I seal this circle

Apart from evicting a pathological liar, life plods on.

I'm still temping in a call centre, being paid (tho barely!) to read the prices of Sky Broadband out loud. Interviews are happening - few and far between - but they're there.

Had one last week in a small educational games company that I would be perfectly suited to and firmly believe I have all the skills and talents they're looking for. If I don't, I can learn in the next month or two before they actually need someone. Plus did I mention the guy who invited me for the interview was very dashing and is someone I've always admired. Oh, and Dick Britton was the best LRP event I've ever been to.

(Okay, the last paragraph aimed to be mildy humourous, but it really DID look like a cool place to work and Dick Britton really WAS the best LRP event.)

Only one person from my course has got a decent job so far and he's had to move to London. All rather disheartening but I'm determined to get there.

Away from work and ex-housemates things are going well and I'm generally having fun. I must remember to post here more often - only came back today 'cause I'm prevaricating before having to unblock a thoroughly unpleasant toilet.

I haven't been on LJ for a while, but since I'm passing through here's a fun and thrilling update for yous.

I'm still temping in a call centre, which isn't great, but I have a few more interviews lined up. One for an ASP web developer job and another as an IT Consultant for Cardiff Council. I haven't done huge amounts of ASP but I'm sure I can pick things up quickly enough.

Jo's job at the uni finished a week ago but her agency rang her a day or two later and she started work in a crappy call centre. The same one as me, infact. So far we've had different shifts and days off, but it's cool to see her in the days. Her PGCE is going well and she gets to start her teaching hours soon, provided the temp place stop screwing her around over the time off she needs for it.

I'm going to start looking into a masters/PhD/Something as a backup plan in case I don't find a real job in the next few months. If nobody'll pay me to do what I want to do, then I'd love to delve deeper into Artificial Intelligence instead. I don't mind working in dead-end jobs so long as there's a goal at the end of it that's more than just getting me a regular supply of chocolate.

But more important than all of that - what do I wear to Bogiez for halloween this year? Last time I just wore a suit and painted myself red (the temporary red dye has *almost* washed out of my hair from then - I'm starting to suspect I picked up the wrong bottle...)

I'll finish with a link - http://upsidedowndogs.com/.

Ah, yes, LJ. I remember this.

Job: No luck finding any grown-up work that actually uses my degree, so I'm falling back on the 'student-graduates-to-call-centre' cliche. It's just a few weeks temping at 118 while I carry on looking for something decent, so apart from it being a pain in the ass to travel to it shouldn't be totally evil.

Larp: Jo seems keener to go to the Dragon event than I am. I'd rather spend my money on a proper event rather than a parliament, but we'll probably be there time permitting. Hope to take her to monster some events in Candleston too. I'm hoping I can make Eos at the end of the month, but I'll be working some weekends so I'm not sure I'll have the time free.

Everything else: Seems to be going well, tho slowly. Not having uni or work stretches the days out somewhat. Sure, I could go and do something productive with my time, but where's the fun in that? :)

One of my Flash games has been sponsored and is now released - Word Search 50 - catchy name, eh? 50 levels of hot word searching action! Level 7 is called "factions" plus there's a "Josh Whedon" level. Yeah, well, have YOU tried to come up with 50 groups of themed words in 10 mins without resorting to swearing or binary?

But apart from trinkets like that, which has paid for my Gathering at least, I'm still unemployed.


So. Do I take an fun job (coding for a small PBM game business that's starting a very interesting new project) for basically minimum wage, or keep trying for something more grown-up? They originally wanted to tie me there for 3 months before I could hand in notice, but after walking away from that they are make some better offers.

I had an interview Thursday with a cool looking web development place and hope to hear back Monday but there's very little time to decide about the games job.

Another day, another interview.

This one was for a cool little company running from the front 2 rooms of someone's house. They moderate PBeM games and have a few nice new projects coming up which would be awesome to be part of. It's yet another wait and see since I'm not sure if I have the coding skills they need. The money's low but it'd be a great place to work.

Interview was at 2, so I've been killing time in Cardiff since. Watched Mummy 3, which is fun pulp nonsense and, like the last two, makes me want to GM a game. Now I'm sitting in an internet cafe waiting for 8pm. Hence the rarity of an LJ update.

Thanks to CJ and others for info on getting my data back from my irritating PC - it worked, tho my sister had to look away as I started fiddling around inside her machine without much of a clue what I was looking for - when in comes to computing I'm a psychiatrist not a surgeon.

Here's one of the Flash games I've been playing with - PipeTwister. Any feedback?

Starting to get into Larp mode for the Gathering now. Jo, my GF, will be coming to her first event so if everyone can pretend I'm actually really cool and stuff, that'd be appreciated :D

So there was a brief powercut today while I was using my PC, and now it freezes at mup.sys when trying to boot and just keeps rebooting from there. It won't start in safe mode or any other mode it offers for that matter.

Great.

Irritating at the best of times, but especially as I'm in the middle trying to get sponsorship for a couple of Flash games. The Internet suggests using the recovery console on the Windows disk, except I don't have one. (I dl'd Windows from the Microsoft student thingumy.)

Any suggestions on how to recover the data, folks of LJ land?

Well, I'm can't claim to be a student by ANY stretch of the imagination now, so I guess I've joined the ranks of the unemployed. Another batch of applications sent off yesterday, so time will tell.

May have to bite the bullet and start temping very shortly. I *really* didn't want to end up doing that, but needs must. I've been playing with Flash as a little hobby recently, so I'll be able to make a little side money from ads and sponsorship and the like, but sadly that's only gonna be enough for a couple of pints rather than an opulent palacial home.

Thanks for the congrats, folks.

A letter turned up this morning - the prize is just "BCS runner up student prize for software engineering", which gets me a certificate. So I've still no idea what it's for, but it's an extra line on the CV at least.

Had my degree results yesterday - I got me a first, so three years of work has paid off! Well, 2 and half years of doing sod all and 3 months of work anyway.

I was woken up this morning by a phonecall from the uni - someone asking if I'd had my results yet, what I thought about them, and stuff. In my mildly hungover, mind-fogged state I started to worry that there'd been a mistake and they'd sent the wrong letter.

But no, she told me I'd won a prize and would I be attending the prizegiving an hour before my graduation. I said I wasn't planning on attending graduation anyway, and then my battery died and the phone went dead. Which left me looking like an arrogant cock who just hung up on her. Hey ho.

No idea what the prize is for. Best hair on a software engineer? Contributions to Geek Hygiene? Most obscure references in a computer dissertation?


It was a huge gamble 3 years ago, me quitting work and moving back from Devon and everything else. But it paid off. Now I have to make sure I put it to good use - I refuse to end up in a generic office job again. My CV is floating round a few places and now I have the result I can whore myself out easier.

Anyone want to hire a kick-ass software engineer?

So. The GEF. (A larp event last weekend, for the more normal amongst my audience.)

Overall, I enjoyed it. I was unsure about going, but came away glad I'd been. Running the sideshow stuff was mostly fun - hard when there was only me doing the games and Jenny selling sweets for real cash, but people were great about helping out on the Sunday. It also kept me out of the rain unlike a lot of the bedraggled sports game refs.

Felt like I missed the entire weekends worth of plot, though, which was a shame as there was plenty of ritual stuff floating around and quite a few things I would have liked to stick my nose into. I managed to run round and get most of the High Ritualist stuff sorted at least, since that affects other people too. I'll catch up at the Moot I hope.

Was cool seeing a lot of people ooc, although the Thursday is a bit of a blur...I only called in for a pint or two, but the mead caught my eye and it all went downhill from there. My XKCD tshirt got me plenty of hugs and alcohol, which may have contributed. Passing Pentagrams ftw.

Sorry to the people I was grouchy at (OOC, that is. If I was grouchy IC I'm sure you deserved it :) ) I know I fell into my bad habbit of talking over other people at times too. I was tired and my mind was kinda frazzled by small children, plastic toys, and the minor detail of what the hell I do with my life now uni's over. I should be back on form by the moot, and if not, well, just tell me to sod off.