As it turns out the trial I was selected for was a 1st degree murder and sexual assault combo. The trial was estimated to end around the first week in September only to be followed by a sentencing trial. It was a death penalty case too.

I can honestly say I’m glad I don’t have to endure that whole process. I can also say I’m more than a little curious as to how it would have been.

Some things I didn’t know. When you’re interviewed for jury selection, you do it alone. By alone I mean no other jurors. By alone I mean the prosecution, defense, the defendant, defendant’s family, and court officials are there.

That’s right. I had to tell the court I’d be absolutely fine giving the death penalty to the guy not 20 feet from me, and his mom who was trying to force a smile.

Insanity.

If by chance you don’t know that, you have never spent any time talking to me. Don’t worry though, I’ll clear that up right now.

The truth is, I like role-playing games. I like them a lot. I don’t mean WoW or Final Fantasy 9000. I mean games like Dungeons and Dragons. I never write about it, because I find it hard to take any pride in it.

I think, that I’ll write about it anyway though because it’s one more topic for me to blather about and, well, I really shouldn’t give a shit anyway.

My first exposure to a role-playing game was really on a MUD. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon. They are completely text based and played through terminal. You go from room to room, reading descriptions and writing your own.

I don’t know if it’s possible to make that sound any more lame, but let me try.

I played for years. I played long enough that I became a developer for it. I did fixes on the code, added to the world, and helped run the role-playing parts of the game too. I even wrote the book on how to role-play in the game.

Through people I met there, I got introduced to Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. Get this, I thought that was lamer than what I did. I actually assumed a hierarchy to this stuff, and that I was higher on the ladder.

I was hooked after my first session.

It was better than any game I had ever played. It was better for one simple reason: There are no limits in the game. It’s not like a video game where there are doors you just can’t go into, or you walk to the edge of the map and hit a wall of hard air, or you can’t be a total bastard to someone just because.

I spent all day gaming today. I had a really good time with it playing games I had never played before with people I had never met.

My only complaint is this: I wish gamers would stop trying so hard to be so god damn unlikeable.

If it weren’t for that I think the hobby would be a lot better received and accepted.

So, if you’ve ever wondered about it, find someone you like that plays and give it a shot. You might be surprised to find out you had a good time by the end of it.

I find myself still feeling all of my dislike, but also glad and relieved that it worked out. Oh well, best not to dwell on it too much.

I will say, that another funny thing about the recruiter is that they insisted on walking me in the first day. Like I was going to my first day of school. When they told me that this was happening I half-way expected a lot of advice like, “Now be sure to lay a clean set of clothes out the night before,” and, “Be polite to the new people you meet,” and, “If you feel bad, go see the nurse.”

Anyway, aside from that the new job is pretty good so far and I’m adjusting pretty well to the differences. Though I have to say I’m not adjusting well to using a PC again. I keep screwing up simple things like copying and pasting, using expose shortcuts, trying to spotlight, and wishing I had my software development tools.

Good news is that I get to sit next to a avid beer maker, so amazing things are going to happen.

By the way, I hate recruiters. From talking to a lot of the companies, they don’t like them either. I’ve worked with recruiters who are actually good at what they do and am glad to have worked with them. I’ve worked with recruiters who can’t read. Really, I got one that said, “Are you proficient in Objective dash C and ‘e-Phone’ development?” I told her I wasn’t.

But, by and large they are happy to market you to anyone they can, get your hopes up, and undersell your abilities to anyone they can.

One told me, “I think you’re going to get the job because of your awesome price-point!” What he really said was, “I told them you’d work for so little money they’d be stupid not to hire you!”

Assholes.

I do admit, every time an interview comes up and they offer to prep me by, “Going over buzzwords,” I get a great laugh.

Maybe they wind up working with a lot more hopeless cases. Maybe they see me and their heart sinks. Maybe they provide a valuable service, even if they can’t read.

Maybe I’m a victorian lady.

Now before anyone does something silly like try to tell me how sorry they are, please read what I have to say first.

I’m not upset, and I haven’t stopped working for the company. Here are some highlights of my 11 months of being employed: I went to SOE and worked with their engineers for a week, I’ve been on tech calls with senior developers at 3 different MMO companies, I’ve spent the day with some of Valve’s team and got all of their games for free (Though I still need a computer to run them).

Crazy right? Here’s the deal. We knew for a while now that our company was out of money. We kept going because we thought we were going to get a break. Unfortunately we didn’t get the break before it was impossible to make payroll again. So we were all laid off.

That isn’t the end of the world because we knew it was coming. Also, not two days prior we had a meeting where we talked about, “If you had to swing one time for the fences, what would you do?” I had previously voiced my ideas, and they were tolerated but not accepted. However, someone else had a really good idea that we just had to give a fighting chance.

I’m not going to talk about what that idea is, but since getting laid off a few weeks ago we have come a long way in getting it done.

Enough talk of that though, because I have had a second interview with a pretty cool company and I think I’ll be able to get a job with them. Then everything will be gravy again.

I started an iPhone game a few weeks ago, something I’d tinker with on the weekends. It’s been coming together at an alarming rate and I hope that as soon as I get some art for it it will be a quick turn around to get it on the app store. Though the cruel reality is that I’ll just abandon it like many of my other projects.