"horizonal and vertical expansion"   (*) music: refrigerator noise (*) game: final fantasy VII (*) career: playstation editor

some of justin's links: /vita /fam dad mom grents /school classes homies /trip honduras sweden nebraska nepal summer '96 /speak /web /daze 96 97 98 99 /dox /flix /tech /warez/games /drugz likker bud lsd coke /law darrow sfrally /sex /spirit astro holy /share /webpub (do it yourself) not just justin: bud.com donpearman thanks cyborganic

I got a job!

I was today hired by gamers.com as the Playstation editor.

my first fulltime job in three years. and the first job i've chased in five years!

<mark> have you been battling looking for a job?
<fusty> battling? mostly just interviewing at places that could give a shit about me and the 15 other people that applied that day.
<fusty> this was the first place that wasn't "contact jobs@imaginemedia" or whatever - it was "contact joel"
<mark> thats battling

as soon as I start (tomorrow, thank you), I will have a lot of work to do. At this point, indealistic, exicted beforehand, I relish it - there's no arrival and wander around looking for a role in the company. There's a big pile of reviews and links for me to sift through and make sense of in time for a new product launch coming up.

it means that I will probably have an inordinate amount of stuff on my plate. And I will struggle to meet the deadlines and keep up with a waning Oakland summer. And perhaps my relationship with Amy will suffer - definitely, my relationship with Fernando will suffer.

But I am an editor! and that's why I have so much work to do. Because I have responsibility! After I applied for my fifth assistant somethingorother job, I realized I would have to serve 2 years licking pencil nubs at some large media's gaming branch in order to approach editorship. Pick a small enough publication and you can be something more involving.

went to lunch with wb, brian and wilner the other day. we were talking over bud.com - the publishing system is up and running on another system, waiting for the arrival of a new hard drive to handle the love. So they had some big ideas, and I had some amateur aspirations. And at some point, one of the W's turned to me and put it to me like this: either I could get this taxing job at some no-name game/editorial startup, or I could have my own magazine.

I guess without consciously wording it this way, I shifted in my chair and sopped up more south of market olive oil, and eventually later recalled that howard has been observing me recently and some of my various career wanderings and he said recently that I should get a job. like a regular job. and I think this gaming enthusiasm predates any understanding of what he was trying to impress on me, but my impending task at hand here is making me excited for what i stand to learn:

tomorrow, when I go to work, I admit that I don't know everything. That I shouldn't be paid simply to be who I am. I'm admitting that the things I do aren't worth some kind of intangible reward without constraining to the strictures of commerce and commuting that inflect most other people's toil.

in effect, I'm going to learn. I'm going to learn about the guys I work with. I'm going to learn how another business works. As an editor, I'm going to learn what it feels like to be involved in collecting writing in an advertising environment

I love bud.com and I love the people that play around there. I'll be excited when the publishing system goes up and I can just get more articles written by my weirdo friends (or post the backlog I have already)

but there's only so much you can learn at your own desk in your own home talking to your friends. plenty of people know this, and many of them have said to me, congratulations on going it alone. I feel like I'm going to learn something that will temper me well - whatever I'm going to end up doing.

one thing for sure, I will be studying games. I will be seeing every playstation title that comes down the pike, and looking through the archives. And I'll be an editor! So I can think of story ideas and hand them off to people who need money and love gaming! With a team, together we can pick apart the themes and nuances between gaming genres.

the job is in the east bay, which is great for my feelings of patriotism and an evergrowing sense of the propriety of working where you live. I may not be telecommunting from the garden fantastic where i live much, but at least I won't have to cross a bridge.

I did cross a bridge for jim and kristie's wedding, however.

amy wonders aloud:
how was i cursed to live in the guilded age? in the prime of my youth? big business and boring politics.

now my question is, as an semi-informed (at least osmosized) participant in some reclaim the streets activities, how should I transit to my job? Should I drive my little honda, coming and going as I please, affording late hours with the promise of a shorter commute? or, should I attend to the public transportation available to me - doubling my travel times, but allowing time to read?

It's not a money issue really - if I'm willing to walk to parking, it would cost about the same amount to park every day and take the train and bus. Should I weigh my personal enviromental impact, or simply work in the greatest personal efficiency zone - and let clean air cleanup techniques catch up to me?

I prepared a beta thebrain interface for you to browse this page - including my first ever work with frames! thank you, view source!

one last unemployed afternoon (spent "studying" the playstation and listening to NPR) and, one last roast chicken.

3 august
26 july

justin!