Beth Orton is ace

We went to see Beth Orton at the Commodore Ballroom last night. I thought for a while that I had lost the tickets, because it had been a couple of months since we bought them. Never been to the Commodore before, but it is a nice venue - lots of space inside and an interesting layout with balconies and booths, and lots of seating. It felt like a school disco when we arrived - loads of people sitting on chairs and a conspicuously empty dancefloor. It pretty much filled up later though. We were right near the stage throughout and had a great view.

Support was a guy called Willy Mason. He's a young folk singer from Massachusetts, and we have seen him live before as by coincidence he supported KT Tunstall a month or so back. Weird! He was better this time too, not that last time was bad. He had an extra person is his band (a girl playing the fiddle), and this made the song arrangements a little bigger and more complex which made quite a difference (and the sound at the Commodore was better). We also know his stuff a little better now as Steph bought his album. Anyway, he was very good.

Beth Orton finally came on about 10.20pm. Good job too, as Steph and I were falling asleep :) I am not her biggest fan - I guess Steph kind of convinced me to go - but I thought she was great. She does have a beautiful voice, and her live performance was excellent. She played a mixture of old and new stuff, and took requests from the audience. It didn't matter to me as I didn't know any of it anyway, but it was all good. I particularly enjoyed the songs she performed on her own with just an acoustic guitar - spellbinding stuff. And Steph loved her.

The best game ever (so far)?

This is kind of old news now, but recently I came across a movie of Will Wright's presentation of his new game Spore from GDC 2005. There are a ton of things about this game that are cool, from the procedural content, to the changes of scale and gameplay, to the innovative use of online play. If you are at all interested in games, I recommend you check it out. It is a long movie, and the quality isn't brilliant but you'll enjoy it anyway :)

Snowshoeing at Cypress Mountain

Last Saturday (25th March), Steph and I went to Cypress Mountain. This was the second time we had been since we moved to Canada. Steph skied, but I opted for snowshoeing. I've done it three times before now at other places, and I am getting really into it - it's a nice balance of exercise and scenery, with the added fun of wearing the snowshoes themselves. We made the effort to get up early and catch the first bus to the mountain, and it paid off as the place was pretty quiet when we got there at around 9.30am. Unfortunately, we had to split up for the day. Cypress is split into two areas - Alpine for downhill skiing and snowboarding, and Nordic for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

They have around 10km of snowshoe trails at Cypress, and they are beautiful. Unlike Grouse where the trails are a constant drag uphill, Cypress is much more varied in elevation and terrain. It alternates between uphill and downhill sections, and none of the uphill drags are that strenous. It was altogether more like a nice walk in the country, and less like an endurance test. The trails run mostly through forest and the scenery is lovely. I took the camera of course, and you can check out my pictures of trees and snow right here. We were lucky with the weather too - it started a little overcast but was mainly clear and sunny. I probably walked about two-thirds of the trails in around 5 hours, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Steph had a great time skiing too. Although the conditions became more slushy in the afternoon, it wa generally good and there were hardly any lift lines (unlike our last visit to Grouse) so she was very happy.

That might well be it for winter sports this year. The weather is gradually turning milder, and it won't be long before the local mountains are closed. It's a shame but at least it was a fitting end, and we have our first summer in Canada to look forward to :)

Look out BC, here I come!

I passed my BC driving test today! Woohoo!

I was nervous as hell, and I made a few minor errors. My first right-hand turn was a bit sloppy, and the first time I had to merge into traffic I was too sheepish and ended up having some difficulty - no-one in Vancouver is polite enough to let you in. Fortunately, I got a fairly lenient instructor who was willing to overlook the odd hiccup. Everything else I handled fine, including some good speed control, a couple of tricky left turns and a right on a red light, and a nifty bit of reverse parking. My test was also pretty short - it was over in 40 minutes rather than the hour I was expecting. If I'd had a harsh instructor or a full-length test, I think I might have failed.

I'm so relieved to have got that out of the way. I don't cope well with stressful situations like that. It must run in the family I think. I am certainly glad I took some lessons beforehand, or I'd never have passed. It makes me feel safer behind the wheel too now that I've had a little expert tuition. And I'll also get my UK license back at last - I'll need that as I am off back to the UK in a couple of weeks time for a visit.

Grouse Mountain trip

Have you noticed that we like mountains yet? Last Saturday (11th), Steph and I decided to take a trip to Grouse Mountain. Steph was keen to get in some more skiing before the season ended. Grouse is one of three mountains close to Vancouver, along with Cypress and Seymour. It probably takes less than 30 minutes in a car, but we don't have one of those, and public transport takes us about an hour to get there. From the base of the mountain, there is a gondola ride to the top. Saturday was a beautiful day with blue skies and lots of sun. We had picked a very busy day on Grouse, probably because of the good weather combined with the end of the season approaching. While Steph went off skiing, I rented some snowshoes and decided to take a hike (literally). They have some clearly marked and busy hiking trails on the top of Grouse, so I didn't feel perturbed at walking on my own. Compared to Whistler previously, the hike on Grouse was more of an ordeal - a long and hard drag upwards most of the time. It took about an hour to reach the summit of Dam Mountain, but the views were spectacular and a great reward. Coming down again was much easier too :) I definitely enjoyed the exercise and the scenery, though I'd like to find some trails that have more variety of climbing and descending - going uphill all the time is tough. Steph had fun too, though she probably spent more time waiting in line for the lifts than she spent skiing. Now she's talking about a last trip to Whistler before the end of March. I guess we'll see. Anyway, check out the pictures from my hike here.

Whistler trip

We took up a trip up to Whistler this weekend while Steph's parents are here visiting. The journey took about 2 hours 15 minutes by car and had some awesome scenery along the way. Whistler itself is pretty commercialised and sprawls over a large area, but it was all quite tasteful and well organized. We stayed over on the Saturday night in a hotel (which cost us a lot of money - accommodation seems to be very pricey in Whistler). Steph and her Dad did some skiing, while I decided to try some snowshoeing this time which I really enjoyed. Like walking, its a great way to get some exercise, and the snowshoes allow you to get up and down hills that you could never manage on foot in the snow, which makes it kind of fun. The surroundings were beautiful too. We even got some good weather too, although it started to snow heavily on the Sunday afternoon. We all had a great time I think, and would love to do it again, though we might not get another chance this season. Check out the photos on our .Mac website here.

Where's the bomb? It's here!

24: The Game has been released in Canada on PlayStation 2. This was the game project I was working on at Sony when I left the UK. I'm strangely excited about it, and looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. I want to see how it turned out, and I'm hoping it has lived up to some of its promise. Watch this space for my review :)