Warning! Life Changes Ahead!
Well, it happened. It had to sooner or later, and the sooner the better. Best of all, it happened right where I wanted it to happen. However, I'm not sure this was the best time to have it happen.
That's right. I finally got my first job. I'm a "Game Advisor" at Game Stop, a video/PC game retail store. The position isn't nearly as glamourous or important as the title. Basically, I'm a sales clerk.
It was cool because I didn't think I was doing any better at this interview than at previous ones, and whether or not I'm right is beside the point. I've signed up for the Christmas shopping season, which begins immediately after Thanksgiving. In fact, I start work that week (Gee, I hope they train me before the rush...). Anyway, the interview went normally enough. I was asked things like why I wanted to work there (the games, duh), how I handle stressful situations (I said, "Pretty well," though I'm sure I haven't experienced the type of strees I'm about to before), what three words my friends would use to describe me (I only came up with "Trustworthy" and "Funny," and I'm not sure that's even true), and what I'd do if I saw a co-worker stealing a game (Rat him out, of course, because "that's just wrong."). Lastly he asked three questions to test my video-game knowledge, and coincidently the first two involved the scant bits arcane knowledge that I knew: What Nintendo made before they got into video games (playing cards, as in poker, which I believe was about a hundred years ago), what "Sega" stands for ("Service Games," as they supplied video games to the military), and what the nickname of the Wii's processor was (he tells me it's "Broadway," sounds like I should've known it). I got the last one wrong.
I was pretty much hired on the spot, which came as a bit of a shock as the first two places I got an interview with said they'd call me back and never did (the third did and said the position was filled, and I had done better than, like, 80% of the other applicants). They put me into the payroll computer, gave me the cash card I was to be paid with, as well as a bunch of paperwork I had to sign and return in a couple days, and said I start work the week after next (this was last week, by the way). I imagine I get Thanksgiving off, although not so much that it's a holiday as I told them I wasn't available on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Let's see, what else happened...? Oh, yeah. Have I mentioned I'm taking both a "Make-Up and Masks" class and a "Clothing Construction" (read: Sewing) class? I did it so I could take advantage of them for Halloween, but it didn't really pan out. I've only recently gotten anywhere close to done with the costume I had intended to wear this year. I would've gone with my second choice, Indiana Jones (I found this old leather jacket in my closet over the summer, and I was pretty sure I had access to a whip), but since my Creative Writing class met on Halloween this year my teacher wanted the class to come dressed as characters they have written and I felt obligated to obligde. If you've been reading my MultiPets: Chimera Knight novel blog, you may be familiar with the character Katrina Arden. She was my third choice, as it was a simple costume requiring only a pair of blue jeans, a white sweatshirt, and a black wig. Unfortunately, I only owned the black wig (see last year's Halloween report), so I went with my fourth choice: Orion Chardonnay from the same novel. I'm so unenthused about it I'm not even going to tell you what it looks like. A couple days later, I realized what I could've done was dress up like Indiana Jones and said I was Orion (or Katrina, for that matter) dressed-up for Halloween. Hey, whose to say I'm wrong?
That's a bit of a tangent. Anyway, both classes require a kit, which I keep in seperate tackle boxes. Since I don't like having both hands full while... well, doing anything other than playing video games, I crammed both into a duffel bag that I carry to school every Tuesday and Thursday. Also, having been asked to drop out of a hiking class a couple years ago by the teacher, I walk to and from school during daylight hours (and nighttime during bus strikes). The trip takes me about forty minutes at my normal walking speed, and is a real pain with the duffel (I'd probably keep one in a locker at school if I didn't have negative-twenty minutes between the two classes - don't ask). Recently, my Make-Up and Masks class had moved on to life masks, thereby no longer requiring me to carry both kits around but I had been carrying both of them anyway just in case. Today I was about halfway to school when I started wondering if I was really going to need my make-up kit for the rest of the semester (I won't until the final, by the way). That is when I realized, quite ironically, I had left both kits at home. Fortunately, I had made a habit of arriving two hours and forty minutes early so I could feed my various internet addictions in the computer lab, so it's not like I was pressed for time. In fact, I probably should've realized something was up when I noticed I was making good time and hitting the crosswalks just in time for the signals to change. Not that the duffel prevents such things, but, as the saying goes, if everything seems like its going smoothly you've obviously overlooked something. To make it just a little more awkward, right as I was realizing this some guy walking towards me makes a comment, which in turn makes me not want to look like I was stalking him. My mind is crazy like that. It actually made me consider not going back for my kits.
On an even less interesting note, a couple nights ago I fell asleep during the Colbert Report. I woke up about an hour later thinking I was still watching it, but it turned out to a Pablo Francisco stand-up special. Fortunately, I was about to catch the rerun of the same episode (of Colbert Report, not Pablo Francisco) the next morning. I think I was able to pinpoint the exact moment of the show when I lost consciousness, 'cause I remembered having seen the intro graphic to the "Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger" segment, but not anything after that. (Did you see him wag his entire body at that guy? Hil-freakin'-larious)
That reminds me, I missed both the Colbert Report and the Daily Show last night because I was in my room playing Final Fantasy II on the SNES (otherwise known as Final Fantasy IV on the Super Famicom in Japan and on the GBA) for, like, four hours. My brother would've told me it was on, but he had thought I had gone to bed. I had to watch it this morning, too.
OH! Did I forget to mention that my step-brother gave me his collection of old video game consoles and games that he got from a mutual friend of ours? I catalogued the whole thing, even the random crap that also got into the boxes, reorganized the collection to fit in two boxes instead of three, and tested all the ones I could hook up. I don't want to go through the entire collection right now, but I basically have every system emulated by the Wii's virtual console, plus a Jaguar, an Intellivision, and a Pippan. Don't know what a Pippan is? That's because it never came out. There are no games on it, so all it can run is an SDK disk (like an old mac OS) and audio disks. The only systems that work reliably are the ones I've already mentioned by name, a TurboGrafx 16, and a Sega Nomad. There's also a somewhat tempermental Genesis. I have a Sega Master System and two NES's that're defunct. In case you were wondering, I now own three defunct NES's. The collection also included games and controllers for systems that weren't included.
One last thing that I also don't remember mentioning before: Sci-Fi's reality show "Who Wants to be a Super Hero?" has been picked up for a second season. All I know is that casting begins early 2007. If I can get away from work and school for it, I may try out. First choice is a technorganic cyber-assimilator call Tech Weaver. If I can't get his costume done, which I think I can do with found/bought items, I'll go as the time-bending Captain Retro. I have a jacket that, when combined with a scarf, makes me look like a World War II fighter pilot. I should probably get a longer scarf, though.
That's right. I finally got my first job. I'm a "Game Advisor" at Game Stop, a video/PC game retail store. The position isn't nearly as glamourous or important as the title. Basically, I'm a sales clerk.
It was cool because I didn't think I was doing any better at this interview than at previous ones, and whether or not I'm right is beside the point. I've signed up for the Christmas shopping season, which begins immediately after Thanksgiving. In fact, I start work that week (Gee, I hope they train me before the rush...). Anyway, the interview went normally enough. I was asked things like why I wanted to work there (the games, duh), how I handle stressful situations (I said, "Pretty well," though I'm sure I haven't experienced the type of strees I'm about to before), what three words my friends would use to describe me (I only came up with "Trustworthy" and "Funny," and I'm not sure that's even true), and what I'd do if I saw a co-worker stealing a game (Rat him out, of course, because "that's just wrong."). Lastly he asked three questions to test my video-game knowledge, and coincidently the first two involved the scant bits arcane knowledge that I knew: What Nintendo made before they got into video games (playing cards, as in poker, which I believe was about a hundred years ago), what "Sega" stands for ("Service Games," as they supplied video games to the military), and what the nickname of the Wii's processor was (he tells me it's "Broadway," sounds like I should've known it). I got the last one wrong.
I was pretty much hired on the spot, which came as a bit of a shock as the first two places I got an interview with said they'd call me back and never did (the third did and said the position was filled, and I had done better than, like, 80% of the other applicants). They put me into the payroll computer, gave me the cash card I was to be paid with, as well as a bunch of paperwork I had to sign and return in a couple days, and said I start work the week after next (this was last week, by the way). I imagine I get Thanksgiving off, although not so much that it's a holiday as I told them I wasn't available on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Let's see, what else happened...? Oh, yeah. Have I mentioned I'm taking both a "Make-Up and Masks" class and a "Clothing Construction" (read: Sewing) class? I did it so I could take advantage of them for Halloween, but it didn't really pan out. I've only recently gotten anywhere close to done with the costume I had intended to wear this year. I would've gone with my second choice, Indiana Jones (I found this old leather jacket in my closet over the summer, and I was pretty sure I had access to a whip), but since my Creative Writing class met on Halloween this year my teacher wanted the class to come dressed as characters they have written and I felt obligated to obligde. If you've been reading my MultiPets: Chimera Knight novel blog, you may be familiar with the character Katrina Arden. She was my third choice, as it was a simple costume requiring only a pair of blue jeans, a white sweatshirt, and a black wig. Unfortunately, I only owned the black wig (see last year's Halloween report), so I went with my fourth choice: Orion Chardonnay from the same novel. I'm so unenthused about it I'm not even going to tell you what it looks like. A couple days later, I realized what I could've done was dress up like Indiana Jones and said I was Orion (or Katrina, for that matter) dressed-up for Halloween. Hey, whose to say I'm wrong?
That's a bit of a tangent. Anyway, both classes require a kit, which I keep in seperate tackle boxes. Since I don't like having both hands full while... well, doing anything other than playing video games, I crammed both into a duffel bag that I carry to school every Tuesday and Thursday. Also, having been asked to drop out of a hiking class a couple years ago by the teacher, I walk to and from school during daylight hours (and nighttime during bus strikes). The trip takes me about forty minutes at my normal walking speed, and is a real pain with the duffel (I'd probably keep one in a locker at school if I didn't have negative-twenty minutes between the two classes - don't ask). Recently, my Make-Up and Masks class had moved on to life masks, thereby no longer requiring me to carry both kits around but I had been carrying both of them anyway just in case. Today I was about halfway to school when I started wondering if I was really going to need my make-up kit for the rest of the semester (I won't until the final, by the way). That is when I realized, quite ironically, I had left both kits at home. Fortunately, I had made a habit of arriving two hours and forty minutes early so I could feed my various internet addictions in the computer lab, so it's not like I was pressed for time. In fact, I probably should've realized something was up when I noticed I was making good time and hitting the crosswalks just in time for the signals to change. Not that the duffel prevents such things, but, as the saying goes, if everything seems like its going smoothly you've obviously overlooked something. To make it just a little more awkward, right as I was realizing this some guy walking towards me makes a comment, which in turn makes me not want to look like I was stalking him. My mind is crazy like that. It actually made me consider not going back for my kits.
On an even less interesting note, a couple nights ago I fell asleep during the Colbert Report. I woke up about an hour later thinking I was still watching it, but it turned out to a Pablo Francisco stand-up special. Fortunately, I was about to catch the rerun of the same episode (of Colbert Report, not Pablo Francisco) the next morning. I think I was able to pinpoint the exact moment of the show when I lost consciousness, 'cause I remembered having seen the intro graphic to the "Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger" segment, but not anything after that. (Did you see him wag his entire body at that guy? Hil-freakin'-larious)
That reminds me, I missed both the Colbert Report and the Daily Show last night because I was in my room playing Final Fantasy II on the SNES (otherwise known as Final Fantasy IV on the Super Famicom in Japan and on the GBA) for, like, four hours. My brother would've told me it was on, but he had thought I had gone to bed. I had to watch it this morning, too.
OH! Did I forget to mention that my step-brother gave me his collection of old video game consoles and games that he got from a mutual friend of ours? I catalogued the whole thing, even the random crap that also got into the boxes, reorganized the collection to fit in two boxes instead of three, and tested all the ones I could hook up. I don't want to go through the entire collection right now, but I basically have every system emulated by the Wii's virtual console, plus a Jaguar, an Intellivision, and a Pippan. Don't know what a Pippan is? That's because it never came out. There are no games on it, so all it can run is an SDK disk (like an old mac OS) and audio disks. The only systems that work reliably are the ones I've already mentioned by name, a TurboGrafx 16, and a Sega Nomad. There's also a somewhat tempermental Genesis. I have a Sega Master System and two NES's that're defunct. In case you were wondering, I now own three defunct NES's. The collection also included games and controllers for systems that weren't included.
One last thing that I also don't remember mentioning before: Sci-Fi's reality show "Who Wants to be a Super Hero?" has been picked up for a second season. All I know is that casting begins early 2007. If I can get away from work and school for it, I may try out. First choice is a technorganic cyber-assimilator call Tech Weaver. If I can't get his costume done, which I think I can do with found/bought items, I'll go as the time-bending Captain Retro. I have a jacket that, when combined with a scarf, makes me look like a World War II fighter pilot. I should probably get a longer scarf, though.
posted by Nicholas DeVivo at 8:38 PM
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