brian's blog

So before the holidays, I noticed over a few days that my cell phone battery was draining rather quickly. I checked it over, and discovered that I had accidentally forgotten to quit a buggy Smartphone data application that draws real-time Seattle bus maps -- and updates automatically every minute. It had been running for two days and racked up 16 MB of usage. Good thing I switched from an unlimited data plan to a 4 MB per month plan several months ago!

Grand total, it'll probably run me $140. Sigh. I'm trying to think up excuses to use to lower my bill, but I don't think "I was running beta software" will cut it. A few people pointed out that this is just karmic payback for the deal I got on the TV.

Okay, New Year's Eve planning was easier than I thought. I managed to score last-minute tickets to the Seattle New Year's Eve Bash at the EMP, where one of my long-time favorite-est bands, the Presidents of the USA, will be playing. And, "wind permitting," we'll be able to go outdoors and see the fireworks off the Space Needle. (We'll be so close, though, that if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction, we'll be showered with burning fireworks.)

Can't wait!

I'm back in Seattle after spending Christmas back home in Canada. Even though I was gone for only 4 days, it felt like much longer (in a good way). Highlights include:

• Arrived in Toronto at about 2AM thanks to Christmas delays in Denver
• Spent lots of quality time with family (need to list this important point before I talk about the more material aspects)
• Scored a sweet backpack (for biking, hiking, etc), a knife set, a blender, and lots of other cool odds and ends
• Played the 8 player mode of Mario Party 7 with 7 other people, whereby 2 people share a single controller for some minigames (which worked surprisingly well)
• Went to the Sarnia charity casino. (In the end, I, uh, donated $20 to the blackjack table.)

I was also incredibly freaked out by the strong turbulence on the flight back to Seattle, thanks to my watching far too many episodes of Lost. We were bouncing up and down and rolling from side to side. I chatted with the pilot on the way out, though, and he said that we only experienced turbulence in the low end of "moderate" and were never in any danger whatsoever. I'll try to remember his words next time I'm in a panicked state while flying, and I'll also be sure to check this interesting pilot's turbulence map I found so I can know what to expect beforehand.

Now to find something to do for New Year's Eve!

While I really should have been packing, I was really out at Toys "R" Us scavenging to find leftovers from the firesale list of new-ish games marked down to $9.98, as found on SlickDeals.net. Most of my top picks were gone, but I was able to pick up Pikmin 2 (GC), Viewtiful Joe 2 (GC), and Final Fantasy I&II (GBA).

It's dead around the office. Ghost town. Everyone's using up vacation before they lose it at the end of the year. Makes for a really great time to catch up on email (down to 40 inbox emails!) & write a spec for the Next Big Feature.

Christmas shopping's all done, thanks in large part to Amazon and their four month free trial of Amazon Prime they inexplicably offered me. Hooray for missing the shopping mall insanity.

The holiday plans are split evenly between Waterloo and Sarnia:

• Friday, Dec 23rd: Fly from Seattle to Toronto & catch a cab to Waterloo
• Saturday, Dec 24th: Family stuff at my mom's
• Sunday, Dec 25th: Spend Christmas morning in Waterloo, then catch a train to Sarnia to spend the evening with Heather's family
• Monday, Dec 26th: More time in Sarnia
• Tuesday, Dec 27th: Catch a train to Toronto, then fly back to Seattle-land

I finally picked up a new TV the other day. After weeks of endless research, I finally settled on...well, nothing. My budget was much too low, and my standard for picture quality much too high. But then while I was at Best Buy scoping out some possibilities, I spotted an amazing deal on the 34" Sony XBR HDTV Wega. Big thanks to Leo and Eric for dropping by on short notice to help me take away this 200 pound CRT behemoth (and for holding on when we almost dropped it in the elevator).

Comcast certainly doesn't advertise the fact that you can pull in every single major broadcaster in high-def digital over their "analog basic cable" without paying for a set-top box + HD service. Lost looks amazing in 720p resolution.

Now, to wait for Apple's rumoured Mac Mini DVR to replace my aging Power Mac G4 (in addition to building my own MCE, of course...!).

From eWeek, Microsoft Lauds 'Scrum' Method for Software Projects:

Galen said a typical scrum team is made up of between five to 10 people, although there could be more. The team then works in Scrum "sprints" of about 30 days to complete a particular task or set of tasks for a particular milestone.

The team meets daily for 15-minute standup meetings and then they go off to work on their portions of the project. And although there is a "scrum master" or project manager-like position on the team, "self-organization is key to scrum," Galen said.

We just finished a busy 30 day "sprint" in our team, releasing a number of critical bugfixes for MSN Movies and support for a new label's music videos at MSN Music. I was the Scrum Master, which embarrassingly sounds like some sort of nerdy Dungeons and Dragons title. (Or perhaps a great gamer tag on the Xbox 360?)

A flexible and frequently revised development methodology is badly needed at a place like Microsoft, because it sucks to work on a project for 9 months, only to find it scrapped due to a shifting business landscape. Scrum is an improvement, though we still need to work some sort of planning & design process into the project prior to the start of a sprint.