Author: Jason

Seeing Signs

Random Thoughts

Normally I am not one to believe in signs.  Every time in my life I have thought I have seen something that indicated I should make one choice over another, the only thing I can say is that nothing fantastic has ever come of it.  I’ve never won the lottery using numbers sent to me by cosmic alignment, nor on any day where I bought a ticket because something said I should.  Of course, I also can’t say these supposed signs didn’t steer me away from danger.  As far as I know, I’ve never decided not to get on a particular bus and that bus ended up exploding, or missed a flight that crashed, or avoided any other disaster by listening to signs.

However, it has come to my attention that this week, the one which signifies the end of my current contract job leaving me unemployed, is the forty second week of the year.  42.  The answer to life, the universe and everything.

Should this mean something?

Thirty-Four

Random Thoughts

Happy Birthday to me!

It has been a year since my wonderful self-examination post called “Thirty-Three“, where I said I needed to do the following:

  • Stop being a lazy shit and get my work ethic back.
  • Stop being a lazy shit and exercise to get my waistline back.
  • Stop being a lazy shit and find a new job that engages and excites me.
  • Stop being a lazy shit and finish some of these projects around the house.

So how did I do?

Well, I can say that somewhat I have gotten my work ethic back.  I’ve been working smarter and harder and not letting the corporate jackassery get me down.  I still need to do more, but my problems now are related to item three and that I have no passion for my current job.

I have occasionally exercised, but more importantly I completely kicked caffiene and sodas.  I drink only water and Crystal Light now.  I’m also sort of eating better.  I have lost weight, but not enough.

If you have been reading my blog, you know that item three is now a self-fulfilling prophesy.  I will get a new job because the contract is over and I have to get a new job.  So, there is that.  And I am trying very hard to make sure I only pursue jobs that I will enjoy.

And lastly… well… there are still projects around the house that need doing.  But I’m not going anywhere (especially in this housing market), so I have time.

Looking ahead to Thirty-Four, I want to get an awesome job, one I love going to.  And I want to write more, so I’ll be making more of a concerted effort to do the NaNoWriMo this year.  And that’s really all I want out of the year to come.  It doesn’t seem so much to ask…

Early Gaming Memories

Gaming

Another month, another Round Table.

This month, Corvus has asked people to recount their earliest family gaming memories… so, let’s crank up the wayback machine and hit the road…

I think the earlier memory I have of gaming was my father bringing home a Pong system.  It played four games, which were all essentially the same game with slight variations.  But the thing I remember about it isn’t playing it, because Pong is a highly forgettable game… no, instead what I remember most is getting it connected and functioning on our small black and white TV in the kitchen.  Well, they sure as heck weren’t going to let us kids use the good TV for games, and I don’t think anyone ever intended that ancient B&W TV to be hooked to a game system.  I remember us sitting there while dad read the manual about how to hook the adapter to the antenna inputs, how to set the switch and tune the TV, and how it didn’t work on channel 3, but it worked on channel 4.  And we sat at the kitchen table, as a family, and traded the paddles around playing video games at home.

Some time after that, we got an Atari 2600.  This led to marathon sessions of Pitfall, Yar’s Revenge, Maze Craze and tons of other titles.  Particularly, my older brother and I trying to “flip” games, which means running through all the levels the designers made and having the game start you back at level 1 while often maintaining certain difficulty settings (like speed of enemies or rate of fire).  And yes, we owned and played E.T. and it was a crappy game, but at the time we didn’t know that, we just thought it was hard, not broken.  But one of my personal favorite games for the 2600 was Basic Programming.  It was my first introduction to the idea that I could make the computer do what I wanted it to do.  Well… within reason.  It was very limited, but you could make little pictures on the screen or make it beep and sound sort of like music.  I think I can honestly say that I owned more games for the Atari 2600 that I did for any other console, and possibly even the PC, although with the PC it is hard to keep track.

I can’t say my parents were ever much involved with my gaming after Pong, but my brothers definitely were.  Playing against each other, or with each other, or just watching each other play, entire days were sometimes spent in front of the Atari.  Especially Star Raiders, which had a second special controller so that one person would fly the ship and shoot while the other played navigator.  This shared gaming continued up through the PC and the NES, and even now with each of us owning our own homes we all have Xbox 360s and occationally play online (or everyone meets up at one house to rock out with some Rock Band).

Did this have an effect on me as a gamer?  I’d have to say it absolutely did.  Over the years I always gravitated toward games that allowed multiple players, even better if it was cooperative play.  And I still lean that way now.  I tend to lose interest in games I play by myself, mostly because I end up being able to notice their design patterns and predict outcomes, but another human player always holds the capability of surprising me, of doing something unexpected.  While I have run every race in Paradise City, its the Freeburns and online racing where I have the most fun.

And it has even fed into my desires to make games.  I don’t dream of making the next Galaga or some other single player adventure.  I dream of making the next online sensation, something that brings people together.  And I dream of playing them with my brothers.

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Blood Rites

Reviews

Another Dresden book down… and another enjoyable ride.  In Blood Rites we find Harry matching wits with two sets of vampires: the Black Court, and Mavre, are out for blood, while the White Court is both employing him and working against him.

Thomas, a member of the White Court, hires Dresden to look in to some not-so-accidental deaths around the production of some adult films.  Someone is using a nasty entropy curse to force bad things to happen to good people around producer/director Arturo Genosa.  And when members of the Black Court make their presence known, Harry decides to take the fight to them and try to hunt down their lair and kill them while they slumber.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Dresden adventure if things went according to plan.  Six books in to the series, and I am still enjoying them very much.  My only concern is that I hope Jim Butcher does have an end in mind for the troubles surrounding Harry.  I’d hate for the books to go on for twenty volumes and become derivative of themselves like other series have done in the past.

Blog Named

Site News

I finally got around to picking a name for the blog besides “weblog.probablynot.com” … it is now titled “Aim for the Head”.  There could be many meanings or significance to this name, but I will leave it up to you all to decide what you want it to mean.

You may have also noticed, if you aren’t reading this with an RSS feed reader, that I have changed the theme as well.  It started off as a theme called Desert Grass that I have made a few changes to, most obviously are the rotating header image, the logo display in general, and the sizing of certain page elements.  And more changes are to come as I’m not 100% sold on the color scheme and a few other odds and ends.

As always… enjoy!

Unrealistic Requirements

Random Thoughts

Back in 1998, I had just graduated from college with a degree in computer science and was looking for a job.  I had previously worked in technical support and hardware installation.  I had also done some Novell network administration.  What I really wanted was a programming job.  There was a job posting that I recall quite vividly.  One of their requirements for the position was “5 years experience with Java”.  The problem was that the first public release of Java was in 1996, 1995 if you worked on Sun boxes.  In order to have 5 years of experience with Java (1993), you would have had to have worked at Sun.  There was another posting that asked for 10 years with Java, a feat not possible unless you had a time machine and repeated a few years since the project that would one day become Java began in 1991.

In the last ten years, things really haven’t changed.  Really.  I just saw a posting today asking for “20 years experience with Java” … 2008 minus 20 equals 1988… so they want someone with 3 more years experience than the guys who invented Java.  Its frustrating to be looking for work and have to deal with crap like that.

Even more exasperating, however, is having positions require samples of your work.  Seriously?  I’ve been a programmer for the past 6 years, and in those 6 years I have worked on exactly ZERO projects where I was not under and NDA and taking code samples with me couldn’t be prosecuted as theft.  I have 6 years of experience, but I have no samples of my work because it would be against the law for me to have them.  Sure, I could send them samples of things I have done for myself, but I honestly don’t think WordPress themes and a party invitation managing webpage I wrote are going to be all that impressive to someone who is considering me for a senior level .NET/C# position.

I can only say… would you really want to hire someone to work for you under an NDA if in order to get the job they were willing to break the NDA of their previous job?  That’s like being the other woman who’s lover leaves his wife and then being surprised when he cheats on you too…

Some times I really wish I could put aside my morals for personal gain.  It would make getting a new job so much easier.

In a Darkened Theater

Random Thoughts

In a weird way, lately, I have been seeing more movies than ever.  I’ve found a number of ways (available to anyone) to obtain passes to free screenings of films.  If that were not the case, however, I would probably be seeing very few movies at all.  Sure, I would make exception for events like The Dark Knight (which I actually paid to see… twice) but with all the theaters going up to $10 or more for a non-matinee price, it makes going to see a movie with the wife in the theater more expensive that waiting and purchasing it on DVD.  At best, I’d go see a movie every now and then on a Saturday or Sunday morning, before noon, when they have $6 tickets.  At least then it is cheaper for us than buying the DVD, but only barely.

The main problem is simply that many movies aren’t worth the cost of the ticket.  If they lowered prices, I’d go more often.  If it was $6 for the night time price and $3.50 for the matinee, I’d see a movie every weekend, maybe two.  Yes, I would spend a ton more money, but I also wouldn’t feel like I am getting ripped off when I pay to see a movie that isn’t so great.  $20 to see a movie that is crap just makes me never want to risk it again, but at $12… I more apt to keep trying.

At this point, the only movies I do feel any real need to see in the theater fall into two categories.  One, event films, like the aforementioned The Dark Knight.  Two, movies in 3-D.

In the past few years we’ve seen Beowulf, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Fly Me to the Moon.  Of those, only Fly Me to the Moon was not worth seeing.  The other two I felt were good movies on their own, but shown in Digital 3-D those movies were fantastic.  And as of yet, 3-D hasn’t made its way to the DVD player yet, so to see an enhanced film in all its glory, you have to see it in the theater.  Something tells me that there are people in Hollywood who understand that.

Without a decrease in prices, frankly, 3-D films are about the only thing that will get me to pay for a film.  Well, that and if Marvel and others can keep up the quality level of their superhero films…

Countdown to November

Writing

I love October.  It contains my two favorite holidays: my birthday and Halloween.  However, in the last couple of years, passing through October has also held a certain growing level of dread… November is coming, the NaNoWriMo is almost here.

Once again I’ll be attempting to participate in this annual event.  The worst thing that could possibly happen to me within the next month is for me to not find a new job and have to start juggling finances until I do.  The best thing that could possibly happen for the WriMo is for me to not find a new job and have the month to split between looking for work and writing.

We’ll just have to wait and see how this one goes…

Getting the Job

Random Thoughts

I love the movie Joe versus the Volcano.  In fact, it is my all time favorite film.  I probably watch it at least three or four times a year.  One of my favorite parts of the films are the early scenes where Joe is working at his dead end job.  Mr. Waturi is having a conversation on the phone with someone, and he says things like “I’m not arguing that with you.” and “I know he can get the job, but can he do the job?”  His entire conversation seems to consist of variations of those two statements repeated over and over.

When, in my career, I have had the opportunity to be in on the hiring process, as I read over people’s resumes, I often think of those scenes.  Many resumes, and even interviews, paint pictures of people who can get the job, but in my experience, less than half of them actually can do the job.  I mean, really do the job, not just skating by doing passable work waiting for the next job, but doing the job well enough that I feel truly good about having hired them.

Every time I get into the hiring process from the other side, I run into the same bump.  My resume looks decent enough, and I can usually shine through the initial interview, but when it comes to the technical interview I usually wind up looking like a chump.

Here is my problem… when I have a job, I spend my time doing that job, to the best of my ability.  I will learn everything I need to know for that job and I will exceed every expectation of my employer.  However, if there is a skill not required for my job, I don’t know it.  Not even a little.  I simply have never found it beneficial to prepare myself for a job I don’t have.  Well, I can’t say “never” because clearly it would be beneficial to the interview process, but doing so would likely infringe upon my job performance or my life outside of my job.

Every job I have ever had, I was completely unqualified for on a technical level when I got the job.  In every case, I interviewed, they really liked me on a personal level, and I managed to inspire them to take a risk and hire me anyway.  Within days I always bring myself up to speed, and within months I am indispensable to the team, leading the way and cranking out the work.

The issue is that in recent years, the technical interview comes first, and I never get in the room with people to be able to personally inspire them.  I do a phone screen, which consists of technical questions, and if I pass I get to go in a room with a couple members of the team, either a PC or a white board, and be bombarded with more technical questions.  Since I spend so much effort be great at the job I do have, I don’t have much left to put in to being great at jobs I don’t have.  I fail the technical interviews every time.

I know I can do the job, but can I get the job?  So far, too often the answer is “no”.