New Year in Manchester

Saima and I out in Manchester

Me and 5 girls... awesome.

Blue steak, how it should be.

New Year is usually a last minute thing, in fact every year apart from maybe a couple have been arranged on the actual day. So it was great that this year Saima had arranged new year well ahead of time... By November in fact.

We were going to be in Manchester, hotel was booked, as was a meal and the club that would take us on to Midnight. Being cynical I was expecting something to go wrong, and the only hint of any trouble was the barman in the club at the end of the night getting our drinks order confused. But even this worked out in our favor as we got a free round of drinks as he couldn't remember where he had put the credit card machine. Ah well, it's new year hard luck for you matey!

I was out with Saima and her friends this year, as I wasn't about to go down south to either Bristol or London and everyone in the North was doing their own thing, so I spent it with 5 women, no complaints from me. The funny thing was that I felt like the most underqualifed of all of them, with everyone either being pretty much doctors or lawyers. It was also a chance to meet some of Saima's friends.

The lack of countdown towards midnight was a bit of a letdown, and in retrospect a bit of an anti-climax as before we knew it, midnight had come and gone. But I still had a great night, plenty of alcohol, and some cocktail called a pornstar martini had me pretty drunk. But isn't that part of the fun of New Year?

Boxing Night Drinkie's

Saima, Karen, Nick and Mag's

Karen with her $1,000,000 smile.

Karen nicked me tie...

Not really sure what Mag's is doing???

There have been plenty of pictures of me drinking in Montreal. So it’s time for me to give you some pictures of the bars Southport has to offer, needless to say Boxing night would bring out the class.

Karen has mentioned to me as one of my oldest friends that she was disappointed not to be on the blog, she wanted to be on. So not one to want to disappoint her I brought my camera out. Saima and I met up with everyone in a generic bar on Lord Street (the main street in Southport), where Nick had said that he was going to join us, since I hadn’t seen him since London in the summer.

From there the 2 Sarah’s wanted to pass through Maloney’s so that that could see the barmen (They like to throw their bottles around), but the rest of us fancied going to Sugar near where I used to work, to show how much class this place has, it had a pole installed, of course the girls love it, and admittedly so do the boys. Personally I like to see how bad some of the so called ‘pole dancing’ is, which is usually just girls generically gyrating against the pole, trying to impress the fellas… Doesn’t really do it for me it has to be said, but its comedy all the same.

Girls if you going to do it at all, at least make an effort, up step Sarah, who schools all comers.

Zadziuk Family Christmas

Welcome to the Zadziuk's

carrotts...

A close up of the little men that lived on my mums christmas setup.

Gratutious nan kissing me shot.

The table, mum was proud and you have to admit it is pretty good

Front room on christmas morning

Christmas in my family has always been a pretty big deal, this year wasn’t going to be any different. Last year I spent it away from home, as did my dad due to his job. But this year we were both back in the country and Mum was going to pull out all the stops to make sure that we all had a great time.

From the picture above it may appear that we go a little overboard, I want to let it be known that a lot of these presents will more than likely be Pringles, Chocolate wrapped up in various different ways and little trinkets for each of our homes, be in Bolton, Southport or Montreal.

Christmas eve is usually spent with Karen Roberts and friends having a few cheeky drinks, but this year I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a slobbering mess at the dinner table which I have to admit I have been close to a couple of times. Especially with my nan coming round I’d have to be on top form. She seemed to have a great time and was at the Warnicks within minutes of walking in the door.

Presents covered the front room and with the family getting bigger seemingly each year it was getting difficult to know where to put everything, throwing the paper into the middle of the room for the dog to plough through is always fun, except this year, Karen (my sister) decided to test her attack alarm, which lets out a high pitched shreek when you press it. Anyone that has a dog knows that they aren’t a big fan of high pitched noises and I think that we found the much fabled yellow version of the brown note, which saw her letting herself go… albeit on all the newspaper and wrapping paper thrown into the middle of the room.

Plenty of baileys, stella, and various other alcoholic beverages later, we had finished unwrapping presents, fingers covered in newsprint, floor covered in paper and a pile of empty disgusing boxes on the sofa. A load of effort from my mum, my dad spending hours perfecting his wrapping technique, Emma (older, younger sister) making sure every one of her presents matched and worked together, and me after flying in on the 21st wrapping my presents to family at the last minute. This year was a truly fun Christmas.

Enjoy the pictures, hopefully will give you a flavour of what we’re about.

Liverpool v Watford: Trip to Anfield

The view from our seats in Anfield, the opposite end to the Kop.

The red's have been flying of late, and I mentioned to my Dad about going to a match, as we aren't generally in the same country at the same time, I thought that it would be a good idea that we both went to Anfield to see Liverpool take on Watford. Dad, I and Saima are all avid red's fans but have only see a handful of games together, with me actually not seeing any with Saima, we would usually be texting each other from different bars, the most memorable one being the Champions League Final in 2005 and the last being the FA Cup Final this year against West Ham, which has now become known as "The Gerrard Final".

As you can see from the above picture we had seats right behind the goal, which as luck would have it was the end that Liverpool scored both times in the second half to secure a 2 - 0 win. With Craig "No neck" Bellamy and Xabi Alonso scoring. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and the Kop was in full voice (mainly during the second half). I actually missed the first goal as I didn't stand up quick enough and everyone in front jumped out of their seats obscurring my view, but I made sure that I caught the second goal, and was in a great mood after seeing my first Anfield win, putting us solidly in third place and that all important Champions League spot.

Me outside the Kop stood next to the Bill Shankly statue.

No explanation needed.

The Hillsbourgh memorial by Shankly gates.

You can't visit Anfield without paying your respects to the memorial near Shankly Gates, this is to remember the people lost whilst Liverpool played an FA Cup semi-final in 1989, and saw many Liverpool fans crushed after the stadium was overcrowded and couldn't escape past the barriers surrounding the pitch. These barriers no longer exist in Football around England.

The Wonder of Christmas: Airport edition

So I’m writing this from the airport in Montreal, I’m sat here waiting to catch my flight to Heathrow, the original plan was fly into London and then jump on another flight to Manchester where I would meet Mum and Dad (who just so happens to be flying back from the Congo at the same time I get in). All would be well and Christmas would get under way with me meeting Saima for her birthday…

But wait what’s this? Bird in the engine? Missed connection because of lateness? How’s about de-icing of the plane in Montreal because the cold weather decided to come back?

None of that malarkey, it’s as simple as too much fog in the South of England, I love the fact that we are in 2007, there is all this technology and in this day and age Mother nature still finds a way of throwing a spanner in the works. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not angry, in fact far from it. I actually find this amusing, my flight could or could not be cancelled in London, but hey, I’m not the fussed. I’ll rent a car and make BA pay, I’ll get a train, and I’ll hitch-hike if I have to. Either way I’m home for Christmas, it could be plenty worse; at least I’ll be in the same country. I’ll only have 200 miles to go to get to Southport… That last 10% is always the hardest right?

Ubisoft Christmas Party 2006: Acrobat

Ubisoft didn't go to the level it went last year with the cinema, free pop corn, candy floss, semi-naked dancers, free bar and other random events, but they did lash out the acrobats again, which was pretty cool. Here you can catch the end of the performance.

The girls came with us this year, there was plenty of dancing, was good to see people from work outside of work, one of the highlights of the night was the candy room which someone had to point out to me, but as soon as it was I was on a mission promoting it, everyone had to know about the magical CANDYLAND!!!!! CAN-DY everywhere, I mean bowls full of jelly beans, some sort of sugar bacon looking thing, as Jez pointed out they were missing some essentials, fruit salads and black jacks being a notable omission. But hey, there was still loads of candy....

Ubisoft Christmas Party 2006: Pics

Jeff with one of his masks

Jez was the only one to see the massive wrecking ball heading towards us

Did I dance?... What do you think.

All ready to drink the free bar dry.

This is how to wear your masks...

Not sure if the nose fell off of the glasses here... I think it did but can't tell.

These two enter the room and 1000 games developers don't stand a chance.

Karine and Julie, no comment... Just like the picture.

Danny from the basketball team, I'm actually standing on a box to take this.

Ubisoft V EA Montreal Basketball Game

The victorious Ubisoft Montreal team

A while back I started organising some casual pickup basketball games, it was born out of my need to play, and I was having trouble finding a good place to play, we've had a really good turn out over the past year and have gotten a regular set a players. Anyway word got around to EA Montreal that we had a team and they challenged us to a game, hopefully this will turn into a series between us, them and any other games companies in Montreal.

So we played them on Wednesday in a semi-casual pride only game... But that doesn't mean that it wasn't competetive. Anyway that knows me or has seen me play will know what I'm like when I'm playing basketball however serious the game is. Fair enough the game was a little scrappy but we came out of it the eventual victors. We played well as a team and our experience together showed, especially when we played the second half and were more comfortable.

Next year should be fun as we'll be playing for more than pride.

Snows here, so is the Christmas spirit.

It's about time... Here comes the snow.

Weekend of ups and downs:

Downers

• Lost my wallet in a bar.
• It's snowing and cold
• Hungover on Saturday morning

Uppers

• Lisbon's back, about double the size. Where's he been?
• Won a my fair share of pool games, think I'm getting better.
• Watched An evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder (Very funny)
• Restored my faith in humanity when my wallet appeared in my post box*
• Chilled and caught up on some much needed sleep.

* So here's the story, not that exciting but I thought that I'd share this with you. So a bunch of us were out for Harry's leaving do, he's off to California in a couple of weeks. Things got a little messy, which isn't unusual. But somewhere along the line I lost my wallet, the annoying thing is I kinda had a good idea where it was but it was nowhere to be found. Gutted.

So the harsh reality of everything in there kicks in, I realized that I was going to have to get new versions of pretty much all of my I.D. But there is nothing that can be done about it until Monday, so no point in worrying and just get on with it, something was telling me that there was no need to. Because I meet Jolyne, Paul and Jeff for breakfast on Sunday morning, and then as I'm walking back, I start to have a feeling that it'll turn up somewhere really stupid, or I'll see it on the floor on my walk back to my place.

I get back and something tells me to check my post box on a Sunday, and lo and behold, theres my wallet staring back at me, I open it thinking that stuff will be missing, not only was nothing missing, but my coffee card was still in there and even my stamps. Everything... (I would returned the wallet but would of at least taken the stamps), but I think that that says more about me than anything else.

Anyway if by some bizzare reason if that person reads this, cheers fella. Much appreciated.

AC on my wall

A while ago all of us on Assassin's Creed were given posters of the game, they look like film posters and I thought that it would be pretty cool to get a load of the animators and programmers to sign it for future posterity, then I'd mount it on my wall.

Yeah it's a little sad... So what... Wanna fight about it?

Christmas lights on my street

December is here again and the people on my street are putting their christmas lights up, since we had the turkey post last week, I thought that it would be fun to show you the levels some people go to, these 2 houses stood out. These have been up since the end of November, and they really did get the jump on everyone else.

Up until 3 days ago we were having temparatures around the 17 degree mark, and this was in November! Then out of no where comes ice and a slight smattering of snow (thats a word that needs more use... smattering), and -9 with wind chill. With those tempuratues you get the inevatable powercuts, the last hour of work on Friday saw us have 3. That was enough to send Jeff, Blake and I to the pub in disgust, but any excuse to get off work early on a payday friday.

Oh and to top it all off, I lost my entire wallet for the first time in ages on Friday, had to cancel all my cards, Canadian and English. Thats not the annoying part, the annoying part is that I had my drivers licences from both countries as well as a few other forms of I.D. Really could of done with one of these little gadgets. As I'm forever mis-placing my keys, phone and cards.

Not happy....

It's the Fuzz!

click the picture for the trailer

Not really much to do with Montreal as such, but when I saw this I got so excited, from the same team that brought you "Shaun of the Dead".

"Hot Fuzz" is due for release early next year, I love these guys this team are one of the few comedy double acts that will actually make me laugh out loud in public places. I love em.