Nothing can be done about it

When playing Left 4 Dead, one of the biggest pleasures in the game is when you’re playing as the infected, namely the Smoker, and you manage to capitalize on a situation where the survivors must traverse an obstacle to where there is no returning once crossed, and you get that one perfect smoke, capturing one of the players, basically stranding them from the other three, and there is nothing that the other team can do, except accept their loss of one teammate as you watch with glee as your Smoker strangles the player to death with the satisfying neck snap sound at the very end.  There are many places in which this kind of scenario can take place, and it is one of the best feelings in the world when executed correctly.

I’m currently working an assignment now, for a company that I freelanced with back in the winter of 2007.   I was reluctant to come back here, because the work wasn’t all that glamorous, and most importantly, I didn’t like the notion that freelancers weren’t permitted internet access, thus cutting off my channel to the rest of the world; I work fast, and I like to create my own downtime, to which I like to use to chat, email, and occasional surfing.  But the pay rate at this place is among the best I’ve had in recent years, and since paying the bills and having beer money is pretty essential, I took it.

However, this time, I have an ace up my sleeve, and in fact it’s here while at work that I’m posting this clever analogy.

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Mage Designers

Unless you’re a player like me who really likes to go through RPGs with as little reliance on magic as possible, then you probably play your own Final Fantasy games with a good enjoyment of spell-casting. Preferably, I like to fight; give me a cast of four Black Belts and after one turn, I will have hit the ogres about 72 times for close to a billion HP damage, terminated.

But today, I’m going to talk about the class that I don’t really use – the Mages, and then make a brilliant analogy about how it relates to my career and I.

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Moral dilemmas

Today, I shot myself in the foot, something fierce.

For reasons I can’t really comprehend other than a strange sense of honor, I inadvertently dismissed myself from an opportunity for three to four weeks of a guaranteed paycheck.  Maybe I got greedy, or maybe I am much more of a compassionate human being than I thought.  But long story short is that I was offered a position that starts tomorrow, and instead of clicking my heels, and emphatically agreeing to it, I asked if I could put some feelers out at D-land, to make sure that I had finality on all of my current projects.

I had zero intention of turning down the position, even with it’s questionable distance from my house.  But apparently, my hesitation at agreeing to it caused the client who needed the work, to instead accept the first schlub who did agree to start tomorrow.  So instead of starting a new assignment tomorrow, with the next three to four weeks accounted for, I’m going back to a place that I’m not too terribly fond of, with any day after tomorrow sporting a question mark.

And for what?  Doing the honorable thing?  Being a nice guy?  Because as far as I’m concerned, those two things haven’t done shit for me, in my time of need.

This has not been a very good week, and I do look forward to its quick passing.