This whole “new job” thing really cuts down on your free time, especially right at the beginning when you have to move everything you own and get silly things like utilities or food. However, now that things have calmed down a little bit, I should start updating again.
The new apartment has been treating me pretty well. Everything seems to work, although it would be nice to get the kitchen faucet fixed since it always feels like the handle is about to come off in my hand and the drain in the bathtub is glacially slow. Oh, and there is absolutely nowhere to put a trashcan in the kitchen. I’ve had to stick it in the closet next to the kitchen instead, which works out alright. I can just see in my mind the first time I drop something messy on the short path of carpet outside the kitchen before I get to the closet, though. That probably won’t be fun.
I started work the day before Catan passed Certification for Xbox Live Arcade, so I got free food and a Catan shirt, even though I didn’t do squat on the game. I wasn’t going to take one, but I was practically forced to take one against my will by a co-worker (Him: “You didn’t get a shirt yet?” Me: “I just started working here yesterday.” Him: “You should get a shirt anyway.”). I was clearly coerced.
In other news, I finally cracked and bought an Xbox 360 to entertain me in my scant free time. I figured it would be the easiest way to keep in touch with people from school, and it would solve this whole boredom problem I had been having with basically nothing to do once I got home from work. I had been resisting the call until now because I was sure it would be just as buggy as I had heard and witnessed already, and it did not disappoint! It locks up more than any previous console I’ve owned, and for no apparent reason. The only thing preventing me from taking it back and demanding my money back is that the games I’ve bought for it are still pretty fun and it isn’t all that difficult to get back in to whatever game it was.
GRAW 2 is fun to play with friends online, but actually getting the game to work without someone getting dropped at the start of the map or someone not being able to hear someone else in voice chat is a lot harder than it should be, involving mostly luck and gory pagan ritual sacrifices to the Live deities. Crackdown is also a lot of fun, although I’ve been having problems with the game freaking out and locking up for a minute until I try to bring up one of the Xbox OS menus. Thereafter, until I restart the game, I get no music and all the buildings either switch to their low poly versions or get the pseudo cel shading effect that is used on the characters applied to them. And the bosses refuse to show up anymore, which is always fun when it happens just as I finish slaughtering all their guards. Would I recommend buying a 360? I don’t know! It is certainly a like/hate relationship. When it works, it’s great fun. When it doesn’t, it can be incredibly annoying and cause you to waste more than an hour trying to get in at least one game before Live drops you. Curse you, Bill Gates. I hold you personally responsible for all my problems.
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I know I haven’t updated in a while, but I’ve been a little busy looking for an apartment in Baltimore and trying to figure out what I need to do to start this Internship that Big Huge Games is setting me up with. Yeah, they gave me an internship instead of a flat out job, which is a little disappointing, but I can kind of understand that it’s been a while since I’ve been immersed in the whole game development thing, and because of that, I didn’t do the greatest job of demonstrating knowledge of optimization and how the hardware works with what you are coding. I’ve ended up looking at it as kind of a probation period since they said the good people get promoted to actual programmer in a reasonable amount of time. They’ll also be paying me enough that I should be able to support myself and still have a little fun on the side, even as an intern, which at least gets me out of my parents’ house. I’ll still be a little poor for a while, but I don’t mind being poor for a little bit longer.
So I found a place in Timonium that should be very close to work, which will be nice. I might even be close enough that I could ride a bicycle to work instead of driving so I don’t turn into a fat bastard from all this sitting around doing nothing. I’m hoping this place will be a decent place to live, but it seems to be pretty much impossible to tell without having lived there. Review sites are basically worthless since most people don’t bother doing any reviewing if the place was good and all the people who complain about pest infestations or whatever probably only have themselves to blame. I did end up staying completely away from one area based on several complaints of having windows broken and things stolen, which is probably the fault of the area they were in, rather than the reviewer leaving food around the house. I’m hoping this’ll be a tolerable place to live and I won’t have to hound maintenance to constantly fix problems, but we shall see.
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I just responded to an email from Big Huge Games setting up another date for an on-site interview. Apparently things got a little hectic with the finals of their Rise of Legends tournament so things started falling through the cracks. Unfortunately, I was one of those things that was a little neglected. Anyways, we should have another date set up for the 14th next week so I might be able to finagle a job out of this whole fiasco after all.
Also, I’d like to steal an idea from The Colbert Report and take a few moments to put Stouffer’s, purveyors of easy to prepare, prepackaged meals, On Notice. I believe it was this Stouffer’s Teriyaki Chicken Skillet meal that I ate last night. I followed the cooking instructions and it tasted about as you would expect from a decent preprepared meal-in-a-bag, nothing special, but certainly edible. I’ve never had any problems with these types of meals from other brands, but something Stouffer’s uses in their meals knocks me out for at least a day and all day today I’ve had stomach aches and felt like I was going to vomit. Now excuse me while I spend the rest of the night pitying myself and trying not to regurgitate the last few meals I’ve had all over my room.
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The interview with Kush Games did not go well, in my opinion. It probably also didn’t help that it didn’t seem like they were looking for someone entry level or that their programming tests when I got there were pretty ridiculous. So I wasn’t wildly surprised when a few days later I got an email from them saying they didn’t have any openings for me. I’ve already described what I thought about their whole interview process to so many people that I’m sure I’m going to leave something out and this will sound even more like a sore loser, but suffice it to say I probably wouldn’t have taken the job had they offered it to me. Why make someone travel across the country in order to do more tests that could have been done without all the wasted time and expense of traveling? Then on top of that, the one problem that I had real difficulties with was one that you would have a huge advantage with had you seen the solution before, which is the worst test of a person’s abilities possible. Anyways, enough bitching, I didn’t get a job I probably wouldn’t have liked and that’s over.
Moving on, when I returned from California, I discovered I had an email from Big Huge Games inviting me out to an on-site interview with them. They offered two dates, so I emailed them back saying I preferred the first date. I didn’t get an email back confirming the date or any travel information, so I emailed them again. Today is the day the interview would have been had anything happened. I did everything I could think of to try to make this interview work without having a phone number I could call and clarify what was going on, which, as far as I can tell, isn’t published anywhere. So I’m feeling pretty jerked around from every direction right now. Hopefully my next round of applications and interview goes a bit better than the first round.
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I just saw that the team that made ICO and Shadow of the Colossus is working on a PS3 game! Anybody that knows me, knows that I turn into (more of) a gibbering, drooling idiot any time either of those games comes into conversation, so I’m pretty excited. If Metal Gear Solid 4 hadn’t already clinched it, this would ensure my eager purchase of a PS3, in due time, hopefully once the price for the system has come down a little. If it hasn’t by the time either of these games is out, I’ll probably get in line and bend over like everybody else. And like it.
In other news, I’m flying out to Camarillo, CA tomorrow for an in-person interview with Kush Games on Friday. The more I hear from them about it, the more it sounds like I essentially have the job and they just want to get to know my personality a little bit to make sure I’ll fit in and show me around the place. So, hopefully I’ll have a job, finally, and I can get on with collecting all my precious trinkets. It’s a little annoying that Tony and Darryl are on the other side of LA, but I’m sure we’ll find the time to hang out occasionally at least. Anyways, yes, much exciting news.
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