Went down to Toronto again for another game peeps meeting, where the fancy and the fancy free meet freely to discuss and discourse. What was sinterestink this time around was that when I first walked into the bar, I was greeted by a slew-full of gentlehams. I thought, this is odd, where are the gentlehams from last venture? The last, terrible memory-filled venture? They were all in the back corner, but who are these slew-full? I ask them gentlehams so nicely and gently-hammered, is this the ig-dah meeting? They were ecstatic and filled the room with nods, and asked me to join them. I looked longingly at the other table full of people from last month, then I looked again at all these people - they were young blooded!
So there I sat, surrounded by a slew-full of gentlehams and a few gentlehamstresses, and all of them looked eagerly at me with questioning eyes..... what did I get myself into? Why, a slew-full of college students hungry to devour the knowledge and insights of a ProFESSional! Me? Me! They were hanging on my every tidbits of worth and worry-mouth. I would babble and the fish in their ears would squirt delicious fluids of comprehension and meaningful-bellies and mean full-bellies straight into their brain. Questions and answers and questions and one even bought me a beer. I suppose they thought I'd be their gravy train straight into the gaming industry. I think instead I simply demoralized all of them. The advice I gave them on jobseeking just doesn't compete in this toronto area, as there is nothing "burgeoning" at all. There are no dozens of companies seeking dozen-hundreds of applications. There's none too many giant conferences to conglomerate jargonized industriphilacs who "game to play and work to play to game some more work-game-play". One was eager to hear of my adventures of a tester at the evil, evil company I once upon'd in. In fact, it was his dream. I told him of my misadventures and I squelched yet another's dream with the twice-hideous facets of veracity. He seemed bummed but at least he is already demoralized and beaten NOW instead of LATER, which I think has to be an incredible and lovely thing.
After an hour or so I excused myself to head over to the "real people" table, and the transition process felt magnificent to my ego. They looked longingly at me as I departed, and I said wisely and with a wink, "You know, they are simply waiting for some of you to go over and talk to them, as they won't ever come to you." When I reached my destination, I had seen I had a few followers trailing behind. Was I the zombie-lord escorting my plagued minions, unleashing a hell of sadness to honest working fellows simply having a quiet drink? Or was I the messiah of lost, hungry slaves seeking to snatch glimpses of the holy land of gaming? Whichever, I brought two peoples together - the jobly and the jobless - and in the end that's exactly what these meetings are all about. That, and drinking beers while talking about video games and having it be O-K!
I was surprised at how often I was able to contribute to the conversation. I had meaningful and relevant anecdotes. I literally felt like a real person, a person of some small import of this world, a person people could really nod at. Really nod, a very discerning and visceral nod. A nod of Hello, You Are Like Me.
Hello, Harry. Have a drink and regale, this eve? Perhaps banter with beer and butter-fries? And I'll tell you, that one beer lasted me 5 hours and I only drank half of it but it was CONSTANTLY on my lips and in my mouth. Burning its sour flavor onto my tongue.
The flavor of pee and hops.
The flavor... of victorpee.