I really like working here. Granted it’s only been a week – and shit could potentially still hit the fan in a big bad way – but everything I’ve seen so far has shown a lot of promise. The space looks awesome, the people are friendly, and the mood strikes a very fine balance between being professional and, in the parlance of our times, chill as fuck. It was really comforting to meet the other creatives and see that they were willing and eager to talk to me and bounce ideas off of me because I came into this being kind of terrified of not being up to snuff. A part of that stems from the fact that I don’t consider myself a great designer and, unlike some, I’m certainly not gifted with a mind that seemingly churns out ideas made of pure magic; anything that I’ve done that is even remotely passable is a direct result of tons of research and practice. What would usually take me weeks I now have to condense into 2 or 3 days. The prerogative to be creative 7+ hours a day can be surprisingly rough but I’m hopeful that I’ll emerge out of this intact, relatively unscathed and a better designer. You know… unless they fire me.

2011 was a damn good year for me. I’m actually kind of surprised at the amount of insanely awesome things that happened now that I think about it:

• I – finally! – graduated;
• I had two great trips to Manotick;
• I spent two weeks travelling around Italy with Sandy and Rouslana;
• My video game company finally found its direction;
• I met Adam West, Stan Lee and James Marsters at the Montreal ComicCon;
• Meeting Maddie on a crazy late-night adventure;
• I fucking saw Portishead live and they did not disappoint; effectively scratching something off of my bucket list;
• I got the opportunity to work on a project for the Cirque du Soleil thanks to DEFASTEN;
• I landed a new job thanks to this guy right here (although whether or not the job is awesome remains to be seen… something tells me it is, though haha);

And yet despite all of that, I think that what stuck with me the most – and subsequently enriched my life the most – are the conversations that I’ve had this year. They made me realize that I’ve surrounded myself with truly incredible people and it turns out that for someone who is really socially awkward sometimes, I’m actually a bit of a people-person. Whether I was engaged in a heated debate about politics or defending my love for ‘Victorious‘, I can’t think of anything I would’ve rather been doing. Not even playing ‘Skyrim‘… Maybe.

So to the new friends that I’ve made, the old ones that I’ve rediscovered and the ones who’ve become an integral part of my day-to-day: thank you for making 2011 a most memorable year. Here’s to another great one!

While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I collect them, I’m definitely a fan of unconventional watches. So naturally, I immediately fell in love with the Hamilton Ventura XXL Elvis Anniversary Collection when I saw it.

I don’t think that there will ever be a picture that more aptly depicts how I feel right now.

I’m probably gonna jinx it but fuck it: things have been going incredibly well for me as of late and it feels awesome. I don’t really know when it happened. Looking back, somewhere within the last four odd years, I managed to figure things out just enough for myself to come to terms with who I am and my position in life. My family, my friends, my love-life, my career, my personal well-being… All of these things have started coalescing again. It kinda feels like I’m at the final stretch of putting together the world’s most complex puzzle; where all the pieces that I’ve picked up over the years are slowly falling into place and it’s building up to an ultimate moment of catharsis.

I’m happier now than I can ever remember and it’s terrifying me… But I’ll take it

Nothing says ‘good time’ quite like Ninja coming onstage in his Pink Floyd boxers and performing ‘Beat Boy’, something that I was fortunate enough to witness at le National last night, when I went to see Die Antwoord with Stefan.

People who follow me on ye old Twitter saw me gushing over how fantastic the show was, and for good reason. It’s probably one of the best live acts that I’ve seen. What they lacked in budget and visual pazzaz – boner inducing videos of naked chicks rubbing each other aside – they more than made up for in terms of pure fun.

What surprised me the most was the diversity of the crowd; which was equal parts scene, hip, punk, nondescript and girls, and everyone was really into it. In fact, I kind of lost my proverbial shit when they opened with ‘Enter the Ninja’. I even moved a little. It was crazy!

So yeah, if you’ve listened to their music before and even remotely enjoy it, I’d recommend you go see them live because they’re fucking epic. So epic in fact that we might catch them again in NYC since we’re already here and they have a showed scheduled for the 24th.

I spent the 3rd to the 8th in Los Angeles with Sabrina, who was gracious enough to let me crash at her place and show me around the city.

As soon as I landed, she came with her brother to pick me up and whisk me away to go see the new A-Team movie. It was a pretty good indication of how the rest of the trip would go: she had something organized for everyday that I was there and it was really non-stop action from the get-go. On the 4th, Jessica came to pick us up in the morning to go to Marina del Rey, where we spent the day on the beach, chilling, getting gnarly sunburns and pretending to be super patriotic. We capped the night off with apple pie à la mode and fireworks.

How American is that? lol

The next few days were spent visiting Universal Studios, WB studios (where I nerdgasmed in front of the Bat-suit that Christian Bale wore in ‘The Dark Knight’), the Chateau Marmont for some fancy-pantsing, the LACMA (contemporary art can suck my balls), shopping, visiting UCLA (or as I like to call it: ‘UC Sunnydale’) and eating… Speaking of which, one day we were walking near Sab’s house and we stumbled across a KFC, so obviously this happened:

Yep. That’s a Double-Down. At 10:30 am. Now, I don’t want to say that I enjoyed it because you’d think I was disgusting but yeah… I fucking enjoyed the hell out of it.

On the 8th, I left LA for Las Vegas, where I met up with the dudes from Montreal Street Fighter to exude awesomeness and participate in EVO, the largest fighting-game tournament in North America. I think that we were 13 in total to have repped MTL (René and Song were lame and decided to sleep instead of taking the pic with us).

While nothing notable happened on most nights – which usually just ended with us drinking… A LOT – the first one was quite memorable because Woolie, Song and I went to the Stratosphere and did all the crazy rides they had up there except for the building jump because it was all booked up.  The Insanity was particularly intense as it goes on for a little too long where you go from “HOLY SHIT I’M GOING TO DIE!” right up until  the adrenaline kicks in and you’re like “Wow… I’m totally okay with dying right now”. It’s pretty hardcore.

All-in-all it was an interesting experience; one filled with videogames, jailbait, broken dreams, booze and debauchery that I will most definitely repeat next year… Only this time I’ll aim a little higher that the Imperial Palace (where hookers go to die) and instead try to stay either at the Caesar’s or Planet Hollywood.

Since coming back on the 13th, I’ve been to two comedy shows that were part of the Just for Laughs festival (Kevin Smith and Jim Jefferies, both of whom were amazing) and to come is seeing ‘Inception’, doing some freelance gigs, going to see Die Antwoord live and heading up to NYC with Sean, Dom and Stefan for some of Momofuku’s fried chicken that I’ve been hearing so much about.

July is going to be a great month

Vitamins Design came up with an interesting solution for Samsung in order better acquaint consumers with their spiffy new smartphones.

Via Mike Jerugim

I’ve been taking a break from design lately – chalk it up to physical and mental exhaustion – which is kind of a drag but on the bright side, it has rekindled my love for videogames that aren’t Street Fighter in a big, bad way.

I find that I don’t really play games the way that I used to: I can forgive a lot of things in favor of an immersive world populated by interesting characters involved in a good story. Gameplay mechanics be damned (sort of)! Games like Dragon Age, Mass Effect 2 and Red Dead Redemption have had a lasting effect on me where – like with a good book or TV show – I find myself craving the next installment or DLC.

They’re wonderfully crafted games that ensnared me with unusual ease and I wish that I could have that kind of experience more often.

As a long-time ‘gamer’, I find it really refreshing that there are developers out there who can still do that me.

I wanted to wait a little before posting my impressions of the iPad. Now that I’ve lived with it for about a week, I think I have a pretty good idea of how it’s integrated itself into my day-to-day routine.

Right off the bat, the iPad is completely a completely superfluous device. Everything it does can pretty much be achieved by another device, be it a smart-phone or a laptop and yes, whipping it out in public definitely shrouds you in a certain aura of douchebaggery but I’ve started to dismiss these things and now all I hear are the sounds of jealousy and women swooning.

The things that the iPad does best really need to be experienced. Getting a second-hand account of what it feels like to use it doesn’t really do it justice. Despite what the dude over at Information Architect says – which is justified to some extent – I don’t think that the average consumer’s experience will be lessened by the way that the device, or rather its apps, treat typography. Surfing the net, watching movies, playing games, reading magazines… everything just feels great. It’s definitely a luxury product but unlike expensive sunglasses or ballin’ watches, the added value to gives to your everyday life is, in my opinion, much more tangible. Reading Wired on that thing just feels like the future.

When out and about, I’ve found the iPad to be a much more practical device than my laptop. It allows me to quickly jot down notes, read the news, game, listen to my podcasts, tweet and check my e-mails without having to lug a heavy device around. And when I have an idea for a design, I just quickly sketch it out in Layers before going home and committing it to Photoshop.

All in all, I don’t think that the iPad should be thought in terms of a laptop replacement but a whole new experience unto itself. One that can’t be had anywhere else at the moment. The future is most definitely here, people.