Tales under the cat tree: Conversations on Imagination, Tech & Human Adventure

Sometimes the process of stringing words together starts to click and you find that you have written a story: Dragons fly off the pages burning hobbits, characters say the darndest things, and you wonder why you accidentally killed the lead. Sometimes, when it clicks really well, like it did for my friend and author, Seamus Heffernan , you end up with a novel. In his case, it resulted in the crime...

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...

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 f...

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...

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed: And on the pedest...

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 fr...

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...

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...

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 Bio...

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...

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...

Today’s episode is all about empathy and the realities we create and then live in. Listen to a voice-acted story that I wrote called “Watching the wheels” and come with me on questioning how we perceive ourselves so that we can better understand how others perceive us. Maybe we can live a less conflict driven and unhappy life along the way! Thanks in this episode to: * The Chapter Chasers writing...

In Episode 24, we wander around Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea in the early 1980s and drop into an unusual wedding in the highlands where modernity meets tradition. I invite Dr. Erwin Warkentin , retired professor and (not-retired) literary critic onto the show to both read my autobiographic story and discuss. The above picture is a pictograph from Papua New Guinea that hangs on my my brother’s wa...

This is a two-part episode about roleplaying games and Dungeons and Dragons. This episode is a backgrounder on roleplaying games and how they could possibly change your life. And certainly, how they have changed mine. Today’s episode features my friends Andres, Nik, Olli, Niall and Liisa. Over six years we have adventured through many worlds and told many stories. This episode is as much about the...

An updated version of Episode 6 included an interview with Riikka Loisamo , CEO of The Shortcut . The interview is followed by my own immigrant story and some singing! Links: * Visit The Shortcut in Finland for more about their programs and how to get involved. * Learn more about the attitude change campaign run by The Shortcut and their partners. This is a public episode. If you would like to dis...

When I was growing up in the 1980s in Hong Kong, we only had four television channels. Of these, two were in English—ATV and TVB. My father refused to buy a VHS player, his reasoning being that I would spend too much time watching TV. To this day, I think it was because he was burned by VHS beating Betamax . As with every kid in my generation, I was glued to the TV at certain times of the day. The...

Today’s episode also features the flash fiction story “ Sullivan’s Choice ” My name is not Dave Dave was born bawling. He didn't really like what he saw when he popped out into the light. "Rather depressing," he drawled. But there was nothing to do about it, so he sighed, shut up and set up shop in my head. To date, that is the shortest “flash fiction” story I’ve ever written at exactly 42 words,...

If you are looking for links to various sources, materials and sites cited in the show, please scroll to the end. The article that inspired this episode is Yair Rosenberg’s The Atlantic piece: The MAGA Influencers Rehabilitating Hitler . I only met Moishe Kantorowitz once in my entire life, some 30 years ago. I have remembered his name ever since. This is not something I can say about most people...

One of my hopes for the rise of Generative AI is its ability to bring highly technical skills to a wider audience. I hope that it means the rise of applications, systems and networks that change the lives of people in a more meaningful, personalized way. But is my hope too overblown and the hype too overwhelming? Will this new world of personalized applications even arrive? And if it does, what do...

Listen to Part 1 of this interview. Welcome to Part 2 of my wide-ranging conversation with my dear friend Kaj Arnö in Nagu , Finland, in the Finnish Archipelago . For those who don't know Kaj, Kaj was one of the Finnish contingent of leaders at MySQL AB that shepherded the open source database to becoming the world's most popular before being sold to Sun Microsystems in 2008. He is one of the foun...

In 2007, I joined an open-source database company called MySQL AB . While I was at BioWare , I was part of the team that built the BioWare Community, which launched with the game Neverwinter Nights in July 2002. In a future episode or two, my friend and I will be delving into the nerdiest of stories around those times that even the most dedicated BioWare fans have likely not heard. But back to the...

No Trial for Papa Please read the original short story by Erwin J. Warkentin featured and discussed on this podcast Interview with Dr. Erwin J. Warkentin Dups: You just heard me read out a story called “ No Trial for Papa ” by Dr. Erwin J. Warkentin, who is here with me today. And welcome back to Tales Under the Cat Tree . Erwin: Well, you know that I always enjoy talking to you. This is just a li...

This episode also features an original poem “When hurricanes come to die” "You bought what?!" I spluttered into my beer, a little bit louder than the ambience of the pub. A couple of regulars glanced my way. "A purple dune buggy—for two dollars," Aaron said, nonplussed. "So what are you going to do with it?" That was Mike, wondering where this was actually going. Mike's a lot more practical than t...

Please read Saving Mr. Mendis , an original short story set in colonial Sri Lanka. While I never really grew up in Sri Lanka, my late father was a born storyteller. There were few occasions when he would not hold forth with some story or other. This was especially the case when he had been drinking or if we were in the back of the 1950s Wolseley on our way somewhere during one of our many holidays...

Please read the short story that accompanies this piece: The Chain Letter When I was a teen on a trip to Sri Lanka, we went to visit some of the ancient cities whose ruins you find peppered throughout that island. Some of these ruins are over 2,000 years old. Walking through them with my father, I asked him the same question I have since repeated to myself in France, Spain, England, and countless...