These things I do... Short Films

Since I can't think about anything better to mention at the moment, lets hear about another one of these things I do...

When I am on my lunch break at work I like to watch short films while I eat. In fact I like to watch short films whenever I find I have a little free time but not enough time to watch a full length feature film. My favourite place to find good short films online is on the video streaming site Vimeo and for the last few months I have been spending my lunch breaks working my way through all the videos on the Vancouver Film School (VFS) channel.

You may be more aware of the work of VFS than you think if you have seen the movie District 9 as director Neill Blokamp is a VFS alumni as well as many of the production staff and effects staff that worked on the movie. In fact, over 40 former VFS students were involved in the making of District 9.

The VFS channel on Vimeo consists of hundreds of works done by VFS students and are of the highest quality. If you are interested in short films, mini documentaries, or even things such as sound design or animation I highly recommend checking out the VFS channel on Vimeo by clicking here.

These things I do...

Welcome to another edition of These Things I Do...

This is something I am sure a lot of other people also do, and in fact I am doing it right now. I waste excessive amounts of time on the internet doing pointless stuff and things, but I think that a lot of the time I take it a bit further than most people. I have created more free websites and forums and blogs and even social networks than I can even remember. This always happens while I am at work and really should be working. It normally goes something like this:

'Oh look, they are offering free sub domains, maybe I will just take a couple of minutes and sign up so I can use it later at some point...'
... I then spend the entire rest of the day setting up a new site or forum that no one will ever visit while my work load gets out of control.

These things I do...

I have a lot of things I do that always make me wonder if other people do these things too. So I decided I will start going through some of these things one by one here, and the first one that comes to mind is this:

I always bring my Nintendo DS with me to work (and yes, I am at work right now) and every time I go to the toilet I slip my DS into my pocket and spend about 10-15 minutes on the toilet playing games on my DS.

I am currently playing my way through Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and I would have to say that it is my favourite game on the DS thus far. FF Tactics A2 is the sequel to what was my favourite game on the Gameboy Advance Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. It is a turn based strategy rpg, but what really makes it stand alone from other Final Fantasy games is that the story takes a back seat to the action (more action, less story) which I like.

Having a look at my saved game reveals I have been playing FF Tactics A2 for nearly 100 hours in total which is far more than any other hand held game I have ever played, even the Pokimans. Don't worry, not all those hours were played on the work toilet.

So thats one of 'those things I do' that I consider maybe a little wierd on my part. I will follow this up with other wierd 'things I do' in further posts.

What is in a name?

I have nothing against people who use Apple products, but this did make me lol:

But realy, if you do start to consider some of the names web sites and applications use, it realy makes me wonder what these people where thinking when they come up with these names.
Some of the other wierd names that come to mind are:

Twitter
Ning
9gag

Then there are the website domain names that people just do not think about before buying. Some of my favorites are the following:

expertsexchange.com (Experts Exchange)
therapistfinder.com (Therapist Finder)
powergenitalia.com (Power Generators Italia)
molestationnursery.com (Mole Station Native Nursery)

Just Finished Mafia II

I just finished playing Mafia II on PC and I would have to say it was a pretty damn good game. Although it is classed as an 'open world' game the story drives you through a very linear path through the entire game and although some missions may have different endings the results and story remain the same either way.

The other thing to take into account is that Mafia II is a pretty short game but that is ideal for people like me who don't have much time for playing games or like to get through and play as many games as possible. Many people have criticised the length of the game but in my opinion it was just long enough.

The story is fantastic, the voice acting is amazingly believable, and the entire city of Empire Bay is visually stunning and really immersive. I recommend this game for people who want a game with an epic story squeezed into a relatively short play time.