How things change.

This picture is pretty much taken from the same spot in the park but 6 months apart, all the green has come back, and people are out picnicing.

The walk back to my flat from work now see's me go through the park that is full of people having late, outdoor dinners (Otherwise known as the BBQ), and drinking... I even saw some heavy petting, but unlike the pool's back home I think that this is allowed? No Jez I didn't get any pictures.

Did I leave the gas on?

I asked Jeff, but he couldn't remember.

Jeff asked Steve and Jolyne, the thought of such a blunder stopped them dead in their tracks, we thought about turning back as Steve started to panic and we had to calm him down.

So I asked Shamus....

Shamus thought long and hard about it, he stood like this for about 10 minutes before letting me know that I have an electric stove, he's so wise at such a young age.

The Long BBQ Weekender.

Lot's of this. (Meat, just incase you can't tell)

It was a national holiday here this weekend, celebrating Victoria Day. The Sovereign's birthday has been celebrated in Canada since the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901).

May 24, Queen Victoria's birthday, was declared a holiday by the Legislature of the Province of Canada in 1845. After Confederation, the Queen's birthday was celebrated every year on May 24 unless that date was a Sunday, in which case a proclamation was issued providing for the celebration on May 25.

As far as I know, we don't even celebrate this holiday in England, but who am I to complain when we are given a day off.

Wade's first BBQ of the year on Saturday, followed up with a Mexican guy called Hector combined his birthday with BBQ action, tongue tacos anyone??? Then finally, Steve and his wife Cari invited the Orphans (The Brits) around for more meaty goodness. Each had their own unique flavour, with Wade's of course being the most alcohol fueled. There are pictures over on Jez's Blog, showing us playing with the pug's, so there is no point re-posting them here.

Steve is trying to banish his dog into the water, as you can see Jesse isn't best pleased and appears to be crying, yes Steve can be cruel.

Sunday's affair was extremely civilised, apart from the "Who could make the biggest explosion" competion on Burnout revenge, to be honest I think Jolyne won? Jesse Steve's dog entertained us with his rock chasing capabilities, and we all seemed to enjoy being out in the fresh air instead of being cooped up in a badly air conditioned warehouse.

Jolyne teaching Shamus a very valuable lesson... Never trust strangers, she had pretended to offer him a sweet, until he realised that she sat on a throne of lies and was only offering thin air.

So all in all a very social weekend, although the weather says different, I think that summer is well and truly on the way, think that this one is gonna be a doozy.

FA Cup Saturday (Stevie G....enius)

First FA cup in Montreal, and of course the mighty reds were gracing the millennium Stadium with their presence again, it's fast becoming known as Anfield South we've played there that many times. With Dad here, I'd promised that I'd find somewhere for us to watch the match, the only catch being that we would need to be sat down ready for action by am... Anyone that knows me or my dad knew that that might be a little too much to ask.

Anyway, we dragged ourselves out to Champs on St-Laurent (somehow), and managed to get settled in for kick off, with coffee and juice in hand, which also seemed strange as football+coffee isn't usually how it works, so Guinness and football quickly followed.

WHAT A GAME!!!! Andy, this would of been an awesome one down the old fish market or walkabout, I can just imagine what the atmosphere would of been like, it seemed to follow a little bit of a familiar pattern. When will teams learn that going 2 goals up against Liverpool, just get them angry and our victory all the more sweet, Jeff's Cry's of *der der der dun der ner... Puppy Power* on the wind up before Stevie's goals seemed fitting, as I'm sure most of you know by now, we won. Text's were going back and forth with Saima and I, very reminiscent of that night in Turkey, keeping each other updated on the reactions in each city... Didn't realise she was supposed to be working though, who was looking after your patients?

Party Setting on the camera was primed well before the first penalty, a feeling of inevitability swept over the staunchly scouse crowd, I wonder how many of them were Liverpool fans BEFORE last years Champions League win? Ah well, doesn't matter, I really enjoyed this one, you always get value for money with the "Pool", we make the winning more exciting, heart attacks all round though, or maybe that was the Schwartz's sandwich we had after?

Playing with Pingu

So we visited the Biodome, yeah this is starting to feel like I'm a kid again, Mum and Dad taking me out for the day, just this time, I'm allowed to have a beer every now and again, and I'm telling THEM where to go and how to get around. I hadn't seen either of the Biodome or the Insectarium, so I wasn't going to scoff at the chance to go and see some more of Montreal, chances are I wouldn't be going on my own.

I have to admit that I really enjoyed the Penguin's, and we caught them at feeding time, so they were being particularity playful, that combined with the fact I sat on the floor right next to the glass and inbetween the penguins attempting a staring competition and a little girl of about 3 years old showing me the crayon marks on her hand I had a great time, I think she liked the fact I was the same height as her when I was sat down?

I wanted to show them the running joke of Montreal... The Olympic Stadium, which even though the games were here before I was born, the stadium is still trying to pay off it's debt, surely there must be something that they can turn this into? I giant fun house? A massive smoked meat restaurant? Laser Quest? Come on they are all fried gold suggestions, just pick one and start building.

Thought I'd share this pick of the parents, just to prove they were having fun, just after this picture was taken, a penguin jumped over the side and stole my dads camera, needless to say he wasn't best pleased.

More Assassin's Creed Media

So I'm kinda happy I'm working on this project as I think is becoming a little obvious by now, so I'll try and keep the posts down to a minimum, obviously I can only show you stuff thats been made public, so chances are I'll only be posting the significant stuff.

But E3 this week, is huge for the team and I, and we are all really excited about how the pubic is going to recieve Assassin's Creed, as you can see we have manged to get the Exclusive E3 Game Informer cover, which is one of the biggest computer games magazines out there, in there will be a couple of screen shot, that can be seen here as well.

Assassins Creed Teaser.Mov
Here we have a link to the Pre E3 Teaser

Assassins Creed Game Trailers Media E3 2006
Here is a great link to all the media Game Trailers.com put together about the game during E3, including interviews with the Producer, which sheds a little more light on the project...

IGN Coverage

1up.com Coverage

Gamespot Coverage

Anyway, as you can see it's shaping up to be pretty cool, and we're really excited about the future, but I'm sure that there will be plenty more news about it in the coming months. So now you all know what I came here for, I'll stop being an Ass bore.

I'm off to enjoy some time off with Mum and Dad, enough shop talk.

Game of Show Possibly?

Quebec City

I'd heard that Quebec City was really beautiful, but can be extremely French, and although my linguistic skills are picking up, taking on Quebec City wasn't a challenge I felt ready for. But Mum and Dad decided that we should all go, and instead of working it out ourselves, we should do a city tour, I would usually be against these as they can be quite tourist, but this way we would discover all the cool things about the city a lot quicker than wandering around and not knowing what we were looking at. We ended up getting a comedy due of Roger and Jacques, they were bouncing off each other all day, and certainly added a little bit extra to the tour.

Dad got a little bit of his Military Fix, Mum got to see more of Quebec, and I got to sleep on the coach... Man I was tired!!!

The province of Quebec is 400 years old in a couple of years time (2008) so the residents are gearing up for one huge party, the whole place has been redeveloped, with lots of cool little touches all over the place, for example there are going to be 40 of these pseudo 3d paintings by 2008, they take up to 9 weeks a piece, but if you stand in the right place, you would be surprised at how convincing they can be.

Also whilst walking around the city, during our time away from the guide we found this sculpture in an alleyway, it was strange because it seemed such a strange place to put something that had obviously had so much work gone into it, but the more we walked around the more random alleyways had sculptures in. But we didn't find out why they were hidden away, maybe it was something to do with the heritage and not wanting to change the look of Quebec City, but maybe not. Will let you know if I find out though.

I'd heard that Quebec City was really beautiful, but can be extremely French, and although my linguistic skills are picking up, taking on Quebec City wasn't a challenge I felt ready for. But Mum and Dad decided that we should all go, and instead of working it out ourselves, we should do a city tour, I would usually be against these as they can be quite tourist, but this way we would discover all the cool things about the city a lot quicker than wandering around and not knowing what we were looking at.

Weekend with the Parents

So Mum and Dad arrived safely, my attempt at winding my sister and brother in law up asking them if Mum and Dad had already left for Montreal seemed to fall on deaf ears. Upon telling him on Saturday evening that I hadn't met up with Mum and Dad all he seemed interesting in telling me was that my sister had only made 4 packets of crisps for dinner. Not "Wow maybe you should check the hotel" or "Thats a bit worrying"... So by this I assumed that he knew I was winding him up, all this whilst my Mum and Dad were over my shoulder, just as well you didn't go off on one with the swearing eh Russ???

Ok, so Dad passed out, but Mum was way too excited to go to sleep before seeing some of Montreal, it crossed my mind to take here to Super Sexe, but thought that going to a "gentlemens club" with your mother isn't really the way to go, so I took her next door to the 3 Brassiers bar for a coffee and caught up.

Saturday saw me being typically 45 minutes late, but by then it was raining so we popped around the corner for breakfast, and Dad was in awe of the fact you got fruit with your bacon.

'Fruit... Thats a great idea, they should do that in Liverpool or Southport'.

Dad

'Yeah it's cool, not too sure that the builders would be best pleased though'.

Kristjan

Off we went to the Underground City, where Mum kept wandering off, and I felt like I was rounding up a couple of kids, but in fairness it is quite easy to get lost down there. Then it was off to Baton Rouge for dinner, where they couldn't get their head around the size of the portions you get, welcome to North America.

Sunday was spent wandering around the Old Port, full of tourists, but suppose that even though I live here thats what we are. But Sunday night, I pulled my Ace Card out, and took them to the Improv Comedy Night on Ste-Cathrine, the same place I went with Saima in January, needless to say, again I had a great time but it's a shame that not many people know about it, as I think that it could be really successful if it was only a little more well known.

Today I'm leaving them to it as I have to work, but will be meeting back up with them tomorrow, so will keep you posted. After living in Montreal for 11 months now, I'm really enjoying showing people around, finally feel like I'm getting a similar feeling to when I was living in Bristol, (Well it wasn't going to happen over night was it)

Mum and Dad here tomorrow...

Only 1 day left until Mum and Dad come to visit me in here, for the first time since I moved here last June. As usual my Mum's mantra of "Everything happens for a reason" rings true, as their timing is perfect, what with all the hard work we've all been putting in to our E3 demo, I'm looking forward to spending some time with them.

Running the risk of sounding like a big kid instead of the strapping 28 year old man I am, it's been way too long since I saw the family, infact it's been almost 9 months, but hopefully if all works out this year it will be the first of 4 times I'll see them this year, as I have just booked my flight home in July (14th - 29th), then will hopefully be back for this years big event, (The Gordon - Davis wedding) and then christmas, which will be fun as the entire family will be around again. But warning everyone now, with all those flights back there won't be much left over for christmas presents!

So, the plan is the ultra French Quebec City, with the assistance of my French speaking Dad, various resturants of which there are many, the Old Port for him and Ste-Cathrines for her. Of course the old classic of Mont Royal, but this time instead of the snow covered Montreal we'll have the awesome Spring view of Montreal.