Oh yeah, I used to do this Bloggin' thing...

So I decided that I should take up blogging again, since I've been going on these huge tirades on twitter that take up like, a billion twitter posts. 140 characters just can't contain what I need to say these days. So now I can say a bunch of shit and post a tiny link. Booyah.

Working eight days out of seven can kinda be a drain on your "me" time, as it turns out. Pet store, pet store, review, pet store, game store, video, pet store, pet store, groceries, band, pet store, pet store. More or less how life was for a while there. The better part of a year, actually.

Well, now it's down to game store once a week. I was recently laid off because of poor business at the pet store just around the corner. Given the high prices on almost everything, the lack of profit margin on ridiculously expensive dog and cat food that we had way too much of and the opening of not one but three new rival pet stores in the area, well, yeah. Business had all but ground to a halt.

It's not all bad though. Sure, we're making $750 less a month, but at least I'm no longer sending small, defenseless - but more importantly, loving - animals to their doom. And I still have the job at the "store that shall not be named," as we call it on Press Pause Radio. The only issue with that, though, is that there are very few hours to scrounge, but I have a plan to get what I want. Namely, 12 hours instead of 8. Am I cutthroat? Sure, but that's the name of the game, and it will teach my less-than-great manager not to make such rash, stupid decisions, especially when someone with as much tenure, experience and ability such as myself still works there.

See, I used to be a key-holder with this store. But when they needed my key to close up where I was working every night at he pet store, they took it from me. Now, the very reason I even got a second job in the first place was because I wasn't getting more than 12 hours a week  to begin with, because this guy overstaffed the store in relation to the hours given. Guess who hired yet another person? Yeah, same manager. Anyways, the person with my key has been there two years less than me and lives literally two towns over, whereas I'm just down the street. I can get to the store in a timely fashion on foot whereas he has to bus in, meaning waiting for the bus and encountering constant delays. I have the stats to back up my tenure. There is literally no reason that I should not have the 12 hours he has other than one: this manager, who is revered by all to be the greatest man on the face of this earth (seriously) plays favorites. He doesn't look at time served. He doesn't look at stats. If he doesn't like you as much as the other guy? He doesn't give you what you need. There is no reason why I shouldn't have more hours, and I want my fucking key back.

Hey, while we're on the topic, let's talk about this guy. Now, I can't really name names, because I'm still getting money from this business and such, but this manager is a real douchebag. I didn't know people could be such douchebags until I experienced this guy's true inherent douchebaggery. This manager pretty much gets showered with praise and reverence based solely on lies. This fucker, seriously, lies about everything. He lied about how to advance in the company, because clearly I didn't based entirely on what he told me. He lies constantly to customers. Would you call Resident Evil 6 a super-fantastic game if you thought it was garbage? 'Cause it is garbage, and I was chewed out over that. He even uses the whole, "I'll see what I can do," line when you desperately need something, only for you to get exactly the opposite of what you need. Meanwhile, the other people you work with end up with what you requested. Why? 'Cause he plays favorites.

Huh, when I put it that way, why am I even bothering? I can get another part time job pretty much anywhere I choose. I do like small animals though, so I'm likely going to try to get a job at PetValu, which just opened recently and doesn't sell live feed such as mice and rats. Only companions. There may not be many openings now, but come the summer (and a bit of unwind and decompression time) I stand a good chance. I have my magic resume, after all. I've never not gotten a job with that resume, and even people who have used it as a template have gotten their employment wishes granted. But I could also go for staples again... apparently when you're not working in the acquisitions department trying to get new customers to switch from rival companies to you during the worst economic meltdown in nearly a century, dealing with customer looking to buy stuff from you in the first place is pretty good, or so my wife tells me. If only I could get paid for writing about video games...


Speaking of which, I've been able to secure three new games for review from Sega. After a bit of delay, I was finally granted download codes for the Sega AM2 Fighting series. It includes Virtua Fighter 2 (which I have on Saturn), Fighting Vipers (which I also have on Saturn) and Sonic the Fighters (which I've never played but is somewhere in the Sonic Gems Collection on Gamecube, which I have as well). I've only gotten around to playing Virtua Fighter 2, and I gotta say, fighting games have come a long freaking way. Hopefully the others will stand up a bit better. They probably should have just re-released Fighters Megamix or something, since it combines Fighting Vipers and Virtua Fighter into one game, with a ton of secret AM2 themed characters. These releases are arcade versions though and, as of this writing, I'm not 100%certain there was an arcade release for Megamix.

I also started to play The Last Story on the Wii yesterday. It's a pretty impressive game to look at, based on the hardware its running on, but something feels a bit off in it. The combat is not quite what I expected, and the story itself feels a bit, uh... incoherent. I have no idea what the heck is going on, short of being a random mercenary, randomly getting some special power and going to a random town and seeing a random castle that randomly firing a magical cannon. Hopefully it improves, or I may just dive into Xenoblade Chronicles instead. The character design and the Nobuo Uematsu soundtrack are good though. See? I do play other things than shmups!

Oh, right, that's something I want to touch on too. I hate being told that I'm not playing "real" or "good" games. Even George (from PPR)  has said on air that they needed to start some sort of collection to buy me a "real" game to play for once. To me, the state of the industry today is more or less the opposite of what everyone is saying. If anything, I'm the one playing the genuine games, because the "video games" of today are more or less just guided television programs that require a twiddle of an analog stick here and a button press there, especially the huge "triple-A" releases that get ratings based solely on production cost. And let's not lie, it happens all the time. Hell, I remember that was one of the reasons the original Shenmue on Dreamcast got so much press, because of its enormous budget. Why else is Indie gaming so reviled in awards such as the VGA's and even site awards? Why, because some corporate exec wouldn't be making a sick stack of cash, of course. Why can't an indie game get game of the year? On the whole, Indie gaming is what video gaming should be, with an emphasis on innovation and fun, not graphics and celebrity voice overs.

Of course, I might as well just shut up about that now, because I'm just one, insignificant person versus the world, and it's not like that's going to change anytime soon.

Speaking of nothing changing for the better, 2013 has already become the worst year of my awful life. Over the weekend, I lost a companion that had shared nearly ten years of my existence with me. You may think that pet loss is an easy thing to deal with, but let me tell you, if you want to see a 6'5", 290lb man bawl his eyes nearly literally out, just pluck his pet ferret out of existence and enjoy the show. Earlier in 2012, I had also lost a pet rat named Vixie that, while with me only a short while, decided that I would be her special person, as most pets will do. And then she died. When my wife held her, this poor little soul literally clawed her way back over to me with every last ounce of strength just for comfort when she was ill. And I was pretty devastated when she passed.

Well you can imagine how it felt when Eclair, our butterscotch ferret pushing 10, finally succumbed to old age. Only thing is, it wasn't peaceful. She began bleeding from her mouth, had a couple of small seizures and finally, at about five after midnight on January 6th, passed away. I'm going to miss her terribly. She was gentle, and playful even to the end. She had a cute pink nose, cute brown eyes and these comically enormous teeth that hung down past her chin, something everyone noticed because of their size, especially since she was small by ferret standards. She was able to kick Parfait's ass when she was in a bad mood, despite being half Parfait's size and four times her age. She kept all of or ferrets in line, even our rambunctious, deaf Souffle, who's not even a year old yet and, for obvious reasons, can't hear when she's overstepping her bounds. But most of all, she loved us as much as we love her. And that's the hardest part about it all. It's made harder when people that devalue the love that animals give humans, people who view a companion animal's life as less than a human life, say to just get over it, it was just a pet.

Fuck you, she was not "just a pet," nor are any of my animals. They all have unique personality and display affection to us, just as we do to them.

But Eclair in specific is different. She was the first companion animal that we brought into our lives after we moved out. She had the longest life, and the longest time to bond with us. When she came home, she was only a few months old and she bit me on the toes and right on the nose. But within a week, she was giving us kisses. Something she did literally to the day she died.

I need to stop this, I'll bring myself to tears again.

So what's on tap today? I'm cashing my severance cheque. Woo! Then imma watch some stuff on Netflix. Woo! And maybe I'll play some "real" video games. Or work on Bullet Heaven 60. Dunno yet, but we'll have to see. I'll be posting again when new topics arise. Until then, here's a video I uploaded recently. Peace out, muhfuggas.