Bad Company 2, Modern Warfare 2, Medal of Honor… All these games have one thing in common – they were released too early and they’re cookie cutter games. Generics. All of them have, when they were first released, had bugs that should have been fixed before release. Another thing they have in common – they made their projected release date. It seems that with any game being published by a large corporation such as EA or Activision, the developers are just trying to make the release date, instead of delivering a quality product.

Of course, I’m not asking for another Duke Nukem, though it’s unfair to say that, since the game isn’t even released yet. But I would rather wait for a quality release than something that’s released on time. So to Polyphony Digital, please try to ignore the upset fans, they’ll buy your game anyway, just make sure you deliver an excellent product.

I had my first class at college, American Government. It was a summer class so it was short and compact, kinda like your… Ahahaha good one dude! I’m not sure I want to take such a short class again, despite the fact that I got it over pretty quick and still managed an A. It was way too much information to learn in such a short period of time and quite frankly I’m not sure how much of it I’ve really learned. The teacher didn’t give us any quizzes or tests, instead all we had to do was pick a topic and do a presentation on it. I think one of the reasons I liked it, was because the teacher was incredibly easy going and I was told by the girl I was working with not to expect other teachers to be that lenient. I’m both relieved and disappointed!

Last week I had car trouble, perfect timing since I’m also about to lose my job. It’s fixed now though, so I’m back to going from 0 – 60 in the time it takes BP to figure out how to fix a leak. I did have to rent a car though, a Mazda6, which is a really nice car! Doesn’t seem like it would be great on fuel, but certainly fun to drive (wink wink, there was definitely some zoom zoom going on here) whilst still being a nice everyday comfortable cruiser. I wish my dad considered this car before parting his money for a 2010 Chevy Malibu. Whilst both are competent daily drivers, I felt that the Mazda beckoned me to use that pedal on the right as much as I could.

Back to employment… Or rather unemployment, my assignment ends on August 11th. Then in a month there is the possibility of being called back, again. This may or may not happen, it’s never guaranteed, I really hope I don’t have to go back to the same department. It’s nothing to do with the actual department itself, but rather what the managers and director require of that unit. Honestly, I don’t care too much about pay but I don’t feel I am getting paid enough to really care about the requirements they place on us. Long story short, my job involves scheduling medical exams for Social Security claimants. We have to schedule a certain number a day (75) and we have deadlines to complete our lists. This I don’t mind, but we don’t exactly have much to work with. We basically have too many exam requests and not enough doctor’s to schedule with. On top of that, state government doesn’t pay nearly as much as federal government does, so it’s not like the doctor’s have any incentive to make sacrifices for us. On top of that, I have to manage the schedule for about 15 doctor’s and deal with any scheduling issues anyone might have. I get paid $9.50/hour to do this, compared to what my mum does – data entry; entering police report data into a database, which is basically typing stuff out, not having to deal with people for $11/hour. I know which one I’d rather have!

With the way the economy is, I don’t know how optimistic I can be about finding something else. I really should put my Associates degree to use and I intend to pay a visit to my college’s career services center. At the same time I have asked my temp. agency to try and find something for me. One of the reasons I took the job at the Department of Labor is because of the flexible schedule and that’s really the only reason I like it. At this point in time,I will probably accept again unless I can find something better before then. I really hope I do.

If I don’t, I should be okay, I have enough to finish college as long as I don’t spend too much on things I don’t need. Although I don’t have many hobbies, gaming being one of them is quite expensive. I just bought a PS3 in anticipation of Gran Turismo 5 (GT5). I also plan on buying the wheel too and I’ve already preordered the limited collectors edition ($100). Obviously this is a lot to spend on one game and I’m really banking on this game being good. If it isn’t, I will be sorely disappointed! Given the track record (no pun intended?) of the series, it should be pretty good. But given the recent track record of game developers and games these days, there is a huge potential for this to be quite a disappointment. Honestly, if GameTrailers (the only place I trust for reviews now) gives the game the same score (+/- 1%) or better than Forza Motorsport 3 then I’ll be fine. I’m finding it hard to justify any game purchase these days.

Speaking of which, it hasn’t even been a year yet and I haven’t completed Forza 3. I’m going to get on that right now, so, as Clarkson said to Hammond as he drove off in the Maserati (S15, E3) “TOOOOODLOOOOOO!”