Electronic Arts: Self destructive or just stupid?

For those of you who know me personally you'll know that I've worked at Bioware for a year as a Term employee, for those of you who don't know me...I've worked at Bioware for a year as a term employee.

Let me explain, nah that'll take too much time, let me sum up. A term position with Bioware means that you're a full time employee but you're on a contract that either expires in a year or at the end of a specific project. The likelihood of you being extended past the end of a project is about 2% and the odds of being extended at the end of a year are 0% . You then have to take at least 3 months off and wait for them to rehire you for another project.

This sucks enough as it is and makes little enough sense. You take a loyal and well trained employee and make them do something else for at least three months upsetting them because they need to find a new job for three months and then try and earn their own job back which is very difficult because they're three months out of practice.

Just to add insult to injury Electronic arts have now enacted a policy that says after working as a term employe for two short years you can no longer EVER work at any company owned by EA again. So people who've worked at Bioware or other EA owned companies for years on and off have been let go and are no longer welcome. My understanding as someone on the short road to banishment is that EA wants to train employees for their competition thereby making their competitors better which forces them to become better.

Bioware has excellent employees and their training is fantastic, They have high standards that weed out most of the riff raff and leaves only hard working competent employees that are very good at their jobs. Couple this with EA's policy that no one can hire full time employees and you get a lot of well trained, highly skilled employees banned from ever working for your company.

EA: "Hey, welcome to your new position!"

New Employee: "Wow, thanks. I'm super excited to get started training."

EA: "Excellent, We plan on spending a tonne of money training you and wasting lots of other full time employees time by making them watch you and help you as you get the hang of the job."

NE: "I appreciate it, But I don't think it'll be a waste I love this industry and I plan on making this my career."

EA: "not with us you won't. We don't take kindly to experienced or highly trained employees. so we'll be letting you go after two years of highly expensive and time consuming training where you'll grow to love the company and build friendship with all of the permanent employees."

NE: "Can I ever come back?"

EA: " What?! No, of course you can't. we want untrained buffoons so we can start the process over again. anyway, welcome to the team."

NE: " Thanks, I guess..."

EA: "Now get to work, but don't get too comfortable."

So That's basically how that's gonna go from now on. Or until EA goes out of business because they enact a policy that says they'll only hire people who hate video games or only hire employees for 24 hour periods in a bizarre parody of an improve sketch where the actors switch out randomly to create a hilarious hodgepodge of silliness.

This has all sounded pretty bitter and disgruntled and while yes, I am pretty confused and upset by this. Let me say that Bioware is still a fantastic place to work and it's a gleaming highpoint on a resume' if you're interested in working in the video game industry. Just don't get too attached.

Later days everyone.

Finally something to write about.

I realize I've been gone for a while but with a combination of excuses and legitimate reasons I could explain this away...I'm not going to, but I could. Moving on to the reason I'm back.

For those of you who know the comedian Paul F Tompkins, you'll know that he's delightfully funny , whimsical and full of mirth, not to mention other praise. What I'm saying is that he's very funny and you love him already. For those of you who have no idea who Paul F Tompkins is, I'll wait while you click the link in his name...

Right, everyone back? Good.

The reason I bring up Paul F Tompkins is that I've recently had his fantastic podcast brought to my attention by my good friend Doctor Teeth, and while there's only one that's been released it, IS, AWESOME!

I don't want to go into too great a detail and ruin jokes made in the podcast but I urge you to at least listen until the 11:00 minute mark. Paul has started reading out the transcriptions of Google Voice, which in Paul's own words are "wildly inaccurate" and in my own words are "pants wettingly funny" (no pants were wet, but you get what I'm saying).

Let me leave you with the title of the podcast so that you can:

A) find the podcast

B) realize just how clever Paul F Tompkins is.

So please, if you value our friendship (I know I do), look up and enjoy the "Pod F Tomkast".

Later days everyone

I love it when a plan comes together!

So earlier today I watched the new A-team movie with my good pal "Dr. Teeth". I have to say over all it was exceedingly enjoyable. It took me back to being a young man watching A-team reruns and playing with my oldest brothers action figure of "Face". Let me first mention that almost any movie starring Liam neeson will probably be enjoyable in my books as I've never seen a movie that he was in that I didn't think he at least was great. yes... I even liked him in " the phantom menace". Anyway, The movie had a quick pace and almost all of the action was acceptably over the top; except for one small instance near the end of the movie. All of the actors portrayed their characters in a manor which pleased me, and the movie was really fun. I highly recommend it.

I'm giving this movie 8.5/10 and I'm probably going to buy it at some point in my life. If you haven't seen it yet and are on the fence as to wether you should or not, I can tell you you're probably safe to go and watch it. Odds are you'll like it a lot.

In other news ...nothings really happening, Hence the lapse in my blogging schedule.Hopefully something will occur in the next few days that warrants me actually posting something on this barren wasteland that is a Blog. Me and several friends are going to be taste testing several different kinds of Mac and cheese to see if we can tell the difference between the new vegetable flour pasta and the original pasta... This is the roller coaster of excitement that is my life. Someone please pray for me or something.

Later days everyone.

The great chili profusion of 2010

With my lovely wife returned to me, my experiment to see whether I could eat nothing but chili for her entire absence (except breakfast) has come to an end. Let me first say that whenever someone heard I was doing this I received a pretty constant flow of pity and concern as a response. I don't fully understand this response as; 1. not only was it a conscious decision. but 2. It's probably better than what I otherwise would have been eating.

I mean really, why the pity? It's delicious and nutritious. I've probably had more vegetables in the past twenty days than I have in the past twenty weeks. I've had three different kinds of peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes, corn, beans, onions and garlic (I realize not all of those are veggies, let's move on). The concern I understand, Chili is not the known for being gentle and calming on the insides or those around you...but fear not gentle readers I have insides like steel.

Now to the results! I feel I was quite successful, aside from breakfast and a couple of invitations out for dinner from friends and concerned well wishers(it would be rude to refuse on account of a ridiculous experiment) I ate nothing but chili for a solid twenty days. I found that the outcome was a near immunity to the "ill" effects of beans (I don't need to clarify that, do I) and several delicious and very cost effective meal ( it came to about 2.50 a meal). The only ill effects I suffered other than eventually becoming tired of chili ( It's not my favorite food, just the healthiest) was my tears started to smell vaguely of chili. My eyes started to water one day and I discovered after wiping them that they smelled like the meals I was eating...they did not taste of chili, they tasted of salt.

Not the most scientific of experiments but mostly done out of the curiosity if I could do it, not the need to know what the effects would be. You may expect my Canada day blog tomorrow but I wouldn't, I guess we'll see...

Later days everyone, enjoy your Canada day festivities and I'll see you again soon.

Magneto for Prez!

Watching an episode of "Wolverine and the X-men" today I re-realized something that I never should have forgotten;

Magneto is King awesome of wicked-cool island.

As magneto decimated the X-men for what seems like the umpteenth time I decided that the only reason the X-men ever win is because they're the good guys. They as a team are no match for Magneto but Magneto will never come out on top because he was created as a villain and villains are meant to be defeated.

Let's take a quick look at just how easily Magneto could kill/defeat the X-men. Some of these have been done in the comics but some not so much:

1. Ripping the metal out of wolverine and using it to smother the others.(The first part happened, not so much the second)
2. Pulling all the metals out of their X-bodies at once ( I don't even want to think what that would do to a person)
3. Cancel out the gravitational field and launch the X-chumps into deep space.
4. Increase the above mentioned field and crush them into paste
5. take a sliver of metal of any kind(preferably magnetic) and push it directly through their frontal lobe effectively lobotomizing them.

Anyhow I could probably sit here and type for hours about this grizzly business but I think I made my point(whatever that was supposed to be). Regardless Magneto should have definitely beaten the X-men and most every other force that opposed him time and again but he was written as a villain and what kind of message would we be sending the kids if we let the villains win?

bad guys are awesome!

anywho, Later days everyone. Hope to see you again soon!

Why women exist.

My life has been very interesting for the last month. Being on leave from work for this entire month , having the World Cup on TV, and my wife being gone on vacation to visit her family in Scotland is slowly but surely killing me. I don't have to get up for work so there's no reason to go to bed at a decent hour, and with World Cup starting at 5:30 most days why even go to bed at all. For the rare moments that I go to sleep I'm just going to get up in 2 hours and then return to the couch for soccer anyway so why not just sleep on the couch for 2 hours. When there's no soccer

I watch TV and play games(thankfully due to my wife's influence I'm sort of an adult and go for walks sometimes).

Also my eating habits have suffered slightly. I have no wife to cook for or cook for me so I decided to see if I could eat chilli for the entire time she's gone (with the exception of breakfast); I've had so much chilli my tears now smell vaguely of chilli. I'm doing this because quite often I'll have pizza or stew or some other delicious food and say that I could eat nothing but that forever and I'm proving that I can. I chose chilli because it was the food I could sneak the most vegetables into. My next post will probably be the results of the great chilli experiment so more on that later.

Needless to say without adult supervision I'm slowly wasting away. I'm very excited for my wife's return and realize that while my life as a bachelor would be pretty fun it would eventually lead to my demise, thus I prove that marrying this wonderful woman was not only a brilliant idea because she's beautiful and funny and I'll never do any better but it's also a form of self preservation. So let's raise our glasses and toast to women. I know I'm not the only man like this. I've seen them, wandering listlessly with no clear destination , slightly glassy eye's, wrinkled shirt and the vague smell of chilli or BBQ on their breath.So once again Thank goodness for women, they don't need to take care of us but they do make sure we take care of ourselves.

Later days everyone and stay tuned for the results of the great chilli month of 2010.

What's the deal kim...

I do not know why I can't hold a schedule. It's like I have some kind of disease that won't allow me to post a blog when I'm supposed to. So from now on if the blog is late I'm just going to say it's because of my rare anti-blogging disorder(antipostosis). let's move on.

This is probably old news now but, Iron man 2 is just excellent. Some people would say the first one is better (I'm one of those people) but I don't think that it is in fact better but simply lacking the magic and awe of the first one. The first one was fresh and new and exciting. The second one had all those things except the newness. in fact there were some much needed improvements made to the casting (Don Cheadle) but there was also a terrible choice of villain (whiplash) which was at best adequately portrayed by Mickey Rourke who apparently has no idea what a russian accent sounds like( I understand comrade, it's a tough one).seriously though, whiplash? Regardless of the terrible villain choice the movie was still very good and I highly recommend seeing it if you haven't (you have. I realize it took me forever). I would give this movie a solid 4 1/3 out of 6 2/8 (that's for you doc teeth).

Anyway that's about all I have to say in this tiny strange post. so I bid you all later days and hopefully I'll have more to post next monday...or whenever.