Recession Busted!

It’s been a remarkable 48 hours in the Knights household. On Saturday, my ladyfriend attended a job fair and landed a non-peon position at Shoppers Drug Mart that evening. On Monday I had my fourth interview at Vision Critical, and upon returning home I too had an offer to start work. So within a very short span we both went from despondent and hopeless to re-employed and a lot less depressed about our future. I’m proud that we both found jobs, even moreso that we found jobs in the throes of a recession.

As for more detail, I’ll be working as a “Visual Designer” on a six-month contract. I would have loved a permanent job, but given the circumstances, I’m not complaining at all. Maybe in six months’ time, the world will have chilled out a bit, and if things go well at Vision Critical perhaps I’ll be invited to stay longer. That’s too far away to worry about right now. My ladywife has been chosen to train in a supervisory role at a location that’s opening a block away from our apartment - no more commutes, no dealing with awful Vancouver drivers, no spending money on fuel. That location doesn’t actually open for another six or eight weeks, so she’s doing her training at a different location in the meantime.

So in all this has been one of the best weeks in recent memory - if you took out the vacation in Mexico, it might be the best week in the last year. We shall be purchasing alcohol this weekend and drinking it to celebrate. If any local readers wish to join us, let me know!

Et Voila

The blog is back. It’s still being renovated, so expect the appearance to change at some point. But this should be the end of any service interruptions, and I’ll be back to writing about nothing important again soon. It looks like a lot of the images in my old posts don’t appear properly in this new format - the column for content is thinner than it used to be. Maybe I’ll fix it, maybe I won’t.

The Day The Keanu Stood Still

Last night the ladyfriend and I used our last pair of movie vouchers to see Coraline in 3D. Yes - three dimensions, a movie gimmick that is experiencing a resurgence. I’ve never seen a 3D movie, and my ladyfriend had only seen an old-fashioned (blue and red spectacles) 3D film, so this was something new for both of us. And quite honestly I think we both came away impressed.

The new 3D technology is called Real D, and I don’t really understand how it works, but you can read about it on Wikipedia if you’d like. From what I gather, the film is shown at 3x its normal frame rate and alternates frequencies per eye (you’re still given 3D goggles, but they’re not tinted blue and red and in fact just look like really ugly sunglasses). Together the images combine - in your brain! - to form a three-dimensional image. It doesn’t look cheap or cheesy at all, which I suspect older 3D movies were. Also, Coraline is a fairly good movie, so if the subject material had been lame the 3D effect wouldn’t have seemed quite as impressive.

Almost all computer animated movies are being made in normal and 3D versions now. Dreamworks has already stated as much, and Disney/Pixar is headed that way too. Sometime next year it’s expected that live-action 3D films will start to make their way to the big screens as well. It’s still a gimmick, of course, but it’s not a bad one to try and get people into the theatres instead of downloading.

As for the title of this post, I finally saw the most recent Keanu Reeves movie, The Day The Earth Stood Still. The most amazing part of the film is that Keanu is the only good thing in it - and I’m not joking. Keanu did a great job; the movie itself is horrid.

Power Outage

Just a brief heads-up for anyone who reads this blog regularly: I will be changing web hosting plans sometime this week, which means my blog will disappear for at least a day at some point. I’m doing this for two reasons. One reason is to hopefully gain a little speed when the site loads (I’m sure some of you have witnessed the site “freezing” or just taking a long time to load) and the other is to re-introduce a secure, password-protected and un-Google-able portfolio.

Unemployment Mega-Rant

I’ve tried to be good and hold out on ranting, but I’m cranky today and want to let loose some steam. If you don’t like complaining, you may wish to skip reading this post.

First, Employment Insurance. It’s been six weeks since I applied, and while I realize EI adjusters have had to deal with over 200,000 new cases since 2009 began, I do not understand why it takes this long for some stooge to enter my ROE information into a computer. There’s nothing to evaluate; I worked enough hours, and a chimpanzee with a calculator could figure out how much my payments would be. I also realize that, when I get it, it’s all retroactive, but it’s frustrating and I’m tired of waiting. As it is, EI will cover rent and utilities and maybe a few groceries - not even a break-even amount - and it’ll probably be Easter before anything arrives in my bank account.

Second, I’m sick of the term “economic downturn”. It’s the latest politically-correct less-offensive anesthetized version of “recession”; why are the news media and our politicians afraid of using it? We’re in a fucking recession! The constant turd-polishing that our culture engages in is insulting at best and damaging at worst. If no one’s going to admit that things are shitty, then we’re not going to admit that things need to change. Yes, this sounds like something a shrink might say - that we have to accept our problems before we can address them - but it’s true. To try and sooth the public who have lost their jobs by calling it a “downturn” doesn’t reflect the situation.

Third, the situation specifically dealing with video game companies is frustratingly bad. Here’s why: games take roughly 12-18 months to go from start to store shelf. If this recession is expected to last into early 2010, now is the time for studios to get projects started, so that new games will be on the shelf when people have money to spend again. It’s the “buy low, sell high” way of doing business; get things ready when times are bad so that when times are good you’re ready to take advantage. Instead, studios have hacked and slashed jobs and projects, pushing their window of opportunity out even farther. If you think 18 months ahead, it will be Thanksgiving 2010 in the USA, one of the biggest video game sales schedules of the year. To take advantage of that, projects ought to be starting now. Talking to a fellow laid-off colleague, he’s hoping that when the large companies end their fiscal years in the next few weeks, they’ll open the purse strings a bit and get things going in terms of development. I certainly share that hope.

Fourth, why is it nearly impossible to get an acknowledgment that I’ve applied for a job? Yeah yeah, places get dozens of applications, but how hard is it to have a prewritten, copy-and-paste email message at the ready to send to people? Answer: it’s not hard at all, especially when it’s a recruiter’s or HR worker’s job to interact with potential hires. To me it reflects poorly on a company when they don’t even give a sign of life - otherwise I can only assume my application ended up forgotten or deleted.

That is all for now.

TWIG Notes XVII

Usually This Week In Garrett occurs when I haven’t posted for seven days or more. It’s an early edition this time.

- I had my in-person interview yesterday, at Vision Critical. It went well, I believe. Only one question had me stumped for a few seconds, and it was “name an example where you’ve gone above and beyond your job description.” It took me a while to get a good example, but other than that, I think it went smoothly. I should have a response by the end of the week.

- Monday actually turned out to be Interview Day for us: my ladyfriend scored one at Three Dog Bakery that afternoon. It’s a healthy/natural ingredient dog treat bakery within walking distance of our place. And the owner is incredibly nice. And there’s dogs allowed in the store. It would probably be a happy place for my ladyfriend to work, and god knows she deserves a happy workplace after all the shitty ones she’s had to go through.

- In case you missed it - and in fact I’m sure you did, since no one really cares - my pretend girlfriend Mandy Moore was married last week. To this guy. I’m not saying he’s ugly, but if Woody Allen and some train-riding hobo had a son, he’d probably be more attractive than Mandy’s new husband. For her sake I hope he’s rich or charismatic or talented or a good lay, because she could have had me, and at least I don’t look like a jackass. The good side to all this is that my ladyfriend is probably overjoyed that I will stop pining for her.

- Since being laid off, we’ve cut our nonessential spending to almost nothing. Together we’ve probably spent a hundred dollars or so on non-grocery and non-living-expense bills. It’s nice that we’ve been able to pull in the reins on “fun money”, but we do miss going out for dinner with friends or buying booze. Personally I haven’t been able to buy a box of Smirnoff Ice, drink two, and fall asleep on the sofa since 2008. Once we land jobs we’ll have to have a party.

- I hate McDonalds, and I’ve avoided eating there at all costs for years now. In fact I can’t even remember the last time I had a “meat” product from McDonalds. However, it’s mid-March, and that means McDonalds gives me the one reason I have to go there willingly and with purpose: to drink your my milkshake. To be specific, the customary Irish beverage known as the Shamrock Shake. I love the mildly minty, unnaturally green drink that only comes around once a year (and had actually disappeared for the first few years of this millenium!) and on the weekend we tried to find one. We visited two McDonalds and drove past two more without any sign of a Shamrock Shake. It wasn’t until visiting one near us, and asking for it, was I finally rewarded with a cup of Irish pride. Shamrock Shakes, it turns out, are receiving no promotion and don’t even appear on the menu - it’s at each location manager’s discretion if they will offer the drink. To this I say boo urns, and I started a Facebook group to attract attention to this societal ill. As I said in that group, for McDonalds to not offer Shamrock Shakes for an Irish holiday is tantamount to racism. And isn’t McDonald an Irish name? Why would they forsake their proud heritage like this?