Changed my mind

My clan is full of bastards.  Just chock full.  They're everywhere.  Bastards all over the place.

Posted by SciDad23 @ 5:09 pm EDT | Permalink | 9 Comments

Clan Gaming

I’ve been playing games online since 1996, way back in the AOL pay-per minute dial-up days.  My first online game was Dark Forces II:  Jedi Knight.  I can still remember the feeling of going head to head in a light saber duel with some random person, knowing that I was beating the crap out of an actual person instead of some AI controlled bot that the game programmer thought would challenge me.  After wiping the floor with the random Jedi, I was quickly introduced to what I eventually came to realize was a gaming law:  “No matter how good you think you are, someone in the next match is likely going to hand you your head”. 

 

Jedi Knight also introduced me to my first experience of online cheating.  I remember chasing some poor bastard down a hallway, firing away at him as he sprinted by a couch.  Suddenly the couch sprouts a light saber and slashes the guy down in the hallway and turns to face me.  I toss a few thermal detonators at him, unload my blaster at his evil cushions, to no avail.  The couch hops down the hallway, cuts me down, and bounds away.  Not only was this guy using some sort of “god-mode” cheat that rendered him invulnerable, he had re-skinned his character model to a sofa.  While I despise cheaters, the sofa skin was brilliant. 

 

I say all that to say this, playing in a clan like 2Old4Tactics has been a great experience.  Most of my online gaming was limited to PC gaming prior to picking up my Xbox 360.  I played a little NCAA Football and Madden in the GSN clan, but that basically fell apart after people decided to abandon the leagues, complain that the teams they picked prior to the beginning of the league weren’t fairly balanced in comparison to the other teams in the league (one of the inherent failings of online sports gaming, in my opinion), and generally make playing in the clan a chore.  Interest split between Madden and NCAA, nobody really made the NBA 2K7 switch, and after the debacle that was the Tiger Woods 07 inability to actually play online unless I was one of the 50 people in the WORLD who happened to get into the ONE room EA had set up for Tiger Woods 07, I pretty much dropped out of site as far as the clan was concerned. 

I was leery to try out the clan experience again, but after playing some R6 Vegas with some site members and not completely sucking at it the entire time, they asked me to join up.  Not realizing how discriminating these bastards were at the time, I accepted, feeling a brief surge of pride, kind of like being picked up as the 5th man in a pickup basketball game at Rucker Park.  Now I realize we’ll pretty much let anyone with a twisted sense of humor and the ability to aim relatively straight into the clan, but I’m still proud, in a “twisted” kind of way. 

 

As a married father of 2 (on in the uterus, developing from a zygote to a fetus, one running around my house destroying my stuff like any good 18 month old will do), I realize that I don’t have a lot of free time for “friends” in the real world.   I, like most men, have a few guy friends, one of which I’ve known since we were 5.  The rest of my “friends” are married to my wife’s friends, which for the most part means that by default, they’re my friends as well.  Few of them are gamers, and most of whom I see only a few times a year.  This severely limits my social gaming.  My wife’s not a gamer, she pretty much sticks to occasionally playing Super Monkey Ball, Tetris or a game of Bejeweled on the laptop now and then.  While I can’t wait for my kids to play games with me, the oldest is 18 months, I think I’ll wait a few more months before I introduce him to the distinct joy of finally popping someone in the head after they’ve dropped you with sniper fire from across the map 5 times in a row (yes, rabb, I’m talking about you).  So this left me a solitary gamer, which was fine for a while.  Now I can honestly say that I’m hooked on the online component of gaming.

Posted by SciDad23 @ 4:47 pm EDT | Permalink | 6 Comments

Job Situation

It's been a few weeks, so I figured I'd post some thoughts on working in todays world.

My wife is a stay-at-home mom, she's fantastic at it and I couldn't be happier that she's home with my son (and will be with the next one too, hopefully). It might not be possible for everyone, but it's what we wanted. When we bought our house, we bought one that we could afford to pay the mortgage on my salary alone. It's small, it's old, but it's mine (well some tiny fraction of it, in 30 years it'll be mine)

However, being the working dad just BLOWS. I see my kid about an hour a day, including helping with his bath and getting him ready for bed. He's an amazing little boy and I'm worried that I'll miss so much being out of the house working. I travel for my job, just found out recently that I'll be travelling even more frequently, twice a month to anywhere in North America that the sales team needs support from the technical expert (that's me, whoopideedoo).

What REALLY blows is that my company decided that due to some less than stellar performance in NAFTA's EBIT contribution to the company worldwide, we all are in a salary freeze. No raises, no cost of living increases, NOTHING. Factoring in inflation and the increased premiums for my health insurance, I'm making less money this year than I did 2 years ago. Feels great to be working 70 hours a week for less than I made when I worked 40-50. Gotta love being salaried management.

Anyway, I have some feelers out for a job change in the same market. I'm a Food Scientist, in my area of the country there are a few nice choices, and I'm hoping to hear about one in the next week or so. Could be a great thing for me, less travel, hopefully more money, and right down the street from where I work now. We'll see what happens, but I'm praying it works out. Adding another kid to this household is making me want to look at a bigger place or putting an addition onto this one. Shoot, an addition will only run me $40,000. What's 30% added to my principle on a mortgage over 30 years, right?

Wow, this might sound sexist, but it just sucks to be a man sometimes.  But then again, I can pee standing up and I don't have to wait in line to do it when we go out to eat.  On second thought, it just sucks to work.  Someone give me some money, i'll tattoo their name on my forhead and advertise whatever they want, just pay me to stay home. 

Posted by SciDad23 @ 11:40 pm EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments

Got Some GREAT News Today

My little family (myself, my wife Stacie, and my 16 month old son Colin) is about to get a little bigger.  My wife is pregnant!  We think the baby's due end of September, she's gotta go to the doctor for the "official" date, but we're pretty sure we're close! 

Holy crap how am I going to support 3 people on my salary?  Jeez I love being a man.

Sheesh

Posted by SciDad23 @ 11:20 pm EDT | Permalink | 5 Comments

Rainbow 6 Multiplayer

Played my first session with some of the 2o2p guys in Rainbow 6: Vegas.  Gotta say I had a blast.  It's a combination of "tactical shooter and grenage winging panic fragfests in a crowded hallway" kinda game.  Played pretty well after about an hour or so, but I spent the first dozen rounds just waiting to respawn.  I ended up holding my own towards the end, got my first "promotion", Private 1st Class, I'm now officially on par with Gomer Pyle.  I rule.  Looking forward to playing again with them, it was a nice group of guys, 10-12 total, great for some of the smaller maps, but a little tough for the Dam level.  Too spread out for teams of 5 or 6. 

Overall, great experience.  Since nothing much is coming out in the next few months (Lost Planet is the only thing that even remotely interested me) it's nice to find a mulitplayer game that might keep me interested for a while!

Posted by SciDad23 @ 12:58 am EDT | Permalink | 2 Comments