I'm in!

I promised you guys that I would update my journal with news on how the job interview went. Well, it went alright, but the other candidate proved to be the better choice, according to the temp agency. Needless to say I didn't feel like bringing bad news. I'd gotten even more depressed with Christmas around the corner. Now I have loving family, both on my side and Pauline's side, but Christmas also means companies are not working and therefore not hiring.

I stopped by the temp agency I used to work for 3 years in the past in a neighbouring city a few weeks ago, they directed me to their branch office in the college in that city, they'd seek out a job on a slightly higher level for me. However, the first talks there went horrible and I feared that I had wasted another chance on a good job. Still, they offered to pass on my resume to their office in a city 20 miles away (everything's really cluttered here) because they might have a job for me. A few days later I received a call, I had to fill out an online test form and if I'd done that OK they would recommend me at a large mail ordering company.

Yesterday I went there for a job interview. I didn't expect it to go well. I know they are amazingly strict at companies the size of that one, especially since they hire a bunch of people at once. It turned out to be they were looking for a smaller group of temp workers to have them fill up a space for at least two months and they were convinced that I met every single requirement. Just yet I received a call from the temp agency, notifying me that I'm hired, starting January 8th.

The best thing is that the job isn't necessarily for 2 months. The thing is, right now the team I'll be working with a is stationed at one of the offices of the company, but they will be outsourcing the Customer Support Desk to a 3rd party sometime in March. They are looking to offer as many people as possible from the current team to that company to take over since we will already be acquainted with the procedures, the systems and the job itself. As long as I do my work alright there's a good chance that I'll be among them, I've been told.

So starting January 8th I'll be working 30 hours a week at Customer Support. It's funny that when I started looking for work this was exactly what I was looking for, even though I never expected to land a gig like this the more I got rejected for similar jobs.

The happiest man on Earth (just for the next few days though) wishes all of you a blessed and healthy 2007. That your outlook on the new year may be just as bright as mine currently is.

The Interview

I've been pretty depressed the past 2 weeks or so. I got rejected for the jobs at the gamestore and the IRS, they didn't even want to interview me. Surely the job at the IRS was a little out of my league, but if they don't even want to hear more about who I am and what I'm capable of in that gamestore...Well, that made me feel pretty miserable, depressed even. It happens to a lot of people who don't have a job, sitting at home makes you feel numb, mentally. There is a lot of stuff to do in and around the house, even fun things, things you take great pleasure in when you do them in your free time. Problem is, my life is nothing but free time these days. I'm bored out of my mind.

I still had the job at the international callcenter open, but my contact at the job agency told me that they were generally being very, very slow. I had to resort to waiting...Again. I snooped up another two job openings in the meantime through that same job agency and informed if I'd stand a chance, should I apply. Turns out that one of the two was fit for me and yesterday evening they passed that company my information.

Early this morning I already got called by the job agency, informing me that the company I applied at would very much like to have me over for a job interview on short notice. I made an appointment for tomorrow afternoon, of course I'll let you guys know whether I made the cut or no.

If I get hired, I'll most likely be a '3rd-line supportdesk employee', or that's vaguely how my contact at the agency called it. You got 1st-line, that's the first person you talk to when you call a supportdesk. When he or she has assessed the problem, the 2nd-line employee takes over. He has a lot of technical knowledge and can often fix the problem without having to send someone over. In case he can't, he'll call me or he'll have the caller himself call me directly to make an appointment for some guy to come over and fix it up.

The good thing is that I most likely won't be dispatched to these huge, enormous callcenters. From the looks of it, I'll be having my interview at a smaller office of this company where I'll be working as well, in case they hire me. This means a smaller group of people to work with, I like that.

Of course I want this job. I'd take on any job I moderately like right now. However, this seems like a good place to start out, perhaps better than the others I applied for. I'm determined to get the most out of it tomorrow. It appears they'd really like to have me for an interview, seeing how they notified me within a few hours after my application. So I'm going to make it worth their while, for sure.

Let's All Sing Together!

I've seen a lot of people who expect nothing from the online service that Sony and Nintendo will be offering for their consoles. While I'm tempted to side with the sceptics, all it takes to get on the same level as Xbox Live is a bunch of servers, a central login and a friends list, right?

Perhaps there is more to it. I have played games online on PC before I first booted up Xbox Live and I've always had a kind of 'detached' feeling when doing so. PC gamers seem cold. They would only talk about the game, curse occassionally and use leetspeak. Of course leetspeak. I always run into fanatics or game-crazy people when I play PC games online, people I simply do not connect with, despite my own fanatical gaming habits.

I often hear that Xbox Live is full of smacktalking....people.... That's partially right, there will always be people who use the headset as an outlet for their own frustrations, and there will always be people who will take games a little too seriously. Ran into those on PC as well. However, what really sets XBL apart for me is that there is some kind of community feel, even though there's millions of gamers in that 'community'. When I click a few buttons to jump online in a more laidback atmosphere such as an Arcade game, there's no such thing as leetspeak. It's either quiet, or people are just chatting away about all sorts of things. Most of the time it is not about the game, and they rarely play to win. And you always have something to talk about because you've used the same means of contacting each other, namely the 360 console.

This makes the Xbox Live community seem more like your own city or town. Most of the people in your city you've never met, but still you feel you can connect with them because you share a bunch of the same interests and preoccupations because you live in the same town. When at the bus stop you can chat with them about how the bus is always late and they'll probably agree with you because they understand where you're coming from.

In my opinion, that is the greatest challenge any company who wants to build a unified online gaming service from the ground up has to face. XBL has gamercards, it functions a bit like a phonebook. I can have a few of those in my own personal phonebook and we'll meet up often. XBL has gamerscore, which is nothing but a number but does show how 'active' you are in this community. These elements mean nothing but they do add a whole lot of personality to your online handle.

To me a good online gaming service is not a buddy list, a bunch of central servers and a central login. It turns out that I keep coming back for more on XBL because it's more than just games. It's a social interaction tool where people do not always curse or use made-up languages. It's a big meeting place where people chat about all sorts of things as well, and where people are granted a personality immediately, one that stretches beyond their nickname alone. I challenge you to beat that, Sony and Nintendo.

The Endless Wait

So I'm quitting philosophy. This might come as a surprise to you as I haven't updated this thing for over a month now, but life's been really hard on me. I tried my very best at philosophy but I wasn't rewarded with good grades. Conclusion: This whole philosophy thing is not in my system. Exit university.

I could switch studies, of course. However, catching up on another studies is hard work and not commendable. Besides, after two studies that have gone down the drain, it's perhaps for the better to take a step back and try my hand at working for a while. I can always give it another shot at a later age.

So there I go, resume in hand, jobhunting. I don't know about the US, but over here we have job agencies. They are commercial institutions that have contracted big corporations and smaller businesses to 'lend' them employees whenever they need one for a short amount of time. For the employee (in this case that's me) it means a lot of working experience in different businesses in a short amount of time. Good for the resume. The problem is, however, that they don't want me. A university kid fresh on the market isn't really an appealing option for most companies, and therefore these agencies won't take me in. I expected this to happen, but it's still a bitter pill.

Thank God the unemployment office (I'm not on state welfare, I declined that) handed me a few vancancies that I applied for, and last week one of aforementioned agencies did want to take me in. Apparently they do recognize some of the qualities I have (experience on radio and knowledge of multiple languages) so they handed my resume and credentials to the IRS. They have their own support desk that employees call whenever their computer is malfunctioning. It's a decent paying job, but they do require some experience in IT. I had to send in a motivation that, despite my lack of experience in said field of working I still have considerable knowledge of computers and techy stuff in general. At least enough to be working at the support desk.

Anyways, they also forwarded my resume to an international distribution center of software where they need people for their support desk. The good thing is, it's the English support desk and the language on the floor is English as well. Seeing how I live in the 'backwards' part of the country this time I actually stand a chance. Now they don't have to get qualified people from the other side of the country when they can find one right next door, figuratively speaking. Saves them a lot of money. I have a good feeling about that one.

A third application I sent (well, I still have to send it at the time of writing) out I ran into myself while browsing the website of my local gamestore. They're looking for someone to fill in a vacancy for 38 hours a week. Working retail in the Netherlands is quite different from the US, we don't have to push pre-orders, don't have to try to get people to buy stuff they're not asking for etc. etc. Besides, it's the gamestore I always go to, they know my face and as far as I can tell they don't dislike me. Knowledge of games is required as well, but I don't have to tell you I'm scoring well on that one. The only thing I don't have is experience in retail, but seeing how some of their current employees are highly anti-social I do not think it's a big stumbling block. And how could they refuse a guy who deposits a good $100 in their cash register every month?

I'm overall pretty confident, despite the fact it's been over a week since I last heard from the job agency. As for the gamestore, I have to send the application by e-mail to their head office but I'll be stopping by tomorrow telling them I have applied. It's a very small chain of stores (only 3) so if they are interested in hiring me they might apply a bit of pressure on the head office and not get ignored. I'll be keeping you guys posted.

Making History

One of the interesting things about our day and age is that it will be ancient history in a few centuries. One can only wonder what they will think of us when we are long gone and our accomplishments have been recorded in history books.

Perhaps you have seen the Playstation 3 kiosk showing demos in Japan. It is huge. Humongous even. Larger than life. Anyway, it is a superlative in every way. Some people rightfully noticed the resemblance to religious objects, sometimes reasulting in funny movie references. I myself couldn't help thinking what scientists would say when they dig up this thing in 10,000 years after human life has been almost completely eradicated at least once.

The fact that things like videogame consoles have become iconic is a clear testimony of the time we live in. It is a time where man does not play as large a role as that what it makes. We remember the Mona Lisa, but you don't need to have been in school to know that it was Leonardo da Vinci who painted it. Even a mere 60 years ago there were people like Marilyn Monroe who were pop icons of the contemporary world. In fact, the word 'icon' has religious origins and often talks about people.

That has changed. Do you know who made the iPod? Who came up with the Start-menu for Windows? It's stuff we all use, every day. But unlike the Mona Lisa, we don't know who made it. These persons are given a few extra Christmas bonuses and that's it. They're forgotten before the hype around that what they made even started.

Surely the right answer to the question 'why are they forgotten' is that they came up with mass products. Everybody has an iPod, alsmost every computer has Windows installed. But even with stuff that can be considered 'art' or an 'artistic product', even that is slowly surpassing its creator in fame. Peter Jackson directed Lord of the Rings, sure. But he never went into the studios that produced the special effects, one of the most artistic parts of modern movies. Yet these people are forgotten. Their studio is mentioned, as if they are a part of some kind of homogenous entity. And what did Peter Jackson do? Instead of complete creativity, he outsourced scenes that are not very convincing to make with conventional materials to a studio that did it for him.

But movies still have actors. Something that is completely lacking an actor, apart from the voices, are videogames. Who doesn't remember the life-size Master Chief dolls? The enormous ads in Sydney? Master Chief is the icon of the 21st century. But he's not real. He's made up by a team of programmers, artists and directors behind a desk. And he rakes in the money. Big time. Not to mention what Lara Croft did for the wallets of those who made her up.

Slowly we're moving towards a time where what we make is more important than who made it, simply because we are insignificant in comparison to what we can produce. One day scientists will indeed dig stuff up. They'll probably find a few bones, date them and find it's 21st century material. But what will they say about Master Chief? A guy in a metal suit people lined up for all over the world at midnight? Perhaps a religious icon.....Would he have been involved with this Lara Croft woman? Ah, a legend is born. I feel a bestseller coming up, but only 10,000 from now.....

Returning the Favor

You are probably just as surprised as I am regarding the mod tag that's now on the right side of this entry. A while ago it seemed like living hell to me to be attending moderating duties, but right now I see it as the right way to return the favor to both Gamespot and its contributing users.

When I first came here I of course spent a lot of time on the General Forums. However, UCBs soon proved to be more interesting. They had all the good content without people trying to screw it all up. Still, these UCBs are in the end all dependant on the Main Forums to get new users from. And you'd want those to stick around to push the entire community up to a higher level.

So as I began reading the rest of the board more often I found that there is definately good stuff around, stuff that's worth reading with a bunch of dedicated users that try their best to keep things on track. A lot of the threads are interesting and fun reads and it's what made me change my mind about moderating the boards. It's a way to thank those users for trying to promote good discussions in boards that have thousands of visitors every day, boards that are bound to derail completely if it weren't for moderators and said users to keep things going in the right direction.

In any case, when I was offered the position I accepted and I'll be trying to do my best. It's fun that you can go from an obscure figure (who the heck knows me anyway around here) to public domain in just 24 hours. Suddenly people think you're cool (you msut be teh import4ant!!11) and want to get acquainted. There's something enticing about knowing people who represent some kind of authority, I think. Human nature is so much fun.

Let this also be a disclaimer. I hope to not make too many mistakes in the early days. If I do I promise it will all be corrected and I'll bear whatever cross I have to bear to pay for my misdeeds. At least I hope I can make GS a better place than it already is.

Double Six

The past summer was a bit of a quiet one. Normally I'd do a lot of stuff with my friends, but after one of us left for Canada last year I'd see my friends more frequently, but the events were less spectacular. So was this summer, we did a lot of things together but none of them really stuck with me. Perhaps this is because I was a little depressed and now that's cleared I'm all in for fun stuff to do. Too bad the whole circus is taking off again soon.

However, one thing I do remember is the amount of board games I played over at my parents' place this summer. Y'know, usually whenever I have time off I play a bunch of videogames, but with this summer drought of games and no desire to pick up older games I was left with pretty much nothing to do. I and Pauline would go over to my parents' house and play boardgames. Scrabble, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit...Card games too, Texas Hold'em being a favorite of my entire family. Needless to say I'm having a lot of fun with this 360 iteration right now.

But German board- and cardgames are absolutely the best. What are German games? Well, most of us, me included, know classic boardgames. I don't think anybody has ever had to explain Monopoly to somebody else. However, recently the Germans have started to make so many new boardgames it is insane. Recent favorite with the family? Machiavelli. This game has nothing to do with the Italian writer/thinker, it's about building cities.

It is a card-based game. There are 8 characters (recommended number of people playing is 4-5) and each person gets to pick one at the start of his turn. The character you pick remains secret until your name is called, then you come out and use the character's special powers to build up your city or destroy that of someone else. Each turn you get gold or 'building cards', the latter you can buy with gold. First one to have 8 of these building cards ends the game, after that points are tallied and the one with the highest number of points wins.

It is obvious that a lot of skill and strategic thinking are involved when you pick your character for the turn. It makes or breaks your game. Perhaps that is why it is so fun, it's a game that does not depend on rolling a dice or anything, most of its outcome is determined by insight.

Look for Machiavelli at Toys 'R' Us or Walmart. It's inexpensive and if you can gather some friends you'll have a blast playing the game. It really brings people together....Funny how these games can often bring more fun to any living room than a videogame. Although I wouldn't mind seeing more classic baordgames on a service like XBL Arcade, it's just the most social form of playing games.

Tabula Rasa

I used to be a cheerful guy with a positive outlook on life. I wrote about things that were making me a happy guy frequently in this journal and I used to enjoy life. However, over the past year life began to feel like a cage. Part of it is this house, but a bigger part were my studies. It is hard to admit a depression befell me, but it really did. I became a victim of my own dreams.

Not too long ago, a year or four to be exact, I had this dream of going to Japan and study up on Eastern philosophy. For a while I tried to get into the country with only a lot of guts and some money, but it turned out the latter wasn't enough. I needed more money but I didn't want to work and 'waste' precious years I could spend learning valuable stuff.....How wrong I could have been...

Anyways, I started studying Japanese. No better way to get into the country than by goin in through the front door. The first year was a breeze, pretty much. However, I had to devote a lot of time and I started to dislike to full work weeks that were required to keep up, whereas other students had only 10-20 hours a week to spend on studying. Apart from weekends, my social life had come to a still.

I started living together with Pauline, and while my social life did pick up again, my studies never did. I invested time, but after hours of studying I had to admit time and time again that I had learned nothing. I read the words, but I don't remember them. That is unique, my friends can tell you that my memory is extraordinary good, I remember even the most insignificant of details. Still, while the theoretic business like Japanese history and culture were extremely easy for me to pick up and remember, it was the language that wore me out completely.

I've always told myself that I have a knack for languages, which led me to believe that Japanese would be just another language on my hitlist, ready to be checked off. OK, I have to admit that my English is pretty good for a non-native speaker, but learning a language that has no ties to Western linguistics whatsoever is something different. It's rules and grammar you barely udnerstand from the get-go. You have to know everything by heart and memorize every little rule. That sounds like math, and in reality it is math with letters. And math I'm no good at. I'm no good at memorizing stuff until I dream about it.

The problem, perhaps, is in highschool. I have, like I said, a good sense for what is important, I remember stuff that's been told to me, ot stuff that's written down. One read or one listen and I'm done. Most of the courses in highschool are just that. Remember facts. Link them together. This 'trick' (as I call it) I was good at, and the abstract course sI had to memorize from A to Z like math....Ah well, that was only 10% of the highschool menu so I never spent one minute too long on that.

Needless to say I lost the feeling for memorizing. I never did this and right now they required me to do just that in order to fulfill the dream of studying philosophy in Japan. I depressed me. For years I had looked forward to the day I'd get on the plane, for years I'd told myself that I would make it eventually, but over the past year I began to realize that in fact I'd never get there. Several times I've been close to a nervous breakdown, I can tell you.

The dream became a nightmare, and last Sunday I decided to wake up from it and call it quits. I need to break free of the prison that is called Japanese studies. Do you remember what people say about multiple-choice tests? They always tell you to go with what you think of first, usually that is right. Well, initially I had planned to study philosophy right from the bat, and that's what I'm going to do now. Closer to home, more free time, no more Spartan studying schematics and to top it all off, philosophy is just more my thing. Reading and remembering comes more naturally to me.

Finally I can start over. This week I will be cancelling my subscription for next year at the Japanese department and if all goes well I'll be transferring to another city to study philosophy there.

I'm glad I can close this chapter of my life. The dream will remain, however. I still want to go there, I just need to stop telling myself I will get there.

Up and Up

Do you think that the house you live in can make you feel depressed? I certainly do, and right now this house is doing it. Don't get me wrong, this apartment is ideal, no neighbours, no salesmen, were on great terms with the landlord etc. etc. Only during the summer this place turns into a dump. The living room has A/C, the rest of the house is a 100 degrees easily. This means I'm of course not doing any housework, I value my life. Apart from the living room it's impossible to properly clean the place without dying from heat exhaustion.

During the summer this place feels like a cage too. It is not exactly situated in what you can call a 'good neighbourhood'. Sure we got no burnt carwrecks and homeless people on our doorstep here, but most of the inhabitants of the neighbourhood that starts on the other end of the street are what you might call trailer trash. Not people you want to get involved with that much. For some reason hese people value old and somewhat sloppy houses that used to be inhabited by laborers in the days of old. These houses are small, cramped and generally not in a good shape. There's also been no sign of neighbourhood planning in those parts, so there's very, very little greenery. No trees, no grass, no nothing except for bricks and asphalt. Needless to say that's little incentive to go out on a hot day and take a walk around the neighbourhood. It's hot, there's nothing that's even resembling healthy living circumstances so my days are best spent underneath the airconditioning.

Then why is my life on the upside right now? Because Pauline got promoted. Or she will be, at least, come October/November. What her new function will be exactly, I don't know. I'm not too educated on what she does exactly, I've always associated it with boring office work but she seems to like it. In any case, she'll be a 'manangement assistant' soon. I guess that's something like a secretary, or at least that what she made it look like.

Of course I'm happy for her, she's been looking for a way to break into the higher echelons for a while now. Seeing how she has no diplomas beyond highschool it's quite a feat and I'm proud of her that she was able to pull it off. But for me personally there's good news in this too. We might be able to buy a house.

I understand that in the US it's a little different, but over ehre buying a house is a big thing. Houses are extremely expensive here and you need to have a good and steady income to be able to nail a contract. So right now we need to look into what kind of mortgage we can get for her projected future salary and we can go shopping. This means I'll be able to break out of this neighbourhood and finally choose a place where I feel happy when I look out the window. Someplace green, with people that are actually normal. Basically this means we need to get out of the south-side of town (the bad side) into the somewhat richer and better part of town, the north-side. I can't wait.

BTW, I've always been on the look-out for a nice job, as you might know. Pauline's mom yesterday told me that one of the pubs in town (which also happens to be the local concert hall) is looking for people to help out behind the bar for 16-20 hours a week. I'll be applying, even though I have no experience in that field this is one of those jobs that I'll be more than willing to do.

Better Than You

I'm just a little behind, and it's the last quarter. Sweat drips from my forehead, it's a warm day. No day to be getting all worked up over a game. No way he'll beat me. Then...a buzzer, and it's game over. The last quarter! So I ask my mom for another few quarters, but she tells me it's been enough for today, we must be heading home. Dinner's waiting. A Sunday afternoon somewhere in the late 80's/early 90's at the local soccer club.... The days that I was a young kid and needed a chair to stand on to see what was happening on the pinball machine that I was playing. Boy, did I love that machine, I played it a lot with the other kids that were also frequently at the club. I never got really good, the score I was trying to beat was the #10 score, go figure. What I was shooting for was to enter my initials into that machine. Being distinctively named, everybody would know that I made the top 10. Alas, it never worked out that way.
Highscores. I love them. I'm not very competitive when you pit me against someone else one-on-one. But I am competitive when I can compare my results to someone else's. Hell yeah, I was one of those pesky kids in school who'd not really brag about his A+ but who would sure look confident. I picked my own rivals for anything. My drawings had to be better than the drawing Chris made. He was the best. I had to beat Fredrick on math, even though I sucked at that. Still, he was the best, I needed to outscore him. I could get pretty obsessive about these things. I did not study my butt off to get the best results, but I wanted to matter. I still want to matter. I'm not someone who jumps into the spotlight every time he gets the chance, but I'd rather stand out fron the crowd through something I have achieved. Insert leaderboards. Just as with the pinball machine at the soccer club, a leaderboard in a videogame is the place for bragging rights. We'd play Pac-Man at home, but as a small kid with a not very well developed hand-eye coordination my dad would outscore me every time. He occupied all the spots on the leaderboard, leaving nothing for the rest of the family. And every time I did not make it I did notice that my score must at least have been an 11th place. Then why the heck was that not an achievement and the #10 spot is? I tried hard enough...
Flash forward. The days of highscores have long since passed and I stopped caring about them. Until I got myself that Xbox 360. I did not get it with leaderboards in mind, but after a while they started to matter more...and more. It's beating rivals and it's gone totally insane. I constantly try to best my own scores in Geometry Wars to get a little ahead of you guys, and to beat my self-proclaimed rivals. New highscore? HA! Eat that, WickedGamer34, whoever you are...And wherever you come from. I beat you. What rank? 7,981? Gotta beat that next time. I hear people telling me and others that rank #12,927 doesn't matter at all. That's not right. It doesn't matter to others, but to me it does. It is a way of feeling satisfied, it is a way of knowing you can achieve stuff as long as you try, even though it is only a videogame. It's trivial, but good for self-esteem. At least for mine. I know how good it felt that I was ranked among the 300 best in Bejeweled 2 Action Mode. It's extremely hard but I managed to get a good score. In the future there will be more leaderboards to shoot for. I hear F.E.A.R. for 360 is getting a Robotron-like Survival Mode with leaderboards. I'd get the game for that feature alone. There also might be a day in the future when all that I'm doing is trying to defend my Top 500 spot in whatever game from getting stolen. That's the day when I might need to quit gaming....But it will also be the day that you will beat me, and I can't let that happen. I am proud of good scores. You?