I’m pretty sure I’m not bipolar….

     I’m writting this against my better judgements.  What’s my weight?  Today (and quite possibly all the other days to come from now), I don’t care.  I’ve only recently woke up from a dream.  It was a damn good dream.  One that seemed so lucid and real that I had no choice but to accept it as a reality.  I had no problems with that.  I can think of far worse dreams to be trapped in, but that dream was something else.  In it, I can feel the world finally openning up to me.  I could feel like my life which had stalled for so long can finally start.  I want to say that I could fly higher than I’ve ever flown before, but that’s not entirely true.  That and it sounds really corny.  Really though.  I really did feel like everything I’ve done before it was starting to make sense.  It felt like I can finally see where fate was taking me.  It was quite a dream.

     It must’ve been a dream.  How else can one explain it.  It was short, euphoric, and just plain old incredulous.  I was working in an office and liking it!  How much more incredulous can you get!  Like all dreams, it seemed to have ended in a random manner.  The last thing I can remember from that dream was buying shoes.  I remebered going to Sears to buy a $20 pair of shoes.  Yeah that’s it.  I went to the cashier and paid for it.  When the cashier handed me my shoes, I heard that ringing.  You know that ringing right.  It’s your alarm clock telling you to wake up and get back to the real world.  "Stop dreaming" shouted the alarm clock.  Worst part about waking up from a dream is that you can never go back to sleep to restart it.  It’s just gone.

     Apparently, I’ve been asleep for over 3 weeks.  That was some dream.  I remembered laughter, joy, desire, confidence.  It’s all gone now.  Back to that old self before I went to sleep only worse off.   Had I awaken earlier, I might have been able to get my old Department of Elections job back, but I missed it.  Before, I was able to float on by with EDD checks, but it’s all out now.  Somehow I managed to spend over two thousand dollars in the span of 5 months.  I know where 700 dollars of it went.  I also know where another 700 dollars of it went as well.  Beyond that, how in the world did I spend that much money?

     If you need me, I’ll be at home.  I’ll probably cancel my cell phone seeing how I won’t be able to afford it anymore.  I’ll probably stop driving seeing how I can’t afford gas.  If I sit still, I should be able to avoid spending money.  I wonder how much I can get for my PS3?  I’ll be at home, staring at $20 shoes which somehow manages to become real despite the fact that I bought it in my dream.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think that dream was real.

     So I came in to work today expecting a fairly regular day.  As it turns out, we had to move our little section over to the next aisle if you will.  The transition was fairly painless.

     Posted on a TV in the new aisle is an Onion article about a new "fad" in corporate America called "Pre-Fired".  You can basically guessed what that’s about.

     My coworker next to me talked about how she once quit this job because of how horrible the boss was.

     During break time, another coworker talked about how his brother was getting out of the industry he was working in.

     While I had my leg crossed, I realized that I needed to get new shoes STAT!

     1…2…3…4…5.  5 signs!  5!  Who knew fate likes to signal their curveballs!

211,

     Anyone who have played Soul Calibur have heard these words before.  It just seems even more relevant now more then ever.  Welcome to the third "Welcome to Sega" day/week/month.

     I knew that everyone who works with me at Sega are gamers of varying degrees.  I just never really, really internalized that until break time.  The second that break time started is the second people break out games they brought from home to play during break time.  Almost everyone crowds around one or two PS2s playing 2D fighters.  Damn shame I don’t play 2D fighters.  I just really, really suck at  them, but fate smiled on me (Thank you fate!).  Someone busted out Soul Calibur 3.  Suddenly I was a little kid again.  I was so excited that I literally couldn’t stand still waiting for my turn.  When I finally got to play it, I was giddy.  Rusty as hell, but giddy nonetheless.

     My relationship with Soul Calibur needs some illuminating for those who doesn’t know it.  Way back in 2002 when I was still in SF State, I didn’t have any friends outside of the ones I made in high school.  Per my philosophy on friends, I don’t go out of my way to make new ones.  After college, however, you’ll notice that I did make new friends.  I managed to make exactly one new friend from the classes I had.  The rest, around four,  I got because of Soul Calibur.  The student union at SF State had a Soul Calibur 2 machine, and being the Soul Calibur addict that I was even before college, I played that machine to death.  From there, I met so many others who plays.  We had some good times with that game, experimenting with characters, refining our techniques, and just plain old horsing around some times.  Like a lot of other groups of people, life imposed its reality and basically dispersed the group.  I think our group followed the series on our own afterwards, but without the community, the fun was simply not there for me.

     That’s why having the chance to play Soul Calibur 3 with other people again after all these years is so momentous to me.  Kinda like how music can define an entire generation, Soul Calibur helped to define me during college.  No teacher or class had more effect on me than Soul Calibur did.  Sad isn’t it.

     The other day, I was in the neighborhood of my old Alma Mater and decided to check out the student union to see what’s changed.  Much to my chagrin, the Soul Calibur 3 machine, the next iteration in the Soul Calibur series, is gone.  I knew that the Soul Calibur 3 scene is basically dead, but not seeing it at the student union just makes it more real to me.  At least I’ll always have the memories.  The torch may have been doused, but the fire still burns for me.

211,

     Welcome to the second day/week/month of my Welcome to Sega theme, and I’m using the external definition of that phrase.  Not the internal definition.

     Now that I have this awesome job, playing video games at home has become even more important to me now.  Yes, I know that I "play" games at work, but seriously, they’re not the same thing.  It’s kinda like rocket scientist building rockets for NASA VS making a rocket to shoot up in your backyard.  One’s work.  The other one’s play.  In fact, if I were playing video games at work, I’d be fired!  The word that you’re looking for is "test".  I "test" games at work.  I go up to walls and see if I can walk right through it.  I let enemies kill me.  I fall off platforms on purpose.  I do weird combinations of things to see if it would crash the game.  I find anyway possible way to make the game crash permanently.  Does any of this sound like playing to you?

     When I play games at home, it becomes far more invigorating after hours of testing a game.  On days where I don’t play a video game, I feel a bit empty inside.  Weird.

209,

     …And the last time I blogged was…Wow!  Over two weeks ago!  Sorry about that.  The whole sleeping earlier to get to work thing plays a number on you.  Especially now that playing video games at home becomes guilt-free since I have a job and all that.  Since this topic of my new job is rather vast, I’m gonna break it up into sections.  You know what that means don’t ya?  It’s Welcome to Sega week… or month…or whenever the hell I feel like blogging.  Let’s start with todays’ topic.

     The namesake of this blog and this week’s theme is "Welcome to Sega".  Did you know that it has multiple meanings?  Aside from the fact that it’s written on a piece of paper at the receptionist’s desk, this phrase is widely used inside as well.  Well I wouldn’t say widely used really.  It’s used by the Sega veterans, but not so much by the new guys.  Here’s how it works.  Boss tells new guy to test game X.  Boss tells new guy to concentrate on any sound problems game X might have.  Boss gives new guy a TV to work on.  New guy connects game console to TV.  New guy turns on TV.  "Hey!  This TV has no sound," exclaimed new guy.  I think it’s busted," .  "Welcome to Sega" said boss as he walks away.

     eeeeeeyeaaahh this job is gonna be interesting.