The Sleeping Giant

Pretty good I thought, what do you think of his arguments?

-Danger

This coop job has not been a good one for me. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, it’s not about the long commute (which has become pretty good with my preparation) or being in the city. The job itself is just unsatisfying and boring to me. Having discussed this with a number of people over the course of the term, I’ve decided the real reason for this is one of two things, or more likely a mix of the two. The first reason is that in this job and lifestyle I feel completely disengaged. In (3 hour) meetings my job is to be silent and type what the more important people say. In the office nobody cares what I do. If I ask for work I get to shred papers or edit spreadsheets for grammar. This is probably on par with what my first work term was like, but the problem is that now at this point in my life I’ve done so much that I expect more from an experience.

Over the past 2 years I’ve done a lot of things. It’s been busy and it’s been tough. I’ve met about 300 new people per year and had trouble keeping in contact with them when they shoot back out of my life as quickly as they’ve entered it. I’ve had a new romantic interest every term until I finally “settled down” with Avril. I’ve had legitimate reason to need all three primary emergency response personnel (police, firemen and paramedics) on nights where I did nothing more dangerous than leave my room for a walk-about. I’ve been up all night in cross-campus water balloon fights and kidnappings between friends. I’ve been skydiving, whitewater rafting and run a marathon. I’ve failed 4 classes but felt like I’ve achieved more than I ever did when I had an 85 University average.

Now I’m just expected to show up and occupy space. I’ve had days at work where I asked everyone I was working with for something to do and ended up getting absolutely nothing for the full 8 hour shift. I never had anything that even remotely challenged me in my work term, yet on my mid-term evaluation I was told I was doing an “excellent” job. I went from having a boss in donning who I could talk about personal life issues with to having a “boss” that doesn’t even know my first name. I used to have 50 people that would give me a hard time if I was late with the washroom newsletter because they wanted to know what I was planning for the week, now nobody knows the difference if I spend the day reading web comics instead of working. The only “weakness” quoted in my mid-term review was that my “high-enthusiasm (circa 8 weeks ago) could be interpreted as a lack of professionalism.” Both at Agfa and Donning that was quoted as one of my greatest strengths.

So that takes care of reason one. Lots of complaining there, but also a fair amount of truth.

I’d say the second reason I find this job unsatisfying and boring is that I’m ungrateful for the position I’m in. This idea first struck me after chatting up a certain Roboranting character we all know and love on a chance meeting on the train between Kitchener and Guelph about a month ago. I had complained about having to wear dress clothes to work everyday, to which the reply was something like “yeah, but it’s got to be kind of nice to be in an office doing professional work.” This is poorly paraphrased prose compared to the poetry this man would actually write or speak, but the point is there. It could be worse. I had been looking for work in the worst economic climate for decades and landed a job that pays me $20 an hour for regular work hours in a comfortable office. I might find it bland and under stimulating, but it’s a lot better than $11/hour doing the same thing all day on a factory production line, and plenty of students would kill for that job this summer.

The second discussion I had surrounding this came this week, while talking with a fellow coop at work. She’s the other quirky coop and she was also a don this past term. We didn’t work remotely near each other, but it’s a connection. Beyond that we get along great anyway, and the other coops don’t like us working in the same room because the conversation often gets too (and I quote) “loud and crazy” for them. Anyway, at around mid-term time we both had the same view of the job to that point. Mine was less pessimistic than it is now, hers was similar. She’s been getting things to do from all over the office, working crazy hours (like, 8am to 10pm) to get things done. I’ve been flying under the radar, I spread “Crayon Physics Deluxe” to all the other coops and read more web comics than I care to mention. Anyway, she said that although all we get menial work from everyone, it’s important to do an excellent job on it so that they know they can trust you assignments. I countered by pointing out that the reward for menial work here is more boring menial work. She said that wasn’t the point, she was getting the same thing, but it was more important menial work. It needed to get done and important people would look at it. She felt that people noticed her effort, and that was the point.

So maybe I am being a little ungrateful for the opportunities this job could offer. I suppose in my last few weeks here I could try to land myself something semi-satisfying to do at work. Then again, I could fly under the radar and chat with coops.

Either way, I’ll be glad to be going back to Waterloo for September 4th.

-Danger

There was a time not long ago when there was a certain song…. everywhere. That’s vague…

Okay, you know that song “I kissed a girl” or whatever it was, about some chick’s lesbian experimentation. It’s not my type of song, but it was so much in your face that you probably had to hear it at some point. I don’t know it well, but every time I heard it I always thought it would be easy to do a hilariously disturbing parody. The only thing holding me back was that I felt it might cross the line.

See, I thought the song would work well if you replaced “kissed” with “killed.” The versus would need to be modified of course, but it’s always what I heard in my head…

” I killed a girl and I liked it… blah blah blah
I killed a girl just to try it…. blah blah blah”

So… would it cross the line?

This is an excerpt from the wikipedia article about Komodo dragons. It made me laugh.

They are considered especially dangerous to children. On June 4, 2007 a Komodo dragon attacked an eight-year-old boy on Komodo Island. The boy later died of massive bleeding from his wounds. It was the first recorded fatal attack in 33 years.[47] Natives blamed the attack on environmentalists outside the island prohibiting goat sacrifices.

It appears that no opinion is too trivial to prevent wikipedia from expressing it for you.

Maybe I should take a day next exam period to sacrifice a goat, you know, to ward off catastrophe.

To be fair, the wikipedia offers a somewhat decent explanation as to why that might have an effect:
This denied the Komodo dragons their expected food source, causing them to wander into human civilization in search of food.

It made me laugh though, so I thought I’d share it with you.

My train got canceled today, so VIA rail paid for us to take taxis to Toronto. Pretty impressive customer service. Anyway, I was feeling a little carsick by the time we got there (it was a stuffy cab) so I had my head resting against the cold window. As we drove around downtown (stuck in rush hour traffic) with my eyes stuck at butt level I came to a shocking realization. Business skirts are really tight in the butt!

I mean, there’s plenty of good looking coops at my job (if you’re into Asian girls, only 1 of 9 is white) but I never really noticed how tight those skirts are until today. You never see teenage girls in those though, even though those girls are all about looking good for the captain of the football team and whatnot.

So my brilliant business idea is to see those tight, butt-hugging skirts to 16-year olds! I’ve already got my name for it picked out… “the booty skirt!”

Don’t worry, I’ll still be your friend when I’m rich and successful.

-Danger

I thought this was pretty funny. I’m playing BioShock right now, so that makes it funnier for me. As a side note, BioShock is a really good shooter so far. It’s an interesting environment, and the ideas being tossed around by the characters (via tape recorders) are deep and thought-provoking. It takes a high-end machine to play it, but keep that game in the back of your mind.

On a side note, I got to the sex scene in Mass Effect, I had been led by the media to believe that there was nude boobage, but there isn’t even that! I mean, I guess the scene changes depending on which character you are and which character you are romantically interested in, but you don’t see any more than you would in a shampoo commercial. Just side boob, no nipples and it’s not interactive. You just choose your dialogue after, which is nothing compared to what you can say in a PG-13 movie. Take about sensationalist media!

-Danger

I signed up to be a Residence Orientation leader this year since I’ve hit the donning seniority cap (5 terms for Dons, 3 years for our bosses). This past weekend was the leader conference, the first day being with all the leaders and the Saturday night and Sunday day being a ROC only overnight thing at REV. I had signed up because I figured I may as well try something new with the extra time I’ll have. The “training” part was boringly basic, it’s simpler than Don’s training and I’d done that 4 times already. It’s good relevant stuff for new leaders though, and it sets out expectations for them.

The real take-away from the weekend was the opportunity to meet some other leaders before orientation week so that you’re comfortable working together. Everyone I knew was in some sort of senior position, a FOC or a director or something, so the general group felt very young for me. I guess that’s because unless they’re going into 4th year or beyond I would have been a returning Don at their Orientation week. Yeah, how ‘bout that.

I’m not trying to be an age snob (Jan comes to mind with that term), it’s just that the atmosphere was so much like Don’s O, but the people didn’t feel like dons. Good people, just not the same people I’m use to. For example, one guy brought a beer funnel. Another needed to find their fake ID to go to the bar. These things just kind of stuck out to me.

I did meet some cool people though, which was the original hope. I’m assigned to V1 for Orientation week, which is nice because I know most of the returning dons there too. The leader dance this year is alright, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the V1 don dance we did as our introduction last year (Don’t know if this link will work for you http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=122614832&ref=profile#/video/video.php?v=571580247667&subj=122614832)

Overall it was an alright way to spend the weekend, big time commitment but they had some good teambuilding activities.

Well mostly, the last 4 months with this new computer have changed things somewhat, but I’m still working my way through Xbox games. The most recent game I’ve played through that was close to its release date was Assassin’s Creed, and I believe I played it only a year after it came out.

The comic is dead on though, the one big thing you miss out on is the gamer culture and the hype around releases. I suppose you also miss out on the big online multi-player too, but I haven’t played online much in my lifetime so I don’t miss that so much. The excitement of new releases I do remember from the N64 days, and it does lose something when you own a game for a year before you can actually sit down and play it.

As a side note on Mass Effect, I recently had to make a choice that actually had me sitting at my computer for 5 minutes before I could go on. I was completely torn, I’ve had a few that stopped me for a bit, but nothing like this. That’s the sign of a good game!

-Danger

If you’re in the market for a laptop, this one is a huge deal:

4GB DDR3 memory
1GB Geforce 9800 mobile edition (Same card, double the memory of my desktop)
Core 2 duo 2.26GHz
320BG 7200RPM hard drive with an extra bay slot you can upgrade with later.
Vista 64-bit
$900 plus $7 shipping.

It’s better than my desktop, for less than my desktop. If I was shopping, I would have already bought it. That thing will play any game that comes out in the next 4 or 5 years.

If you’re in the market and have been keeping up with prices it’ll speak for itself.

I’ve been playing Mass Effect for the past few weeks, and I’m probably a third through the game. (It’s not a huge game, but I’m not at home much) It’s been a pretty cool experience so far, and I’d thought I’d let you know some first impressions.

First off I’m very impressed with the “morality meter” present in the game. Bioware pioneered the concept in KOTOR so it seems fitting that they would be the first to evolve it. The two ends of the spectrum are not the laughable “good” and “evil” as we usually see them, where your choice is either to kill a kitten or send him to college. The two spectrums rather describe whether you do what it takes to get the job done no matter what compared to whether you act with compassion to those around you. That still makes it seem pretty black and white, so I’ll use an in-game decision to illustrate the point.

In one of the decision points there is a man that wants you to get the body of his wife returned to him so that he can hold a proper funeral. His wife was killed in one of the early battles against a new enemy humanity is facing. The defense research team has wants to hold on to the body because it has wounds from a type of weapon that had not been encountered before. The researchers want to study the wounds to make better armour for the soldiers that have to fight this enemy. In this case you have to make a decision about what’s more important, the immediate emotional well-being of the husband or the future safety of Earth’s soldiers. It’s an actual deep ethical dilemma in a video game!

This game is 2 years old, but having read the recent reviews of Infamous it seems that other companies haven’t learned that a morality meter can be more than a trivial add-on.

The second cool concept is that it’s an FTS-RPG. A first person shooter role playing game. Perhaps they’re more common than I think, but this is the first time I’ve heard of the concept. It’s a really cool combination that I wouldn’t have thought would work, but it really fits seamlessly. When in combat you draw your gun and behave like it’s an FPS. However, there’s the additional option of force-like powers to be used. This makes for some neat strategic solutions. For example, I was trying to take down this guy that was hiding behind some cover. I ordered my force user to lift up the crate he was hiding behind and then blasted the legs outs from under him.

The RPG concept extends to an extensive weapon and armour upgrading system as one would expect, but that I’d seen before.

The game (like other Bioware games I’ve played) also rewards you for being able to talk your way out of situations. In the classic RPGs one would want to fight as many enemies as possible in order to get XP and level up. However Bioware will usually give you a non-confrontational alternative and reward you with XP if you can solve the issue this way. Since talking your way out of a situation is often harder than initiating a fight, you usually get more XP if you can find the creative solution.

The last cool feature I wanted to talk about was the huge amount of freedom and side quests. When I first got to choose a destination for my ship I was impressed with the number of planets you could visit, it looked like roughly 15 or 20. Then when I selected one, I realized that was actually the number of star clusters available to visit. Within each cluster was about 1-4 habited systems, and within each system is about 3-9 planets. You can’t land on every planet, but you can go scan it and read about every one. For a space enthusiast it’s fantastic. Reasonably terrestrial planets you can land on and drive along their surface on your rover vehicle. Every terrestrial planet has at least a few points of interest that lead to other side missions. This is of course on top of the regular colony worlds where the bulk of the game takes place.

A typical side mission will happen as follows: You’ll arrive in a star system and receive a distress call from a ship under attack by pirates. You’ll rescue the ship (if you choose) and discover the raiders have a base on one of the planets and a stock of heavy weapons. You’ll land on the planet, take out the base defenses with your vehicle, then fight your way through the base and retrieve the stockpile. (For yourself of course)

The different races are pretty cool too, the whole background story behind it is deep and intelligent. I’m only about 12 hours into it, but it’s definitely something to check out if you can run it. On the PC it’s only 20 bucks now, not sure about the 360. The nice thing about PC gaming is that prices go down faster.

Anyway, that’s all from me for now.