Everybody, sell your body to the man

I've recently been through that horrible, horrible process of trying to land a job. Again. And it seems that every time I try it, the whole thing finds a new, innovative way to suck.

A short disposition may be in order: I sent my application, got called in to an interview, screwed it up a bit by being too nervous, and didn't really expect to get the job. And I didn't. But the thing that really hit a nerve was the way of the rebuff: I was told I "didn't manage to sell myself" to their satisfaction. OK, time out. What?

I was supposed to sell myself?

Call me old fashioned, call me naive, but I actually thought the point of an interview was for the prospective employer to gain some insight into the personality of the prospective employee, in order to decide whether he or she would be right for the job in question. But apparently, the people responsible for hiring new people have all been given the title of "Executive Pimp". When did this happen?

I'll be the first to admit that it's obviously easier holding a dick-sucking contest (possibly replacing the actual dicks with similarly shaped household objects) and letting the winner get the position, than to actually figure out if the person is who (s)he says (s)he is, but it still seems kinda cheap to me. So I decided to give it a go myself. After careful consideration, I chose to not send the following in response to the rude rejection, but I see no reason not to share it with you lot. So, here's me, selling myself:

Dear sirs and sirettes,
you have chosen to turn down my application for [the position]. This is a mistake. You say you've found two persons whom you believe will fit your team. You are wrong. Let me enlighten you as to why:

The truth is, one of the persons you're about to hire has no work ethics. They will rip open a deck of cards as soon as you're not looking. Surely, you must have noticed, during their "interview", their eyes darting nervously from side to side, looking desperately for the exit in case you should happen to see through their lies. And what lies! Did you know, dear sirs and sirettes, that the persons you have chosen to hire is widely known for their furniture-chewing habits? I, on the other hand, have never chewed on a single piece of furniture in my life. Not even a table!

So, dear sirs and sirettes, perhaps you should reconsider your decision. After all, would you rather hire an infamous furniture-chewer? Or a man widely regarded by friends, family, and even far-flung relatives as the most efficient worker who has ever lived, and who has never chewed anything that nature did not create specifically for chewing? The answer should, by now, be obvious.

Awaiting your shameful apologies with graceful mercy,
Mr. the Sleeper.

The Birth of a Nation

This post was, as the title implies, supposed to be about my newly founded country over at NationStates. "Watch a fledgling, innocent country grow wise and prosper!", I was going to write. "Be there at the beginning, at the dawn of a new era of political wisdom and wise awesomeness!"

Right.

Since this was well over three weeks ago, and the proud Principality of Moronoobia (excuse the lame name, but all the good ones were taken) has grown a lot since then, this post is now about something slightly different: My 3-weeks-old country over at NationStates. Anyway, I invite those of you who care to follow its development, even if it's no longer as funky fresh as it once was. You see, this political simulator (or whatever the hell you want to call it) gives one the option to run a country any way one likes, so you can be a crazy, evil dictator, like Bush, or a fair and groovy leader, like Saddam.

In a surprising twist, I'm not going to run Moronoobia into the ground in the most hilariously sick and rotten way available (although it's certainly tempting). In fact, I am pretty much trying to make the perfect country (according to the almighty Me, of course), which, obviously, is kinda hard. NationStates politics, like real world politics, is made in such a way that any wise decision comes with some sort of backside. The unintentional consequences (again, much like the real world) makes the whole game/simulator/thingy that much more fun, but they can still be annoying when you're an evil old bastard with a shriveled heart trying to make Utopia, like me.

So now that's over with, my next move would be trying to make today's youth (which would be you, probably) to give it a go themselves. Go on, don't be shy, make your own country today! Tomorrow, you can wreck it and piss on the pieces!

Now, if only there was a simulator where you could control an actual, real-world country.. or maybe I could apply as a presidential candidate, using Moronoobia for my CV?

Poem to the People

A sudden burst of inspiration compelled me to write a short poem. Here it is:

Fear is the mindkiller
If you just stop and face it
If you turn and embrace it
Then
you
will
get
eaten

It might be called "Fear is the painkiller" or it might be called nothing at all, FYI. You're probably wondering about why I chose to split that last sentence the way I did. A stroke of genius, you say? The truth is, it was simply a way to make a rather bad punchline seem more poem-y. But now, some news (for those who still care): I have not forgotten about this blog the way its readers have. In fact, I have a pretty damn large post about Bioshock lying silently in wait on my hard drive. I tried to post it before, but Blogger and MS Word are not on particularly friendly terms, it would seem, and I hadn't really the stamina to reformat the bastard. But it's on the way, rest assured. This is probably the last time I'm going to promise Big Action Updates, if I don't stand and deliver it's goodbye and goodnight. Now it's make or break, hide the salami time for Angry-La!

Back to what's really important here: My poem. Neat, isn't it? Discuss.

Strange news from another hospital

They didn't find what they were looking for. On the plus side, this means I'm not allergic to beer, which is a good thing, because I fucking love beer. But it also means I'm going to have a plastic tube stuck up my ass at some point in the near future. This I'm less enthusiastic about. I guess I'll have to come prepared, and bring a couple of six packs.

Without going into detail about what could possibly be wrong with me (aside from the well-known fact that a have the psyche of an earthworm during a rainstorm), I'll just say that I'm at my wit's end, and just a tiny step away from consulting a giant Finnish witch-doctor with a mustache. I've bought a bag of animal bones from this "alternative shop" down the street, I've slaughtered an unlucky pigeon and poured it's blood over my erect penis (in preparation for the ritual of masturbating to a mental picture of Mother Earth), and for the next week I'm not going to eat anything that's dead. And as some of you may know, it's really hard to eat animals when they're still alive; they keep moving around.

What I learned today, on my way to work

Hospitals exists for one single purpose: To destroy its patients' dignity. It's a lesson in humiliation, dished out by vaguely amused doctors and nurses. Not that I'm complaining about the hospitality (hah!) I was treated with today, it's the procedure itself I had a problem with.

Why? I'll tell you why, you nosy bastards: I had a plastic tube, with a camera and a fucking grappling hook attached to it, stuck down through my throat, all the way into the stomach, for what felt like an hour or so (give or take 50 minutes). In addition, my stomach was inflated and deflated, seemingly at random, and the hook was nibbling my small intestine a number of times. I'm pretty sure humans weren't designed for this sort of treatment, not originally, at least. Ever seen a fish on land? Yeah, that was me. I lay there, wheezing and gurgling because I needed to distract myself from the fact I was getting orally fucked by a piece of plastic.
BTW: I know what you're all wondering, but no, I didn't look at the screen. I didn't have the stomach for it (double hah!).

But then - whey! - procedure over. Oh well, that was horrible, I though, but at least I've done that now. One more uncomfortable experience in the bag, right? It wasn't even reason good enough to write all that about dignity and humiliation at the start of this post, right? Right?

At that point, the doctor (who, we must remember, in case she accidentally reads this thing, was nice, supportive, and seemingly very quick and professional) said the following to me: "And if we don't find what we're looking for, we'll go in the other way."

Asphinctersayswhat?

Let's have a fucking time out here. That is never going to happen. It just isn't.

Sinners, beware!

This is just fucking brilliant, on so many levels.

Word of warning: After playing the intro (which is AWESOME!) my browser decided it'd had enough, and killed itself. Can't really blame it, though. This means, however, that I have no idea what's actually on the site, but I'm sure it's pure fucking gold.

As a bonus, but only for Norwegians (which is truly a shame, since it's great), here's a link to a speech on Christianity held by a famous Norwegian Warrior-Poet in 1933.

What are you waiting for? Exercise your brain-organ, you damn monkeys! Go! Go!

Facebook Knows What You Is Up To

Quick hit: A lot of people have wanted me to get a Facebook account recently. Turns out the Broken Saints guys have experienced the same, and on their blog I just saw this..

Also, how come everybody and their grandmas have got on this thing suddenly? Us skeptics will have the last laugh, methinks.

Coincidentssesss

Something strange: At work the other day (I'm copying job ads from pdf-files and magically putting them on the internet) I overheard one of the salespeople at my department mention a familiar name. It was the name of the folk high school (look people, I have no idea how to translate that properly. It's a kind of one-year, optional playschool we have in Scandinavia, after high school, where we are supposed to evolve as human beings and express ourselves creatively, but most people just end up drinking lots of beer) I went to six years ago, and found this amusing. I didn't think much about it, though, until I was handed this ad, and told to, magically, make it appear on the internet. It turned out to be the very same school, and they were looking for a new principal.

I was dumbstruck. Call me soft if that makes you feel better, but I have fond memories of my time at Skjeberg, and seeing the natural order of things disturbed in such a way makes me a bit uneasy. That Mr. Skjeberg himself is retiring is just plain wrong. I have been patient with this so-called "time" for a while now, but I've had it. It needs to stop. It's bad enough that it's making me slightly older, but now it's starting to mess with things that should not be changed. I fear for the very fabric of reality.

Also, his successor has got some pretty big shoes to fill, so let's hope he has large, smelly feet (actually, the smell just comes naturally with having big feet). And another also: Is it really a coincident that the principals of both my high school and my folk high school (a direct translation that still doesn't sit quite right) has the same first name? I strongly doubt it. Also (again), I am about to read about principalities in Machiavellis The Prince. Make of this what you will. I choose to hide, for the time being.

Were these strange happenings strange enough to justify an entry in this blog? I like to think so. And, well, with me being God and everything, that's pretty much all that matters.

A distict lack of quality

It turns out that Site Meter wasn't down with the upgrading of this blog, and so it stopped tracking visitors. Of course, I didn't realize this, and was making radical plans for getting my visitors back. These plans included, but were not limited to, home-made porn movies sneakily shot through my neighbors window. I finally discovered and fixed the Site Meter problem tho, and the movie's going on YouTube instead. Anyway, since the tracker is working again, I, once more, know everything about you and your sleazy surfing habits. Just so you know.

(Don't you just hate it when some people starts telling you something you already know in a way that makes it sound like he thought of it first? Well, brace yourself, for I am one of those people, and this is one of those times.)

I also wanted to address the lack of updates recently, and put it in a wider perspective. Because it's symptomatic for a lot of people, I think (have you visited The Question Quest or Cogitatums blog lately?); not getting shit done. The way I see it, it comes down to several factors, some more important than others, but all contributing in some way or another. Laziness may seem like a big problem, but in actuality it's powerless when on it's own. Far more important is the way we perceive time as being short in itself, which of course is a bunch of half-digested Big Mac crap. But anyway, this perception, dangerously common in western society nowadays, makes us think that "we do not have time for this shit", that "we have more important things to do", which we, unavoidably, end up not doing. Because we did not take the time for that shit.

But before I get too carried away on the problems with believing one is time's personal bitch, let's get back to the matter at hand. For 'tis was my claim, that laziness is easily overcome unless supported by other, more powerful, factors (or, if you will, Factors of Power). The uncontrollable (but entirely culturally constructed) urge to "make the most of life" (whatever the fuck that means) is but one of these factors. Another, and one I believe to be among the most troublesome, is quality control. Now, this is a complex issue, enough to fill an entire blog post by itself (or possibly even, y'know, maybe a book?), for example; it has way too much to do with self-confidence, but basically it's similar to perfectionism: Thinking you could do better. When applied to blogging, it's as easy as this: The post you're thinking of writing isn't quite funny enough, smart enough or topical enough. Bloggers are probably especially aware of the topicality (probably not a word), since a blog is essentially a public diary, and so has to be updated with the latest whatever, whether it is one's personal doings, world news, or something else entirely.

But of course, quality control isn't a problem for everybody. In fact, a lot of people have too little of it (Norwegian web newspapers, I'm looking at you), but the critical difference between these people and you is that they actually get shit printed. So give yourself a fucking break already. In case you're thinking this applies only to blogging, or even writing in general; it doesn't. Maybe it's easier to spot this problem when expressing oneself creatively, but it does affect everyday issues as well, even if it manifests itself in different ways. Some may have trouble deciding what clothes to put on for a party (or for just leaving the house), some have trouble talking in a group of people because they weigh their words too carefully. But, most importantly, it affects what we do with our time, because we think time is so fucking precious we automatically apply quality control to it.

You may have guessed I have a big bone to pick with time.

But all this has gone on quite long enough. Let's see if there's some sort of conclusion to be found, shall we? The whole thing was supposed to be about not getting shit done. Which, in my humble (and one hundred percent correct) opinion is largely due to our perception of time and our perception of quality. There's another big one, though, that I haven't touched on yet: Distractions. Guilty pleasures. Like TV shows or sex with contraceptives. But these are mainly your instincts kicking in when you become too frustrated to think of all the things you haven't done yet. You could call it escaping from reality, but then you'd be wrong (because the concept of reality is a very, very large and unruly beast, and I simply do not have the psychological stamina to tackle it right now).

Oh, the concluding and stuff. That's what I was supposed to get to now. Well, In a post about not getting stuff done, the perfect conclusion would actually be not getting the conclusion part done. So I'll leave it at that. Discuss.

Sometime soon, however, I'm hoping to write something meaningful about games as art, or art in games. This may or may not happen, but for those who are interested I'll leave a link to an article about Peter Molyneux' hopes for including love in Fable 2. Also, here's a link for Gamasutras coverage of Game Developers Conference 07, which may or may not have some interesting articles for y'all. Sit yourself down to the chairs, enjoy, and make sure to have a chat afterwards.

Warning: Post may cause homicidal tendencies. Proceed at own risk

Us adventure gamers are a strange and violent sort. To us, people fall into one of two categories: Those who like adventure games and those who don't. If you don't, please e-mail me with the names and location of your friends and loved ones (along with a description of their physical appearance), and I promise you absolutely no harm whatsoever will come to them. But, if you enjoy the occasional point-and-click now and then, rejoice, for I have wonderful news for you.

You see, it just so happens that some rude English guy has made four of the best free point-and-click horror adventures (although technically, only three of them involve pointing and clicking) you will ever download. His name is (not) Yahtzee, and the games are sometimes referred to as the John DeFoe quadrilogy. If this is not news to you, then you will probably (and wisely) nod in agreement when you read that these games rock, and that they're very much worth the money you spend on them (if, by now, you are thinking "oh, and how much do they cost?" or "screw it, I'm not paying for some old and boring games without teh Grafix of Power" then you are obviously a moron and should read this post again. But what the hell, I'll repeat it since I'm in a good mood: The games be free, yo). But you may not know that the fourth (and allegedly final) entry in the series was released in January, and that it's actually the best of the bunch (although it's not as scary as the rest. But, you know, whatever).

Maybe a short presentation of these games are in order, then. They're point-and-click (with one exception, which is a bit annoying but quite acceptable), they have some decidedly retro graphics (but if you really care about that you're not actually an adventure gamer, are you?), they're serious horror adventures (but not entirely devoid of humorous touches) and they will scare you shitless (this, of course, very much depends on your tolerance level).
Some more: They're relatively short (Will Not Eat Your Life, a plus), for the most part easy (which means they'll challenge you but not make you feel like the idiot you are), and all of it is made by this one bloke army. In other words, it's a real fucking impressive piece of work. So, no more of my yakking, go download, go play. One more thing, since y'all are probably to thick to figure it out for yourselves, this is the correct order of enjoyment (complete with links to each game. Damn I'm nice today): 5 Days a Stranger, 7 Days a Skeptic, Trilby's Notes, 6 Days a Sacrifice. Feel free to drop a comment here afterwards, and remember to spread the good word.

I just realized, if noone clicks these links I've just wasted a lot of time. So do it, ungrateful bastards, do what Papa Smurf tells you, or Rome will fall. I will see to it.

How many Husseins can a Saddam Hussein?

The insane year of 2006 is over, as some of you probably know, and from the look of things, 2007 is going to be just as demented. This article about an Indian village naming all their children "Saddam Hussein" definitely proves my point. I especially loved the last statement:

"In the playground we have Saddam Hussein running after Saddam Hussein, behind Saddam Hussein who is ahead of Saddam Hussein but too far from Saddam Hussein... it can all get a little confusing," he (villager Mohammed Hassan Abbas) said.

Yeah. I trust my readers to already know who this so-called "Saddam Hussein" was and how he, quite recently, ended his life. It was all quite ugly. Of course, only crazy people cries for a guy like that, but there's politics in this, which complicates matters. Let me put it this way: A high-profile court case like this should not be handled by a bloodthirsty mob that only wants revenge. I mean, yeah, if my family had been persecuted, tortured, killed and whatnot by someone, I too would probably be pretty pissed at that person and would want to see him (or, in the interests of equal rights, her) very very dead. I'm not saying it's not understandable, I'm just saying it's moronic. So now Saddam is more popular than he ever was while alive, and the western world a little more hated. Nice work, everyone!

Of course, Saddams wasn't the only celebrity death last year. Actually, 2006 was a pretty risky year to be famous, it was a regular superhero showdown. On the side of the villains, there's the aforementioned Moustached Madman, Slobodan Milosevic (sometimes known as The Cleanser), and of course Mr. Pinochet, mostly famous for donning a pink mask and cape and calling himself "Baby".
In the heroes corner, we had Steve Irwin's famous Death By Stingray (the Stingray is also destined to become a supervillain, if only he survives the climate changes), Robert Altman, and of course the Sex Machine himself (not to be confused with the Sex Automaton). There were others, I'm sure, but this is a blog, not a bloody death almanac.

Also, some Angry-La Awards for 2006: Borat, last years Best Comedy and also Smartest, Most Important Film, and Children of Men, Possibly the Most Realistic Sci-Fi Ever and also last years Smartest, Most Important Film (yes, this is possible, Because I Say So). If you go see them both, you will become Smarter and More Mature. Which may be a Good or a Bad Thing, depending on your preferences and your Goals In Life.

And last, but not least (which may seem like a clichèd figure of speech, but actually is a somewhat retarded pun): Would you, by any chance, want to buy a really, really big egg? Then go here, and bid your heart out. Of course, since it's an auction, the link will only stay active for about five more days. Oh well.