Calling All Geeks!

This really made me laugh. (Linked because WordPress sucks.)

So I had every intention to write about my first day of my new job at Toys R Us, but I must confess I’m a little afraid to. Today was day one of a two-day orientation covering all that boring corporate stuff like sexual harassment and work safety and such. Typical stuff you’re bound to get from any job. But one thing that caught me off guard was that they actually had a section dedicated to blogs and stuff, warning us to watch what we say about the company online. Apparently they’ve had some trouble in the past with that stuff. I guess some dork wrote a web comic about his time there or something and it got him fired…. Okay, no, not really. But I was just waiting for “Shortpacked!” to come up. (One day in and I already have a better understanding for that comic.) Seriously, though, I guess some guy really dissed Babies R Us online and it caused some issues. So now there are a bunch of rules and such … Honestly, it’s a lot more trouble then it’s worth to me, so I think I’m going to remain mum for the most part. So, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I ain’t sayin’ nothin’. Still plenty of other stuff to write about, but don’t expect to read much here about TRU.

And just to cover my own butt here, the views and opinions of this blog are mine and mine alone. They do not reflect the views of Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Kids R Us, R Us, or anyone else other then me. Bla bla bla, please don’t sue anyone. So there.

PS: Yeah, remember Kids R Us? They mentioned it in the training video we had to watch. I had forgotten all about KRU.

So I had a job interview with Toys R Us yesterday.

First off, I like the new Polaris location. It was a lot easier to get to then I thought it would be and the store, from what I saw, looks really nice. It’s technically a TRU and a Babies R Us and most of our time was spent on the BRU side, but I did have a little opportunity to glace and the TRU side (Big Star Wars display!) and it’s pretty cool. It’s very big and … well, not ghetto, so it’s already a huge improvement over the Morris Rd location.

I think the interview mostly went okay. It started off as a big group interview. There were six of us in all. In our first activity, the guy interviewing us passed around a role of toilet paper and told us to imagine we were going on a camping trip and to take however much TP we would want for the trip. Once we all had our sheets, we were told to separate each square and to write one fact about ourselves on each one. Thankfully, after a few minutes, the guy told us we were good. After sharing our facts, we were split into two teams and each team had to complete a 100-piece puzzle together. My team won, but we all agreed that we had the easier puzzle. (Ours was a very clear puzzle of Kung-Fu Panda while the other team had a very detailed picture of a cat on all these clouds.) Then, in the same teams, we had to build something out of Legos and then make a sales pitch for it. We built a boat car that ran on segue technology. The other team tried to do a weird truck, advertisement thing, but they weren’t able to finish. In all fairness, though, they made a pretty good sales pitch. After that, we were all split up and we had our individual interviews. That mostly went okay. There was one question I would have answered differently in hindsight (The classic “What’s your greatest weakness?” I think I may have been a little too honest.), but hopefully it didn’t trip me up too much. All and all, though, it was very friendly and conversational, which I think was a plus. It came up at one point that I do the Star Wars costuming and the guy mentioned that he “saw a few of those guys” at the Autism walk the day before. (TRU was a sponsor.) He seemed pretty impressed when I told him I was one of them.

All and all, I think it went okay. I can’t help but be a little paranoid about it. I know I was offered the job the last time I applied at TRU, but the competition seemed a lot better this time around. I’m a little nervous that I might not have stood out during the group portion. And, like I said, I probably could have done a little better on a few questions during the individual portion. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Even if it doesn’t work out, though, it’s no big deal. In fact, as I was walking out, I got a message from Jon saying they’re apparently desperate to fill positions at the Zoo. (Hey, man, I meant to call you back, but thanks for the heads up.) I’m sure I’ll find where I belong soon enough.

Over on the Mandalorian Mercs boards, there’s a thread for Mandalorian (and a few misc. Star Wars) themed Motivational Posters. After watching South Park last night, I decided to create one of my own. It’s not really “family friendly”, however, and it probably wouldn’t be great for our relations with the 501st*, so I think I’m only going to post it here.

*Of course this is all in good fun and no offense is meant. Most of the 501st members I know would probably get a kick out of this.

I can’t believe I let it get to this point without mentioning it, but Mid-Ohio-Con is tomorrow. These things have a way of sneaking up on me, but I’m sure bumping it up a month early didn’t help. I just finished double checking my costume stuff. (Finally found my missing Mando glove- stuck to my Wookie braids the whole time.) I think I’m all set and ready to go. Really excited. A little nervous about all the changes. Lots of questions still up in the air at this point, but the unknown stuff is half the fun. Becoming too familiar and complacent with these things tend to make ‘em boring. In all my hears of going to MOC, they’ve always done a good job of shaking things up every so often. I’m sure it’ll be a lot of fun. MOC is definitely one of my favorite conventions. (AdCon is it’s only close rival.)

I know, I know. The political stuff is poison, but this was just too funny/true: The Palin Debate Flow-Chart

And let’s round it out with some good ‘ol SNL.

But, hey, she’s cute, so people are still going to vote for her and John “Making-War-Widows-Cry” McCain. /wink/

I was following various links on Wookeepedia and they eventually led me to one of the weirdest web sites I’ve ever seen. It’s called SuperShadow.com (wookeepedia entry) and it’s basically a Star Wars fan site. But what makes SS different is that it’s completely, 110% INSANE!!!

The guy claims to be a close, personal friend of George Lucas and regularly passes on fan ideas for the next TWO prequels that they’re working on. (As in, 7, 8, 9, AND 10, 11, 12.) Of course, SS will be playing a major role in these movies. Now, you would think this would cause problems with the various novels and other material already covering post-ROTJ, but SS completely disregards the EU… well, mostly. A few notable EU characters have found their way into the outlines for his movies. But for the most part, he claims that Lucas only allows the novels and games and such to be produced to make money. (To be fair, there’s probably a little truth to that.) One other feature that I found interesting was his list of “Most Powerful Jedi” and “Most Powerful Sith”. I disagreed with it on several points, but then again, my opinion was tainted by the false EU. (Still, my $.02: I’d pick Nomi Sunrider for the Jedi. It’s a little more tricky with the Sith. Freedon Nadd, Exar Kun, and even Palpatine are all easily in the running.) It’s not all about Star Wars, though. He also likes to post pictures of the various women he’s dated. Sure, to the untrained eye, they may look like pics from a bikini model website with the copyright edited out, but when it comes to a guy as cool as SuperShadow, you know it’s true. And I guess at one point he posted pictures of a blogger named Nikita Kashner, though he called her Amber Castlerose. “Kashner” denied it, but I think “Castlerose” was just trying to keep their passionate romance private.

Seriously, that’s just some of the crazy shit you’ll find on that site. You really have to see it to believe it.

I must admit, I have something of a love/hate relationship with NBC’s Heroes. There’s a lot about it that I like, but there’s a whole lot that drive me crazy. They keep adding too many unnecessary characters. Some of the characters, IMO, are quite annoying. And they’re really starting to repeat themselves. (A visitor from the future has come back to warn them about an Apocalyptic future! Seriously, 3 out of 3 seasons with the same basic plot, which is in of itself ripped off from X-Men’s Days of Future Past.) Even with only three episodes so far, season three has been no different. I’ll find myself riding high on a wave of cool stuff only to get a handful of stupid thrown in my face. Sylar, who honestly stopped being creepy towards the end of the first season anyway, is going to be a good guy now? The reason he stopped being cool in the first place is because he stopped being this mysterious, shadowy figure of pure evil and just turned out to be a goofy metrosexual with giant eyebrows. And now we’re scrubbing away the last of the fun/interesting evil. And what’s the deal with him being Peter and Nathan’s brother. For crying out loud, is there anyone in this freakin’ show who didn’t pop out of vaguely-sinister-but-ultimately-pointless Momma Petrelli? And is the show’s budget being cut or what, ’cause in the first five minutes of episode three, I counted no fewer then four or five stock sound effects. I was just waiting for a Wilhelm.

One of my biggest problems, though, has to do with the show’s build-up and delivery. People praised Heroes over Lost because “Heroes actually gave you answers”. Yeah, maybe they do give a few more answers then Lost, but at least the answers we do get on Lost are somewhat satisfying. “Anticlimactic” seems to be the name of the game on Heroes. Like in the second seasons when people were so afraid of the man “even worse the Syler”. People were shitting their pants at the mere mentioned of this guy. I mean, he was like Voldermort in Harry Potter where people wouldn’t even say his name. Then they finally track him down … and he’s just some sloppy shlub with the same powers as Psychic Village Person Parkman. And we got the exact same thing already in season three with … Level 5!!! First, there’s the guy who turns fear into strength. Now, of all of them, this one is actually pretty cool. Too bad you can already tell that he isn’t really evil, just conflicted. I’ll bet you right now he has a sick wife or child or some such somewhere that he just wants to take care of. Then there’s the flamethrower. He’d be cool if he wasn’t the shows FIFTH flamethrower. (Ted, Meredith, Peter, Sylar, and now this guy.) And then there’s Magneto … er, I mean, the German. He’s called “the German”, so you know he’s going to be a sick, twisted mother fucker! Well, actually, he turned a safe’s knob without touching it … from two inches away. (Okay, at what point are you just showing off.) And then there’s the last guy. You thought the others were bad? Oh yeah, well this guy’s even worse! His powers … oooh, you don’t even want to know. Oh, you do want to know? Well, brace yourself. Are you ready? He … screams. I mean, it’s, like, really loud. People fall down and stuff. Doesn’t seem to do any serious damage, but … you know. It could be pretty … inconvenient. A little. Sort of like Green Arrow’s wife Black Canary but without the bad ass fighting skills to back it up.

Honestly, when I saw the power supposedly too frightening for HRG to even speak aloud to Clare, this is what popped into my head.

Like I said, I want to like Heroes, but sometimes it’s like they’re just mocking us. Hopefully things start to shape up soon.