October 23, 2010

You would be funny if you lit yourself on fire.

This seems to happen quite a bit to people in service jobs, so I'm just going to lay it out here in my blog, because I can. Because I'm annoyed and uncomfortable, and pissed off that customers think it's some kind of game to see how uncomfortable they can make me since they know I'm not allowed to be less than polite.

MY JOB IS NOT A GAME, and I don't appreciate you treating it as if it's a joke. As if I don't need it to live, so if I blow up at you due to your inappropriate behavior, I will be punished for it and not you. And you think that's so funny.

Your jokes at my expense are not: Cute, clever, interesting, and will never be funny. Ever. They certainly make you an asshole, though.

And it certianly isn't MY FAULT that you now feel uncomfortable and like a jackass when I don't laugh at you MOCKING ME.

There are appropriate ways to interact with people in customer service, insinuating that they are somehow stupid in any way for performing their job, asking them uncomfortable questions, and ridiculing them for taking their job seriously IS NOT appropriate. If you're competent enough to understand what you're doing is rude, and I know you do as you and your little friends are giggling, why don't you understand that it makes you worse then all the stupid customers we get combined? Because we know you know better, and it makes it just that much more frustrating and potentially ruins our day.

Thanks for that, really, I hope you're pleased with yourself. I'm sure you absolutely LOVE IT when someone comes in and makes your work day just that more difficult because they think it's funny.

October 18, 2010

It's a women's world.

Shape What’s to Come. For You. For Your Community. For the World.

It's a website dedicated to the growth, mentorship, and companionship of women reaching out to the world through creativity and social change. It's created and sponsored by Levi's, so yeah, there's some executive meddling there, but the idea and prospect is just too awesome for me to pass up. I've always wanted to do bigger things, creative things, and make my little imprint in this world and be more involved.

So I'm going to try this and NaNo, and probably whine all about how I fail in here, but that's just how it goes, right?

Step one will be excuted soon, hopefuly not never. I just hope Step Four doesn't take too long.

October 17, 2010

Cookies for Breakfast

My twin told me I have the worst eating habits and that my cravings are weird. Weird, but delicious. She recently spent some time explaining to her step brother why Flaming Hot Cheetos need to be eaten with pieces of bagel (a staple of my high school diet), to which he earnestly replied, "Uhh...why not just eat the Cheetos without the bagel...?"

She very matter of factly told him, channeling my fourteen year old self, "Wrapping the bagel around the Cheeto keeps it from turning your fingers red."

It also deadens the intensity of the heat, but for some reason that seems much less reasonable than the Red Finger argument.

I also love spaghetti sandwiches, it's basically just like eating spaghetti anyway, only the pasta is wedged between two slices of bread (bonus points if it's garlic) instead of being garnished with bread. I put brown sugar in my chili, lessen the amount of butter in my chocolate chip cookies so they have the consistency of cake, and will only eat eggs with Tabasco and ketchup. I like bacon on maple bars (actually, I just like bacon, period), syrup on my eggs if I'm eating them with pancakes, and usually cook stuffing with some kind of fruit, dried or fresh (my favorite is fresh nectarines). Speaking of fruit, I love pineapple on my peperoni pizza, screw Canadian bacon!

And right now I'm eating cookies for breakfast.

I've also craved all of the following at the same time: phad thai, pho, fried rice, top ramen, Indian food, garlic fries, Tim's jalapeno potato chips, and cheese.

I mentioned that list on my Facebook once, and I got several replies asking how my pregnancy is going. It's been over a year now and I think it's still going well. I plan on birthing Unicorn Raptor sometime in the near future, already have his room set up and everything.

For years I didn't think I ate very differently from everyone else, and I've often accused others of eating outlandish concoctions. It wasn't until I moved to Seattle and made friends with people who were not used to my eating habits at all did I finally realize that I eat odd things (mainly because they made it a point to yell about it every time it happened). I also realized that I don't eat very differently from everyone else considering that we all eat something (or several things) odd.

Just don't bring shrimp chips when you go fishing, okay? Your white friends won't appreciate the fishy waft coming from your bag and not at the end of their fishing line.

October 12, 2010

Femininty in Pistol Whipping

In Gamer Informer's October issue, they told a girl the only reason why she was being heckled by male players was because she was good at the game being played, and that anyone who outperforms assholes will be harassed by assholes. They completely bypassed the first 2/3 of the letter where the girl described that she was being jeered for being a girl, and then it worsens once the guys learned she could actually play. Since I'm so pleased as to how GI conveniently overlooked basically her entire letter, I thought it was due time to blog about the supposed conundrum of being a nerd and being a girl. Or, how nerds treat girl nerds.

Though, I'll come out and say it, FPSes are a special kind of brofestering pool since games such as Halo certainly aren't nerd exclusive. In fact, the intended audience is MALE MALE MALE MALE. It's only recently that I feel developers have realized that, oh yeah, girls like to play these testosterone driven experiences, too, and try to incorporate female characters for women to identify with. Metroid being an exception here, as Samus as a woman has become more prevalent over the years instead of Samus as a robot that, omg, flashes a bikini at the end.

There's a lot more I want to say about female characters in video games, a lot that I probably should say, but we're talking about how guys ask me to be their baby mama over XBOX Live, right?

I'll be honest, there have been times when my high pitched, girlish voice has caused several interesting experiences based solely on my gender. Yes, I have been asked to be a guy's baby mama. I received a torrent of messages from a user asking about boobies. However, being honest again, the percentage of this occurrence is low. I've spoken to, gamed with for long intervals, and friended for future gaming excursions several males who have been nothing but awesome. Conversely, it's my own friends that take potshots at my gender while gaming.

Am I saying this girl who wrote into GI is lying? Certainly not. I also believe the game being played creates an entire different atmosphere when it comes to interactions. Personally, I find it really hard to take anyone seriously while running around in giant purple armor fitted for a woman who has birthed an entire nation of children trying to shoot down terrified grunts billowing green gasses. Halo is just that kind of a game, intense, but laid back. Medal of Honor? Gears of War? Well, I find it funny how seriously those games and gamers take themselves, so perhaps I'm not the best person to pass judgment here.

Admittingly, I'm not very good at FPSes. I think I'm passable depending on the nature of the match. I'm not very good at platformers, either, and action platformers usually frustrate me endlessly. My friend told me I epitomized the reasons why gamers hate the new generation, and all I could think of was, "Gamers hate people who have fun?" I pick games I have the most fun, and usually these are types of games I find most playable for my abilities. I think it's a bit elitist and ignorant to assume that FPSes and action platformers are the only genres in which Real Games are produced, and that you're not a Real Gamer unless you play them, and often they like to cite my gender as reasons for my apparent deficiency.

Also, how did I miss the oldbie bus? I remember playing Super Mario and blowing on cartridges and that stupid laughing dog.

I want to note here that I find it interesting that I'm ridiculed for my playing habits while they completely cream themselves at the idea of their girlfriend even holding a controller with the intention of play and not trying to organize it with the rest of the living room they had just finished cleaning. That girlfriend will continued to be pampered and loved for rolling a Katamari into a wall while I'll be ridiculed for finishing the roses level because that should be time spent playing a Real Game.

I play tacticals and RPGs. My favorite series is Fire Emblem and my favorite RPGs are Tales of Symphonia, Chrono Trigger, and Earthbound. I love puzzle games (I'm currently beating people in the face with my level 16 in Tetris Battle over on Facebook), racing, and fighting as long as I don't have to string together complex button incantations. Why yes, I do play Smash Brothers, and yes, I do button mash the hell out of any Mortal Kombat type game. There's something about the intensity of a game that directly correlates with my ability to process anything more than KIIILL. And I mean more of an instant intensity, real time. Tacticals can create the biggest headache and strain known to man, but trying to remember how Ivy unlinks her sword into a chain while being beaten savagely in the face with Nightmare's nightmare sword? Uuugh.

Interestingly enough, this makes me exceptionally good at games like Hulk Ultimate Smash where you focus on one singular goal. My boyfriend at the time was so concerned about how to gain the most points that he was easily out smashed by me who decided everything was my enemy and it all equally deserved to be beaten into nothing.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at here is that gaming is supposed to be fun, not about winning or being the best. And while winning and being the best is certainly enjoyable, and that may be the only way YOU enjoy gaming, that shouldn't prevent others from enjoying video games in a different way. If you have fun creating complex love lives for your Sims, shooting people with bullets, or finding that last item to finish your collection; whatever it is that makes you happy, that makes this game fun and worth you time, that's all that matters. That isn't a weakness or a problem with gamers today, and that certainly isn't one that directly correlates to gender.