Where I Speak Publically

And There Goes My Weekend...

2008-05-17T19:52:27Z

Well fuck me. Today I get a letter from the Pearson head office in Bloomington informing me that my paycheck is in error. They overpayed me by $450, which they will take out of the next check. The next check that has only 13.5 hours on it. The next check that no longer exists because some fuckups in Payroll botched basic fucking math and now make me suffer for their fuckup, and at least part of the one after that also, which means no money until mid or late June thanks to them. Combine that with my sister's continued monetary fuckups, which I've also been compelled to suffer for, and my mood went from good to shitty in moments; I'd intended to get a few things done, but now much bench them again because I have no free cash to pay for it thanks to those two jackasses. Then there's Mother's car, which turned out to have just enough go wrong that fixing it will put us back about $3-4K (mostly due to transmission repairs), and it's enough to get me thinking that I am trapped here. No law school. No graduate school. No advancement of any sort because I can't get the fuck out of here and I can't keep the money I earn long enough to do much of anything that I want to do with it- like, say, pay off my student loans or actually go see my local friends and acquaintances more than once in a blue moon. Fucking wonderful...

Pleasantly Dumbstruck

2008-05-16T19:09:52Z

Today I received a pleasant surprise in the mail, in that my paycheck was about double what I expected from it, and that should be plenty to get me by until I get on another scoring project. (Also, I called HR and updated my availability status; with this proof of my present good standing, I should get on that science project in June, no problem.)

Gamble Failed Before It Began

2008-05-15T19:02:36Z

Got the letter today telling me that the aide position went to someone else. As it went out two days ago, before I sent my email, the decision had been made before anything I did could possibly have any effect on the outcome. *shrug* I shall remain at Pearson for the time-being.

Probably Computation Is Hard Without Solid Data

2008-05-14T20:41:47Z

Today I took a chance at enhancing my odds of getting the Library Aide position. It might work, given that there aren't that many people applying for it. I hope that this gamble pays off.

I Score Fast and Furiously

2008-05-14T00:43:12Z

Today I completed my second scoring project for Pearson Educational Measurement. This occurred a week and a half earlier than expected by both site and project management. I have not heard back from the Legislative Library, so if I do not get the aide position then I will be out of work until at least the week of June 9th (which is when I may be called back for a science project). My end-of-project review by my supervisor again spoke of me in glowing terms, so I expect that I will be called back due to attaining performance statistics far above what was expected of me. I may not like this job, and I would leave it in a heartbeat for something that pays just as well but is more reliable or stable, but I certainly demonstrated that I am well-matched for this sort of work.

All Proceeds As I Have Forseen

2008-05-05T21:57:48Z

I easily qualified for the new Daytime project. I will remain employed for another few weeks. Go me.

And On This Nice Sunday...

2008-05-04T22:02:18Z

Its beautiful here today. I opened up the windows and let the air into the house. Fresh air flowing into a house filled with natural sunlight really feels nice after the better part of a week of cold, wet and gray-skies blah weather.

I've been online, doing Daily Quests on the Isle of Quel'Danas as well as finally getting the Karazhan quests finished; I am now in position to begin the Trials as I mentioned the other day. My priestess is just about ready for her own series of dungeon runs, starting with Zul'Farrak and going through Maraudon, Sunken Temple, Dire Maul, the Scholomance and Stratholme before she reaches 60th level as well as Skill 300 in her Primary and Secondary skills. (Oh, the Fishing grind that awaits...)

But I won't be playing tonight. Instead, as I switch my work schedule back to full time as well as back to days tomorrow, I will spend this evening preparing for the week through finishing my laundry and making my lunches.

A Post About WOW and My Main Character

2008-05-04T21:53:11Z

I intend to run Karazhan tonight, and I hope to hit Exalted with the Violet Eye (which gets me a new cloak pattern and a ring upgrade) as well as finish the segments of the Nightbane quest chain that have to be done inside Karazhan prior to actually summoning Nightbane. I now use the same exact model of headphones that Whiting has at his desk, which turned out to be much cheaper than expected, so I got a new thumbdrive with the balance of the budgeted amount (a 2GB stick).

By Sunday I expect to be ready to, at last, begin the Trials of the Naaru with my main character and thus begin the no-longer-required attunement process for Tempest Keep and Serpentshrine Cavern. (It's strongly encouraged to earn the title of "Champion of the Naaru", and I agree with this sentiment.) While I run the necessary Heroic dungeon instances required for the Nightbane chain, I can complete one of the Trials; if I can also get in a Heroic Slave Pens run I can also pick up the quest that attunes the questor to SSC (which requires a Nightbane kill) and let these overlapping quests (partially-)complete at the same time. While it is unlikely that I will get any gear upgrades from doing these dungeon runs, the Badges of Justice will add to the stack I'm accumulating towards the purchase of a new piece of gear that will be a significant upgrade to what my main current wears.

In the meantime, I've put in some work on my priestess; she's now 54th level and I'm wanting to do some more work on her in preparation for taking her to Outland at 60. (Yes, 60, not 58; I will not take any character into Outland before they have Journeyman Riding (i.e. Riding 150) and a mount to match.

More Job Stuff

2008-04-30T23:36:06Z

So, I have the rest of the week off. The project I worked on wrapped up last night, so I'm free until next Monday and I switch back to working full-time as well as working Days instead of Evenings. Assuming that I qualify for scoring this next project, I will work days full-time for the next two to three weeks. By then I will know for certain if I will work at the Legislative Library or not, and prepare accordingly. Payday is this Friday, and the folks in my guild online will finally get to hear me speak in our guild's Ventrilo server (after paying some bills).

Interview Update

2008-04-29T04:24:09Z

I went to my interview today. It went quite well, and it turns out that my previous experience as a scanner monkey is just what the Legislative Library requires. I believe that my odds of getting this position are quite good, and the pay is equal to or better than Pearson's pay rates.

Today's Birthday Wishes Goes To...

2008-04-28T03:11:20Z

...pied_piper70, who continues to be subtly inspiring to all around him.

Job Update

2008-04-26T22:42:35Z

My interview with the Minnesota Legislative Library is now on Monday at 1:00 p.m., and I still think that I will get this position. As much as I appreciate the good income that I receive at Pearson, that company will not fulfil my employment needs for the long term; it's sufficient to get on my feet and moving again towards my goals, and it's good for filling in the gaps, but due to the nature of the work it is not what I think is best for me. I need to make the moves required to get towards the work that I want to do, and this is one such move. In the meantime, as the current project winds down, I am on board to switch back to Days and working full-time on another three-week scoring project; this one is Washington State 8th Grade Science, so it may be the case that I will not quite qualify for this one, but I'll go for it anyway- even if I do fail (and thus get removed from the project, putting me out of work for the duration) it'll still be 20 hours on my next check at the full rate.

That said, I'd rather ride the bus across down to the State Office Building than drive over by Brookdale to go to work.

Today's Birthday Wishes Goes To...

2008-04-23T21:13:20Z

...doctorwannabee, who may well be completely oblivious to this post because she's eyeball-deep in material or workload right about now. :)

No, Officer, I Had No Idea I Went That Fast

2008-04-22T03:42:11Z

My supervisor at work told me that I averaged 215 papers scored per hour, going so fast that I threatened to throw off the curve and hurt my accuracy. We're suppossed to average 110 papers scored per hour; this is apparently easier to do than I thought.

On a related note, tomorrow I'm expected to receive a call from the MN Legislative Library to schedule an interview for an aide position that starts in June. It's part-time, but also closer to the sort of work I really want to do. I do hope that I get it.

About That Continuing Search For a Better Job...

2008-04-17T18:38:05Z

The State of Minnesota's Legislative Reference Library sent me a letter inviting me to apply for an upcoming position as a library aide. While the distance is longer, the hours per week are the same and it's at least two months worth of work, starting in June. I'm going for it, and sometime during the day next Tuesday I will get a call to schedule an interview.

Work Update

2008-04-16T21:12:38Z

I am now working evenings, and I shall be working evenings until approximately May 3rd. After that I don't know what my hours will be; it depends upon the project schedule at the office. My phone is shut off while I am at work; should you need to call, don't expect a response before 10pm.

Today's Birthday Wishes Go To...

2008-04-11T18:05:25Z

...minasithil, Fearless Leader of Arcana Solarie (Steamwheedle Cartel-US, Horde) and much loved by friends real and virtual alike.

The Great Giant Stumbles: Wal-Mart's Video Records Going Public?

2008-04-10T05:55:36Z

So, Wal-Mart's management was stupid enough to hire a third party to make video records of big company events and such, but do it without a written work-for-hire contract in place, and then turn around some years down the line, fire the company but fail to secure those videoes to themselves first? Good readers, what we have here is pure, undiluted schedenfraude in a damn potent form. Historians, lawyers, union and labor organizers, reporters and so many more interested parties now descend upon this company like jackals circling a fresh kill. Having seen the clips that NBC aired with the nightly news, I can just imagine the scandal that's straining to bust out and expose this company's true evils for all to see. Yes, I think I'll have another tall, cool glass of schedenfraude...

Now, if only Wal-Mart's dirty tricks squad and hired legal guns can somehow fuck up their disaster control.

bcwalker @ 2008-04-07T22:35:00

2008-04-08T04:01:17Z

Reminder: a week from today I shift to evenings, working from 6pm to 10pm, Monday through Friday.

Charlton Heston, Dead at 84

2008-04-06T05:07:11Z

Article is here.

As the Desktop Whirs...

2008-04-05T00:15:21Z

Payday. Got the hard drive, installed it, closed everything up and hit the button. Everything's working, so it's time to start the hassle of OS and application installation, right? No. The copy of WinXP Home we have in the house fails to recognize that there is a hard drive, right after installing drivers for all of the other elements into that same drive, and thus quits setting up Windows XP Home. No, just repeating it doesn't fix it. Only the hard drive is recent; everything else is at least three or four years old (my keyboard goes back to 2000), back when XP had just come out of its honeymoon period and Vista was just something talked amongst a select few at MS HQ. So, again, I'm posting from one of the laptops; I assume that either I missed something, or the 2002 install disc somehow isn't seeing the hard drive. I don't want Vista, even if the new drive is plenty big enough to handle it. For now, I'm letting it sit; the fact that the damned thing works at all is a victory- getting the software issue sorted can wait a bit.

bcwalker @ 2008-04-03T21:54:00

2008-04-04T03:02:41Z

I find that my reading these days, aside from my friend's books, is increasingly on either nonfiction of a historical topic or one of the classics of literature or mythology. Recent fiction just isn't appealing to me right now.

What Will It Be, People? Adaptation or Death?

2008-04-02T22:48:14Z

This AP article at MSNBC's site takes above the fold what I've said here and elsewhere for some tim now: the tabletop RPG hobby and business is increasingly eclipsed by electronic RPGs--MMORPGs in particular, World of Warcraft specifically--that provide everything that folks who, years ago, flocked to D&D and its knockoffs in a format that is far superior in terms of both convenience and gameplay. It isn't uncommon for players to report a degree of immersion that I would not find outside of accounts of folks who'd witness or partaken of some significiant historical event, such as being a soldier in a war or being in attendance at a major political event. The reactions at RPG.net, EN World and the RPG Site are the usual mixture of dismissal and denial; the truth is this, folks: What D&D is best known for--tactical combat, action/adventure dungeon crawls and taking on big monsters in order to upgrade one's gear and level up--has long ago been surpassed by consoles, PCs and now eclipsed by MMORPGs and as a result the already shrinking and aging TRPG community is due to wither and die within a generation.

That is, unless--again, as I said previously--the publishers and the alpha gamers in the community get off their asses and do the hard research and development required to identify those specific elements that the electronic RPGs either can't do at all compared to TRPGs or that they do worse than TRPGs, and then exploit those relative strengths vs. all competing media (because boardgames like Decent are also doing damage) to reinvent the entire product category, reorganize the TRPG culture to support it and recruit/convert a whole new audience into the fold and get them buying the games and playing them both frequently and regularly in an acceptable and sustainable manner. If this can be done, if the people with the power (such as it is) do that work, then the extant paradigm of TRPGs can safely be allowed to complete its transition to electronic media while the TRPGs to come out of this new shift in paradigm will find fertile ground elsewhere in our world and civilization. It won't be easy, but it must be done if this is to endure for another generation as a relevant and vibrant contributor to our culture.

Today's Birthday Wishes Go To...

2008-04-02T06:24:45Z

...scott_lynch, may your worst days be envied by the world's elite and may your enemies break themselves against the righteous fists at the ends of your wife's arms.

Today's Birthday Wishes Goes To...

2008-04-01T18:34:14Z

...peaseblossom, beloved of many and respected by many more, even if they decline to make their presences known.

(No, not an April Fool's joke.)