There’s been a mystery I’ve been trying to solve for thirty years. What happened on New Year’s Eve 1994 at the house on Long’s Hill? Did a couch actually catch fire and hit a house? Were the police called? Did the story make it onto Canadian national radio, and what happened to that couch anyway?

Over the years, the story of the Long’s Hill couch slide has become legend amongst my friends and even amongst those who don’t know us. It’s a story that has grown and changed in the telling. So, I went to some of the original people, including people who had heard the story from others at the time.

Thank you very much to Marc Dyke, Aaron McKim, Andrew Smith, and Mike Mannion. I hope no one is doing literal couch surfing this New Year and that you all have a brilliant year ahead.

I will be back on January 12 on a regular Monday schedule with the podcast. It’s been fun doing a couple of offbeat episodes. In the coming year, I’m looking forward to treating you to some amazing interviews, some great new stories—both fiction and non-fiction—and to delving deeper into the stories that make us human. Until then, be safe and give your pets a cuddle. If you enjoyed this or any other episode, please help me grow my listenership by subscribing or sharing.The image was generated by Gemini.

Whether you are hiding frozen cherries in couch cushions or singing at the top of your lungs there’s so many ways we make ourselves comfortable. I love this time of year even if it means long nights and cold temperatures here in the northern latitudes. Regardless of how religious you are I love the idea that there’s a season where we acknowledge the value of the people in our life with gifts and food.

Give the gift that keeps on giving and share this episode. It would mean a lot to me!

On today’s episode we have the following folks:Friends from St. John’s, Newfoundland: Marc and Angie, Andrew Smith, Andrew Draskoy, Aaron, Rohith, and Colette

Friends from HeyOrca: Jesse, Steph, JP, Steve, Peter, Joe, and Farhan

Friends from OpenOcean: Tony, Toby, Raoul, Ralf, Patrik, and Mirva

This entire episode is the brainchild of my fabulous partner Suvi.

To all my friends and family: I wish you a very Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, no matter where you are and what you celebrate.

Thank you for being with me on 34 episodes of Tales under the cat tree. I didn’t think I would make it all the way to a special Christmas episode. I hope you have enjoyed the episodes I have done. If you have, please take the time to subscribe, or better yet, please share the episode so I can grow my listenership.

I will return with a special New Year’s day episode and will be back to whatever is “normal” for this podcast on January 12.

Today’s episode featured the following pieces of music either in the public domain or under the Creative Commons license. No changes have been made to the compositions or performances beyond mixing in the podcast.

* "Christmas Prelude" performed by the Concert Band of the United States Air Force Band of Mid-America — License: Public Domain

* "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (for jazz piano) performed by the Diplomats of the United States Air Force Band — License: Public Domain

* El Noi de la Mare, a Catalan folk song on guitar. — License: Creative Commons

* Heinrich Lichner: Fantasia of Silent Night, Holy Night — License: Creative Commons 2.0

* Christmas music for Orchestra and choir MaxNegro — License: Creative Commons

All other music composed and performed by Duleepa Wijayawardhana.

When sun rays crown thy pine clad hills, And summer spreads her hand, When silvern voices tune thy rills, We love thee, smiling land. When spreads thy cloak of shimmering white, At winter’s stern command, Thro’ shortened day, and starlit night, We love thee, frozen land. When blinding storm gusts fret thy shore, And wild waves lash thy strand, Thro’ spindrift swirl, and tempest roar, We love thee windswept land. As loved our fathers, so we love, Where once they stood, we stand; Their prayer we raise to Heaven above, God guard thee, Newfoundland

Those are the verses to “Ode to Newfoundland,” composed by Sir Cavendish Boyle, without the refrains as would be commonly sung. It was the national anthem of the Dominion of Newfoundland and these days is the official provincial anthem of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Newfoundland is the world’s 16th largest island; it is located far to the east in Canada and makes up one part of the now Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland was the first British colony in the Americas, and it is also where the Vikings, with Leif Erikson, landed when they first came to North America. You can visit the archeological dig at L’Anse aux Meadows on the west coast of the island.

The reason for its historical prominence in European times came from the large stocks of cod fish that inhabited the Grand Banks off the coast, though the island had long been home to the now-extinct Beothuk peoples prior to any European settlement. It is a rugged and windswept island with amazing vistas when the weather allows.

And that is often the problem.

Had I been one day early in my most recent December trip to the island, I would not have made it, as gale-force winds had cancelled flights. This can happen in December. I arrived to an island of snow and ice, a little unusual in early December, but then these days and on this island, you never know what Mother Nature will throw at you.

So it was that I found myself on a hike with my good friends Dr. Aaron McKim and Andrew Draskoy in the White Hills near St. John’s with Aaron’s two huskies. Our group has been doing “winter” hikes for decades. We used to call them Arctic Picnics, and our group we had dubbed the “Royal Anarcho-Geographic Society of Newfoundland” or RAGSN. The members of RAGSN number a multitude and these days live around the world. But today it was just Aaron, Andrew, and me on a short winter hike. The ground was icy but the day bright and a little windy, as you might hear from the audio.

Listen to the episode for some great stories and history about Newfoundland and Labrador, hiking, and more.

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I met a traveller from an antique land

This is the poem Ozymandias by the great Percy Bysshe Shelley.

In this episode of Tales Under the Cat Tree, I want to explore the human egos that build our cities, kingdoms, and companies. I read “Ozymandias” when I was eleven years old. The image of the broken civilizations that thought themselves eternal and invincible has stuck with me ever since. We humans think our worlds can never die, that our present continues to the future with ever-increasing greatness, and that we, as individuals, are fully in control.

The reality is far different. So first, I will share an original short story that was inspired by “Ozymandias” called “Look Upon Our Works and Despair,” followed by a piece on “How to Become the Company MVP.” You might ask: is there really a connection between all these? Well, I will leave you to ponder that thought.

This episode was again done while on the go. This time from St. John’s, Newfoundland. Thank you to Marc and Angie for putting up with my shenanigans.

Recently, I was cleaning an attic full of memories, cards, and letters. Amongst the items were letters that my friends, and even one teacher, had written to me right after I finished my A-Level exams at South Island School in Hong Kong in 1992. One of those letters was from Tushar Salukhe, with whom I went to school. Tushar and my other “brother from another mother,” Sung, have been my lifelong friends, and of the two, Tushar has known me the longest. It was he who coined the nickname “Dups” that I go by.

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Since I was visiting London, where Tush lives, I thought it would be good to have a conversation about the 1980s Hong Kong that we witnessed growing up there. If there was ever a “golden era” for Hong Kong, I am sure it would have been the 1980s. Wealth and affluence abounded; the economy was growing, boasting one of the busiest airports in the world and serving as a center of global trade. This was pre-handover Hong Kong, a bustling, vibrant mix of the West and the East.

What follows is my conversation with Dr. Tushar Salukhe about growing up in Hong Kong, succeeded by an essay that I wrote right after our 25th high school anniversary in Hong Kong in 2017. I’ve included some old photos I dug up here.

Come and wander the crowded streets of one of the most amazing cities at the height of its power and glory in the 1980s, through the eyes of two teenagers.

I’ve talked about my fabulous writing group, “The Chapter Chasers,” in previous episodes. Many of the stories I feature or am submitting to various journals and competitions have been workshopped by the group. Our group is incredibly international, spanning the continents of North America, Europe and Asia, and with it is a diversity you would not be able to build had you tried intentionally. This writing group began in Gail Anderson’s Flash Fiction course at Oxford and continues 18 months later.

Today, I am happy to have Lisa Mathew on the podcast with me to talk about the editing process. If you’ve been listening to the last few episodes about BioWare, you might have noticed I keep mentioning all the people who it takes to put a creative work in front of you. In fact, this very podcast goes through multiple edits, different listens, and opinions before you ever get to hear it. The same is true when it comes to fiction. Your story is often only as good as the editor or editors who contribute to it.

Today, I will read a short story in its final form. In the show notes, I have a link to the story along with the edits that Lisa provided. You can immediately see the difference. But first, let me read you the story in the final edited form.

The story is called “Climbing.” You can see screens of the edits that Lisa made.

More about flash fiction:

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This episode is part 3 of my short series on BioWare. In this episode we interview Georg Zoeller and Emmanuel Lusinchi who were designers and more on Neverwinter Nights (Hordes of the Underdark), Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Jade Empire, and Star Wars: The Old Republic for BioWare. Both Georg and Emmanuel went on to work together at Ubisoft and Meta. Like Craig Miller and I, they’ve been working together in various companies for over 20 years.

This episode is full of stories about why dragons were not originally a part of DragonAge, how The Old Republic ended up with speeder bike mounts, how the Asari came to be in Mass Effect and more. Georg and Emmanuel also touch on the massive changes in the games industry these days and even Larian and BG3. We also delve into our strange paths into BioWare and the gaming industry. For those that love BioWare games, or games in general, this is a great oral history by two industry veterans.

Please do listen to Parts 1 and 2 and do subscribe to get more BioWare interviews in the future!

I would like to always thank everyone we ever worked with at BioWare.

Here are some photos that Georg rescued!

This is part two of my interview with my colleague Craig Miller about our days at BioWare together. I strongly suggest you listen to Part 1 before listening to Part 2. While this episode still delves into more office shenanigans, if you are interested in the games themselves, tune in for Part 3 next week when I interview ex-designers Georg Zoeller and Emmanuel Lusinchi.

Everyone who worked at BioWare had a part to play in getting the game out. However, people like me were peripheral, most of the time, to what went into the games. For sure, we would all playtest the games back then, and I’m sure bugs and ideas went in because of that. For example, one of the writers, Dan Whiteside, did put some of one part of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that I had been involved in.

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When you are involved in such a game studio, no matter who you are, I am sure a small part of you ends up in the game. Next week, for example, you will note that Georg had some part to play in the workings of the Mako, the vehicle in Mass Effect.

I am lucky in that I do have one very small piece of me in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

LucasArts was very careful about what was considered “Star Wars-y” back in 2003. It’s open knowledge that BioWare chose The Old Republic era so that the writers could have more creative freedom. When the game was coming out, the QA team submitted the lists of Random Names that would come up when you created your main character. To see if they could get by the LucasArts censors they submitted a bunch of BioWare employees’ names.

The only name that apparently went by the censors without any changes was “Dups”.

Yes, if you hit the random name generator in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, even now on an iPad, you will eventually get to “Dups” as a first name. I genuinely did not know they had done this. Stanley Woo and Chris Priestly told me this well after the game had come out. So there you go, somewhere, in the randomly generated characters, it is possible that someone played a Star Wars character thinking that “Dups” might be a name from the original “Star Wars” universe.

Kind of crazy.

In-game Easter eggs featuring BioWare employees can be found as far back as Baldur’s Gate 1 when you can read the tombstones of the Nashkel Cemetery. There are inscriptions such as “Ray - Who said, “This damn game will be... the death of me!”“ referring to Dr. Ray Muzyka one of the CEOs and many others referring to those who worked on the game.

Okay, I think it’s now time to finish the interview with Craig. Please note, these stories likely mean more to those who worked at BioWare between 2001 and 2007 than perhaps to many gamers. At the same time, I hope you enjoy the joy of this oral history as we watched the people at BioWare release some of the most acclaimed games in history.

Last week, we were still at our old office on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton from where Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic were born. We then moved offices as we were building Jade Empire, Mass Effect and what became Dragon Age.

Before you listen to this episode please listen to:

Other links from this episode

In the episode we talk about singing the Infogrammes theme song. Infogrames was the publisher for Neverwinter Nights, later Infogrames rebranded to Atari. At the time that we were being published by Infogrames, they released the cheesiest corporate song of all time. We had a blast making fun of this song internally. I’ve linked to Youtube with the original song.

Seriously, I’m convinced Infogrames had to change their name after they put this out.

Today’s episode is part one of two where I talk to my good friend and colleague Craig Miller about BioWare. Craig and I have now worked together for almost 25 years since we first met at BioWare.

If you play video games then you probably know BioWare. The game studio was responsible for bringing some of the most renowned Dungeons & Dragons computer games to life including Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights, the most beloved Star Wars game story of all time in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, the space opera trilogy of Mass Effect and of course the high fantasy epics of Dragon Age. The Mass Effect franchise alone has sold over 30 million copies. Over the years the staff who have worked at the studio have entertained millions in producing some of the most critically acclaimed story-based computer and console roleplaying games in history.

If this podcast glorifies the idea of words creating worlds, then BioWare and all its people are masters of that phrase. But it takes more than game developers to bring a game out the door; there’s a supporting cast of hundreds and I was lucky to be one of them for some years between 2001 and 2007.

A few years ago BioWare celebrated 25 years and produced an amazing book with artwork, stories and photos. But you can’t tell all the stories, especially all the crazy and geeky ones in a single book. So I thought it would be great to sit down with some former BioWarians like Craig to talk about those old days. This interview is quite geeky; it goes into what Craig and I were doing there helping to build, launch and run the BioWare Community.

In many ways, this is a love letter to all the people we worked with. I’m sure most gamers that recall games such as Neverwinter Nights and Jade Empire don’t know all the stories behind how a small crew managed to keep those games alive or get those games out the door.

I hope you enjoy our stories.

Some photos and videos

And finally see the crazy habit trail we talk about… c. 2002-2003.

There are many people we didn’t name in this podcast: We can’t there’s too many, just open up the credits on any BioWare game and every person there is a hero! However, thank you to Drs. Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk for bringing us all together once upon a time.

Sigiriya is a UNESCO World Heritage site from the 5th Century. Find out about King Kasyapa and this magnificent palace on top of a rock.

Thanks to the following:

* My colleague Viktor Djupsjöbacka

* My brother Harsha Wijayawardhana

* ElevenLabs for creating a voice clone of my father

Other links:

* About Sigiriya on Wikipedia

* About the Mahavamsa from which I quote

* And finally, enjoy some music!