Three Hundres and Sixty

12.22.2006

Wednesday nite I had a playdate over at Matt's.

Not the type of thing you expect to hear from someone who's 37, is it?

Matt, my Monday night wrestling-watching buddy, is one of the two people I know who own an XBox Three Hundred and Sixty. Some have been amazed that I don't own one, but I put off buying a new game console until there is at least 1 wrestling game and a handful of decent driving games. Although the 360 has had some good driving games, the wrestling game, Smackdown vs Raw 2007, didn't come out until recently. Matt had downloaded the demo a couple of weeks ago, and it had become standard that we fought each other a time or two after Raw would go off on Monday nights. We had enough fun that Matt HAD to get the game. Wednesday nite I got the call that it was time to venture outside of the demo and into the full game against each other. Cans of whoop ass needed to be opened!

Once at Matt's we would pick random wrestlers along with random match types and wage battle in the squared circle. It's been a while since Matt's played a wrestling game, while I've been playing them non-stop for the past decade. The control schemes change a little over the years, but I evidently have a system regardless of the game. Although Matt had already had the game and been playing for a couple of nights, I could still kick ass at will. I guess it helps that I don't have a real life sometimes...

After playing against each other a few times, Matt and I finally teamed with each other and started fighting the computer. We selected D-X as our team (with me playing as HHH and Matt as HBK). At this point we started having waaaaay too much fun. We would take turns beating down the AI team while the other would do the D-X taunts. Being us, we vocalized the taunts while playing. A lot. I would intentionally interrupt Matt's pins against the downed opponent just so we could keep taunting.

So now there's a wrestling game and some driving game for the XBox Three Hundred and Sixty. Even though I've decided not to get one for X-mas, my birthday is just a couple of months away....

Permalink video games

Decatur is the home of Cat Chow! Meow Mix!

12.19.2006

I'm employed again! Mostly. Sort of.

After all the interviews, I was finally offered a temp/contracting job for a pharmaceuticals manufacturer in Decatur. It's one of those "6 months with a chance to become permanent" deals, but I'm looking more at it as "income". Probably not the best way to approach it, but that's they way I am right now.

I used to drive to Decatur 4 times per week back when I was going to school at Calhoun Community College. This drive is a little farther into Decatur, but nothing that isn't manageable. Spending the past month and a half at home, I had gotten to where I missed the tranquil drive to and from work.

But now I have a .NET job to keep me busy. Today is my first day of actually looking at code, and a part of me wonders what I've gotten myself into. This company is using the newer versions of .NET and SqlServer, so everything is just a little bit different - mainly in trying to set everything up. I'm also working on code that's been under development for 2 years as opposed to starting fresh on my own, so I'm having to go through and decipher their code to what my brain is used to (not always an easy task).

But at least I have income again!

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B13

12.13.2006

In the mood to watch something a little different? Go rent District B13. It's an action movie. It's a French action movie. It's a French action movie co-produced by Luc Besson, so there's a good chance I'm going to like it, because when his name pops up in the credits somewhere I usually go "Huh, no wonder I liked that one".

The movie doesn't have anything that hasn't been seen before. After all the decades of action movies it's hard to come up with something completely new. What this movie does present is that it does things right. The action sequences are fresh and well timed. There's a story that's been borrowed from 20 other movies, but it's not important. It's the fun ride from the beginning of the movie eventual end 80 minutes later, and all of the buildings they jump through to get there.

Permalink movies/tv/dvd

Cold Side Cold

12.08.2006

It was cold last night on the way home after my weekly TV Nite (CSI &ER) at Ginas. 19°. Back in June, it was 100°

Have I got nothing better to do than keep up with the temperature?

Well, actually I've got plenty of things better to do than keep up with the temperature. It looks like none of them can keep my attention as well as the temperature can.

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10:46 AM

12.06.2006

As of 10:46 this morning, I am officially unemployed. As those that have been following the blog know, this wasn't an unexpected occurence. Since finding out that the government contract I was working on was not being completely funded for this fiscal year, I've been hitting the want ads looking for that special place that needs a cocky web guy.

This has turned out to be my week for interviews, so after the pre-Thanksgiving draught my hopes that the lack of call backs were due to bad timing on the holidays and not my skill set are bearing a little fruit. I had an interview Monday for a job that for which I think I'm about 70% qualified - they're looking for someone with experience developing .NET web components, and while I know what a web component is I've never actually made one. Today I had an interview for a .NET web developer job that for which I'm about 110% qualified. They're looking for a person to take over web development, from tools and design to ecommerce. That one is so me. I'm really hoping to hear back from this one soon, although it will probably be after the first of the year before they start their second round of interviews. Tomorrow I have an interview in Decatur for a temp/contract job. I'm not sure what to expect, but at the very least it should be interesting.

As today marks the beginning of my unemployment, I promptly went online and applied for unemployment compensation. I've filed twice before, spending the whole day each time in the unemployment office filling out paperwork, watching "how to get a job" videos, and more than anything else: waiting. Thanks to the interweb, it took all of 5 minutes to fill out the needed form. I love the interweb. With any luck I'll collect 1 unemployment check and then I'll have a super cool web development gig.

Do people still have gigs? Can a website be a gig? I may have to Google a gig to find out.

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