I’m not a musician, but I love the ukulele chord finder. Just the chords I need when I need them. What would be cool is if I could “queue” up chords and have them repeat.
Also awesome is The Ukulele Underground. I learned a lot about scales and it’s entertaining. At the same time, even!
I loved answering the phone.
Which is probably why I didn’t get to do it very often.
I would clock in, and then ask the shift supervisor who the sponsor was this week. Every week, a publishing house paid corporate money to have us push a game when we answered the phone. I heard that corporate often “cold called” stores to make sure that they were pushing the right product. I hated corporate, but I enjoyed what I was doing for one day a week.
So I decided to combine the two.
“So, who owns us this week?” I ask as I finish clocking in.
“SEGA, Virtua Tennis, pre order for only five dollars, blah blah blah. You know the drill.” Rob sounds bored, but then he always sounds bored. “You got the phone today so don’t forget the sponsor.”
“Sure.” The phone rings. I pick it up, and take a deep breath.
“Hello!” My voice booms through the too small space of the too crowded storefront.
“And thank you for calling EBGames! Brought to you by SEGA!” I make sure that they know that SEGA is all caps.
Customers begin to stare. My face is contorted with manic enthusiasm for SEGA and Virtua Tennis.
“Located in the beautiful Pentagon City Mall in Arlington Virginia! Come visit us today!” I remember that we have a sponsor, and take another deep breath.
“Where you can preorder SEGA Virtua Tennis for only five dollars down! This is John, how may I help you?!”
Rob stares.
No response from the phone. I think I hear breathing, then an abrupt click.
“Hello?” I shrug and hang up. I turn to Rob. “No one was there.”
“You know what ‘John,'” Rob says taking the phone from my hand, “I think I’ll answer the phone today.”
If you ever really, really need to know when a video game is going to be released.
No, if you really need to know. Head over to VGReleases.com. They will know.
I think one of the best reasons I still play City of Heroes (and Villains) is because of the people. Which is funny because the reason I’ve left other MMOs is because of the people. I’ve been playing for nearly five years now and still, I’m surprised and entertained by the humor and creativity displayed by the players of the City of games.
Most of it is due to the setting.
Which is Rhode Island.
Of course, since this is a video game, it happens to be the nexus for all sorts of super powered things happening in the entire world. As a consequence of that setting, anything goes. Anything from a knight errant magically transported through time, to a gritty streetwise martial artist that fights crime with his bare hands is fair play in the City of Heroes, and the developers wisely gave you a convenient location for you to put all the juicy details of your heroic or villainous background for other players to read.
Most people (at least in my experience) seem to be older, and it’s many a mission interrupted by a quick chat message, “AFK, putting the kids to bed.” or its like.
Besides, in what other game could I run into “G. Gordon Liddy” and “Neal Patrick Harris?”
Both Villains, of course.
I have fond memories of retail, which is strange because retail is horrible, soul destroying work that exposes you to the very worst aspects of American culture and society. I worked for a now defunct (but then major) video game retailer in one of the busiest malls on the yellow and blue lines on the DC metro.
Let me paint a background picture.
My store number is one seven six. My identification number for logging into my register is seven seven seven three zero. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work, but it takes me 47 minutes to get home if I catch the train right as I leave work. If you purchase a game for $49.99 it will ring up at $52.24 after Virginia taxes.
The empty boxes sitting on the shelves are “guts” which is short for gutted. The game discs are sitting in a locked shelf behind me. I have a key for that drawer, even though I’m not supposed to have one. I still attempt to alphabetize the games on the walls, mainly because I’m the only one who knows how to alphabetize properly. Lately it’s more of a losing battle as some of my coworkers and most of our customers feel that you alphabetize the word, “The.”
On a wall in the back room we have polaroids of banned customers. There is a shrink wrap machine and a heat gun which I have never, ever used for personal purposes to return things as new to other stores. In this room, the walls are hidden behind shelves which are filled with inventory. Some of it leans towards the center of the room.
We are in an informal competition with the girls who run the Arden B. on the second floor. Every day we try to close a little earlier than each other. They are winning.
I know the bank girls on a first name basis, the tellers that give us our change. On a slow day, we’ll have thousands of dollars in cash for deposit that evening. On a good day, well, on a good day, the money is obscene. My register is never “short.”
The uniform is khaki pants and a black company shirt, although I get away with wearing a short sleeve button down black shirt from Banana Republic and a name tag. This is against company policy.
Also, my name tag does not have my real name on it. This is also against company policy.
I help open the store at 9am, on Saturday mornings. Counting the register and tidying up the store if the closers did a poor job. Tuesday nights after my day job, I help on the register and generally do a poor job of closing the store. Full Disclosure: I work Tuesday nights because that’s the day that new games are released.
I have some stories for you.