This Lunatic Fringe is Big League White Hot!!!

Curse you, XM 40, and your Tom Cochrane and Red Rider live play! It’s sad, really, to hear songs like that (especially Lunatic Fringe, which is fantastic), and then hear anything Tommy has done since going solo, really. Just, sad. From member of a really underrated rock band to Bryan Adams wannabe. Nobody should suffer that.

Anyway, sorta realized I’ve been neglecting good ol’ bloggy, here, for which I blame World in Conflict for being an outrageously good, and addictive, gaming experience. Finally, a combat-oriented RTS game that breaks away from the stupidass RTS convention that every real time strategy title HAS to include basebuilding (I’m looking at YOU, Company in Heroes!). I’ve never gotten this…so, my engineers turn a house in to a Barracks, and that house then magically becomes able to generate infantry? Is there some sort of cloning lab in the basement? If so, does that really make us any better than the Nazis and their genetic experimentation? See, now I’m all torn up with ethical dilemma, and can’t concentrate on the fact the fucking artillery is blasting my anti tank guns to scrap iron. And, SPEAKING of scrap iron…where exactly is all the metal mystically coming from to start pumping tanks out of that newly built armour production facility on my frontline? It just doesn’t fit! You have this very well made game, with a lot of realism, but it suffers from this wholly unrealistic additions to the overall experience, not to mention the fact that this would be WAAAYYYYY above my pay grade as the commander of a mere Company. Leave the basebuilding and production models to grand strategy games, guys. It just doesn’t fit here! Anyway, having none of those dynamics, fun combat, insanely pretty stuff blowing up (Sweet Jesus, do I loves me some napalm!)

[youtube]WFGVgwfdLDw[/youtube]

Burn, Godless Commies! Where’s your precious Lenin, NOW, huh, bitches?!

WiC is a pretty damn sweet game, if that sort of game is your particular cup of tea…or coffee…or blood, whatever you like to drink.

Let that be a warning…I am a gamer. Therefore, I will frequently diverge off in to geeky gaming speak. Beyond that, I am a gamer who finally has a PC capable of running good games. This is a lethal combination, most likely ESPECIALLY so for any of you sorry saps out there who will be reading this missives. I refuse to apologize for this. Currently, I am ignoring my 360, but with Ninja Gaiden 2, and it’s gorgeous, gory combat (and, if it’s anything like the first game was, insane difficulty levels) on its’ way, that will not remain the case. Now, on with the show!

I would like to officially announce the start of spring, as I have shaved the beard once more. So, it’s officially my fault that it’s rather bleak and stormy out, and, yes, my fucking face is cold, dagnammit! I also had the temerity to begin the washing of my car, which will probably cause the North Saskatchewan River to rise up on it’s polluted, vile haunches and spit acid at schoolchildren…although, really, I only cleaned the INTERIOR of the car, so maybe the contents of a kiddie pool will just splash a puppy, or something.

Also, the job search continues, and I have an interview lined up for tomorrow. I’ll be honest, I really am strongly considering cancelling it. The guy tried to get ahold of me on Friday, but I was out, so I missed the call. At 2, I called him back…not there, gone for the weekend. Okay, not a big deal, it IS heading in to a long weekend, probably a lot of people skipped out early, right? So, I call him this morning. Here is how the conversation went. I’ll pick it up from the time the ditzy phone answerer passed the call to him.

“Hey.”

“Oh, hey, Steve? Yes, my name is Cliff Riseborough, and you had called last week about the job I applied for?”

“Yeah.”

“…uhh…well, yeah, I tried to get ahold of you on Friday, but you’d already gone for the day.”

“Yeah”

(insert a good 5 seconds of dead air here, as I stare at the phone, wondering if I am, in fact, speaking to a working human being, or some sort of really, really dumb robot).

“Well…I’m still interested…so…”

“Oh, okay. Yeah. You free tomorrow?”

“I sure am.”

“Good.”

(another 5-10 seconds of dead air. Colour me crazy, but usually this is the point where the person doing the interviewing FUCKING PICKS A TIME! Finally, I decided I’d speak again. I dunno, maybe this was some weird competition where we were trying to prove dominance…you know, bighorn sheep smack their heads together, we were being really quiet…)(Oh, and the colour of crazy would likely be puce. Not sure that’s spelled correctly, because I have a penis, and therefore do not know how to really bring up any colour beyond the 8-10 basics).

“So…any time you wanted me to come in?”

“Yeah (I swear, I was ready to leap in here, having grown to accustomed to the way conversation seemed to ‘work’ with Captain Mongoloid, here. Imagine my shock as he said more words! KOKO CAN LEARN!), 8 am work for you?”

(Now, 8 am doesn’t ‘work’ for anyone. Jesus, I’ve been working evenings…single digit morning times and I have never been allies, but we don’t even SPEAK, anymore. Still, I accept.)

“Sure, sounds good.”

“Hey, we’re hiring for 2 jobs right now, were you looking warehouse or welder?” Gee, THOSE are 2 positions with similar responsibilities! How does it take you this long to ask THAT?!

“Uhhh…the warehouse…one…” It’s official…his stupefying demeanour has dumbed me down in to nothing more than a clone of himself.

“Good.” At this point, Steve hangs up the phone. And not like a normal person, either. No, this was one of those clumsy hangups, where you hear a few knocks come through, then it scrapes against something, then a mild curse, and finally, noisy success. Either he has only a finger and thumb on his hangup hand, he was busily stuffing another donut in to his 453 pound frame and was hanging up with his rolls of neck fat, or he is just about the dumbest motherfucker to ever live this long. Meanwhile, I sort of stayed on the now closed line for a little while, not really entirely sure it was actually over. He never did actually give me an address for the fucking place, I had to look it up (thanks, Google Maps!). So, anyway, I’m going to go cruise by the place this afternoon, and see how it looks from the outside. You CAN actually tell how things look to an extent by doing that…for example, in Nisku, you’ll frequently see places with employee vehicles parked all over the road in front of the place, and the lot is bursting. That tells you that the place has grown beyond their current building, which, in turn, tells me that, as a shipper/receiver, I’m going to get the privilege of stuffing too much material in to not enough room, and all my complaints about that will be met with some version of “Deal with it.” This is not a good experience, so I tend to avoid them like a plague. The truth is, though, I already realize that I’m going to be actively LOOKING for reasons not to actually go through with this interview.

“Oh, look…a tiny section of their fence is frayed…tsk tsk, such disrepair doesn’t speak too highly of the upkeep! Hell, place is probably BRIMMING with toxic waste…spilled a week ago, but nobody’s cleaned it up, and they kinda LIKE wading through it. OBVIOUSLY, I can’t work here!”

So, why don’t I just cancel now? Simply, I’m a sick bastard. See, I actually, WHILE dreading the whole idea of how horribly off the rails this is going to be, want to see it through. First off, I need to actually meet this guy. Second, after such a halting phone conversation, it would probably be a pretty simplistic interview process.

“So, you like stuff?”

“Sure do!”

“Good. Good. You ever work before?”

“Many times!”

“Good. You’re hired.”

Of course, I would never actually ACCEPT the job. Who would want to be stuck working BENEATH this guy?! Haven’t decided yet if I’ll actually go through with the interview. It’s 50-50…either it’ll be hilarity itself, or it’ll be a soul crushing experience. And, considering this is only the 2nd interview of this search, the soul crusher would kinda suck to endure at this point. So, for now, I guess…to be continued!