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| A clean forum is a happy forum -- 2006-12-20
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I spent some of today fixing up the forums from the previous 2003 layout. I know from experience that the hardest part of building a successful website is building a forum community and getting them in the habit of checking the forums every day for new content. Fun fact about our forums:
There are 1002 registered users, 990 of which are bots who sell pharmaceuticals, pornography, and other things you secretly desire but don't want to admit to.
Even though you missed the chance to be the 1000th registered user, you can still sign up and request articles, game reviews and post comments about the web site. All the cool kids are doing it. -- sector24 | Someone's got a case of the Mondays -- 2006-12-18
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Every Friday when I leave the building, I am overjoyed the moment the sliding door closes behind me. This is the greatest amount of time before I have to go back to work. When you inhale that first breath of crisp air, it is just a tiny bit sweeter than every other breath you will take that weekend. That's the sweet sweet taste of possibility.
It's possible that I could go out with my friends and meet someone interesting and develop a brand new relationship with a stranger. Perhaps I could buy a new video game and transport myself to a fantastic world full of entertaining diversions. It's even possible that I could sit on the couch watching television, slipping in and out of consciousness for 65 straight hours. The world is my oyster. Whether I decide to implant it with a single grain of sand in the hopes of one day harvesting a faux pearl, or whether I decide to shuck it and eat it raw, discarding the shell in the trash for flies and maggots to fight over, it's my choice and I delight in the choosing.
But on Monday, the sweet air is long gone. When the sliding doors open for the first time the air is tense, as if it is waiting for me to tell it how it should feel. But I'm not the one who chooses whether to sour the air or not. That honor belongs to a single man, my boss.
The first thing he said to me when I walked in the door was, "Hey, you're not dead yet!" That was what the air was waiting for. Confirmation that it was indeed ok to smell like wet leaves trapped in a storm drain. So the flavor of the day was demoralizing, with a hint of insulting. Courtesy of my dear sweet manager. -- sector24 | I prefer the "online" you to the real thing... -- 2006-12-11
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| Quite a bit has changed since the last update, most notably that I have quit playing World of Warcraft. It's as close to perfect as any MMO has come, and yet it still falls just a bit short. You can read the review and my final WoW article about selling your game account. -- sector24 | Consultants In House -- 2006-10-30
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| The consultants arrived at the office today to review our documentation and process. These meetings are always awesome, because we get to talk about the way things should be before management steps in and "manages" things. All in all it was a very interesting day, with a lot of good ideas discussed. However, I reserve the right to stockpile my negativity and sarcasm for a future news post in which these ideas are squandered. -- sector24 | Comfort Food Part 2 -- 2006-10-24
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Following up this article, my company finally signed a contract with a consultant for the extremely affordable price of $67,100. So given the choice between hiring another validation person for an entire year (and paying him more than me) they decided to have someone come in and review our documentation for a couple days, and write a book report telling us that everything is going to be alright.
Although deep down my pride holds out hope that something positive will come of this, we all know that pride is a sin. Sarcastic apathy, however, is still officially neutral with regards to divine morality so I'll try to keep everyone updated with the fun. -- sector24 | Comfort Food -- 2006-10-12
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| At my company, some people wield knowledge like a weapon. It's rare to get a memo with any useful information in it like the one I received this week. After writing this article, I can completely understand why. -- sector24 | Happy belated content -- 2006-10-10
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Ok, I'm finally finished with the article I promised a few weeks ago. I wanted it to be as good in print as it was in my mind, and it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. My writing process consists of pouring all my thoughts into the computer in one session, and then going back several times to touch up the work. Usually the initial article is terrible. Like myspace blog terrible. Then I come back to it the next day and cut out the worst parts, and try to add one or two things to each paragraph to spruce it up.
This article in particular had a lot of potential, and I didn't want to squander it with a sub-par critique of my boss. In the end I still didn't have the heart to be cruel, so I tried to stick with "satirically accurate". You can read it here.
I also wrote reviews for Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and Halo 2. -- sector24 | I'm a Scoundrel -- 2006-10-04
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Ok, so I said was going to have an article by the end of the week, but then I got busy working on Sagewars and then my boss came back and so the article is still in draft. Sorry.
I did get a chance today to write two more game reviews for Gladius and Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords. They are available in the Game Reviews section on the right or by clicking here and here. -- sector24 | Best Week Ever -- 2006-09-18
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| My boss is out of the office for a whole week, which officially makes this the best week ever. I shall commemorate the entire week in honor of his absence, and hopefully I'll have an article done by the time he gets back. -- sector24 | My first attempt as a designer -- 2006-09-10
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| Back in the days of Starcraft, I made one of the first truly popular CTF/paintball mods. You can still find it on a google search, so I decided to write a quick article about my first experiences as a game designer. You can read the article here. -- sector24 | Results of the Audit -- 2006-09-06
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Our first audit last week was ok. Our second audit went something like this:
Me: How many years of validation experience do you have?
Auditor: I have 15 years of experience in validation and 3 years as a consultant.
My Boss: (Whispering) Are we boned?
Me: Yes, sir. We're boned.
So after the audit was over we had our post-audit "blame the validation guy for our lack of process" meeting followed by our "how can we fix this mess you've made for the company" meeting followed by my "let's drink beer until we can't feel feelings" meeting. Now we have to wait for the official auditor report in which he formally bones us in writing and then we have more meetings to discuss my inadequacies and how management can "save the day" using any and all strategies that do not involve spending time or money on validation. I look forward to it with great enthusiasm.
In the meantime I wrote another article similar to my Four Levels of Wealth in America article, this one about the stock market. You can check it out here. -- sector24 | Why Didn't I Take the Blue Pill? -- 2006-08-21
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Just a quick update before I get crushed under the beureaucracy that is two sponsor audits on my company. I wanted to try something new in the White Collar Slavery section, so I wrote an article unrelated to my own personal suffering. I initially meant it to be lighthearted and not to be taken seriously, but somehow the article refused to fit my mold. It ended up being interesting nonetheless, so give it a read and let me know what you think.
The Four Levels of Wealth in America -- sector24 | What did you do today? -- 2006-08-07
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I haven't added any articles in about a week, because I have been busy doing important work for the company. Ok, we all know that's a lie. Basically every day the past week consisted of:
1. Going to work, printing out a thousand pages of documentation on a piece of garbage Lexmark laser printer.
2. Clearing a printer jam on the 12th page.
3. Reprinting the document from page 12 on.
4. (Repeat steps 2 and 3 for several hours)
5. Find a non-Lexmark printer and print everything flawlessly in an hour.
6. Getting yelled at to not use the non-Lexmark printer for bulk jobs.
7. (Repeat steps 2-6 for four days)
Finally it's Monday and the printing is done. Now it's time really earn my paycheck by.....punching holes in 3000 pages of documentation. That's right, I get paid the big bucks to do menial labor, because I'm a white collar slave.
I actually enjoy punching holes for two reasons, the primary reason being that people can hear and see me working and they leave me alone. They later talk about how I'm wasting company money punching holes, but that kind of talk is done behind my back and I don't care about that. All that matters is that I get undisputed time to put on my timesheet, and I will get paid.
But the other reason is that I get to order 5-inch binders for the documentation. Now if you go to a retail store and get a binder, it's like $5 tops. But the 5-inch binders we order are $34.99 each. Why so expensive? Because we're idiots, plain and simple. The only person that would buy a 5-inch binder is some kind of business, so they can charge basically whatever they want and we'll pay it. Furthermore, I could drive to a retail store in town and buy 5-inch binders for $16.99, but I'm not allowed to because we go through a vendor. The vendor marks up the price 100% and calls it a service, and we say thank you and get totally screwed. So in my own little way, I'm contributing to the financial demise of my company by doing my job. This gives me a small amount of satisfaction. Back to work, maggots, more articles are on the way. -- sector24 | Expanded WoW Section -- 2006-07-20
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| The World of Warcraft section has no less than 6 new articles this month, which classifies me as a level 61+ elite writer. Read and enjoy while I flex my nerd muscles in Blackrock Mountain. -- sector24 | More Content, Please -- 2006-07-12
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I have written a few articles in a new section entitled White Collar Slavery. You can read about where I work and the civic pride I take in serving miserable human beings.
There is also a new article about Finding a DKP system that works for your guild. -- sector24 | Content Update -- 2006-05-12
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| So the site was down for awhile while we were making games (and playing World of Warcraft) but it's up again and I will attempt to update the content while minimizing the window when the boss walks by. For now enjoy my review of Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising. More content is on the way, including tons of Warcraft instance guides, equipment guides, and generally useful information and articles. -- sector24 |
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