. But after another short break, our patience was rewarded, and we had our two minutes and eighteen seconds of glory with the little mermaid. Actually, she looked like she was about our age, and possibly a little taller than myself. I’d hate to see the big mermaid.

We finished up with Ariel’s Grotto just in time to make it over to the Astro Orbiter for sunset. The Astro Orbiter isn’t the most exciting ride in the Magic Kingdom, however it has a great view of the park, which really starts to light up at dusk. Sunset came and went while we were on the ride, and we realized that we were once more ravenously hungry at the end of a long day. We decided we couldn’t wait for the Spectromagic Parade, and decided to b-line it for the exit. Well… as close to a b-line as our attention spans would allow at any rate. We stopped along the way to snap some more pictures since the kingdom is perhaps even more spectacular at night. Main St. USA really lights up at night! We got distracted enough that we ended up getting to the entrance just as the parade started. The thing is, the parade starts at the entrance. We were blocked in!

Cut-off from the exit, we were forced to enjoy the amazing Spectromagic parade.

So our day at the Magic Kingdom ended in us having a blast. We made our way back to the rental and headed to the hotel for some more homemade dinner: smoked sweet salmon with a mushroom tortellini. Tourist beware however; let the image to your right be a firm warning: walking around while wearing sneakers filled with water all day, will have an impact on your feet.

Vacations are far and few between. I took them for granted as a child, and spent far more time playing video games during my time off than anything else. Now that I’m all done with the schoolin’ and out in the workforce, this vacation time is even more precious. At the end of May, Andrea and I finally went on our first vacation: the Honeymoon. Thanks goes to Andrea’s mom, who loaned us her camera. I’ve been debating buying a nice DSLR for a while, but just haven’t been able to justify the price tag on one to myself. Cathy’s wasn’t a DSLR either, but it was something. Between Andrea and I, we ended up taking 601 photos, and several videos as well. To the right, is a mosiac I made out of the photos we took using a combination of Houdini and Photoshop. As you may be able to tell from my silhouette, the vacation destination was Orlando.

Tuesday, the 19th
May saw some drought and wild fires in Florida, but we arrived just in time for the rain. We ended up getting some thunder and lighting and rain every day that we were there. So when we arrived on the 19th, it quickly became apparent that we (well… I) would need an umbrella. The image to the upper left is while we were making up our minds as to whether we would get out and eat some food, or wait for the rain to die down. We ended up getting some food from The Magic Wok, and then getting some groceries.

We had booked reservations at The Marriott months ago. Andrea has this shirt she made that says “bride” on the front. She wore it when we showed up, and they “upgraded” our room for free. The layout of the room was pretty sweet (the bottom left is the living room where we were staying), but there were a few problems. The remote to the upstairs tv didn’t work (not a problem since we didn’t want to use the tv), there was no modem for the interweb, there was so much static in the upstairs phone that it was unusable, and there were unwashed dishes in the cupboard. This was perhaps made up for by the free breakfast buffet, and the rockin layout that had a kitchenette (allowing us to make some meals), a/c, multiple bathrooms, and an ice maker… but the one thing that will keep me from going to a Marriott resort again is the fact that there was no recycling.

Wednesday, the 20th
Part of the plan of the honeymoon was that we didn’t really have a plan. Wednesday was a sort of free day, in which we decided to get acquainted with Orlando a little and try to figure out some things to do. We had some tickets to visit Disney World throughout the week, however we were hoping to be able to do some other things like a trip to the beach and perhaps some fishing. After taking a look at the weather forecast for the rest of the week it became painfully obvious that an umbrella would be manditory, and so the first stop that we made on Wednesday was the Florida Mall. I’m not big on malls, or shopping personally… I’d never heard of Saks Fifth Avenue. I’ve been told I don’t get out enough. At any rate, I bought (rather than scavenging from the side of the road) my very first umbrella at this store and since we were there, we decided to tour around the rest of the mall. Some of the stops we made include such landmarks as Brookestone for some maps, M&M World (pictured to the right) for some mascot photo-ops, Dylan’s Candy Bar for some drooling (hey, I actually managed to go without buying anything!), Ritz Camera for some batteries, and Teavana for some fancy tea.

After leaving the mall, we continued on up Orange Blossom, and made our way to the Church Street area of downtown Orlando. We were under the impression that there were lots of great restaurants there and had spent enough time at the mall that it was time for dinner. Unfortunately, it seemed as though we had missed business hours, as it was around 6pm and the only people around, all seemed to be leaving. And so we returned to the hotel and made ourselves some vegan Mac and Cheese that we had picked up at Whole Foods for dinner before settling in for the night. Whole foods was actually a pretty amazing grocery store; I wish we had one in Toronto. The staff there was exceptionally friendly, and we were able to try lots of tasty samples and find many new things to try.

Thursday, the 21st
We were pleasantly surprised to see that while we had intended on buying three day passes to the Disney Parks, that we had actually ended up getting five days for the same price due to a promotion that had been going on at DWTickets.com when we had purchased them. We decided to make our way to Epcot Center the first day. For those who are perhaps unaware of the theme park, I’m actually in the habit of calling it Epcot Center, but it is actually simply: Epcot. The park is dedicated to international culture and technological innovation and was named EPCOT (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow) Center until 1994. Now, not being familiar with the roads, it took us a bit of navigating before we finally got there using some back roads rather than the interstate; only to realize that we’d left the tickets back at the hotel! So we made the circuit to the hotel and back and found ourselves in the theme park pretty much at lunch time. Our first order of business was to locate some anti-rain gear, with a close second being to
fill our stomachs with happiness.

The way Epcot works, is that there are several sections (pavilions) that are scattered around the horseshoe layout of the park. Each pavilion is home to a small village which is supposed to be representational of the culture it is to represent. We wanted to eat at the Japan pavilion, but since that was almost on the opposite side of the park, there was no way that we were about to walk straight to it and completely ignore everything else. I can safely say that we only ignored Canada. We went to the UK pavilion however and were side tracked with their phone booths, and tea cups. As you can see, the tea cups were quite large. Each cup actually had a tea plant growing in it. We then made our way on to the next pavillion: France. Here they had a crazy perfume garden where they had the plants growing which were used to help scent the perfume that they sold nearby. We made our way through the shops, and in a small corridor that connected two of the shops I snagged the photo you see above of the stained glass. After that, we made a brief stop in at the Moroccan pavilion before our stomachs got the best of us and we had to get some eating done.

The Japan pavilion was definitely our favorite spot in all of Epcot, and has pretty much made the decision for us that the next vacation we take will be to Japan. We made our way to Teppan Edo as it’s a communal restaurant where the chef prepares your food before your eyes. It seemed like not only would the food be tasty, but it would be an experience to remember as well. We weren’t wrong. After our orders were taken, the waitress began strapping our table mates’ chopsticks together with elastic bands (Andrea and I did not have this done. Note that even like this, these patrons eventually gave up and used forks; I was in awe. When the Chef arrived, he began with some knife tricks, and made a show of the whole process of cooking our food, which by the way: was very very good.

After dining, we made our way out of the restaurant and began to take a more leisurely pace around the pavilion. At ground level, was a candy making show where Miyuki, a candy sculptor, made animals out of rice dough. It was very cool to watch. We then made our way into the Mitsukoshi Department Store, where we spent a lot of time looking at the various wares. You can see a bin of cat charms for sale in the image. Each color represents a different aspect that the cat is supposed to influence. We also both tried on kimonos. Personally I was more interested in the ninja boots. When we finished up in the store, we went into a Japanese Robot exhibit that was next door. There was a video of John Lasseter explaining about how these tin toys were the inspiration for Pixar’s Tin Toy short which in turn was the inspiration for Toy Story. As you can see, Andrea now wants to be a robot.

With that, we were on our way again. We probably spent even less time in the American pavilion than the Canadian one. The ability to buy turkey legs was just not pulling us in. I would have been more satisfied with a miniature New York or Chicago… or like… a dude ranch or something. We continued on our way to the Italian pavilion, which looked stunning. Then, on the way though the German pavilion, there were all sorts of miniature buildings which have been ransacked by geckos and rabbits. Next on the menu was the “Outpost” pavilion, which considering the African nature of it I’m willing to bet this outputs was located in Africa. It’s good to know that Africa is really just dumping grounds for Coca-Cola’s litter.

China was also a very rad zone of Epcot. We made our way there after leaving the “outpost” and were enthralled almost as much as we were at Japan. I really like the eastern style of architecture and art, so it was easy to spend time wandering about. We watched an actobatic show, and then paused to look at the model Terracotta Army and Foo Dog statutes before heading into the shop here. The one thing that I’m now aware of, which I really wasn’t before heading to Epcot, is that it’s really just one massive shopping mall. Oddly enough, with the variety of things to find, it really is still a fun experience despite my lack of enthusiasm for spending money. I was also pretty impressed just with how things were laid out in the store. There was a really nice jacket in the China store that I thought would look great on Andrea. After I showed it to her, and found that she like it too, I decided to get it for her.

Next came Viking Central: Norway. The most important feature of the Norway pavilion is their megawickedawesome chocolate covered pretzels. As I write this, I find myself suddenly debating going to the grocery store to find some sort of chocolaty dessert… however I know that I will be disappointed that I can’t find anything quite like this pretzel. As you can see, we also had our picture taken with a troll. The thought hadn’t occurred to me until it was too late… but with the way that Troll has his hand out… it could have made for one high-lare-eous spank photo. You’ll just have to settle for knowing that we were not spanked by a troll. We were pretty lucky this day in Epcot. If you’ll remember, the first thing we did when we got there was to buy rain gear, however we happened to be under a roof whenever it happened
to be raining.

After eating up my delicious pretzel, we headed over to the South American pavilion, where there were lots of incredibly colourful handmade carvings. It wasn’t just the carvings that had colour, everything had bright colors despite that the pavilion is set-up to look as though it’s night time. There were tons of handmade crafts here, mostly wood and leather. After looking around for a bit, we then took the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros. By the time we finished that, our stomachs were beginning to growl, and we had made a circuit of the park which covered almost everything, so we made the decision to wrap up our tour of Epcot.

And so we made our way back to the entrance, stopping on the way both to ride and take photos of Spaceship Earth. It’s actually not as late at night as the photo may lead you to believe, but the sun had indeed set while we were in the South American pavilion, and it was also at about this time that it ominously clouded over and began to pour. There ended up being no need for the 100% vinyl Mickey Mouse ponchos this day, but umbrellas were a welcome commodity on the trek back to the rental.

This will be the final post that covers the events of May 17th 2009, but there needs to be just a smidge more detail added before I move onto the events of the honeymoon. The cake that you see on the left was a glorious citrusy carrot cake with a magnificent butter-cream and fondont icing. It was made for us by Cathy, Andrea’s mom, who is constantly doing amazing things with food. She will eventually realize that she will be a gazillionaire if she opens her own restaurant. Cathy had made several trial cakes for use as the wedding approached so that we could choose a flavour. She also decided to break her arm just before our wedding. Well… I’m sure it wasn’t completely by choice… but at any rate, she’d had enough practice that she was able to instruct a variety of helpers on this cake. So to all who helped ensure that my taste buds had the best experience possible, I say “Thank You”. The top tier now sits… swathed in seran wrap, encased in a plastic container, chilled in my freezer… awaiting next year, a time when it will then leap into my belly: where it really belongs.

May I present to you, Exhibit A: The Best Man. The bridegroom’s chief attendant at a wedding. The one guy deemed responsible enough not to lose the wedding rings for the span of about half an hour before the ceremony; the one guy deemed fun enough to throw a paint-ballin’, go-kartin’, video-gamin’ bachelor party. Spence Robinson, is a cool dude whom I go rock climbing with whenever I’m not a workaholic. He graduated from the same program as Andrea during the good ole college days, and at the moment they’re both working at the same studio too. Now, for those who don’t know… the final duty of the best man at the wedding is to toast the bride and groom. It’s a proud tradition. And I’ve got to give him props. I had to micturate so badly that I could barely say a word when it was my time, and Spence did such a fine job, that I figured “what better place to immortalize his words than here in the blogosphere?”. And so, with no further ado, here’s the heartfelt toast:

Thank you also to everyone else who made a speech.

For our first dance, we played an edited version of Extreme’s Unconditionally. Yes, by now, we all are aware that Allegro likes his 80’s metal. Andrea actually digs the occasional Extreme, and Steve Vai too. I happened to be listening to this song one time, long before an engagement existed, when Andrea decided that it should be “ours”. And now it is. Other songs of note from the reception, include Repo’s “Didn’t Know I’d Love You So Much” which Andrea danced to with her Dad. Andrea and Andrew, and My Mom and I then danced to Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” followed by a dance between My dad and Andrea and Cathy and I to Jimmy Durante’s “Make Someone Happy” (though to my dismay, there were unfortunately no kids lip syncing while wearing a fedora…). On the note of music: I would also like to thank Dan Haid for performing on the keyboard for us during the ceremony.

Quite a bit has happened in my life since May 11th! The biggest event, which you may have guessed with the visual prodding of the image to the right, was my wedding! May 17th 2009 commences a new chapter in my life, and I am proud to say that I am the husband of one beautiful Andrea K. Haid. There is far too much to update in one megaton burst. If I were to bring you entirely up to date at once, my fingers would become fleshless stumps from the typing, and your eyes: reduced to shriveled pebbles unable to focus on anything but the RGB glow from a computer monitor. Therefore, I’ll limit the updates to bite sized morsels (or at least my version of bite sized morsels).

This creature of beauty to the left is Andrea. This is her the morning before the wedding; she had just gotten her 1920’s inspired updo and makeup done. I don’t talk about her very much on my website because, after all, it is my website and I figure that most people aren’t keen on having someone prattle on endlessly about the ones they love. I assure you though, that just because I don’t prattle, doesn’t mean that I’m not proud of her. Andrea is a fantastic animator, a stylin’ fashionista, and damn well awesomer than I know how to properly put into words. I’m not exactly sure how I have the fortune of being one of those nerdy guys that somehow managed to find a blisteringly hot model (read animator) that agreed to marry me. But personally, I think this has to do with the small things, like trying to share in things she likes, and being totally awesome at video games. It may also help that I am super.

We had our ceremony (and reception) on the 17th of May, at The Old Mill in Toronto. It’s a beautiful location near the Humber River, and we were surprised at just how nice it was. We had obviously scoped out the place before the ceremony, however only in the winter. The view is purty in the spring with trees all in bloom. The weather forecast was pretty iffy all week leading up to the ceremony, but it ended up being a super clear and bright day. My eyes were squinty, natural light does that to them, however you really couldn’t have asked for better. Ok, well… I say that knowing full well that the girls in the wedding party were freezing their updos off while we were having our pictures done… but us guys… we had jackets. (Note that despite whatever the girls might say, Toronto was nothing like that video on the day in question…) At any rate, we giddily await our opportunity to pick up photos from the man with the plan (read photographer). Any of the photos that we have at the moment are compliments of the cameras of friends and family. The three that you’ve seen so far are all from Andrea’s step-dad, Andrew. And with that, I shall bombard you with MOAR PICTURES!!

“We loved the way the anamorphic lenses flare naturally, and we were told to let them happen and we even put them in when they weren?t there.”

sigh

It was actually a very good movie; I recommend seeing it.

Edited May 13th, to add in Youtube Video

Place a lump of clay before most people and they will have very little clue about where to start; whereas others will instinctively be able to create something pleasing to the eye and others still will study techniques relentlessly until they are able to fully express their creativity without limitation. Software is an artistic medium like any other, and will have many of the pitfalls as other forms of expression such as painting or music, or dance. While much can be accomplished without a technical background, it will come to a point in all artist’s careers where they will benefit greatly from learning how to make the most of their tools.

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