MEMORANDUM
To: Me
From: Recently Unemployed Me
Re: Being Unemployed
Okay, so you lost your job. It isn’t the first time, and while it may be comforting to think it will be the last, you never know. You dug yourself into this hole, and you are going to be the one to dig yourself out of it. Remember these things:
- It is not the end of the world. Yes, it is easy for me to tell you this from where I am sitting, but you have a plan and it is time to execute it
- You have been here before. Remember the mistakes you made last time and do not repeat them.
- Always be pessimistic in your planning: hope for the best, but assume the worst.
- You are not alone: you have friends and family that want to help. Let them. This is not the time to retreat into a cave and shut everyone out.
- Smile. Have fun. Enjoy life.
- To survive, you will have to sacrifice and you will have to suffer. Deal with it. When you are back on your feet you will appreciate the things you had to do without even more.
- The only truly bad job is having none at all. Try something new.
- Do the things you said you would do “if you had the time.” You now have the time.
- You will get angry, you will get frustrated, and you will get upset. Don’t bottle it up. Get it out of your system and move on.
- Above all else, do not fall into despair. Have faith in yourself and keep moving forward.
Good luck.
WHEEE-3!
A few months ago when I got the e-mail from Oscar of original-gamer.com saying that I was part of the crew going to E3, I got excited. Soon, the feeling had died down. The constant stream of emails from various and sundry game and peripheral companies served as constant reminders that I was going to E3, but they failed to get me excited again. As I opened my credentials in the mail, I got hyped up again, but once again, the excitement slowly ebbed away.
The stream of “Please come to our booth!” emails continued, and before I knew it, this past Sunday was the planning get-together and pre-E3 podcast. I was happy, but not quite “OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO E3!” excited.
Yesterday, I received an email asking me to go to a booth to check out a certain music game. I’m not sure if I can say the name or not, so I will say that it does involve rock but won’t make me a hero.
“OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD I’M GOING TO GET TO PLAY THIS GAME AT E3!”
I drove home yesterday with a big-ass smile on my face as I banged the drum beat to “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves on the Reliant’s steering wheel. I was excited again, and I still am. By this time next week, I will be in the midst of forty-thousand plus fellow members of the industry checking out all the Cool New Stuff and helping to report on it to all the happy-shiny people out in Internetland.
It feels a little odd to think of myself as “part of the industry” though. In my mind, I am just the “voice guy” for original-gamer.com, and a writer and editor for them as well.
Then again, maybe it isn’t that big of a stretch.
Despite the fact that I will admittedly be (big finger quotes here) “working,” next week’s trip to E3 is my summer vacation. I had recently been grousing about how I haven’t taken a ‘real vacation’ to somewhere far and/or different in a few years. Well, if going to California to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a bunch of developers, peripheral makers, Really Important People and fellow website multi-hat wearers doesn’t fit that bill, I don’t know what does!
Ready or not, here I come!!
Cheesy New Year Fun!
I’m not a fan of big gatherings (anime cons nonwithstanding) and thus, I usually spend New Year’s Eve at my parents’ or at my apartment if I’m not up for making the drive to visit them.
A few years ago, I was living with my parents during some rough times, and it was New Year’s Eve. Thanks in part to the crappy job I had at the time, I had decided to just stay in and really not do much of anything. It was a pretty lackadaisical evening, and I soon had a craving…for CHEESE!
Not just any cheese, mind you, but melted cheese with Ro-Tel diced tomatoes made in a Crock-Pot with tortilla chips dipping into the melty cheesy goodness…mmmmm. I told my folks I was going to the store to get the ingredients, and suddenly inspired by the power of the cheese (or perhaps the power of the suggestion of cheese, but that’s being anal) they went to the store as well to get shrimp, cocktail sauce, vegetables, ranch dip, and drinks.
Soon, I’m cubing cheese, Mom is cutting vegetables, and Dad is going next door to invite family over. What began as a humdrum evening soon became a fun time with family and friends, and all because of THE POWER OF CHEESE!
Fast forward to December 31, 2009…I decided to stay at home for New Year’s Eve because there was an anime convention I wanted to go to that weekend. As I’m at my desk working (and seething over having to work on New Year’s Eve), I soon had a craving…for CHEESE! I was practically drooling as I punched in the ingredients list into my phone, intending to stop at the store on the way home.
I arrived home at my apartment, and went to rinse out the Crock-Pot before getting started. I figured it would just be me and the cheese hanging out at home for New Year’s, oh well. I then got a phone call from a friend, it seemed he and his wife had just gotten home from their holiday trip and were wondering what I was going to do for New Year’s.
I replied that I was going to make some cheese and probably play some Rock Band, so I figured what the hey and invited them over. They said yes, and a few invites sent via text message later, I had a group of friends over hanging out, playing games, and just having a good time…all because of THE POWER OF CHEESE!
Some folks have black-eyed peas for New Year’s, my mom makes menudo (which I sadly often miss *sniff*) but I’ll be whipping out the old Crock-Pot next New Year’s Eve in order to UNLEASH THE CHEESE!
Side note: I never use Velveeta, I have found that the generic/store brands (HEB in particular) have less sodium and more cheesy goodness!
Tweet-kus are smart fun / a quick creative brain snack / thanks furry person!
Inspiration is a curious mistress. Much like her sister Lady Luck, she plays by her own rules and can strike without warning at the most odd circumstances.
This past New Year’s Eve weekend, I went with a friend to Ikkicon in Austin. It was something to do, and if nothing else, cosplayers always make for an interesting and fun time people-watching.
I had a feeling that the flavor of odd that is usually associated with anime conventions was going to be a little extra-spicy by virtue of the con’s location, and Austin did not disappoint. As I walked around enjoying the spectacle as it lay before me, I saw something that struck me as odd.
Okay, MORE odd…
It was a person wearing a full head-to-toe red animal/critter/Pokemon-looking-thing costume with what appeared to be a fox’s head and tail. That in itself isn’t unusual, but the kicker was that this person was WALKING AROUND ON THEIR HANDS AND KNEES like an animal. It threw me for a loop; crossing into that “dangerously geeky” territory that I try to avoid like most people avoid regular geeks. Sadly, I was too transfixed by the specacle to take a picture with my cell phone camera, but I did get a picture of that person some time later, this time on two feet, as they assumed some kind of “battle pose” while facing another cosplayer in full regalia.
Now, this is just one of those events that is just DYING to be posted to Facebook. Its nice to have something unique to report besides the usual “I’m having a good/bad day” or “work sucks” or “OMG my child just did something for the first time!” stuff.
Playing with words is something I like to do, and I pondered over how to report this person’s rather successful attempt to “Keep Austin Weird.” I thought I’d borrow a meme from Fark.com and go with a 1-2-3 type of post, showing how this individual went from “Geeky” to “Super Geeky” to “Dangerously Geeky.”
I liked the words, but the format looked ordinary to me. Granted, that may be an effect of spending too much time on Fark.com, but in any event, I thought I could do better. While riding that train of thought, I got the idea of putting it into a haiku style. That is, a three-line verse with the first line containing five syllables, the next, seven and the last, five. I came up with:
bright red furry suit
walking around on all fours
what the frak is this
It was even short enough to fit into a tweet, which delighted me to no end. I then decided that it would a fun to put my postings for the rest of the week into what I call “tweet-ku” format, which adds a 160-character limit to the haiku structure. Despite my tendency to get “wordy,” I don’t think the character limit ever came up, and I only goofed up once on syllable count, so it went well.
A pleasant side effect of the exercise is that those self-imposed limits forced me think creatively in order to stay within them. At times, I struggled to keep my syllables at the correct counts, and I would find myself reading aloud while counting syllables on my fingers. Luckily, I would usually be inside at the time, or in the presence of other like-minded geeks who didn’t ask me why I was counting on my fingers.
Stretching that creative muscle helped me to finish other things, and I think I might be onto something. I may take to writing tweet-kus whenever my muse is tired of the drudgery of my nine-to-five and needs a quick snack to get it going.
Needless to say, that won’t take long!
Flu Part Deux
Back in May, I had a pretty good laugh over the swine flu hype. I got sick, went to the doctor, had to wear a mask while waiting and took a funny picture of it with my cell phone camera. Everything ended up okay, and eventually all the swine flu hype died down somewhat.
Fast-forward to last Tuesday, when a coworker comes in sick. I’ll be honest, I’ve been “that guy” and its no fun when you become Patient Zero and end up infecting the whole office. For some reason, nobody wants to sit next to you at lunch anymore! The woman who sits next to Patient Zero starts to feel sick the next day, and I go home Thursday after lunch and start popping cough syrup and acetaminophen because I am getting worse as the evening rolls on.
I wake up on Friday running a 102-degree fever and feeling like crap. Despite this, I manage to drag my tail to HEB to get some groceries for what I figure is going to be a rough next few days. I spend the rest of Friday either in bed or on the couch, feeling crappy the whole time. Despite this, I figure I’ll ride it out and decide to not go to the doctor.
Yes, I know. Bad Idea. I’ve already heard it from both my parents, both my brothers, and a couple of friends. ANYWAY…
That evening, a friend drops by to pick up a hard drive enclosure because his computer has gone to binary heaven. He wisely decides to not enter the apartment. Frankly, I can’t say I blame him, because I looked like hell and sounded worse when I answered the door. We jaw for a bit, and then he goes on his merry way to do some PC-fixing.
I wake up on Saturday feeling a lot better. The fever is down to 100 degrees, and I feel good enough to do laundry and a little shopping. I’m clearly not running on all eight cylinders yet, because by mid-afternoon I’m feeling tired. I decide to take a nap before the First Storm Manga coffee shop meeting that evening.
I arrive at the coffee shop and place my order. The guy behind the counter notices I’m not quite myself, and asks how I’m feeling. I tell him I’m getting over a bug. He asks if its the swine flu, and I remark: “Well, if it is, I’m not impressed, because I’m already getting over it.”
I’ll take “Asking For It” for $200, Alex.
The meeting is going well as the evening progress, mainly because there really isn’t much to discuss. We spend more time shooting the breeze than anything else. At just past eight o’clock, my phone rings. I spend a few seconds wondering why my boss would be calling me on a Saturday night before answering. He tells me that a third person at work got sick and went home on Friday. After running a 102-degree fever himself, he went to the E.R. (“Puss” I thought to myself) and there it was discovered that he had swine flu.
Up until that point, I had not even thought about it. As nutty as it sounds, catching the flu isn’t that big of a deal to me, because I usually get a pretty nasty case at least every other year or so. I become miserable for a few days, miss a few days of work, maybe see the Doctor, take some meds and life goes on.
I tell the guys, and I’m all but ready to pack up my Netbook, go home and quarantine myself for the next few days. One of our members, who happens to be a 4th-year pharmacy student, just shrugs and says, “its not that big a deal.” The guy that was using my PSP at the time, however, spent a good fifteen minutes in the men’s room washing his hands but not until after he completely drained its battery playing God of War.
Now THAT’S hardcore.
I’m still sick, mind you, so I take off an hour later once the acetaminophen starts to wear off. I get home and sit on the couch to rest for a bit. I remember the guy I lent the enclosure to…and his wife and kid. Fark. I call him and let him know he might have a nice warm box of H1N1 sitting in his computer room, and even he seems pretty nonplussed about the whole situation.
I figure they’re fine, so who am I to get freaked out? I stayed at home on Sunday (temp now 99 and change), and enjoyed some football as the new season began. I woke up this morning with no temperature but I’m hacking and coughing all over the place, so I take a second day off so that I don’t end up literally spreading it all over the office. The boss tells me that the other two folks are out as well, so I don’t feel too bad.
I will be at work tomorrow morning, but whether I stay at work is another matter entirely. I will probably still be coughing a bit, but whether that will be enough to get me tossed out of the office remains to be seen.
If it seems like I’m brushing it off, then yeah, I suppose I am. In my defense, I don’t know if I even have the swine flu. The guy that did test positive for it does sit within arm’s length of me, but that doesn’t prove anything. If it is the swine flu, then its pretty damn mild compared to some week-long nasty bugs I’ve had in the past, so Praise the Lord and pass the chicken soup.