Yes Virginia, There Is A Santa Claus…

And he’s bringing GAMES. In the metric tonnage…

The trip down to Playworks was one of those Good News/Bad News scenarios, although I think in the long term, the good news far, FAR outweighs the initial disappointment of the bad news.

First off, the office. Is temporary. Right now they’re holed up in their MASSIVE version of my Cave, a side-company they own which is a glorified videogame den for members of the club, called The Brotherhood Of The Box. Basically you pays your money, and that allows you unlimited access to a while buncha’ X-Boxes that are laid out on one end of the place (Just request your game, pop it in, and try to show some consideration for other players who visit…), or, if you’re lucky, you sit down at the couch with the MASSIVE screen hooked up and digital surround with optical cabling and play like you’ve never played before. When I showed up, they were, unsurprisingly, playing DOA Extreme Beach Volleyball.

Unfortunately, the editor who was supposed to meet me, apparently a former, disgruntled editor of one of the newspapers here, Today, was sick with a bout of food poisoning, so I didn’t get to sit down and talk to her. I met everyone else though, and it’s pretty much what I suspected, a stinking, drooling, giggling den of hardcore geeks.

I felt right at home.

I hung out with their creative director (He’s one of the poor slobs that works there 18 hours a day, sleeps the rest of the time and see his home twice a week) and he dragged me off for cigarettes and coffee. He seemed pretty bemused by me, since most of the people who are begging to be reviewers are local, speak English pretty badly, and are mostly kids in their late teens or early 20s.

CD: I’m going for a cigarette… Uh… you wouldn’t happen to smoke, would you?

My Pithy Reply: I’m a WRITER, for God’s sake…

CD: [Big grin and thumbs up]

It was pretty casual. I talked to the Editor In Chief (Translation: He runs around trying to secure funding until the marketing person is hired) and he pretty much told me that there wasn’t any doubt that I could do this job based on the resume bomb I carpeted them with. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to hire just at this time, and so the best that I could hope for was volunteer contributing reviewer.

HOWEVER…

In about two months, once their marketing person has been hired (Whoever that ends up being, interested, Ching?) and things stabilize a bit, they’re going to be looking for a fulltime reviewer/editor. They told me the job was mine in May if I wanted it.

IF I WANTED IT?!?

IF I FUCKIN’ WANTED IT?!?

In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, “He don’t know me very well, do he?”

So it looks like for the next little while, they’ll be easing me in as a volunteer reviewer. That’ll show me the ropes of how they work around there, get to know the people while they get to know me, and assuming all goes well, I’ll have a job that, if you can believe it, will require me to go out and purchase game consoles and write it off as a business expense come tax time. They tell me it would be better if I had all three consoles. It’s a tough, painful process, having to go in there and buy those consoles so I can get saddled with free games, but hey, I’m a professional and there’s a job to do…

[Distant Ironic Mode OFF. Redneck Mode ON]

YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Redneck Mode OFF. Distant Ironic Mode ON]

Anyway, they’ve already registered me on their web community, given me staff privileges that allow me access to sections of the forum hidden from general gaming eyes, and given me my first two assignments: Xenosaga and Primal, both for the PS2. I pick up my games on Thursday and have been warned to keep my Xenosaga review down to 600 words or less.

Bonus Points!

After that decidedly odd experience, the girlfriend and I went down to our regular comics joint, @omix comix, to see if there was anything interesting and so I could paw, molest, and whisper sweet nothings into the packaging for the Babylon 5 Season 1 DVD set that is still sitting there, waiting for me to get up the funding to bring it home.

She’s doing their new website, and so we’re scoring major points down there and getting discounts left, right and center. Today the owner asked me, completely out of the blue, if I’d be interested in doing the comic reviews for him. This of course, made my jaw drop as first people are throwing free games at me, now I’m getting comic books too.

Maybe, just maaaaaaaaaaaaybe… Life can be not terrible once every few days.

So to tally up the total damages for today. I am now:

Officially a games reviewer for Playworks.

Am now officially a comics reviewer for @omix comics

Will officially be Reviews Editor for Playworks if things work out.

Am now getting paid to play games, read comics and then talk about it afterwards.

Too.

Fucking.

Sweet…

In the meantime, the demands of paying the rent continue, and so it’s time to sign off and get back to writing more marketing-based web copy for a friend of mine who is hoping I can start sounding less casual and start sounding more slick and corporate since this is the third crack I’m taking at the web copy. I think I’ve finally got it nailed, so with any luck I won’t need anymore rewrites after this. Then it’s back to FFX.

Hey, it’s not just lazing around, it’s my job now…