Dear Diary: If only I WERE a Mobster...

October 17, 2008 2:05 pm

... uh, financially speaking, mind you.

So, about a week or so ago, this guy at work--uh, we'll call him Gears Dude or GD for short-- told me that he invited me on Myspace to join his "mob" in the online game Mobsters.
I'm like, "Okay..." but I was a little thrown because I really don't do any computer games or online games at all.
But, I could at least join up and support him by expanding his mob.

Well, since then... I've been playing the damn thing fairly regularly.
I don't know if it's just a Myspace thing/application or if there's other variations of Mobsters online, but it's been an interesting time waster.
And I guess it's a text game versus an actual, uh, what, role playing game? There's no character online, other than my name (which is il bovini fabbrica, and about the closest I could come (with my very limited, non-existent knowledge of Italian) to "cattleworks") so I'm not watching myself running around on-screen armed with a tommygun or AK-47 or whatever (actually, tommyguns aren't an "equipment" option, I guess that's too old school). The computer does most (well, all) of the work.
You pick a fight from a list of other mobsters online, pressing a button and then a couple seconds later, it tells you if you won or lost.
Which is fine by me.
Right now, I'm 26 - 46, wins/losses. Yeah. Luckily this is all virtual or else my "recruitment drive" would suck even more (and I'm being very sarcastic here-- I don't really enlist other people from Myspace friends list at all, even though the game is constantly suggesting/pushing that tactic. But, I only picked one or two people that i thought would even be halfway interested (and so far, no takers, so my mob has just GD and me, plus the "500" invisible, virtual mobsters that automatically come with your mob when you start).
But the thing I'm really getting into, and I don't know if this is a reflection of the current headlines regarding economic meltdown, etc., is that you can buy property and develop it, and you earn money.
Depending on the type of property you purchase, you get a certain amount of financial return, interest.
Currently, I seem to be making just under $2000 every 55 minutes-- yeah... if only.
And this goes on while you're offline as well.
So, it was really cool leaving the game yesterday with zero money (well, I keep all my money in the "bank" for safe keeping. Your money accrues outside of the bank. Uh, maybe when I go to the mattresses, I check underneath them first for any dough?).
Yeah, I'm a laff-riot.
Whatever.
So, yesterday my money was zero in the mystery virtual money area.
Today, I go online, and I'm to the good-- OVER $40,000.
Uh huh-- like, holy mamma mia, right?

Ooooh, I want that money!!!!

So, while I'm getting mildly massacred in various fights daily, I'm doing well financially.
And THAT'S all I really care about, baby!

*sigh*


However, in the real world:
Well, it looks like a significant event will be occurring in my life in the near future. Next week, as a matter of fact.
It looks like my dad is going to give me the money to buy an iMac, which I'll be setting up at his house.
Ostensibly, he'll be using it for very mundane purposes; specifically, to reformat all his various notebooks that are cataloging his hundreds of VHS tapes. Each of these tapes have several different programs he's taped off the TV and he has a listing of what they are and roughly how far in each tape each program is.
It's all in his handwriting and he wants to type it all out neatly.
This is something he's been talking about for a while.
He bought a computer several years ago, a PC, maybe over 10 years ago, but he never really followed through on it. And now, it doesn't seem to work, perhaps through years of disuse?
I dunno.

But, this may be the perfect stone that kills two birds.
He gets his computer to work on updating and converting his notebooks and I get my computer for art and movie applications. I'm probably getting the best out of this deal, totally exploiting my dad's finances, but it's with his blessing, so, I ain't friggin' complaining, by god!

So, barring any awful new turn of events, this should happen next week.
And then-- and THEN-- we'll see how long it takes for me to produce a short film.
Hopefully in time for the November meeting of the Buffalo Movie and Video Makers Club (BM-VM), which I believe is 11/9.

*deep, hopeful and excited breath*

Stay tuned!
And who knows, by next week, I may be able to afford a bulletproof Escalade! (I'm back to Mobsters! Come on! Try to keep up here!)

Okay, later.
I need to go to sleep before tonight's night shift.

PS: "DD" stands for Dear Diary, natch!

Dear Diary: Man, I'm just really out of it...

... or at least it seems that way judging by my blogging output.

All sorts of things are going on here.

The news in the last weeks of the economic meltdown nationally, and then internationally, has been in my head. Can't help but wonder what shoe is going to drop in my life because of all this crap.
Prior to the meltdown news, there were already rumblings at work that things weren't going well.
They aren't selling as many ads as they like, so that may affect us, like in terms of lay-offs.
Okay, actually, my boss said (more or less), that ads are down and the owners are going to be taking a much more hands on approach to things. The various managers of the departments are going to be giving a report of where they think they can save money and then they'll see what shakes out from those reports and recommendations.
Meanwhile, my boss intimated that if there was a layoff (or more), I wasn't going to be affected. For now (that's me saying THAT).

This info was passed on to me and a couple other employees because we were in my boss's office complaining about a particular situation and then he dropped this news on us. He said that if there were any layoffs (and specifically, I think he had one particular person in mind) it wouldn't affect us three.

But the bad news regarding the company's situation was news to me and sort of overshadowed the main reason why I went in to see him.
My reaction was this: prepare for the worst, hope for the best.

And then, a week or so later, the whole $700 billion crap hit the news and fans.

I had been idly thinking about getting another job already, like, for the last several months, primarily to escape my two overnight shifts a week. If I it weren't for those two days (well, nights, actually), I'd probably be more content to simply working there and trying to do my creative stuff on the side.
But, I didn't have any real options that I was considering in terms of other jobs.

Really, I'd like to do something with film and/or comics.
But, I'm not really prepared with either (in terms of a resume or portfolio), and even if I was, the job(s) I kept envisioning was purely an impractical fantasy, like self-publishing comics.

So, now what?

I don't know.

The good news is, I'm not laid off yet.

So, I think my current game plan is this: impractical fantasies be damned, I need to work on my resume/portfolio so I'm not starting from zero if the big layoff bomb drops on my head.
From an art standpoint it first means: get off my ass and draw a lot more. Like, at all.
So far, I'm still in the talk more and do (draw) less mode, when I should be in a draw more, talk less mode, obviously.

Regarding film(making): this year I've been elected to be the co-programming chair (along with Phil Utech) of this years's Buffalo Movie and Filmmakers Club (or BM-VM), which is in its 75th year. We meet once monthly, and Phil and I are in charge of coming up with the meeting's programming.
But along with these duties, I still occasionally help people out with their films, doing whatever they want me to.
But I haven't made my own film yet.
And I'm currently looking to finagle an iMac in order to enable myself to make some movies.
In order to do this, it looks like I'm content to exploit my retired 82 year-old father's finances. I won't go into the specifics, but that's basically the situation. Actually, more or less with his blessing. But still... I feel a little guilty spending his money.

However, if it means I actually start to make some damn movies, even short ones, instead of just whining about other people's films, then I really don't care.

Alright, this was just getting my toes back into the blogging water.
And, I think I'll be whining more often here, using this blog like a diary, ya lucky sucks. Whether that's good news or bad news for you "readers", I don't know (uh, althoguh I have a hunch).

Anyway, thanks for checking this out if there are any of you out there!
Later.