Showing posts with label mass effect 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mass effect 2. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Another Kind of Hell

As I've written much about of late, I've been out of work since 2 February.  The interview I wrote about weekend before last came to nothing, despite my good feelings.  I've continued to pound the pavement, sometimes literally.  I've filled out applications all over, in every sort of business, even in places outside of my comfort zone.  Yesterday morning I banged out a resume to a donut shop looking for someone to work overnight.

I hate being idle.  I hate being broke.  That last is especially hellish because I'm not the only broken thing in this house.  On the Sunday the family went to Wakulla Springs, my Xbox 360 died.  It was a hardware failure; nothing as dramatic as the Red Ring of Death, just a simple power supply failure, what's commonly referred to as the Brick.  A new Brick is going to cost me $50, if I buy it from a reputable dealer, like GameStop or the like.  I got a $25 gift card from the raffle at the employee Christmas party last year, but I still need the rest, and any money I've picked up the last few weeks has gone for gasoline or other necessities.

I know, I know.  It's only a toy, right?  A very grown-up toy, but a toy nonetheless.  Alas, it was an outlet for a lot of my negative emotions.  I was alternating between replaying missions of Halo 3: ODST and my 28th campaign of Mass Effect 2.  I haven't killed a hostile alien in six weeks and some.  I've had steady internet access for all of that time, but my PC isn't smart enough to play any kind of combat games either online or downloaded.  Hell, some flash games cause it to freeze just because it's got an inferior graphics card.

I don't expect anyone reading this to solve my problems.  I just needed to vent, to let y'all know what makes me crazy.

On a more positive note, I may attend the next meeting of the Tallahassee Atheists en femme.  It'll be nice to get out feeling more like myself.

Monday, February 21, 2011

What Fresh Hell Is This?

Apparently, that how Dorothy Parker answered the telephone.  Supposedly it originated when someone interrupted her train of thought, but she ended up using it as a greeting, to answer the phone or the door.  I might have to try it.

In any case, it's been a long month.  I've been banging out resumes to anyone with an open position, and so far all I've received was one response, a politely-worded "Thanks, but the position has been filled."  I'm beginning to wonder if it's time to change professions.  I've not worked in any business but hotels since 1998.  I've got no degrees, so it's mostly been one long series of working the same job over and over, with little to no hope of advancement.  I'd go back to school, but no one will finance my education until I pay off my debts, including a student loan which dates back to 1991.

My sister (ex-in-law, whatever) suggested I shift my job search south, as her husband is doing.  She suggested Panama City and Orlando (the vacation capital of America).  Both have some nice positions open, but most of the ads I saw are only taking walk-in applicants.  I don't have access to a vehicle now (Vicki sold her van), so I can't exactly drive to either place to apply.  Since I came to Florida, I've had the feeling that Tallahassee was only a way station, that I'm meant to travel further south.  Orlando, or even Miami would put me much closer to a lot of trans-friendly business and support structures, too.

If I don't find another job soon, I'll have to vacate the guest house and move back in with my sister.  She ditched the big house in December and moved her brood into a double-wide by the airport.  She's getting ready to oust a housemate next month, so I might be able to move into my own room again.

The day I lost my job, I did a little shopping.  A trip to the mall yielded a new purse from Burlington Coat Factory, and at Game Stop I found a used copy of Halo 3: ODST.  I originally wrote a little about this game back in 2009, but I sidestepped it in my anticipation of Mass Effect 2.  I haven't had much else to do in the last few weeks, and the game has eaten up lots of hours.
 
Deprived of a vehicle, I've been doing a lot of walking.  The shopping center with a Publix grocery store and my favorite nail salon is 2.8 miles from my current residence.  A Walmart SuperCenter is 3.3 miles away, in the other direction.  Daytime temps have reached the seventies, so the walking's been good.  Twice people driving by have honked their horns and waved at me, but they were traveling too fast for me to see who they were.  I suppose they might have been some people I used to work with at the hotel, but I didn't see them.  Today a dude drove by shouting something derogatory.  I didn't hear the words, but I'd know that tone anywhere.  Again, he whizzed by at 50 mph, and I have no idea what he said or why.  I just went about my business.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Another Blog

One of the bloggers I read intersperses her real-life blogs with entries concerning an ongoing campaign of her favorite video game, written as though she were the character she plays, visiting those places, interacting with those people, and sometimes killing them.

I used to fancy myself a fiction writer, but I stopped exercising that particular talent, and it withered on the vine. I started this blog and the others before it to brush up on my writing skills, to get back into the practice of word-slinging. Now I'm feeling the urge to try out something creative, but I'm taking baby steps by playing in somebody else's sandbox.

In a couple of days I'm going to kick off a new Mass Effect 2 campaign, and I'm going to start writing log entries as though I were that version of Commander Shepard. I'm also going to illustrate this thing, with a combination of promotional images authorized for such use by EA and Bioware and some screenshots I'll take from the game in-progress.

This is not without a certain amount of relative danger. The Mass Effect universe and everything in it are still very much the property of EA and Bioware. I don't think this vanity project of mine will do anyone any harm, but corporations can be a mite persnickety with regard to fair use of their intellectual property. They could slap me with a Cease and Desist order, and that would be the end of that. We'll just have to see.

I'm not ending this blog by any stretch of the imagination, but I hate to clutter this place up with wildly off-topic material. I don't want someone who's been away from here for a while to come back and read about my adventures in the Terminus Systems and come away thinking I'm spacier than ever.

I'll put up a link when this thing is ready to kick off. I'm still trying to find an appropriate blog title, using a phrase from the game. Oddly enough, a lot of them are already taken. That's what I get for jumping on the bandwagon seven months late.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Counting Down

Here it is, Friday, the 22nd of January, and so many things are coming to a head in the next few days. I'm getting a new phone/number over the weekend. Tuesday is my last day at work. It's also the release date for Mass Effect 2 in North America (Europe's got to wait three more days - Pfffft!). Next weekend we'll be loading our moving truck and easing on down to Florida.

I've moaned off and on about the ongoing troubles with my truck. I learned yesterday that all the little problems might be symptomatic of something that's too expensive to fix. We're going to replace one inexpensive component this weekend. If that has the desired effect, then I'll work on fixing all the little things that are wrong. If things don't work out, I'm going to ditch the truck and catch a plane to Tallahassee. I'd really love to have my own vehicle in my new place, but the odds don't favor that outcome.

In the midst of all the other stuff, I somehow forgot to blog about quitting my job. Pardon me, I resigned. That in itself has been a unique experience. In all my work history, I've never resigned before. I've quit, been laid off, and even fired a couple of times, but I've never formally resigned. No one's ever tried to make me stay someplace, either. Last Friday, the VP of Operations came by and tried to convince me to stay. I told her that I appreciated the effort, but this company lost my allegiance back when they told me I couldn't continue to work here if I transitioned. She didn't have an answer for that, and that was pretty much the end of the conversation.

I wish they had let me transition on the job. I'd be living en-femme pretty much full-time, and I'd have some basis for working that way when I get to Florida. As it is, I've got to pretty much start from scratch. I've been looking for a support structure in Florida, and I don't like what I see. There are plenty of groups and doctors and whatnot in the coastal cities, but next to nothing in the Panhandle, where I'll be. If anyone knows of something I haven't found, I'd be much obliged for the information.

Tuesday sees the release of Mass Effect 2. I've been jazzed ever since I posted the first trailer in June, after E3, but all the promotional material that Bioware have cranked out in the last month has just ramped up my personal tension. It's just a video game, I've heard people say, but those people haven't spent the last two years working through all the ins and outs of the first game, playing through all the possible permutations of how things could turn out. It turns out that all the decisions you make in the first game have consequences in the sequel, from how you treated your biggest fanboy to whether or not you participated in the genocide of an entire species. A blog I read a couple of months ago suggests that anyone who is enthusiastic about video games cannot be a woman. I have only rude things to say to that.

On the one hand, I hope the truck is fixable. If it's not, I get to fly for the first time in five years. What a trade!

Monday, January 18, 2010

A Nice Night for a Walk... Not!

After all my years on the night shift, I have become a creature of the night. I can run around and do things during the day, if need be, and I often do, but somehow I have reached a point where I am most comfortable in the dark. As such, when I am not working, I tend to try to keep the same hours I would when I'm working.

Saturday morning was the end of another nine-day stretch for me at work. I only got a short nap Saturday before I went out to a friend's house to watch District 9. Good movie. Came home and crashed.

I spent most of Sunday indoors, as it was raining. I alternated sleeping, playing Mass Effect (8 days till ME2!)on the Xbox, and watching DVDs. I went out for pizza around 1900, and vegged out in front of the computer for a while. Around 0030, Nate said something about walking up to 7-Eleven to buy cigarettes. I mentioned that I was thinking of making a run there myself, because I ran out of Coke Zero, and after a few minutes, I said I'd go. I could drive, but it's only half a mile, and walking saves gas and gives me a little exercise in the bargain.

I've been walking around this neighborhood for almost a year, day and night, and never had a negative experience of any kind. Much of that I attribute to my size. I'm a little over six feet tall and weigh over 200 pounds. No matter how I dress, I'm big, and no one willing messes with a big person. In theory, at least.

As I was putting on my shoes, Nate came in and asked if I had any pocket-sized weapons. I haven't openly carried any weapon for years, and the only weapons I own anymore are of the bladed variety, and long enough that I could get busted just for carrying them (I forgot I have my grandfather's nightstick, d'oh!). Besides, no one's ever bothered me in a hundred excursions or more, I said, and I'll only be gone half an hour or so.

There are two 7-Elevens within a mile of the apartment. I went to the nearest one, just a straight shot up Elm Avenue from home. They had Nate's smokes, but no Coke Zero, so I came back down Elm to London Boulevard and headed east, toward the second store, one long block down the street.

Just after I turned onto London, a man called out from across the street, "Man, do you have a cigarette?" I didn't understand what he said, and kept walking away. He ran across the street toward me, and I turned around. "Do you have a cigarette?" I told him "No" and kept walking. He asked me again, and I told him to "Fuck off." Not my brightest idea, but I wasn't feeling him.

Next thing, two more "gentlemen" approach from the opposite direction. They start chatting with gentleman #1. Obviously, they're not strangers. Number 1 tells the other two that I dissed him, and #2 starts looking at me funny. There wasn't any traffic on London Boulevard, so I crossed the street. The other side was better lit. Safer in the light, I thought. Heh.

Numbers 2 and 3 followed me. I don't remember what they said, but I tried to get them to back down, all the while looking out for #1. Number 2 slapped me, or something. He hit the right side of my head. It wasn't a hard blow, and it triggered my adrenaline response. In the back of my mind, I remember what I was taught of hand-to-hand combat. One fighter I could handle. Two, maybe, but only if I fight to win (no pulled punches, no soft blows). Any more than that, and you're supposed to run, but they were within ten feet, plenty of room to run me down, and I still didn't know where #1 was.

No worry. Number 1 came running across the street swinging ... a bicycle tire? I couldn't write shit like this. He swung the tire at me, and I side-stepped and yanked it out of his hand, pulling him off his feet in the process. I dropped into a fighting stance and gave the tire a couple of tentative swings, to put some space between them and me. Then they backed off and I drew... my cellphone. At that point, they ran back across London and down one of the side streets. I resumed my walk.

I got about half-a-block from the "attack site" and called Nate. I didn't call the police. What was I going to report? Three strange men half-heartedly attacked me and then ran away? I wasn't injured, beyond a cut lip (cut on my teeth). They certainly didn't steal anything, aside from a little peace of mind. Anyway, Nate came out and picked me up, and we drove out to WaWa. He got his cigs. I found that Coke product 12-packs were on sale, and grabbed a pint of ice cream to consume once the adrenaline wore off. Adrenaline's great when one is in action, but it's a hell of a thing to come down off of.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

That Was the Week That Was

It's been a long, long week. Long and stressful. The hotel is as slack as I have ever seen it, even going into a holiday season. The owner's a tight-fisted bastard, so they've been steadily cutting everyone's hours. A month ago, I was working forty-hour weeks. Then they cut me down to thirty-nine hours, so I couldn't get any overtime. I could live with that. Thirty-nine hours became thirty-six, then thirty-four. I came into work two nights ago and found the schedule posted for next week. They'd cut me down to three nights and twenty-two hours. There's no way I can pay my bills on those kind of hours, so the job search has begun anew. While my bosses were looking for ways to save, our business picked up next week, in a big way, so I got another night and about ten hours back, but my days with this place are numbered.

On the positive side of things, I spent Monday helping De move some furniture for some friends, and I picked up some extra cash along the way. The friends live in Norfolk over by the base, so in between loads I was treated to flybys by E-2 Hawkeyes, C-2 Greyhounds and assorted fast movers. Towards the end of the day, De dropped a closet on the back of my head, but I'm okay now.

The rest of the week is a blur to me. Work sucked, and I whiled away my down-time on the net, or reading, and slept a lot. I'm reading Tanith Lee's Piratica , which is a delightful fantasy. Bioware churned out a couple new videos promoting Mass Effect 2, which can't come out soon enough (January 26, 2010, if anyone's counting).

Saturday was my GEM meeting. I haven't been for a couple of months, and once again, there were some new faces. It's always nice to see new people. We had a potluck dinner, and Kathleen did the most awesome chicken legs.

Today I was back at Kathleen's with De working on a floating pier. There was no airshow on this outing, but the display of waterfowl was stunning. There were ducks, geese, cormorants, gulls, a pelican and a number of snowy egrets.

Now I'm watching Robin Williams on HBO and preparing for bed. I'm going back to Kathleen's tomorrow to help De finish the pier modifications.

Monday, November 16, 2009

As Long as I'm Flogging Other People's Stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL5u2xi6mNQ

This is the new trailer for Mass Effect 2. I can barely contain my excitement about this game. Lucky for me, I only have to wait until January. I like this "Legion" character. So far it's got the best lines.

"We do not experience fear, but we understand how it affects you. Organics do not choose to fear us; it is a function of your hardware."

Ooooh. Scary monsters.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Looking Forward

I am a geek, and I am unashamed. I like movies and video games especially, and the next six months to a year are going to be very exciting to fans of both. On the movie front, I really like the looks of

9
Sherlock Holmes
Iron Man 2
Tron Legacy

As for games, there are not one, but two Halo games coming out for the Xbox 360. What's really gotten my games nerves jangling is Mass Effect 2. Check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBRo7JWy744

In a couple of the cutscenes, you can see a woman with short red hair. That's the default female version of Commander Shepard, and the character I usually play as.