Slow motion weekend

[pphaneuf]

Thursday, I did a long day at work, taking a nice little break with gorbash_dragon for coffee. It is a bit strange how my rather outward expressing of my feelings is sometimes taken as being very worrying when it goes badly. That's just the way it goes, sometimes, I've survived to this day, and most likely will for a number of years to come!

More than a week after the fact, I am still rather impressed at how angry I was after the events of last friday, though. I am not a violent person, and I don't want to repress these things, but that was a really large lump of feelings to feel through, let me tell you!

After that day, I meant to go home and sleep, but instead, I succumbed to the invitation of jimmysworld and ayria to go out for a beer. Then back at his place for Half-Life. Because, you know, that's smart. While crashed at his place, there was a moron with a chainsaw, as per Chez Geek. In the fucking McGill ghetto?!?

So this was my introduction to friday, waking up a bit dazed on jimmysworld's floor. Okay, I'll go do that software release I'm supposed to do, then I'll go for a nap before it's time for the party for mcote's birthday, yeah, that sounds like a plan. No. None of that. It seemed like everything was on fire that day, up to and including small tornadoes touching town in Toronto, wreaking havoc with our office there. A total circus, and by the time I'm home, I'm under-slept and stressed liked crazy. But thankfully, by the time I got to mcote's party, I had somehow left my stress behind and it stayed away for most of the weekend. Was still dead tired, though, so I went home and crashed headfirst.

Saturday was rainy, but was a nice day of games and BBQ at a coworkers house, had a great time despite being rather tired. Thanks to our hosts! Poked some fun at normal peoples on the way back, because that's what I do. Somehow, I had a second wind, and I watched The Great Escape, which is quite good.

The Sunday was made of being lazy. Watched the rather silly A Knight's Tale (which included such mentions as "the protector of Italian virginity" and "the defender of his enormous manhood"), and after some kind of dinner, the excellent Diarios de motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries).

Monday, I went for the first time of my life at La Ronde with azrhey, despite stress apparently deciding to catch up with me again (though not as badly as Friday). We rode the Monstre, the OVNI, the Tornade and the Cobra.

Now I caught up on my readings, and will crash soon.

Comments

[pphaneuf.livejournal.com]

I meant that it seemed to be worrying others, so it's as you say. I know it wasn't too bad, but I noticed it.

[pdage.livejournal.com]

A little known fact: I used to work at La Ronde. The coolest part was how I got the job.

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the Internet was something only available to geeky University students. Humans on the other hand had the BBS system. I was a huge user, crack addict like, and had made a number of very interesting friends over them. Most of them faceless I admit, but some others I managed to actually reach out and so forth. I have beautifull memories of the Spasm-O-Tron crew of which I was proudly a member of.

Just so happennes that a bunch of guys I met over a certain BBS had a little hiring ring set up for La Ronde Cartel. I don't know how it started, maybe someone with the right position to help people come in, I don't know, but over time about every loyal user of that particular board was working or had worked at La Ronde at some point. Since having a job there almost (at least used to) require that you knew someone who already worked there, and the more you knew the better, having those guys on your side pretty much guaranteed your employement. And also, I heard that someone always made sure our names would be in the hiring list. Anyway, guess what, I got the job.

So during the summer of 91, I was told that about 50% of all employees who where working in the foods and game franchises where BBS users. Most of them knew each other only by the fact that they frequented the same boards but would not even know each others handles. Just saying that you did BBSs was enough for you to get an extra helping of sauce in your poutine or an easy win in the gaming booths, not to mention less attention on wether you are in to work or to have fun. I had a bunch of friends working there but for most of them I had yet to see their faces, something I corrected on a daily basis. It was really fun.

The rest was really shity. Employee rights where overlooked all the time but since most people who worked there where underaged and unknowable of what was going on, alot of that stuff just went through unoticed. It was a real employee slaughterhouse where people got fired all the time and new people got in all the time as well. The only real way to keep your job was to have friends in the inside.

I quit 3 weeks later with a rock hard erection because I knew my boss was really pissed at me when I told him the wonderfull news. I had one of the worst managers and he was already running out of people. Besides, I had just been hired to work for the City of Montreal, which gave me free La Ronde (and Aqua park while it lasted) passes for years until it got bought by Six Flaggs.