I call it scrotepocalypse because chris wanted me to title something that. I figure the events of the last day or two are good enough to warrant that title.

Considering my whole work setup is going to be flopped around thanks to the guy I work with getting a hernia.

See!? It works!

In all seriousness, the guy I work with started complaining of groin pain last week on Wednesday or Thursday during a mail run. I pretty much told him to stop stroking it so hard initially (we jab each other constantly), but after it was still bugging him on Friday, I told him to take it easy.

Come Saturday, he's got a lump in the area where things hurt. He laid off of it, came to work yesterday, then left at lunch to go see his doctor. He comes back with the news that he's going to have to have hernia surgery and he'll be out upwards of six weeks. Oh yeah, this is his third hernia.

The boss isn't thrilled by the whole setup. He doesn't like being over here, and I don't blame him.

But here's what's going on:
Until the other guy gets back from everything, I function as Lead Receiving Clerk. This means I don't really go out on delivery much (will be explained further), I sit in the office, and I work a full eight hour day instead of my normal 7.5. Essentially, I get paid to do the brain work, answer phone calls/e-mail, do the receiving instead of delivering, and make signs. I also get a half an hour of overtime every day.

We've already got a Temp hired. They'll be doing my normal work. That means picking the mail up, delivering, delivering, delivering, and delivering. The University's normally pretty slow about getting temp workers, but happend to have this person apply for something they weren't qualified for and offered the temp position to them. I don't even know if it's a guy or a woman. Frankly, I don't care.

Our student worker will stay the same. He just gets more hours than he can shake a stick at.


This is what a normal work day will be. The next couple days won't be normal. I'll need to train this temp on where he needs to go and what has to be done in each place. They'll also be delivering with the student worker until they've got a good grasp on what's going on around campus.

The only problem I have with this, is that I LOVE going out on delivery. I have a hard time being cooped up in an office for any extended period of time (especially our body freezer). I basically told my boss that I was going to need to start doing push-up's and sit-ups while I'm in here to compensate for the lack of movement from not being out on delivery.

That will probably start tomorrow or Thursday.

In the mean time, here's to a few weeks of overtime.

Life is going pretty good right now.

- I'm now a Supervisor at work and making a lot more money doing so
- Vegas trip paid for by Fun In Motion was really nice
- Poker in Vegas was even more nice to my wallet
- Acen in soon/Free badge thanks to Shane being awesome
- Car finally about to be paid off soon as well, meaning that a month or two of saving and I'll be out of the house

And that's about all I've got. Maybe I'll update within a month this next time

This is a self-assessment. I'm taking a look at who I am and what I know about myself in the hope of being able to identify my strengths and weaknesses as a first step toward self-improvement.  These are in no particular order (other than the relation of some to each other) and this list is surely incomplete.

( Read more... )

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This was a good exercise for me and something that I have been wanting to do for several weeks.  I had been putting it off because I knew it would take a long time—and it did.  I've been composing this for over four hours and, while it's long, I don't really have that much text to show for it.  But a lot of time and thought went into crafting this and I learned a lot through trying to explain the things I already knew about myself.  And seeing it all laid out like this gives me a new form of perspective.

I've been working on this person I call me for quite a few years now.  I am generally satisfied with the person I have become, but there is certainly much room for improvement.  There's a lot here to work with.  It is my sincere hope that I can use it to play a more active role in continuing to find and shape who I am.

I heard through the grapevine that OFW was looking at selling off some of their arcade games (DreamDateDoug informed GTC who informed me), so I took a trip out to check some stuff out, and see about what they had and wanted for them.

Got out there and the place was swamped. People all over playing the shit out of ticket games. After taking a walk around and looking at things, I decided to waste a couple bucks and play some Super Shot. Holy shit wet dream of a Super Shot setup, despite the fact that each machine sucked a fucking dick.

Here's what was up. The two machines they had to the right side of the bank had backboards that wouldn't move. This is a bonus and a half because you can cheat the crap out of the scores by picking Push-Back as your game mode. The cheat basically consists of the game thinking it's in the three point position after your sixth shot. Since it never gets the signal that the backboard is out of three point range, it never goes out of three point range.

So every shot after the sixth is worth 3 points.

The other thing they screwed up, instead of adding 10 seconds for hitting 30 points, it added THIRTY SECONDS.

The machines are GHETTO though. Backboards were wobbling like mad for bank shots, and they decided to put balls that were too big for the return channel. Win much?

After waiting behind a kid for like five minutes (where he was scoring 15-20 points most games), I asked him if I could take a round and just give him all the tickets. Little dude about shit his pants when I dropped a score of 83 and he got like 23 tickets. This compared to the four or five he was getting playing by himself.

Ended up working out a deal with the kid and his brother, they pay for the games and make sure the balls keep coming down while I play, and they keep the tickets. Win-Win situation for everyone. They make around 80-100 tickets every eight tokens, and I get to play a bunch of Super Shot.

After a quick phone call with Jeff N., I got a hold of a tech to talk to a manager about what games they were willing to sell. After a brief wait in the office, a manager showed up and we started talking about what they were willing to sell and what they weren't. He basically told me they were looking to get rid of all but a few of their video coin-op games in favor of having lots of ticket stuff and expanding their console lounge (which is apparently making big bank).

We also talked briefly about a couple specific games I was there to look at.

Pump Zero (SX) - YES I ALREADY HAVE A PUMP IT UP SX CABINET. The only way I'm going to bother getting this is if I can fix it up really quick/cheap and flip it to make money. It's down right now, the mk.6 is at the Naperville location for "testing". Looks like they've done a bunch of odd work to it, so I'd have to investigate.

The House of the Dead III - I asked about it for Jeff N. Basically, the game has already made it's money back and more, and they don't want to bother replacing the missing shot gun (they even have the parts). They'd rather just get rid of it.

So I got the guy's card, and they gave me a notepad and a pen to write down games I was interested in making offers on. First thing I did was give Jeff a call to see what he wanted to start his offers on for House 3 and ITG2 (upgrade). His offers were $300 and $500 respectively.

I started walking around, and aside form the pump, I saw a few more games I had interest in. Police Trainer, Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, X-men Vs. Street Fighter, and outside interest in a Target Terror Gold. I gave Chris O. a call to talk about what if any of them would be good for ACEN, and he was pretty much up for anything.

I turned in my offer sheet, which read the following:

Shane Muir (phone number, call anytime)
Pump Zero - 200
Police Trainer -150
XSF - 200
Marvel vs Capcom 2 - 250
Target Terror Gold - ???

Jeff N. (Phone number)
House of the Dead 3 - 300
ITG 2 - 500

All prices are starting points and negotiable.

As it stands, I'm going to email the guy to give him a LEGIBLE version of that. Don't know if he's gotten to look at it yet, they were really busy. But an email won't hurt and it should prove the point that there's REAL interest here.

Brian's Birthday Revolution X



Another party is history.  This past weekend I hosted the 10th installment of my birthday party with the people I've met playing DDR over the years.  That's right, this is the 10th anniversary!  I can hardly believe I'm still playing this game (at least a little) and am still in contact with so many of the people that I've met as a result.  I certainly had no idea what I was getting into the first time I played DDR almost 10 years ago.

( details, details, details )