I think this is the longest I've gone between blog postings, oops...
Been busy, real busy. Got myself a new job in early November, been slaving away at that, although last week hasn't been as bad. Worked 77 hours the week before, though.
And there's been a lot of LEGO-related stuff going on too, of course. I have fun pictures of a couple of things.
First, over the last week I've been incrementally backing up the full BZPower machine, and finally downloaded all the relevant content to my
I've started to take writing more seriously, and have entered a regional writing competition. The prize is only $300, and it won't be announced until August, but it's a start. Writing is where I've decided I want to spend my effort, since time is a river and it ain't getting any deeper for me - although it seems to run faster these days.
Up to now, I've been writing some fanfics and little blog entries, letters to the editor, and so on. No, I won't link, but it's absurdly simple to find them.
As I type this, BZP is currently hosting more than 1,000 concurrent users. This would be unthinkable a month ago. So I guess all the pain has been worth it.
Earlier today, we set a record with 1,250 concurrent users - most of them visitors. but I tell ya, it's a thrill seeing that many people online at once, and not having to babysit the server to make sure it's able to handle them all.
Yep. It's a gooooood feeling.
Edit 7/9/07: We just blasted the old record again, this time to 1,364 c
Woke up this morning to read on CNN about a plot to blow up airplanes leaving London Heathrow for the US. Like one of the flights I was on a couple of weeks ago. Sends chills down the spine. I feel fortunate, seeing pictures of the massively long queues in Heathrow, and hearing of five hour delays and things like that.
Just kinda makes you think. I'm glad they caught this one before anyone was able to blow up a plane over the Atlantic.
One of the fun things about working here is getting to see some artwork that might otherwise not be released. One is of the Ignika, which I'm turning into a wallpaper. It's an excellent image, and I'm using it as my desktop wallpaper now - it'll be on BIONICLE.com downloads next year. But I thought you might like a little preview...
Nothing exciting, but I figured it was time to give you an update on work-type stuff.
I just finished launching all the local sites (11 languages), after having launched US, UK, and Germany in July. Now I can concentrate on getting the game out there. It's in testing right now, and although I don't think it'll be ready for an August release, it should come in early September. The good news, though, is it WILL be released in all languages - either simultaneously, or right after the US version
Have ya ever noticed how crawly BZP gets after a while? I sure do. But where everybody else gets to just complain about it, yours truly is the one who actually has to do something about it.
We get lots and lots of hits a day... about 2.5 million, actually. That's a lot of database traffic. Every forum and blog page hit, as well as every news story page, has at least one database call - sometimes up to a dozen per page. So the DB traffic gets measured in number of hits per second, and sometime
This is always fun when you want to post something but don't have time or mental energy to come up with something wittily sparkling (as that sentence proves). So on a Friday afternoon, watching the clock hands crawl through molasses to 3:45 when I can bail out of work, here's what I like to call:
What's on YOUR iPod? (Or [insert generic mp3 player brand])
I'm a bit... how you say... eclectic in my music listening choices, as you may tell from my list.
T'Pau: Heart & Soul Sara McLachl
After some discussions with people inside LEGO, I'd like to find out what you think BIONICLE is. This doesn't have anything to do with anything, just satisfying my own curiosity.
What is BIONICLE to you?
Answer the Poll
Thanks for your participation.
The kind that has lots of sorting to do, that's what sort.
I'm finally trying to get my LEGO collection organized. I've taken apart a bunch of old, stored sets that have been jostled into oblivion, and gotten all my bricks together from my various travels. Now it's time to sort them so I can create something for BrickFest.
The only problem is, I have about 250 pounds of brick to sort through and put in the right spot. It's gonna take a while.
(Excuse the grainy cell phone camera pictu
The forums are back online.
Here's the scoop. Apparently, the server we were on was having hardware issues. It kept eating database entries, so randomly topics or messages or members or posts were disappearing. Then, the blogs started to not show up, and longer posts. And then everything went kablooey.
Well, it took some time to get through to our hosting company, and then it took some more time for them to narrow things down, and then it took time to get back to us, and then it took time
Woo hoo! A new addition to BZP's stable of services. I have a feeling this will be pretty popular. I can see this showing up in people's sigs.
Now, this is written before we've officially announced this, can't wait to see how long it takes for people to see the "Blogs" link in the navbar...
I just realized how negligent I've been with my blog. Bad Binky.
Second week at The LEGO Group of companies. Weather here in Denmark has been stormy at times, sunny at times - but more former than latter. Commuting by bicycle has been fun, and I think I'm losing weight. Which is only a good thing. (Although I've had homemade tacos for two nights in a row, so I might actually be packin' on the kilos [note the European weight measurement - I appear to be assimilating].)
I'm starting to get m
Well, it’s officially announced: I’m the new webmaster for BIONICLE.com and BIONICLEstory.com. Specifically, my job title is “Internet Content Manager” for Product Group 3. That means in addition to BIONICLE, I’m also ultimately responsible for the LEGO Racers and LEGO Technic web sites. But there are others working on those sites, which takes a load off me – at least to start.
The new job involves much travel. I’m currently in Denmark, and will be attending meetings in Copenhagen and Connect
Sometimes, the past is a country one just shouldn't revisit.
Two decades ago, I shoved the necessities of life into a heavy canvas backpack and boarded a plane for Europe. The three months I spent trekking around the continent remain vivid more than half a lifetime later.
Some of the most vibrant memories: The beautiful, desperate beggar girl clutching a baby in the Milan train station, grabbing my arm and crying for a few lira. Riding an old train through Austria and absentmindedly loo
Gotta love that Danish benefits package... so I'm off this week, taking 9 days of vacation. Of course, that means more work piled on when I get back into the office, but what the heck. For now I get to sleep late, ride bikes with the kids, and generally hang out. My worthy assistant, Anne Mette, is handling things for me while I'm away - like pushing Game 6 live earlier today.
Taking two and a half weeks off in July to drag the family through Europe - Rome, London, Ireland. Should be fun.
So now that all the major issues have been taken care of... I'm off on vacation for the next 2.5 weeks. I won't have access to a computer, so no BZP during that time.
Don't miss me too much!
The server itself seems to be doing OK, but we're continuing to get corrupt database tables once in a while. They're causing some minor grief. In an effort to get away from that grief, we've decided to upgrade to the latest version of Invision Power Board. The request has been submitted to our host, so the boards could go offline at any point in the next day or two.
This means the forums will be unavailable for several hours once this process starts. We'll try to put a news story online when
You guys are getting more patient. I've only gotten a handful of anxious "When will BIONICLE.com be updated???" PMs lately.
I'm working on getting the site updated as soon as I can. All my stuff is done (and has been for a month), I'm just waiting for others to have the time to work on their parts. There are some good things for you to get, including a really nice desktop image you haven't seen yet. The game is done but won't launch at the same time as the product updates.
With luck, it'll
Even though I'm officially still on vacation, I spent most of the morning catching up - now that I finally have access again.
Here are some answers to a few questions I've gotten... A few text changes have been made to Bios to correct some inaccuracies. The Flash header on BIONICLE.com doesn't seem to work for Flash 9 - I'm looking into that. BIONICLEstory.com was supposed to be updated by today, but for some reason won't go live until Monday. Some movies seem to take a long time to download
Tomorrow I'll be getting up at 4 a.m. to update BIONICLE.com. I have to coordinate with my colleagues in Denmark, hence the time difference. There'll be some fun stuff you guys will like, I think.
The things I do for you.
UPDATE: For technical reasons, the update has been delayed 24 hours. Sorry for the inconvenience.
UPDATE 2: For more technical reasons, the update has been delayed until at least next Monday.
The BZP server has been yoyo-ing the last couple of days, not sure why. I've rebooted it a few times, kept an eye on things, but still Apache crawls into a hole and stares at its bellybutton for half an hour before coming out of the trance. Seriously thinking about getting some expert help on this, it's getting out of hand. The stats for yesterday showed a marked decrease in page views, indicating it was hanging a lot. Not quite so bad today, but not great, either.
So yes, I know the server's
Who knew? Not only did I get a work laptop last Friday, but today I hear the company is submitting a patent application on one of the projects I worked on. I was the principal inventor, actually. It'd be nice to get one of those patent plaques with my name engraved, but even if it happens, it's years down the road - it takes a loooooooong time for the process to go through. My buddy Steve (who works for a large semiconductor company) has several. The "ooh-aahhh" factor is nice.
For those that
I just saw the TV ad for 2010, and it looks awesome. But the first thing that struck me was that it's not even close to canon.
So, to defuse some of the comments I know we'll see, I thought I'd post something here.
The purposes of a TV ad (in order of importance) are to:
A. Inform the viewer there are new BIONICLE products available
B. Inform the viewer of the product features and benefits of purchasing the product
C. Create desire to purchase or own the product
You'll notice that "T
Last Friday I attended Toy Fair in Nuremburg, Germany, with my assistant, Anne Mette. She took this picture of me with a special attendee at the show.
And that's the only Toy Fair picture I have for you.
