ass=me

I was working on a post yesterday when I got a call to inform me that I did not get a job I had interviewed for. The call came a few days earlier than I was expecting and it caught me off guard. I let it get me down. I did very little with the rest of my day.

In the evening, while feeling sorry for myself, I get a call from my best friend. He tells me that his dad just passed away. He is handling this extremely well. He is taking the loss with great strength. I offer my condolences and extend any help that I can. The remainder of our conversation is what I would categorize as standard type of call for the circumstances. If you are not familiar with these types of calls, you either are extremely lucky to have not experienced this type of loss or you are so emotionally distant from all other living beings that I am sorry for you.

Anyway, after the call, I not only felt the loss of someone I held close to my heart even if I didn't see him much in the last decade, I also felt like a complete ass that I took the news of not getting a job so poorly. The perspective between these events, being so extreme, have forced a new outlook on my current employment, or lack there of. I really need to maintain the perspective of not giving too much importance to a job...any job. The people in my life, friends and family, need to take priority and I feel I need to ensure that I put more emotional effort in those relationships than in any job.

Sorry to post such a downer. It's where my head is at right now. Getting some of this written does help with the process though.

Give someone you love a hug!

urban withdrawal

I got up this morning and wanted to get out of the house and write a new blog entry. Entertaining the thought today to get inspired at a coffee house in my suburban hamlet, I found the idea too vanilla. Where might the inspiration come from? Not to fault suburban dwellers for lacking inspiration, I realized growing up in an urban environment I found some of my creativity relying on the surrounding urban "character".

So, I drove to the old neighborhood. Actually, I drove to the bordering neighborhood. What a difference a block can make in the city. To my defense, I am now writing this in a cafe with two people writing in paper notepads, another laptop user, an ultra mobile PC, some twenty something hipsters, other random people and an older woman sporting a mullet. Things you just don't see in the suburbs.

On a not so related note. Am I the only one who makes spur of the moment out of the norm decisions, like driving twenty miles past many many cafes for a cup of coffee, on only a couple of hours of sleep? A time when it might not be the best idea to be behind the wheel in commute traffic. I would think that motivation to travel, attempt to be productive, or generally not get more sleep, would not come to me the morning after getting very little sleep. That doubling of negatives in the last sentence rubs me a little wrong, but I don't have enough rest to clean it up.

May you find your inspiration where you are or where you like.

Why can't this happen in real life

My wife enjoys video games.  I enjoy video games.  We often play games together.

So, my wife bought the new Lego Indiana Jones game for the PS3.  We have played the previous Lego Star Wars games on both the PS2 and PS3.  It would seem that neither of us can escape our games testing pasts.  While playing through, she has found a number of holes in the levels.  Not too surprising.  Well at some point she made a purchase in game in the exhibit hall and ended up going from a few thousand studs to over 4 billion.  It would seem that we were able to make a purchase that we couldn't quite afford and flipped the absolute long float backwards.

I wonder if this was a sign of the writing on the wall at Lucas Arts regarding the large number of dev staff to be laid off at the end of the project or just one of those things that either schedule or the nature of their QA process allowed to get through.  I know that most issues that surface after launch of a title were found by QA and either determined that there wasn't enough time or enough of a negative impact to fix.  It is a sign of the bottom line for a publisher making development decisions.  When it is all said and done, gaming is a business.

Walk

So after my last post, I walked to the cafe I used to hang out at. It's in the hipster homeland, the Mission district, I don't feel bad about coming here because of a few things:
-I grew up in this neighborhood long before hipsters were anywherearound
It was a rater shitty place to be
-When I was hanging out at this cafe, it was to spend time with the woman that is now my wife
-I got to know the barista and he is now a good friend who is also currently unemployed

The walk was a little over two and a half miles and made me realize how fat and out of shape I am. Walking by myself always makes me sweat. Is that a sign that I walk more briskly alone or just that shame can influence ones sweating? I would like to think it is the first but most likely a sign of mind over body.

I think I will do some writing (real writing not this crap) and give my friend a wake-up call before noon.

I have no idea when I will update this again...good thing nobody is reading this.

Didn't want to be a dick

As I walk to the end of the line, I realized how big of a dick I would
be to ask the incredibly stupid question regarding any feeling of
frustration from the line delays. It must take a professional
journalist to push through those feelings and just be that dick.

Line finally moved

The line finally moved after almost 45 minutes. I wonder what the
people at the end of the line are thinking?

If they don't look ready to kill, I think I will go ask.

40 minutes!

Let's hope activation times start to pickup.

This seems to be a problem all over. At least Apple is trying to help
with comp water and coffee.

Spoke too soon?

It looks like the tent guy went back in to the store.

First customers out

It looks like it took the first couple of customers about 20 minutes
to get out of the store. The line still hasn't moved since 8:00.

Above you can see the guy breaking down his tent after coming out and
talking in to various mics.

Doors open

They are letting people in. Oh wait, those weren't people that was
just media.

Lots-o-cops

There seems to be more cops out this morning. May they get to the
doughnut shop without trouble.

Slower than I thought

Last post dropped all the text. The line is just getting to the second
corner. I thought there would be more people by now.

Maybe the story will be the activation delays like last year.
Unfortunately, I have not heard if there have been any issue with
activation in other time zones.

About 30 minutes will tell.

Line creep

6:30 take two

Phone crashed sending this the first time.

Here at SF Apple store at 6:30am, the line goes around the corner and
down half a block.

ABC is the only traditional media I have seen so far. I'm sure plenty
of people are blogging from line though.

Well, with no job, I figured I might as well try covering the iPhone 3G launch.  With my first gen iPhone in hand and posting via e-mail from said phone I plan on heading up to the San Francisco Stockton Apple store.  So expect crappy pictures and even worse posts on Friday.

I will most likely loose interest in the "event" rather quickly and find myself distracted by some passing debris and head to a Mission district cafe or some other hipster hang out.  Maybe, I will have continued coverage of random hipster d-bags throughout San Francisco.

Whatever happened to the city I was born in?  Maybe, I was either just naive (like most children) or caught up in the various idiot hipster trends and couldn't see it from the inside.  Ow!  That is one scary thought, at least I came to (or just got old).